by Hannah West
Opening his arms he said, “Come over here, sweetheart.”
She looked at him with hurt filled eyes. “You’re not mad?”
“Well,” he drew out, “I am a little, but I guess the age isn’t a big thing to be mad over. After all I didn’t tell you I had a daughter, you thought it would be just you and me.”
Carrow sniffed a little and pointed out, “You never told me you owned the railroad either. I had to find out from Sadie. I thought you were just well of not rich.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, well I was going too.”
“When you thought you could trust me not to be a gold digger? Well thanks to you I get my part of Papa’s money, my inheritance. I’m worth just around two million dollars, so is my sister.”
That was like slap to the face.
“You married me to get your father’s money?” Clayton demanded.
“No,” Carrow snapped. “I married you because I ran away from my Uncle. He was a drunk and a violent one at that. He attacked the poor maid and hit my sister in return. She fell down the stairs and was badly hurt. So we left to come here and marry. I didn’t want to be the one hurt next. By keeping Papa’s money from the man’s hands feels good too.”
Clayton sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands.
“I think it would be best if we just took a step back,” he said. “And take some time to think.”
That was a slap to Carrow, her heart ripped open. “You mean, like pretend that this,” she waved a hand at the bed, “didn’t happen?” tears filled her eyes again. She was becoming a water pot.
He hesitated before he started to answer and that was all the answer she needed. She flung herself from the bed, running for the door. She didn’t bother reaching for her clothes as she ran down the stairs sobbing.
“Carrow!” Clayton called from the top step, but she was already to the main level and racing to her room. She slammed the door locking it just as Clayton began pounding on the other side.
Carrow slid down the door and tucked her head to her knees.
“Carrow, open up. Please!” he called but she didn’t hear him.
Chapter Seven
She kept herself locked up in the room that night and come early morning just before the sun rose she snuck out to see her sister. She ran until her legs were jelly and she sat on the edge of the mercantile’s porch.
Her sister wasn’t here yet, but she would wait all day if she must. The sun was starting to peek above the land and paint the sky in a fiery blaze. Carrow watched and let her thoughts wonder.
It had been good here since they came, only foolish has come from last night. Carrow knew she had over reacted but he had not said he now would agree to the marriage. He was married to her and now regretted what had happened. He could divorce her and then where would she be?
Divorces weren’t common and when they did happen it caused a great scandal. At least she would be able to take care of herself. She would have to send a letter to her lawyer today so that her portion of her father’s land and money could then be transferred into her name. But even with the money would she be happy? She had never truly been happy with the parties and dances of her old life. They had had more money than they needed; more servants and more pretty things laying around then they knew what to do with.
Carrow sighed. She hoped her sister was doing better than she was.
“Maybe I am just being stubborn,” she sighed.
“Women often are, but so are men,” a warm, deep voice greeted.
Carrow turned in surprise to see the owner of the mercantile.
“I guess you are right,” she mumbled.
“If I’m guessing right, you’re the young lady who married Clayton or was it Eric? Since ya’ll are twins it’s hard to tell you apart. Which is it?”
“Clayton.”
The older man smiled. “Well then you got yourself a good man.”
“Not so good right now apparently,” Carrow grumbled.
“Well now why is that?” Baxter asked sitting next to her.
“Don’t you have a store to open?” Carrow glared.
“I have time. When you get to be a man of my age you tend to be able to do whatever you want. I’ve know the boy since his Ma and Pa moved here over twenty years ago. He grew up here in my very own shop. What seems to be the problem between you two, I can’t see why to good looking young folks are having so much trouble.” He shook his head with a small smile.
“I asked him something and he wished it had never happened,” Carrow said with tears filling her eyes.
“What did you ask him about?”
“Something very private, it wouldn’t be right to say it out loud.” She shook her head and laughed without humour.
“Well I can’t help if you won’t tell me,” Baxter said gently.
“I asked him about our marriage and after we, um had time alone in his room,” she blurted out with a blush.
“Ah,” the old man said with a stunned look. “Well that explains something. There is not worse way to crush a woman until you used her that way. No wonder your mad at him, but I still think that whatever happened before you asked him is what made him feel that way.”
Carrow turned to the man with a glare. “You’re going to take his side when he didn’t tell me he had a daughter before I got out here, or the fact he was loaded. Would have been nice to know about that before he made me look stupid.”
The man grinned. “You still married him didn’t you? Even after you found out, so would it have still put you off?”
She chewed on that for a moment and nodded slowly. “I might have, there was another letter from another man I had liked. But I’m not sure.”
“And the reason you may not be sure if you have started to have feeling for the man. Maybe love?” he questioned looking off to the rising sun.
“Whatever was there was crushed after he wished we hadn’t slept together!” Carrow growled, to angry to care what she said aloud.
“Well be that as it may I suggest that you talk to him, to see his side as well.” Baxter got up and smiled down at her. “Ah and here comes your sister. Ask her what she thinks, all I have to give is the rumblings of an old man. Good day to you Mrs. Stone.”
