Uncertainly, she asked, “How may I help you? Are you hungry?”
He smiled at her offer. “Now, missus, I didn’t come begging food. I’d a mind to check on the little one. I wanted to be sure things were right with her before I left on my next voyage.”
The man’s accent indicated he wasn’t native to the United States. England perhaps. His mention of Peaches caused her back to stiffen. “Why are you interested in my daughter?”
His tone became wheedling. “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am. I might not kept her, but I’ve still a love for the wee one.”
“I think you need to explain, Mr.--?”
“Perkins. Jack Perkins.” He looked down at the cap gripped tightly in his hands and then met her eyes. “I were at the church, asking the preacher for help. My neighbor told me to go to him.”
His eyes turned glassy with tears. The man swallowed a few times and sniffed before continuing. “I saw you, missus. The night of the kids’ play.” He rubbed his hands nervously down the sides of his rough woolen pants. “You had a way with those little ‘uns. Kind of like my own ma used to have.”
“Thank you, Mr. Perkins. I do love working with children.” She wondered why this man was here. What did he want? Since he called her ‘missus’, the man knew she was married. That meant he wasn’t trying to spark her. To marry her so he could have his daughter and a mother for her.
He peered through the open door at the buggy standing by the table. “Can I see her, ma’am? She was such a mess when I put her in the towels. I give her to the woman next door and told her to watch for you to come home. The preacher told me where you lived, you see.”
No, she didn’t see. A wall of information seemed to fall toward her, like being buried alive in a mound of confusion. “When you say she, do you mean my baby? We’ve adopted her, you know.”
Tear-filled eyes looked at her, but the man smiled. “It was what I hoped would happen. I’m heading out soon on a merchant ship. There’s no way I could drag a baby long with me. My Muriel tweren’t strong enough to survive the birthing. She told me to find a family for yonder babe. ‘Don’t let her grow up in no orphanage like us, Jack.’ She told me that when she knew the end were coming for her.” Again, he peeked around Josephine to the buggy.
“I would be glad for you to come back when my husband is here. Tonight, for supper, perhaps. You could see the baby then.” She smiled but didn’t allow him inside. “It isn’t right for me to be alone with a man.” Once again, she invited him. “Come back at six o’clock. Eat with us and tell us about Eliza Marie.”
He looked doubtful and his eyes wore a rheumy glaze. “Eliza Marie. That name has class. Muriel planned to call her Elizabeth. A lot like Eliza that be.” He kept trying out the name as he moved away from the back door and down the path out of the yard.
Behind her, Peaches woke up. Probably the cool air from the partially opened door had reached her. The round cheeks broke into a smile.
“Oh my! You gave Mama your first smile. What a precious girl you are!”
Peaches was her joy. Last week, the judge had signed the papers that declared her to be Eliza Marie Peale. Their daughter! When Del returned home, she would tell him about the stranger. Somehow, she didn’t think the man would return to dine with them. He’d checked on the child and learned what he wanted to know. Maybe he’d return after his next voyage. Regardless, she could someday tell Peaches the names of her birth parents and the circumstances that led to her being left in a crate. She’d be able to explain why the girl had been a snowy delivery to a couple who used her as an excuse to make their dreams of a family come true.
With the help of a matchmaking landlady and a very special ornament.
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Sneak Peek
Read the first chapters from two of Marissa’s holiday books.
A Farmer for Christmas
Spinster Mail Order Brides #4
Prologue
1887, Idyll Wood, Wisconsin
The milk had curdled again. The sour smell filling his nostrils seemed appropriate. Life had turned sour since the birth of the twins.
If Lydia were alive, she would have made cookies or bread from the tainted liquid. Reinhold Sittig--who answered only to Holder unless his mother was speaking to him --snorted in disgust. He supposed he should take the stuff over to his mother to see if she could use it for sourdough bread. That thought brought a sigh from him.
