by Zoe Matthews
After breakfast, Paul left on a horse while Anna finished the last of the dishes.
“I noticed that Sage only has one dress,” Anna said to Alex while he sat at the table looking at a book with Sage.
“Her mother made her clothes and she has outgrown all of them except this one.” He gestured to the faded dress.
“Would it offend Luke if I took one of my dresses and made one for her?”
“You don’t need to do that,” Alex argued while Sage’s face lit up at the possibility of a new dress. “I’m sure you need the ones you brought.”
“I didn’t bring a lot of dresses,” Anna admitted. “But I did bring one that is a little small for me and is uncomfortable to wear. The material is still in good condition. I wouldn’t mind making a dress from it for Sage.”
“Can you really? Do I get new dress?” Sage squealed with excitement. “When? Can I help?”
Anna chuckled at her eagerness at wanting to help, but she looked at Alex to make sure he liked her idea before she agreed. She realized she probably should not have brought up the subject in front of the child.
Alex nodded his agreement, obviously seeing Sage’s eagerness for a new dress. “If Luke has a problem with it, I will work it out with him. We can afford to purchase material for clothes, you know. We just don’t think about things like that, I guess.”
“But you aren’t going to be able to go to town any time soon,” Anna stated the obvious.
“No, I don’t want to leave the ranch again until Luke returns.”
“Can we start making my new dress today?” Sage asked.
“No, honey, not today. We will start it tomorrow. Today is Sunday. We aren’t going to do any work.”
“Because it’s God’s day,” Sage stated and Anna was glad to see she had been at least taught a few spiritual things.
“Yes, because it’s God’s day.”
“What are we going to do, then?” the child asked.
“I have a Bible. Maybe we can make a picnic and walk over to the group of trees near the pond and read a story out of the Bible there.”
Sage liked the idea and immediately asked if she could help make the picnic.
“Can I come too?” Alex asked Sage, although he looked at Anna as if to make sure she was fine with his request.
“Yes, we can all go together,” Sage gave her permission with a serious expression on her face, and Anna felt very giddy inside that Alex wanted to spend time with her and the child.
Anna quickly made some meat sandwiches and wrapped them in cloth. She added a jar of milk for Sage and a jar of fresh well water for her and Alex. She had made cookies the day before, so she added those to the picnic lunch.
She found her Bible and soon they were on their way to the grove of trees. The trees were far enough away from the ranch house to be a novelty, but close enough to not make it too long of a walk for Sage.
They walked slowly for Sage was a normal curious child who wanted to stop and explore everything. She picked up rocks that she felt were pretty and gave them to Alex to carry in his pockets. She also picked many wild flowers to make her own bouquet. Anna looked around as they walked. The ranch had been built in a large valley, with mountains surrounding part of the land. She couldn’t wait until she could get to the mountains to explore them. They were so pretty and so big. She could still see snow on the tips of them even though it was already June. She saw fields of cattle in the distance and a few horses.
The meadow they were walking through had many wild flowers growing. Sage gave her a handful of flowers and she marveled at the beautiful colors and varieties. She listened as Sage chattered in her usual way.
When they reached the trees, Anna spread a blanket out and Sage immediately announced, “I’m starving. When are we going to eat?”
So even though it had only been a few hours since breakfast, Anna passed out the lunch she had packed. After they enjoyed their picnic, Sage continued to run around under the trees, coming back to Anna and Alex every so often with a new treasure she had found. She played a little bit near the pond and watched the insects that were flying around the water. Eventually though, Sage laid down on the blanket and fell asleep.
For a while after Sage had fallen asleep, Anna and Alex sat in silence, just enjoying being out in nature and in each other’s company. Then Alex asked Anna more of her previous life in the orphanage. At first, she was hesitant to tell him. No one had ever expressed interest in her childhood before except for Serena and Katrina. However, as he continued to show interest and asked questions, she started to feel more comfortable and eventually was very open with him about her past.
“I never knew my parents. I was found at a church when I was only a few days old. Someone who worked at the orphanage at the time named me. She chose Anna because it was her middle name and Blake because that was the name of the man she wanted to marry.”
“So you lived your entire childhood at the orphanage?” Alex asked.
“Until I was 12. Then I had the opportunity to go on the train to Texas.”
“Can you tell me what it was like in the orphanage? Or is it too hard to talk about?”
“No, it’s not hard. It was life for me. The children who grew up with me were my family. Especially two girls, Katrina and Serena. They were my age. We were as close as sisters.”
“Where are your friends now?”
“They came with me on the train to Texas. They were taken in by other families in the same town I was, so we were able to stay in touch. We finished school together. Katrina went away to be trained as a teacher for a while, but other than that, we have been together in the same town.”
