ROMANCE: MAIL ORDER BRIDE: The Other Man’s Baby (A Clean Christian Historical Western) (New Adult Inspirational Pregnancy Romance)

by Joyce Wright

  “She’s my daughter now, Salome. I know she has a father, but he’s not here. I’m her Pa, she says so.”

  “I know. I’m glad. John would be glad, I think. He wouldn’t want her to be in a house where I had a husband but she didn’t have a father.” She kissed him. “He’d be that proud of how you treat her. Will they—how will she be treated in town?”

  “She’s my daughter,” Kenyon repeated, his voice rough. “She’ll be treated as my daughter.”

  Feather didn’t question why she had to wear the new dress Salome had made for her as her mother got her ready for the trip to town. Nor did she ask why she had to have a bath, or why her hair had to be tightly braided and tied with the new pink ribbons that matched her dress. She asked for a length of pink ribbon for Lorna as well. Salome herself was dressed with care; she wore the dress she’d had on the day she and Kenyon got married.

  Kenyon looked at his everyday clothes, took another look at his wife and daughter, and declared that he wasn’t dressed right to accompany such elegant womenfolk.

  Feather laughed. “You’re fine, Pa. You’re just not pretty like we are.”

  They were still laughing over something else that Feather had said when the wagon neared town. Kenyon pulled up by the general store and helped Salome and Feather from the seat. When they went into the store, Josef, the Swiss-born storekeeper who had been in Beulah Land almost longer than anyone, looked up from his inventory list. When he realized who had entered, he left the counter and walked over to greet Kenyon.

  “Larkin, I haven’t seen you since before spring!” he exclaimed in his accented English. “And you must be Mrs. Larkin; I heard Kenyon had tied the knot. Glad to meet you, ma’am. And who are you?” he asked, bending over to greet Feather, who lifted her head to look at the tall, balding storekeeper, keeping Lorna tight in her grasp.

  “She’s my daughter,” Kenyon said immediately. “Feather Gascoigne Larkin, please say how-do-you-do to Mr. Erlitz.”

  “How do you do, Mr. Erlitz?” Feather repeated.

  “I do very well, Miss Feather. Very well indeed. And how may I help you?”

  “My wife has a list of things she needs,” Kenyon said. “And my daughter’s doll needs a friend. I need a few things.”

  Josef smiled. “Let me have those lists and I’ll take care of it. And when you come back, I’ll have some dolls for Miss Feather to see.”

  Kenyon felt as if he’d been missed by the townspeople. People walking by were quick to greet him, congratulate him on his new wife, and ask him when they’d see the family at the next church social or upcoming barbecue. He introduced Feather as his daughter and discovered that his fears were unfounded. No one seemed to mind that she was Indian. Feather’s friendly manner was all that was needed, and when they turned the corner and encountered Will Henley coming from the blacksmith’s, Henley demanded to know why they hadn’t brought the little girl over to play with his daughters. “I’ve got seven daughters, ma’am,” Henley explained to Salome, “and they sorely need a fresh face among them.”

  Salome laughed. “How old are your daughters?”

  “All the way from one to eight,” Henley’s voice boomed. “We’re so busy making daughters, I don’t think we’ve had time for boys.”

  “Those daughters will be bringing home sons-in-law one day,” Salome assured him.

  “I hope so. I’ve got a lot of land and it takes a lot of work. I’m expanding my herd,” Henley told Kenyon. “The way cattle is taking off, I’ll be able to afford to marry all my girls in style.”

  They talked for awhile, Kenyon sharing his own plans for doing the same. Henley promised to bring his wife and family over to call.

  “He’s a nice man. Seven daughters!” Salome exclaimed.

  “What’s wrong with daughters?” Feather demanded.

  “Not a thing, Feather. Not a thing,” Kenyon assured her. “Not a single thing.”

  Josef had packed up the supplies on their lists and his assistant had loaded everything into the wagon. While Kenyon settled the account, waiting for the final purchase before he paid, Feather studied the three dolls before her. The adults stood patiently, no one rushing the child as she evaluated her choices. Finally she settled on the black-haired doll.

  “Lorna looks like Mama,” she explained as she delivered her doll to Josef. “But this one looks like me. When the baby comes, I’ll need a new doll that looks like her.”

  “New baby?” Josef repeated while Salome blushed. “Congratulations to you both. But what if the baby is a boy?”

  Feather considered this alternative. “I’ll wait and see,” she decided.

  She wanted to sit in the back of the wagon so that she could play with Lorna and her new doll, which let Kenyon and Salome sit closer together in the front seat.

  “Feather,” Salome began when they were heading home. “Why did you tell Mr. Erlitz that Mama is having a baby?”

  “Because you are. What should I name Lorna’s friend?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I heard you tell Pa. I need the right name. Pa, what should I name Lorna’s friend?”

  “Why don’t you name her Sally?”

  Salome leaned close to Kenyon. “Thank you.” She sat up and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, quick so that Feather wouldn’t notice and comment, but a kiss nonetheless.

  “I love you,” he told her.

  “I love you, too. Do you ever feel like they’re with us? Lorna and John? And that they’re happy for us?”