Emmy came running up the road in a pretty yellow dress, skirts flying around her. As Carrow stood up Emmy threw herself at her sister in a tight hug.
“Oh Carrow he is wonderful! He is so kind to me,” Emmy whispered.
“I am glad he matches you, Emmy. I am glad you are happy here.” Carrow smiled for her sister, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
Emmy pulled back with a frown. “What is wrong with you? Or should I ask what happened?”
Carrow’s eyes water and Emmy looked sadly at her.
Shaking her head Carrow looked away.
“Cara, talk to me,” Emmy pleaded.
“He,” she sobbed, “He wished he had never wed and bed me, Emmy. What am I gonna do?” sobs racked her body.
“Well you can come stay with us for a day or two until he calms down and you two can talk. I’m sure Eric won’t mind. But you are gonna have to talk to him. You can’t divorce him until you’re twenty-one. You would be stuck with him for three more years either way. But I saw how he first looked at you. You could have a great marriage, but that means you will have to work for it. Meet him halfway.” Emmy hugged her sister and grabbed her hand, tugging her toward the other side of town away from Clayton’s house.
It turned out the sheriff had a cute little two story house on the edge of town half a mile from Clayton’s place. The little house had four bedrooms of decent size and a large kitchen with a cute sitting room out front. Emmy put Carrow in the room downstairs away from the couple’s room upstairs. They were newly married after all.
Carrow didn’t complain, she spent the day helping Emmy clean, cook and put the house back in order. It looked as if it hadn’t seen a woman’s touch in many years from the look of it.
�
��Whoo,” Carrow sighed as she sat back from where she was on her knees scrubbing the wood floors. “Emmy this whole place is covered in a butt load of dust. Has the man never heard of a housekeeper?”
“Well,” Emmy paused and then blushed, “He’s well-liked by the townsfolk, but he’s pretty brisk with the woman folk. No one would come to clean it after his sister married and moved off to the next county.”
Carrow raised her brows. “He doesn’t like women in his home, but he married one. Makes no sense.”
Emmy grinned. “He went to visit his sister a few months back and she had her baby. He took one look at the kid and after he held her he decided it was time he had one or four of his own. In truth his sister is a lot younger, our age, and he didn’t want to be out done.”
“He can’t stand to lose then?” Carrow laughed. He sounded like a good man.
“You were right, you know,” Emmy said after a moment.
“About what,’ Carrow asked, scrubbing some more.
“About man giving a woman a good time between the sheets.”
Carrow’s eyes snapped to her sister. Emmy was scrubbing furiously at a spot on the floor, face flushed. Carrow laughed out loud and long.
“Oh Emmy, I adore your innocence, don’t ever lose it.” She wiped tears from her eyes.
“Well it’s true and if you had half the good time I did then that husband of yours is a fool of a man!” Emmy proclaimed.
Carrow smiled. “I guess so. I was amazed but then again maybe it is different for men.” She shrugged then sighed. “I’ll go talk to him tomorrow. I wouldn’t mind if that’s how he wanted to make up.”
“Carrow!” Emmy gasped and gave her a playful shove.
“I guess if he doesn’t want to talk I can make him anyway. I don’t think it could get any better,” she gave her sister a wide grin.
Emmy turned an adorable shade of pink. “Well if it works let me know. Now it’s time to get some supper cooking. Eric will be back around five I guess so that gives us a few hours.”
Getting up off the floor and taking to bucket of dirty water with her Carrow followed her sister. While Emmy pulled out a jar of salted pork and started skinning potatoes Carrow dumped the bucket and set to making a pitcher of sun tea on the porch to go with supper.
Soon Emmy shooed her from the kitchen and Carrow smiled at the picture of her sister, refined young lady of New York, be a common house wife, even if she was in great fashion.
Humming to herself she went to go lay down on the bed in her borrowed room for a nap. Hopefully when she talked to Clayton tomorrow they could settle up and make up in bed.
Shocked at how wanton her thoughts were she grinned, she was married so it wasn’t a sin after all.
Chapter Eight
Clayton was in a panic. He had gone downstairs that morning to try and get her to come out and talk but when he knocked on the door, it opened gently under his hand.
Peeking in he saw something and sent a chill down his spine. Her room was empty and her suit lay open on the bed. A quick search of the room turned up no note or explanation
She had left him, but left her stuff behind so she must be in or around town somewhere. But it was growing dark outside and promised rain. The forest was thick on the edges of town, but town was big enough to get lost in with just over ten thousand people in it.
Without a glance back at the house he left in search of his wife.
A long search of shops and cafes turned up nothing and he was at the end of his line. Heading for Baxter’s mercantile he ran head long into Sheriff Eric.
“Steady there, friend. What’s the hurry,” Eric asked in greeting.
“I lost my wife,” Clayton said quickly.
“Lost your wife?” a confused Eric asked.
Clayton nodded. “She left me, but didn’t take anything with her. I have no idea of where she could be.”
Eric frowned. “Well there isn’t much we can do if she only been missing a day. Does she have anywhere in town to go?”
