The Wrong Bride_A Christmas Mail Order Bride Romance

by Natalie Dean

  Sam looked up at Sheriff Branson, eyes narrowed.

  “You can’t know for sure that Fiona’s money was the stolen cash from the bank,” he said defiantly.

  Branson’s eyes went slightly wide, and he looked at Sam surprised. This was clearly not the reaction he had been expecting from the young man.

  “Well,” Branson said slowly. “I suppose we won’t be sure of anything until we get her back to Tennessee.”

  “Tennessee?” Sam asked.

  “That’s where the crime took place,” Branson said. “So that’s where she’ll stand trial.”

  Sam’s heart began to thud, and he felt his fingers dance along his trousers again just as they had the first day Fiona arrived.

  “You…you could send her back when you have nothing more than a few bills from her purse?” Sam asked.

  “The boys in Tennessee will want her anyway,” Branson said. “She might be the only person currently in custody who can lead them to Frank Greyson’s hideout. They won’t care why she’s being sent back to them.”

  The wheels in Sam’s mind began to turn quickly. He couldn’t let Fiona go back to Tennessee. Not after she’d been so desperate to leave her life there behind.

  But, try as he might, his desperate mind was useless to come up with any sort of plan.

  “And, I suppose you’ve wired the authorities back east to let them know you have her?”

  “I plan on having my deputy send a wire to them first thing in the morning.”

  Sam nodded. Half a plan began to form in his head. But, before it went further, he knew there was one more thing he had to do.

  “Can I see Fiona, please?” he asked quietly.

  Branson’s eyes narrowed at him. The sheriff was now looking at Sam as though he thought the younger man had lost his mind.

  “You still want to see her? After everything I’ve told you? Now that you know she lied to you?”

  Sam looked down at his hands for only half a moment before turning his eyes back to Branson. His eyes narrowed in firm set resolve.

  “Yes,” he said clearly.

  Branson heaved a sigh.

  “Well, all right then,” he said standing and fumbling with his keys. “Follow me.”

  Slowly, Sam stood from his chair and followed the sheriff through the large wooden door and into the back room.

  Chapter 6

  There was only one cell in the jail house. And, inside that cell, there was only one, small cot.

  That was where Fiona sat, her head in her hands, feeling as though she had run five hundred miles even though she had not moved in hours.

  She had been so stupid.

  It was stupid to think that she would be able to outrun her father’s crimes. It was very stupid to take the money her father had hidden.

  But, above all, it was stupid to have fallen in love with an honest man.

  She should have known months ago what was abundantly clear now.

  No honest man would ever marry the daughter of an outlaw. No decent man could possibly shoulder the burden that a family like hers would inevitably place on him.

  Early on, when she had first been thrown in this cell, Fiona thought about cursing the bad luck that had brought her into the path of Sheriff Branson, her father’s old nemesis, just when she thought she had left that world behind for good.

  But now, after nearly an hour of reasoning, she decided that luck had nothing to do with it.

  It was inevitable. Inevitable that the past would catch up with her. That Sam would discover who and what she really was.

  Maybe it was in her blood.

  Her father had told stories about her grandfather who had also been a liar and a cheat. Maybe there was no possible way to break the cycle.

  With a heavy sigh, she flopped back on the cot and rubbed her eyes.

  Either way, she knew, it didn’t matter now. Soon, she would be on her way back to Tennessee. And, she would probably never see Sam again.

  Just as this thought crossed her mind, the wooden door to the room creaked open.

  “Miss Greyson,” she heard Branson’s voice bark out. “You have a visitor.”

  Heart pounding, Fiona sat up on the cot and turned towards the cell door.

  There, with his hair disheveled and his eyes wide and shadowed, stood Sam.

  A mix of elation and despair filled her as she stood and moved towards the bars of the cell door where he stood.

  “Sam,” she said.

  “Fiona, are you all right?” he asked urgently, putting his hands on the cell bars.

  “I’m not injured if that’s what you mean,” she said.

  As she spoke, she glanced at the sheriff who was still standing at the door. He kept his small eyes fixed on her as though waiting for her to do something unscrupulous. Sam’s eyes followed her gaze.

  “Sheriff,” he said. “Would it be possible for us to have a moment alone?”

  The sheriff’s eyes widened, and he glanced between Sam and Fiona.

  “Are you sure, Sam?” Branson asked.

  “Yes,” Sam said definitely. Even so, it was a moment before the sheriff moved or spoke.

  Finally, he let out what sounded like an exasperated sigh.

  “I’ll be in the front office,” Sheriff Branson said. “Knock when you’re finished.”

