A Courageous Bride to Bring Him Hope: A Historical Western Romance Book

by Cassidy Hanton

  "This is my father's old farm. This is where I was born," Clementine said in wonder.

  "I know."

  "I do not understand, Alexander. Why did you bring me here?"

  "This is my gift to you," Alexander said with a small smile, turning to face her. "I convinced the owner to sell it to me. It is yours as it should have been all along," he explained.

  Clementine did not know what to say as tears wetted her cheeks. She was overwhelmed with emotions. Nobody did something like this for her.

  "Thank you. I cannot even express what this means to me."

  Alexander wiped the tears of joy from her face. "I want to make all your dreams come true, as you’ve made mine." he said softly. “You’ve given me the life I always wanted. The family I always wanted. And knowing I get to start a farm with you, build a home with you, is a greater gift than I could have ever hoped to receive. Thank you,” he said, kissing her wet cheeks.

  "You are my dream, my reality and everything in between," Clementine found her voice. "I love you Alexander and always will," she professed, overcome with emotions.

  Alexander embraced her. "I wasn't quite alive until I met you. You brought me back. Your love showed me the way. Clementine, you are my everything and the way I feel about you will never change," Alexander said back. "I love you with everything I am and will love you always and forever," he vowed before they kissed.

  The End?

  Extended Epilogue

  Eager to read how Clementine and Alexander’s relationship evolved? Then enjoy this complimentary short story featuring the beloved couple!

  Simply TAP HERE to read it now for FREE! or use this link: https://www.cassidyhanton.com/8lzv directly in your browser.

  I guarantee you, that you won’t be disappointed ♥

  But before you go, turn the page for an extra sweet treat from me…

  A sweet treat from the Wild West…

  Turn on to the next page to read the preview of A Blossoming Love in a Time of Peril , a sweet and clean Western historical romance with a happily-ever-after!

  Preview: A Blossoming Love in a Time of Peril

  Chapter One

  Thornedge, Montana, 1887

  It had been a quiet evening at the store that evening and Irma Evans was walking home. She’d bid goodnight to Heck Carter, the proprietor, and taken a bag of windfall apples with her to make a pie. She enjoyed her job as a store clerk, thought she often dreamed of more. But there was little hope of that, not in a place like Thornedge, where it was said that dreams could be dreamed but never came true.

  The town was growing quieter now, as drunkards staggered home and the saloons began to close. The oil lamps were burning in the upstairs windows and the shutters closed over the shops and businesses which lined the dusty main street. She had her shawl wrapped tightly around her, for the night was cold. In the sky above, a blanket of stars shone over the prairie, which stretched endlessly out on either side. The moon was high, and it cast a milky glow upon the town, bathing it in a silvery light.

  She quickened her pace a little, glancing around her, lest anyone should be following. It was not safe for a young lady to be out late at night, but she had no choice. Her Uncle Felix would still be out playing cards and drinking late into the night. There was no one else to escort her home to the little house they shared on the outskirts of the town, but she was used to that.

  Irma was not afraid; she had lived in this town long enough to know how to look after herself, should trouble arise. Beneath her shawl, she carried a knife, tucked into her belt, and as she stepped off the main street, her hand went instinctively to the hilt. For men were known to lurk in the shadows, waiting to prey on whoever should be unlucky enough to pass them. She’d been told of the dangers many times and heard whispers of the mysterious man who was snatching young women off the streets, the so-called “Predator” who had the town and county in the grip of fear.

  But Irma knew that if the Predator were waiting for her, he’d get more than he bargained for, and she gripped the hilt of the knife tightly as she walked towards home. She had lived with her uncle ever since her mother had died some three years after her father’s mining accident. It had been a hard life, not helped by the fact that her uncle was a chronic drunkard. He was a laborer on one of the farms, at least he was when he could stand upright, and Irma had spent the past few years dreaming of escaping from him.

  He was not a cruel man, nor unkind, but years of drinking and gambling had taken their toll. He had nothing except the breeches he stood up in and whatever happened to be in his back pocket at the time. It had been Irma who had kept the house and put food on the table, and if it had not been for Heck Carter offering her a job at the store , she and her uncle would have found themselves homeless and destitute.

  Irma liked the peace and quiet of the house late at night. During the day, her uncle would be snoring in the backroom or staggering about and demanding money for liquor. But, at this time of night, whilst he was still out in whatever den of iniquity he found himself in, she could light the stove and make herself a cup of cocoa. Then she would settle back in the rocking chair with a book to read, for reading was her favorite pastime.

  The life of a store clerk was not what Irma had imagined for herself as a child. She had always dreamed of being a schoolteacher, and despite her hard life, that dream remained. Each morning she would watch the children walking to the schoolhouse in the town and wonder what it must be like to fill young minds with knowledge and curiosity. It was a curiosity she too possessed, and she read just about every book she could get her hands on.

  That evening, she let herself into the little house, looking from left to right lest anyone might be watching, and closing the door behind her, she let out a sigh of relief. The house was her sanctum, the one place she felt at peace, at least when her uncle wasn’t there. She lit the oil lamp on the table and set a match to the fire she had laid earlier in the stove. It was not long before she had a steaming cup of cocoa in one hand and was settling herself down in the rocking chair with her book. She was reading The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, and she had been longing to read the next chapter all evening and discover what happened next to the feisty Isabel Archer.