Lately, his mother’s condition worsened daily. His shoulders sagged as he thought about her. The once jolly, vibrant woman now appeared to drag herself from her bed to the kitchen and back. Thank goodness she had his oldest daughter, Johanna, to help with meals and chores. Holder hoped that Johanna’s younger sister, Berta, also helped. Since Berta had only recently turned six, he couldn’t be sure of how much she could be counted on yet to do. Still, at least she could watch out for the one-year-old twins when she wasn’t in the barn with the animals.
How deeply he regretted the twins. Each time he looked at their curly flaxen hair or saw their mother’s eyes mirrored in the color of their own, he remembered that they led to her death.
This brought his thoughts back to the jar he held. If Lydia were here, she’d take care of this spoiled milk.
Stiffening his spine, he mentally shied away from thoughts of his wife. What was the saying? There’s no use crying over spilt milk. He supposed that applied to spoiled milk as well. If he refused to cry over a dead wife, he certainly wasn’t about to allow this milk to get him down.
Deciding to dump the smelly milk in the pig bucket on the porch, Holder grasped the door handle at the same time as someone pounded on the other side. Pulling it open, he saw his brother’s hand raised to strike the wood again. Surprise had his ice blue eyes opening wide before he chuckled. “Eager for a visitor brother? Standing by the door?” Frederick joked with this usual light-hearted attitude. A deputy in town, he only seemed serious when he was on the job. At home, Fred was much like their mother Jennie, jolly and energetic.
Without saying a word, Holder stepped aside and signaled with his free hand for Fred to enter his cabin. Eager to close the door against the nippy fall air, he urged, “Get in here so I can keep the cold out,” when Fred merely stared at the jar of milk instead of stepping inside.
His brother laughed. “Do you plan on drinking straight from the jar?” Taking off his coat, Fred hung it on the chair and then took a seat in that chair.
Holder decided to enjoy the spoiled milk after all. “How about a glass of it? I’d be happy to share.” At Fred’s nod, he poured a small amount of it into one of the jelly jars placed on the shelf above the kitchen pump.
Setting the small jar in front of Fred, Holder smiled charmingly at his brother. That man returned the smile before picking up his glass. When he took a huge drink, Holder stepped back and away from him. The milk exploded from his brother’s mouth and dripped down his neatly trimmed blonde beard, causing Holder to erupt into deep belly laughs.
“You no-good skunk! Why’d you do that?” Fred moved to the sink and yanked a flour-sack towel from the nail on the wall. Wiping his face and shirt with it, he glared at his brother. Then he pumped the handle furiously, desperate for water to rinse his mouth.
Still chuckling, Holder almost uttered a sincere apology. Almost, but he couldn’t quite smother his chuckles as he explained, “I know you love a good joke so I couldn’t resist. Kind of like you couldn’t resist bringing me a whole plate of cookies with blackened bottoms last week.” This tit for tat between him and his two brothers had been happening for as far back as any of them could remember. Until Carl’s beating.
The thought sobered Holder. Carl had been a bloody mess when he and Frederick found him last month.
By the lo
ok on Fred’s face, he knew his sudden change in mood had confused his brother. “I was just thinking about Carl. Wonder if he’s gonna be himself again and start pranking us?”
Shaking his head, Fred suddenly slipped into his role as a deputy sheriff. “Redmond and I have followed the few leads, but found nothing. At least, I haven’t.” His face showed his doubt about the sheriff and confused Holder. He hadn’t heard anyone say a bad thing about the man.
Fred didn’t comment further about the sheriff. Letting out a deep breath, he continued with a sort of wistful sound in his voice, “I sure wish Carl would tell us who beat him like that. After all, I wanna catch Ralph Stinson’s killers. You gotta know those men who beat Carl also beat that man to death.”
Both brothers worried when Carl started running to town most nights and not returning, according his mother, until the crack of dawn. Ralph Stinson had been a terrible influence on his brother, but Holder still wouldn’t have wished the man dead.