  With that, he closed the door behind him, much harder than was necessary.

  “Fiona, don’t worry,” Sam said. “I’ll get you out of here. I’ve got contacts in the newspaper business back east, maybe I can- “

  “Don’t you want to know if it’s true?” she asked before he could say another word.

  Sam’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “Fiona, you should know that I would never believe you capable of stealing from anyone,” Sam said. “I know the sheriff is wrong about you.”

  If the moment were not so deadly serious, Fiona might have laughed at its irony.

  Here was Sam, who constantly wanted to know the truth about her past now steadfastly refusing to discuss it. While she, who always avoided any mention of where she had come from, was desperate to tell him the whole tale.

  “He’s not wrong about me,” Fiona said. “I did steal the money.”

  Sam blinked again.

  “I didn’t steal it from a bank,” Fiona said. “I stole it from my father’s home.”

  Before Sam could answer, she told him the entire story. About how she had longed to run away from her father and his gang of thugs, about her decision to place her ad in the booklet without her father’s knowledge. About her running away when her father had disappeared on another one of his jobs. And, finally, about the money she had found beneath the floor board in his home.

  “I wanted to have my own money,” she explained. “There were a million things that might go wrong on a journey west. I wanted to make sure I was protected. Plus, I felt like he owed it to me, for all the hard times he put me through.”

  Sam sat silent for a moment. Fiona bit her lip and braced herself.

  Surely, this was the moment he would tell her. This was the moment he would say that he could not marry her. That the stain of being married to a woman with her past was too great. The burden was too much to bear.

  Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw a wide grin spread across Sam’s face.

  “But, that’s wonderful!” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you took that money from your father’s home and not the bank, they cannot prove that it was stolen!” he said. “Not to mention, Branson said that the bank was robbed the day you left for Laramie. That means you couldn’t have been involved! He can’t hold you!”

  Fiona shook her head, still slightly shocked by his response.

  “Even if what you say is true,” she said. “Branson will find some other way to send me back home. He’s been trying to get to my father for years.”

  Sam’s face fell slightly.

  “Why?” he asked. “That’s what I still don
’t understand. What does the sheriff have against your family?”

  Fiona swallowed hard and moved back to her cot, sitting down on it hard.

  “My father killed his brother,” she said quietly. “I was very young when it happened. Maybe three or four years old. Still, I remember the day my father came rushing into the home where mama and I were living. I hadn’t seen him in months. Truth be told, I hardly recognized him.”

  She blinked hoping that the quick flutter of her eyes would sooth the image of her father as he had been that day. White faced and frightened.

  “He told Mama that he’d shot the sheriff in town and he would have to go on the run. Mama was helping him pack when Branson came to the door. I pulled it open even though Mama told me not to. Branson pushed in past me, his pistol drawn. He went into the room where my Father was but, it was too late. My father had already jumped out the window. He was just a speck in the distance when Branson fired a shot at him. He’s been after my pa ever since. But, I suppose he’ll settle for me.”

  Sam was silent again. He was looking down at the ground. His eyes narrowed in concentration.

  “Even so,” he said finally. “He can’t send you back to Tennessee for no reason. I won’t let him.”

  He looked up from the ground, and his eyes met hers.

  That tingling sensation rushed down her spine again, and her first instinct was to rush towards him and thank him for believing in her. To tell him that she could not wait to marry him.

  But, then she remembered what she had realized the moment the sheriff had shoved her into this cell.

  No honest man could ever marry her. Her blood was tainted with corruption and murder.

  She could not saddle Sam with her father’s sins.

  “Perhaps,” she said slowly. “Perhaps this is for the best, Sam.”

  His ruddy face went pale.

  “Fiona, how can you say that?” he asked. “Surely you don’t want to be sent back to Tennessee. And in chains like a criminal, no less.”

  “It’s not about what I want,” she said. “Someone has to pay for my father’s crimes.”

  “If anyone is going to pay, it should be your father. Not you,” Sam said fervently.

  “And how am I any different?” Fiona asked. “I stole from my father. I knew it was wrong. I knew he had probably stolen the cash to begin with. But, I did it anyway. It runs in our family, don’t you see? If you and I were to have children, they would be the same as my family.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Sam said urgently.

  “It doesn’t matter what you believe,” Fiona said. “It’s true. You cannot fix what has been broken for generations.”

  “Fiona, you’re not like your father,” he said. “You could prove it to yourself if you stayed here. Built a life here…with me. That’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s why you came here…to get away from that life.”

  She looked at Sam’s eyes. Wide and open, more trusting than she had ever known them to be. She felt tears fill her own eyes. She swallowed them back.