  It was pointless going to bed before her uncle returned. He would crash and stagger about the house, demanding she fry him up some sausages, before falling asleep on the floor and not even eating them. It was the same every night, but Irma had found ways to cope, and one of them was by escaping in the pages of her favorite books.

  Isabel had just arrived in Rome. Irma was picturing herself in that city too, amongst the classical splendors she’d seen library picture books. Suddenly, the sounds of her uncle returning came from outside and she closed the book with a sigh. She’d locked the door, as was her custom given the danger of the Predator, and he was fumbling with the key, cursing under his breath.

  Irma paused for a moment before wearily getting up and opening the door for her uncle, who staggered inside. He stank of liquor, and his eyes were bloodshot; he shook his head and swayed from side to side.

  “Do you need your bed, uncle?” she asked, pointing towards the door at the back of the house.

  “No …” he slurred, “I … I need to tell you something, that’s what I need.”

  “Then you’d better sit down,” Irma said, taking him by the arm and leading him to the rocking chair by the stove.

  “No, no, I don’t need to sit down,” he said, “you listen to me because I’ve got news, bad news!”

  “Is that right?” she said, for she was used to this ritual and to humoring him in his drunken state. “Well, why don’t I fry you up some sausages, and you can tell me?”

  “Ain’t no money for sausages now,” he said, his eyes fixed on some point far in the distance, a confused smile playing across his face. “Ain’t no money for anything.”

  “There’s sausages here, Uncle Felix, just you sit yourself down and I’ll have them cooked up in no time,�
� Irma replied, smiling to herself at the thought that in the morning, her uncle would remember nothing of what was now transpiring.

  “No, you hear me out, it’s all gone. I lost it,” he said, shaking his head. “I lost it all to Grover Hurst,” and he laughed out loud, as Irma looked at him with a puzzled expression.

  “What do you mean, uncle? Lost it?” she said, a note of concern entering her voice.

  “I lost it, you hear me? I lost it, the house, everything in it, the money, you,” he replied, laughing again. “I lost it all.”

  But Irma heard only one word in his slurred sentence, and she rounded on him, her face now set in anger.

  “Me? What do you mean, you lost me? What are you talking about?” she cried, taking him by the shoulders and shaking him. “Start making some sense now, will you?”

  “I’m making perfect sense, little lady, I wagered it all to Hurst, and I lost, you included. But if I’d won, we’d have had his ranch, and wouldn’t that have been a fine thing?” he said, and he belched loudly.

  “I never … I never thought you’d be so stupid,” Irma said, her hand raised to her mouth in horror.

  She could hardly think straight. Had he really lost the house? Their home? Everything in it? What did he mean by losing her?

  “You quit calling me stupid, it ain’t stupid to try and win your fortune,” he said, staggering drunkenly to the stove, where the pan of cocoa was still steaming.

  “But this is my home, our home, and you …” she began.

  “And now you’ve got another home. Don’t worry; I saw to it that you’d be alright. I told him that if I lost, he had to take care of you, and he said he surely would and that he would marry you if I lost. And then I did,” her uncle replied, and promptly belched again.

  “Marry? I’m not marrying anyone and certainly not Grover Hurst. That man is as odious as they come, and he’s already been married twice,” Irma said

  “Now, you just listen to me, young lady, a wager is a wager, and he won you fair and square, you hear me? You’re marrying him, and once I make some money back, I’ll …” he began, but without thinking Irma slapped her uncle hard across the face, causing him to stagger back.

  She pushed him away as he cried out in pain and she rushed from the room, tears flowing down her cheeks.

  She flung herself upon her bed and beat her fists against the pillow, cursing her uncle for his stupidity. He had been foolish before, and there had been times when Heck Carter had loaned her money to cover his debts, but never had he been so stupid or so cruel. She could hear him staggering around the parlor, muttering to himself and cursing. She wanted to hit him again, the years of pent up anger now rising in her like an overwhelming wave.

  “Darn you,” she said out loud, standing up and pacing to and from across the room.

  She stamped her foot and cursed again, imagining the awfulness of such a fate befalling her. Grover Hurst was a lecherous man, a womanizer twice her age, and with a potbelly and puckered face. He was the last person she had every intention of marrying.

  Her uncle had gone quiet now, or rather he stopped ranting and raving, his words replaced by gentle snoring. Quietly she opened her bedroom door and peered out into the parlor, where the oil lamp was burning low. He was slumped in the rocking chair, a thin trail of spittle running down from his mouth, which was half-open. He was not an attractive man, graying hair and a paunchy stomach the result of a lifetime of alcohol and poor living. He’d be out cold for hours, and as she watched him, a plan began to form in her mind.

  It was one she had often dreamt of, though the impetus to carry it out had never been this strong. There was nothing which bound Irma to Thornedge, except perhaps the kindness of Heck Carter, but he’d always urged her to get out of that sorry place.