Fred continued in a tone that hinted at secrecy, “All Carl will tell me is that the red man did it. That sounds so much like Sheriff Redmond’s name that I’m keeping an eye on him.”
Silence filled the cabin as if it permeated the very air they were breathing. Exhaling loudly and deeply, Fred broke the quiet first. “I come for a reason, other than to give you a chance to prank me.” The expression on his brother’s face had Holder tensing.
Nodding his head for his brother to speak, Holder waited to hear the idea his brother would tell him. He knew that look, and it usually meant Fred had something to say he knew Holder wouldn’t like or want to hear.
Clearing his throat, Fred blurted out, “You need to get a wife.”
Stunned, Holder’s mouth gaped open and his eyebrows rose a notch. Reaching up, he ran a hand through his dark blonde waves. “What you wanna marry me off for?”
The sadness that dogged the family for the last two years, since the sudden passing of their father, showed itself on Fred’s face. “Ma and those girls of yours can’t keep up. Don’t know if you ever really look at ‘em, but those twins are holy terrors now that they’re walkin’.”
At the mention of his two youngest children, a chill entered Holder’s eyes and he turned away from his brother. Fred reached a hand out to his shoulder and pulled him back around so that they faced each other again. “She’s sick, Holder. You can’t expect Ma to chase after those kids of yours, even with help from Johanna and Berta.”
“Did Ma send you to tell me this?” Holder asked defensively with arms crossed defensively.
“Nah, you know better. She’d give any of us her last drop of blood if we needed it,” Fred answered with eyes that seemed suspiciously wet.
Inclining his head to show he agreed with what Fred said about their mother, Holder gulped. “I see her getting’ skinnier every day. Don’t know how she can be thin and still have that round ball in her belly. The girls tell me they’re helpin’ though.”
Fred shrugged and then looked his brother in the eye. “You can’t rely on girls that age to run a house, so I figured a way for you to get a woman to do it for us.”
When Holder didn’t say anything, the other man continued. “Pastor Nillson’s wife talked to me after church last Sunday. She says her spinster sister found a woman who sent her to a man as a mail-order wife. Thought you might be able to write the woman and get a helper here for Ma.”
Searching his mind for a reason to prove his brother’s idea wouldn’t work, Holder stood silently and stared out the kitchen window. Then he voiced the only argument that came to mind. “Carl could help more, now that he’s healing from that beatin’. I know his mind ain’t right, but that don’t stop him none from working.”
At his brother’s snort, Holder reddened. Fred followed up his noise by complaining, “We can’t even keep Carl home now that he’s met Carlene Strong.”
That caught Holder’s attention. “Carl’s in love? I didn’t know Banker Strong had a daughter.” He spent too much time alone in the barn with the animals or in this cabin.
Fred smiled and shook his head. “Nah, she’s Manny’s wife. Carl’s got it in his brain that she’s his twin. Won’t leave the girl alone now.”
“Huh? Manny’s back. Glad he’s married so he won’t lure Carl out to go drinking.” Holder had never liked spineless Manny Strong.
“No worries that way. Manny’s living and working at the Hoffman farm. With that nice-looking wife and all those chores, he should stay busy. Problem is that Carl’s over there a lot, so you can’t count on him helpin’ Ma.” Neither Fred nor Holder knew how to control their grown brother, who had acted like a child since the beating.
Holder needed to think and wanted to do it alone. “Give me a day or two, Fred. Lydia left a hole that needs fillin’, it’s true. Didn’t reckon on another wife for me. What Ma and the girls need, now that’s something different for me to think on.”
The next few days found Holder more often at his mother’s two-story farmhouse, built not too far from his own cabin. When he’d married Lydia, Holder’s father and brothers helped him build the small home so he and his bride would have some privacy. A recent immigrant, Lydia had been pleased at the snug home he provided. Now both she and Holder’s father had passed away.