“I don’t think so. Just the station and maybe some shops but no one has seen her. She has her sister, your wife, but she doesn’t know where you live so she couldn’t have gone there,” Clayton said through grit worried teeth and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Well in any case I’ll help ya look. I was just doing my rounds anyhow.”
“Thanks, Sheriff. I am half outta my mind looking for her. We had a fight and I wanted to talk to her about it.”
Eric crossed his arms with a frown. “And what was this fight about?”
Clayton colored a dark pink. “Um, well you see…it was more like a fight about us being together like,” he finished lamely.
“You just got hitched and you are fighting about that?”
“Well she took my silence as meaning it didn’t want to be married to her and then happened after we were, together together, if you catch my meaning.”
“So you so how made her misunderstand that you didn’t wanna be married anymore and that you wish you hadn’t slept with her?”
Clayton nodded slowly.
“Just how in the world did you do that!” Eric exploded.
Clayton shook his head. “Well I think she was using me to get money from her family. That she used me as a way to get away from her uncle.”
Eric shook his head sadly. “You don’t get it do you? The only reason a woman becomes a mail order bride is to run away from something in her old life. Abuse, a life of poverty, and many others. What she did before she got here doesn’t matter. What matters is that she’s here!”
“She also lied about her age,” he mumbled.
Eric looked at him weirdly. “You didn’t know she was eighteen?”
Clayton shook his head.
“Did she tell you her age in her letters? Did you ask before you married her?”
Thinking about it she never had told him her age in her letters or before she had said something in bed.
“No, I didn’t and she never said anything. But in my letter I asked for a woman who was at least twenty-one! The age difference between us is a huge gap, almost fourteen years!”
“Well look at your grandma, she was half your Pa’s age when they married each other. If I remember right she was sixteen and he was almost fifty!”
“Well, I guess you’re right.”
“Has she been a bad wife to you? Hurt Sadie?” Eric asked as they stepped back onto Main Street.
“No. Sadie loves her, she will be heart broken when she finds out Carrow left like she did.” He sighed deeply.
Eric looked at him with a knowing eye. “You’re hurt that she left too. It’s not just about Sadie. You liked the girl. I think that all women when their feelings are hurt they go off trying to find the answers they need. If we don’t find her I’m sure she’ll be back soon. But until then let’s go look.”
Clayton nodded again with a small smile. Eric was right. He had hurt to realize she would run away from him. And it had been dumb of him to think her problems from before she got here as her using him. Hell with them she never would have been here!
Chapter Nine
“Carrow can you watch the pot on the stove with the stew in it? I need to run to the store real quick before Eric gets home for dinner,” Emmy said as she rushed by her sister.
Not giving her much choice Carrow smiled and nodded as her sister ran for the door with a little wave and left.
Her sister, no matter how well her feet were stuck to the ground, she was a complete and utter space case.
Carrow hummed and she stirred the pot and thought about what she was gonna do about Clayton. She was seduce him and then make him understand why she did what she did, and then tell him what he would get in return every night for the rest of his life! But even at the moment he probably didn’t even know she was gone.
Voices sounded from outside and the front door open and shut as whoever it was said goodbye to the other. Shrugging and thinking it was just her sister coming back she went
back to stirring.
Sudden a strong pair of arms wrapped around her and lips crushed hers in a passionate kiss.
Shocked to her core Carrow started to struggle and the man held her tight and laughed against her ear.
“You aren’t trying to get away are you?” a deep voice whispered in her ear.
“Let me go!” Carrow shouted and tried to break free.
The front door slammed and Emmy walked into the kitchen. What she saw turned her face bright red and she came forward, fist raised and plowed it into the nose of the man holding Carrow.
He fell to the floor and Carrow turned to see Emmy’s husband holding a bleeding nose looking up at the two of us with wide eyes. Carrow smiled a little as he looked back and forth between her and his wife.
“Have a care with what you say next,” Emmy warned him.
He blinked.
“What were you doing to my sister, Mister?”
“I thought she was you,” he said dumbly.
“Oh, you are such a man, Eric! Thought she was me? I don’t even own a dress like her!” Emmy threw him a glare.
He nodded slowly and got to his feet. “I’m sorry, Em. I didn’t know she would be here, we’ve been out looking for her all day!” He turned a frown to Carrow. “Just what are you doing here?”
“I bought her here because her husband is a brute and a-and a …ass!” Emmy blazed.
Chuckling Eric pulled Emmy into a tight hug. Kissing the top of her head he said, “So I heard. Clayton’s been looking for you all day Carrow. You two need to sit down and have a heart to heart chat.”
Carrow fidgeted. “We are. Tomorrow. When I want to go back. I just need, you know, some space.”
Eric gave her serious look. “He’s worried sick, you better head home. I’ll take you back.”
“No,” Carrow blurted out, then winced. “I haven’t forgiven him just yet. He kicked me out of his bed you know, and his room.”
Eric frowned, but Emmy went to stand by her sister, taking her hand. “I send she could stay the night. It’s only one night and it won’t hurt anything.”