  “I don’t know. I know that we’re here.” There was no one on the road, no one in sight. He placed his hand over her belly. “We’re all here. That’s what counts.”

  “We’d better hurry home,” she said. “Looks like rain.”

  Her hand tightened on his. Rain still frightened her with the memory of what it could do. He understood why. But there was nothing that could be done about nature. All he could do was continue to live and love and trust that, whatever happened, it was part of a bigger plan, one that had a place for him, for Salome, for Feather, and for the baby to come. One that kept the memories of Lorna and John among the living. Only love could do that, he realized. Ultimately, love was stronger than nature and more powerful than any flood because love never surrendered.

  **THE END**

  Chapter 1

  She was surprised that he agreed to be interviewed. Not that he was media shy; Mick Mantoro had made the cover of Sports Illustrated so often that he’d been asked if he owned stock in the magazine. To which the billionaire boxer with brains and bucks in his corner had just smiled and answered, “Someday.”

  No, the surprise was that he’d agreed to be interviewed by a nobody, a graduate student with no journalistic reputation at all except among her professors. She wondered if he had found out who she was. But that was unlikely; she used her mother’s maiden name, and she bore no physical likeness to brawny Carlos Jimenez, resembling instead her late dainty, fine-boned, golden-haired mother.

  “Why boxing?” asked her advisor, Professor Tom “Gilly” Gilliland asked. “No offense, Carli, but you look like the society editors from the old days; I can see you in the white gloves.”

  “That’s a sexist remark, Professor,” she informed him. Gilly was a great advisor and she’d learned a lot from him. But her professor knew her as Carli Hanover, which was not her real name, or at least not her complete real name. Although, given Gilly’s ignorance of boxing, she doubted if he’d have made the connection to Carlos Jimenez. But what everyone who followed boxing knew was that the fourth-round knockout punch that ended her father’s career had come at the fists of Mick Mantoro. She’d been old enough to know that her father had been famous, and old enough to perceive how fast his defeat had robbed him of everything: his fame, his wealth, and his legend. Mick Mantoro had captivated the public. Carlos who? That was fame. That was boxing.

  Mantoro was an enigma in the boxing world: a poor kid from Boston who’d financed his college degree with hi
s two fists and a MENSA level IQ. By the time he’d graduated magna cum laude with a business degree, he had an agent for those lucrative fists and a start-up loan for his gym franchise. As his boxing wins mounted, his financial empire grew. No one in the history of boxing had ever managed to be a world champion, a business tycoon, and a heartthrob all at the same time. No one but Mick Mantoro. “Besides, if boxing is good enough for Joyce Carol Oates, it’s good enough for me.”

  “And how many boxers read Joyce Carol Oates?” Gilly inquired, scrutinizing her over the rims of his half-glasses. “Does Mantoro read?

  “That’s low. Boxers aren’t stupid. You’re believing a stereotype. Mick Mantoro reads; how do you think he graduated from Princeton?”

  “That’s your story,” he countered. “Get it right and you’ll make your reputation.”

  But as she waited outside the gym, shivering in the January cold, she wasn’t thinking of her reputation. She was thinking of the defeat that had ended her father’s career. He’d been 34, nine years older than 25-year old Mantoro. Carlos Jimenez didn’t have an Ivy League business degree or the building blocks of a financial empire. He had an 11-year old daughter that he’d raised as a single parent since his wife’s death from cancer when Carlita Hanover Jimenez was in the fourth grade. All his wealth had gone into his wife’s medical care and when he lost the match, he lost his endorsements as well. Back in New York, in the small house in Queens where he’d grown up, Carlos Jimenez had been given a job as the celebrity voice of a car dealership. He was a mentor to young boxers and he was never more comfortable than when he was in the gym where he’d trained in his youth. Carli had gone to college based on her grades, but she knew that if she hadn’t won scholarships, her father would have found a way for her to get an education. “That’s what your mother wanted,” he told her. And what Hilary Hanover wanted for her daughter, Carlos Jimenez was going to make sure she got, even if she was no longer alive to see it.

  The gym door opened. This wasn’t a run-down gym like the one her father frequented, the one where she’d spent her after-school hours while her father gave boxing tips to the young men starting out. This gym was posh. Wearing a ski jacket and boots, Mick Mantoro came out into the cold weather, putting on leather gloves. He saw her huddled in the entranceway.

  “Miss Hanover?” he asked. “Why didn’t you come inside? I didn’t know you were waiting out here. I thought you must be running late.”

  She’d chosen to wait outside because, unlikely though it was, she didn’t want to risk running into any boxers that might have known her because they’d seen her with her father. “I just got here,” she lied, “and I figured you were busy.”

  He smiled, even white teeth blazing a brilliant smile against the olive skin that showed off his Italian heritage. “Never too busy to welcome a pretty woman,” he replied. Although she was wearing a warm winter coat, scarf, hat and gloves, she suspected that that famous Mantoro lady radar was able to gauge, through the concealing winter garb, everything she was wearing, right down to her Victoria’s Secret underwear.