Spending the next few evenings with his children increased Holder’s loneliness. Alone in his cabin he could read or whittle. Here, surrounded by people, he felt his wife’s absence. The sight of the twins intensified that feeling. He couldn’t bear having them live at the cabin. After watching his mother for the last two days, however, he could see that she no longer felt well enough to manage them.
He wished Fred were there to talk to, but Manny had arrived during the afternoon with news that the red man snatched Carlene. Fred rushed off to organize a posse and hadn’t returned.
Funny that no one in town could find the sheriff. Could there be something to the idea that the red man, who Carl feared, and Sheriff Redmond were one and the same?
While his oldest child got her sisters ready for bed, Holder knocked on his mother’s bedroom door. At her weakly voiced “Come in,” he pushed open the door and moved to stand beside her bed.
Looking down at a face that seemed whiter than the pillow it lay against, he worried about what plagued her body. As he stared, she tried to sit up, making her pronounced abdomen more obvious. Why does it look like that?
Picking up her hand in an unusually affectionate gesture, he shared his plans with her, speaking in German since she preferred her native tongue. “I’m thinking it’s time to bring another woman here. Girls are needin’ a ma and I would do better havin’ a wife again.”
She gave him a small smile, the lamp light revealing the sad look in her eyes. “It’s time.” Then she closed her eyes. Leaning back against the pillow, she turned her head away from him and sighed.
Determined now to follow through with his plan, he sat at the library table in the small parlor. From Fred, he knew the name of the matchmaker. He would find out the cost of train fare and enclose with a letter. Deciding to address the letter to the matchmaker rather than a future bride, he quickly wrote down what he required in a wife.
November 30, 1887
Dear Miss McKinley,
I write you to ask for a wife since our Pastor Nillson’s sister-in-law found a husband with your help. It’s time I had a wife and want your help to find her.
It might be that, from my letter, you know I’m just a farmer. I read and write, but I am not a man with much learning. I work hard and provide well. Tell my bride I am tall, blonde, and don’t make the small ones cry.
I must have a bride who is a woman full grown, no young girl. She must know how to clean and cook. I don’t want a widow with kids so don’t send one.
My mother is ill. Nursing her must be a part of life for my bride. Please send someone who can take care of sick people.
We need a wife here quick. The family are waiting on her to come. Her help is needed.
S
incerely yours,
Reinhold Sittig
Reading over the letter, he hoped it gave the matchmaker a good idea about the kind of woman he needed. He didn’t specify looks since he didn’t care about the woman for himself. He just needed to get someone out here to raise the kids and nurse his mother. Holder had the same needs as most any other man and a bride would help with that. Still, he didn’t need spend time with her.
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A Shadowed Groom for Christmas
Spinster Mail-Order Brides #6
Chapter 1
Charleston, South Carolina, October 1886
Father is dead. What do I do now? This thought and the question it created repeatedly hammered its way through Kitty Donaldson’s mind. How would she maintain this modest home without being forced out into the world to find some means to support herself?
Standing in front of the oak hall tree, she gazed into the almost full-length mirror built into that piece of furniture. She saw a trim form garbed in unbroken black, as she was once again wearing the mourning clothes purchased after her mother’s sudden death two years before. Lifting her arms, Kitty placed a broad-brimmed black hat on her sable brown hair. The hat’s large crown was trimmed with black silk roses and netting.
As she pulled at the netting down over her face, Kitty stopped and intently studied her face—something she typically avoided doing. The rich ruby red of the port wine stain caused her stomach to clench. The mark stretched from the inside of her left eye down her nose and almost all the way to her left ear. How could she force herself to spend day in and day out amongst others when she looked like this?
With determination, she covered her face with the netting affixed to the hat and moved to the front door. With the Lord’s blessing, perhaps her father’s lawyer would have an idea of what Kitty should do.
A Snowy Delivery for Christmas (Ornamental Match Maker Series Book 21) Page 7