  “A frontier town is no place for a good lady like you,” he used to say, especially after a particularly hard evening at the store, when they’d been beset by cowboys, outlaws and no goods sniffing around, once, they’d even had hold up and she’d had to go running for the deputies.,

  Was it misplaced loyalty to her uncle which had so far kept her in thornedge? Or the thought that perhaps she could cure him of this wicked malady? Whatever it was that had kept her firmly tied to Thornedge and the man who had just bet her in a game of cards.

  Well, Irma thought to herself, no more!

  Quietly she returned to her room and reached below the mattress on her bed, feeling for the small hole she had made there many years ago. Stuffed inside was a wad of dollar bills. She secreted several a week, in a place that her uncle would not find them. It was her escape fund, money she had always known she would need, tonight being the night.

  Her plan for escape was merely that, once she had escaped, she had no thought as to where she would go or what she would do. But anything was better than remaining in Thornedge now, and having gathered up a few meager possessions, she prepared to leave.

  Her uncle was still fast asleep as she crept across the parlor. Next to him on the table was her copy of The Portrait of a Lady. Irma tiptoed over, careful not to step on the board in the center of the room, which always creaked when anyone stood on it. He stirred a little as she reached over him, and she thought about bashing him over the head with it as a parting gift. But despite his many failings, he was still her uncle, and she could forgive him his faults, even if she did not accept the things he did as a result of them.

  But Irma knew that leaving now was the right thing to do. With the book tucked safely in her pocket and her few clothes and possessions stowed away in a bag, she left the house for the last time, closing the door quietly behind her. Outside, the air was cool, and there were no signs of life. The lamps in the upstairs windows had been extinguished and the street was quiet. She glanced around her, ensuring that no one was watching her from the shadows, glad to have the knife in her belt.

  Behind the house was where her uncle kept his horse, a docile mare named Sandy, who Irma now untied. The horse was used to being ridden at unusual times and for unusual purposes, and she shook her mane and whinnied as Irma patted her.

  “Come on, Sandy. You don’t want to wait around here; we’ve all been won by Grover Hurst and I don’t think he’d treat you too kindly either,” Irma said, pulling herself up on to the saddle.

  She felt safer on the horse. Stroking the animal’s mane, she urged it on, hoping that the sound of the hooves would not draw attention to herself. But Thornedge was asleep and no one was paying attention to a solitary rider heading out of town. Irma cast a final glance back at the house, which had been her home these years past. She’d been happy there, in a way at least, but she knew that she could no longer stay there.

  Irma had no intention of marrying for anything else but love, and certainly not as a prize in her uncle’s card game. He’d wake up the next morning and regret the whole thing, but by then she’d be long gone, and with that thought in mind, she urged Sandy onwards, taking the track north out of Thornedge and out towards freedom.

  Chapter Two

  Plain River, Maynard Ranch

  The animals needed feeding at Maynard Ranch that morning, just as they always did. But Anthony Maynard and Samuel Carver had been lax about their duties. The two young men had been up late the night before, drinking and playing cards with the other ranch hands. But with the sun rising, it was time to get up, especially as the sound of Margaret Maynard’s voice came echoing up the stairs to the attic in which they slept.

  “Y’all get up now, you hear me? There’re animals that need seeing to, and I want to get going down into Thornedge before it gets busy. You know what that place is like on market days, and if there’s cattle coming in, I’ll be lucky to get back before noon if I don’t go now,” she said, sounding impatient, as Anthony rolled over.

  He rubbed his eyes and glanced over to where Samuel was fast asleep on the bed opposite.

  “Hey Sam, you awake?” he said, as Samuel rolled over and groaned.

  “What time is it?�
�� he said, rubbing his eyes.

  “My grandmother’s calling us, so it must be passed seven o’clock; come on, we’d better get up,” Anthony said.

  “Seven o’clock? Oh my, I’m never late for the animals,” Samuel said, leaping out of bed and pulling on his breeches.

  “You’re allowed a tardiness once in a while, she won’t mind,” Anthony said, rising rather more slowly than his friend and pulling on his shirt.

  “Still, your grandmother’s mighty kind to me, and I don’t want to let her down,” Samuel said, his shirt on back to front as he clambered down the ladder to the parlor, where Anthony could hear him wishing his grandmother a good morning.

  He knew she’d not be cross, she doted on him and always had done, ever since he was a child. Now, even as a man of twenty-seven years old, she still loved him just as she always had done. It had not been easy for any of them, not since his father had died six years previously, but with the help of Samuel and the other farmhands, they’d kept the place going, and Maynard Ranch was just about one of the most successful homesteads in that part of Montana.

  “Do you want some porridge before you go out?” his grandmother said, as he emerged down into the parlor, to find her and Samuel at the table.

  “I can’t face food right now, grandmother,” he said, shaking his head at Samuel, who was already tucking into a bowl of porridge, covered in honey and brown sugar.

  “You’ve got to eat something before a day on the ranch. There’re fences that need mending, and don’t forget the hay up in the barn loft. It needs bringing down for the animals, and you promised to do that today,” she said, tutting as she fussed around the kitchen.