  She smiled coolly. He was known to be a ladies’ man. But she was immune to that kind of easy, smooth-talking charm. “Shall we go across the street?” she asked, pointing to the coffee shop on the corner.

  “What about dinner?” He named a restaurant that was well out of her budget, one frequented by celebrity athletes and actors, movie moguls, senators, entrepreneurs and tycoons. It wasn’t just out of her budget, it was out of her league. Famous people went there, and she wasn’t famous and, thanks to Mick Mantoro’s win in the ring, she wasn’t even the daughter of someone famous anymore.

  “That might be a violation of journalism ethics,” she replied with a smile. “If I pay for the meal, I can’t be accused of being bribed to write a favorable story. But if I pay for a meal there, we’ll both have to wash the dishes.”

  He laughed appreciatively. “I’m not much of a dish washer. I’ll buy dinner and I promise that I won’t try to influence you to write a favorable story, although I won’t promise not to ask for a date. Why? Were you planning to write something negative?” He looked intrigued rather than offended by the prospect. Was he really that clean, or was he just astounded than an interviewer would broach the subject?

  “Of course not. But that’s really up to you.”

  “Me? The restaurant is two blocks down the street. Walk?”

  “If I can keep up with you.”

  Mick Mantoro grinned. “Miss Hanover, I don’t think you have any trouble keeping up with anyone.”

  She’d been referring to his long-legged stride and he knew it. But the frank appraisal that she saw in his brown eyes indicated that Mick Mantoro was noticing much more than her diminutive height. He was a bachelor, although there was no lack of female companionship in his social engagements. None that lasted, though.

  “So should I be alarmed? Are you hoping to dig up some dirty secrets from my past?” He walked at a leisurely pace so that they could converse easily.

  “Are there any to dig up?”

  “If there were, they’d have been exposed by now, don’t you think? But you’re more than welcome to investigate the hours I spent in the library and in the gym.”

  They were at the restaurant. The door opened immediately. “Mr. Mantoro, a pleasure to see you.”

  Inside, Carli’s eyes adjusted to the soft, low lighting. It was early evening, not a fashionable hour for dining, but the restaurant was already filled. There wasn’t an unoccupied table in view. Was even the billionaire boxer going to have to wait until a table became available?

  The hostess came up to them. “Your usual table is ready, Mr. Mantoro.”

  Chapter Two

  The attentive service was obviously second nature to Mantoro, and so was the assumption of command which he displayed. He asked her what she wanted, and gave the order to the waiter for her. It was an unusual action for a man who was too young to have been brought up in the tradition of a 1950s leading man.

  “So,” he said when the wine had been uncorked and the waiter had left with their orders, “why does a Columbia University graduate student ask for an interview with a boxer?”

  “Why not?” she retorted, sipping her glass of wine slowly. At barely five feet, three inches, 105 pounds, she didn’t have much capacity for alcohol, no matter how good the year.

  He sat with his elbows balanced on the edge of the table, his fingers intertwined, as he leaned closer to her. It was flattering to think that her conversation mattered that much. He was even better looking close up than he was on a magazine cover, she had to admit. Nothing in his features gave evidence that he made his living taking a beating, unlike her father, whose beloved face revealed a nose that had been broken more than once. Of course, she reminded herself, Mantoro was very good at protecting his face. And no wonder, she thought cynically. His face had made him the obvious celebrity to endorse not only the energy drinks that would be expected of an athlete, but also his own line of men’s clothing and a brand of women’s perfume. Whatever he touched turned to gold.

  She thought of her father, cutting out coupons every Sunday when he finished reading the newspaper so that he could use them when he went grocery shopping. Once he had been in restaurants like this; now, she wondered if a maître d’ would even know who he was. Or who he had been.

  “Boxing is a violent sport where two guys—and sometimes two women—pummel each other until one can’t take it any more: ‘two men, near-naked, fight each other in a brightly lit, elevated space roped in like an animal pen; two men climb into the ring from which only one, symbolically, will climb out.’”

  She stared at him and wondered how Gilly would react to finding out that not only did Mick Mantoro read, but he read and quoted Joyce Carol Oates.

  “You’ve taken away my lead,” she told him.

  “I’m sure you’ll come up with something better.”

  “Better than a National Book Award winner?”

  “D
on’t let yourself be diminished by the giants,” he advised. “If I told myself that I’d never be as good as Billy Conn, Sonny Liston, Muhammad Ali or Carlos Jimenez, I’d never have had the guts to step into the ring—what’s the matter?”

  “Carlos Jimenez?” she repeated, trying to keep her voice even. She’d come to this interview with the intention of finding Mantoro’s weakness, something that she could expose and write about, so that she could redeem her father’s reputation from the man who’d stolen it. Now he was giving her father praise.

  “You never heard of Jimenez? You need to do your homework. No one fought with more heart than Jimenez.”

  “You took his championship,” she said.

  “So you have heard of him. Good. Yes, I took the championship away from him. And someday, if I hang around too long, someone will take it away from me. That’s the fate of a boxer. Why do you think I’ve spent so much of my time building up my business network? I want to be able to get out before I’m the one who’s down while the ref is counting to ten. More wine?”