“Wasn’t it hard to leave them in Texas and come here since you are so close?”
“Yes, it was, but I couldn’t keep living with Mr. and Mrs. Davis.”
“Tell me about them,” Alex invited.
“They own a general store in Maple Grove. They took me in, mainly so I could help in their store.”
“That doesn’t sound right.”
Anna shrugged. “I actually didn’t mind at first. If I had stayed at the orphanage, I would have had to leave when I was 13 years old to work either as a maid in a fancy home or somewhere else. At least I was living in the same town as my friends.”
“And then…?”
“They were an older couple. They had raised their own children who had each left Maple Grove to live their lives somewhere else after they married. They all lived too far away to really visit. Mr. Davis was kind and he would sometimes give me little gifts like candy or a book when Mrs. Davis wasn’t around. But he also felt since I was a girl, Mrs. Davis knew more about raising me than he did, so he always deferred to her.”
“Was… was she cruel?”
“Not really cruel. She never hurt me or anything like that. She just wasn’t very…”
“She didn’t love you.”
Anna looked in her lap and shook her head. She felt tears form in her eyes and quickly blinked them away. She had learned that tears never solved any problem. She remembered how scared she felt as she sat on the stage waiting to see who wanted her. She knew now that she was desperately hoping someone would want to take her in their home and love her and accept her as their own. She had never known the love of a real family. She had the sisterly love with Serena and Katrina, but she never had the love of a family.
And now she had answered an ad to be a mail order bride, to a man who also didn’t want her. Would she ever find someone who would accept her, love her for who she was?
Suddenly she felt anger towards Alex. She realized that she had been feeling a growing anger towards him ever since she had arrived in Montana and learned the role he had played in getting her here. She was used to hiding her feelings deep down inside where no one could see them. No one ever seemed to care about how she felt. She looked up at him and Alex looked taken back at the anger on her face.
“Why did you do this, Alex?” She asked him, letting her anger
show for the first time. “Why did you write pretending to be Luke instead of yourself?”
Alex had the grace to look regretful. He looked over at Sage, making sure she was still asleep. “Luke has not been happy since Pamela died. In fact, he has been awful to live with. The only time he seems happy is when he is with Sage.”
He shook his head and looked out towards the mountains in the distance. “He was so happy when he brought Pamela to the ranch. It only took a week to build his house. He was so excited to start his life with her. They were happy for a while. Then Sage came along. Pamela just wasn’t…”
Alex shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now. About four months ago, Luke became very angry about something. I don’t know what set it off, but he built this big fire in the yard and burned all of Pamela’s things. He then told us to take care of Sage and left for a shack that we have in the mountains where we stay when we want to take care of the cattle. That is probably where he is now. He was gone for almost a month. After he left, Paul quickly put the fire out. Everything was burnt except one item that he had tossed on the fire. It had landed away from the flames and only a small part of it was scorched. It was a shawl that Pamela had owned. I kept it. I think Sage should have at least one thing of her mother’s. I will give it to her someday.”
Anna felt a deep compassion for Sage. She seemed like a happy normal child, but she knew how hard it was to not have a mother. Obviously, she was greatly loved by her uncles, though. She also knew that Luke loved her, too, in his own way.
“Anyway, after he left, I was angry myself at how Luke was handling things. We needed some supplies, so I went into town. While I was there, I saw an ad advertising for mail order brides. I thought how angry Luke was, how unhappy he was. I decided, why not send away for a new wife for him? I know now it was a dumb idea.”
Anna and Alex sat in silence for a few minutes. “Why did you choose my letter?”
“I enjoyed your first letter. From some of the things you said, I knew you would fit right in here on our ranch. I could tell you would be good for Sage, that you would be able to love her even though you aren’t her mother. At first, I tried to write as if I was Luke. The last letter I sent to you was totally from me, however.”
Anna remembered the last letter. She remembered thinking it seemed a little different from the others, but dismissed it as not important. The first letters were formal, but the last one was more personal. Anna could see now that Alex had let his personality show in the letter instead of trying to be Luke.
“I deeply regret what I did.” Alex took her hand in his as he spoke. “I wish I could go back and do things differently.”
“What would you do differently? Would you have chosen a different girl for him?”
“No. I would have chosen you for myself.”
Anna gasped at his news and jumped up quickly, pulling her hand from his. Sage woke up at that moment, sat up and looked around. She rubbed her eyes and looked up at Anna.
“Do we have to go back now?” she asked sleepily with a slight whine in her voice.
“Not yet,” Alex answered her, but still looked at Anna with regret in his eyes. “Why don’t we go for a short walk?” he suggested to the child and stood up to take her hand.
Sage readily agreed to the suggestion and Anna watched them walk away. She sat back down on the quilt and thought about what she had learned.
CHAPTER 8
She could not believe how much she opened up to Alex. She had told him things she had never told anyone before. This surprised her. Shouldn’t she have wanted to wait and tell Luke, if he changed his mind about marrying her?
For the first time, she admitted to herself that she did not want to marry Luke. He didn’t want to marry her anyway. What Alex did wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but he had Luke’s best interests at heart. She could not fault him for that.
She admitted to herself that she felt something for him. Almost every time she looked at him, her heart seemed to skip a beat. When he looked at her, she felt something she had never felt before. Almost every time he looked directly at her, there was something in his eyes that seemed to speak to her heart.
She still felt she needed to talk to Luke before she made any other plans. She wondered how long he was going to be gone. She decided she would stay and continue to work as a housekeeper on the ranch and care for Sage until Luke came back. She would then try to talk to him, but she would also plan on making other arrangements because it was obvious Luke left because she was at the ranch. She did not want to make Luke uncomfortable in having her around. She decided she would ask Alex to help her find other living arrangements and another job to go to when Luke came back.
Alex and Sage soon returned from their short walk. Sage was back to her usual talkative self and she was insistent that they not go back to the ranch until they read the Bible. After all, it was God’s day.
Sage settled herself down on Anna’s lap and listened intently as Anna told her the story of Jonah from the Bible. Sage had a hard time understanding how someone could try to hide from God and get eaten by a big fish. The only fish she knew of in her small world was trout that was found in the nearby rivers and creeks. Finally, she agreed that God can do anything, including make a large fish swallow a man and soon lost interest in the story.
“We need to start back to the ranch, Sage,” Alex finally told the girl. “It’s getting close to chore time.”
They walked back leisurely, but quicker than that morning. Back at the ranch house, Anna immediately started on dinner with Sage’s help, and Alex went to the barn to start on the evening chores. Paul had returned and was out in the barn with Alex. As Anna made dinner and directed Sage’s attention to the box of blocks, she admitted to herself that she felt content with her life and her job as the housekeeper for the moment. She loved her new life in the mountains and flowery meadows of Montana.
****
The next day, Sage was cranky and Anna felt she might be coming down with a cold because she had a runny nose. Anna still kept her word about making a new dress for the child. After breakfast, she took one of her dresses, and using Sage’s one dress as a pattern, cut out the material for a new larger dress. She spent the morning stitching the pieces together while Sage played with her blocks and a cloth doll. Soon Anna had to stop her sewing and care for the child as she seemed to grow sicker.
After lunch, Anna encouraged the girl to lay down on her bed and rest while Anna read to her out of a storybook. After a few minutes, Sage’s eyes closed, and Anna breathed a sigh of relief. She hoped the girl wouldn’t get too sick while her father was gone. She sat by Sage for a while watching her sleep. She felt a regret that she might not get to be her mother. She had developed a strong love for the girl in the short time she had been at the ranch. Anna gently brushed some hair away from Sage’s face and then covered her with a light quilt. She sat in a chair near Sage and continued working on the small dress.
A few hours later, Anna left Sage sleeping in her room and went into the kitchen for a drink of water. As she pumped water into a glass, she looked out of the kitchen window, and saw Alex in a fenced yard with a horse. It looked like he was doing some training. She suddenly had the desire to go watch.
She went outside and walked to the fenced yard. She leaned against the wooden rails and watched Alex with the horse. The animal was beautiful. It was reddish in color with a black mane and tail. Its eyes were open wide almost in fright as it watched Alex who swung a circled rope to catch the horse around the neck.
The horse reared up on its front legs in protest. Alex quietly talked to the animal and soon it was calm. Over the next hour, Anna watched quietly as Alex continued to work with the horse. By the time he decided the lesson was over, he had been able to introduce the bit into the mouth.
****
Alex led the horse to the gate in the fence and opened it. He looked over towards Anna as he gave the reins to a hired hand.
“Put her back with the other horse
s,” he ordered and then walked towards Anna.
“I enjoyed watching you with that horse,” Anna commented as he got closer to her. “So are you training it to be a cattle horse?”
“She’s mare,” Alex nodded. “I’m hoping she can be trained as one, but Luke wants a horse for Sage to ride. She might be calm enough for her.”
“Where did you get her? Did you capture it from the mountains?” Anna asked as she looked at a nearby field that held at least five horses in it.
“Yep, she’s a mountain horse.”
Alex leaned against the fence. He enjoyed watching her as she talked. He could tell she was very interested in how the ranch was run, what went on in the different parts of it, and who did what. Her eyes lit up as she talked and she looked more beautiful than he had ever seen her.