  “What I want is to go back to Tennessee,” she said. “That’s the only way I can make things right.”

  “Fiona- “

  “There’s no point discussing it, Sam,” she said. “I’ve made up my mind. Now, I think you should go home and rest. It’s been a long day.”

  With that, she laid back down on her cot and turned her back to him.

  It was a long while before she heard Sam walk to the door. Even longer before she heard him rap on the door to be let out.

  It wasn’t until Fiona heard the door close behind him that she pressed her eyes closed and allowed the tears to fall down her cheeks.

  Chapter 7

  There was only one place in Laramie to go when one was facing an emotional crisis.

  Sam knocked on Pastor Rhode’s door just as he and his wife were clearing the plates from the dinner table.

  Neither Pastor Elijah Rhodes nor his wife, Agatha, were surprised by this late visit. More than once, troubled young men and women from Laramie had come knocking on their door needing assistance or advice.

  Now, Sam was sitting at the Rhode’s kitchen table cradling a cup of hot tea Agatha had made before leaving the men to talk.

  When Sam had laid bare his entire plight, the good pastor took it much better than Sam had anticipated.

  “Believe it or not, Sam,” Rhodes said. “Your story is one I’ve heard before. And not only because I am a pastor and therefore a confidant to the entire town.”

  “You mean an outlaw’s daughter has come through Laramie before?” Sam asked skeptically.

  “Not exactly,” Elijah said with a small chuckle.

  “But…well…under the circumstances, I know my wife would not mind me telling you that, when she arrived here, there were certain things in her past she wished to forget,” he said. “When they were discovered, she even offered to leave. Much like your young lady.”

  “But obviously she stayed,” Sam said eagerly moving forward in his seat. His tea nearly forgotten. “What caused her to change her mind?”

  “Well, I would like to say it was me,” Elijah said. “But, I think I would be giving myself far too much credit. In the end, it was a lesson in forgiveness.”

  “Forgiveness?” Sam asked. The pastor nodded.

  “You see,” he said. “Agatha had to forgive herself for the past she could not change. And, I think she had to do that before she could begin to forgive those who had wronged her.”

  Sam sat back in his seat feeling oddly despondent. He knew this should have comforted him. That was why the pastor had said it.

  Forgiveness, after all, sounded like a simple answer.

  He had heard of this virtue before. It was often preached from the Sunday pulpit. God was always quick to forgive. We, in turn, should forgive each other and, indeed, ourselves.

  But, when he applied it to the pastor’s own wife and then tried to fit it to Fiona’s situation, it seemed like a strangely impossible task.

  “What happens when someone refuses to forgive themselves?” Sam asked quietly. He remembered Fiona in that cell. Her eyes cast down, her face white with despair. He remembered how she had turned away from him on the cot. As if she was shutting him out forever.

  “Well,” the pastor said gently. “Sometimes they need a small push in the right direction. And, from what you have told me, it sounds as though Fiona is not the only person who needs a small push towards the path of forgiveness.”

  “You mean Sheriff Branson?”

  Pastor Rhodes nodded picking up his tea and taking a sip.

  “Fiona cannot work on forgiveness if she is trapped behind bars,” the pastor said after a moment, setting his cup down. “And the sheriff certainly cannot come to terms with his own hatred while he still has her in custody.”

  Sam could not argue with this logic. Besides that, he longed to see Fiona freed. Even if she no longer wished to marry him. But, he could not see how that was likely to happen.

  Then, suddenly, he remembered the plan he had half formed before he went to Fiona’s cell.

  In all his distress about Fiona’s decision and her past, he had nearly forgotten it.

  “I think I may have a solution to that, Pastor,” Sam said eagerly.

  “Well I’m glad of that,” Elijah answered. “Would you care to share it?”

  “Yes,” Sam said. “In fact, I’ll need your help. Are you still in contact with your pastor friend in Tennessee?”

  “I am,” Elijah answered, sounding slightly perplexed.

  “If we wired him this evening,” Sam said. “Do you think it would be possible for us to receive a reply by tomorrow?”

  Pastor Rhode’s eyes suddenly widened in understanding.

  “I think it would,” he said. “He is usually quite prompt when it comes to telegrams.”

  “Good,” Sam said. “If you’ll come with me, we should be able to send the message before the town closes down for the evening.”
r />   Chapter 8

  Fiona awoke to a small patch of sunlight shining through the high window of her cell.

  She had not expected to feel the sun on her face.

  With the dreary, aching mood she was in, she had expected the weather to match. It should be cloudy and storming on such a day as this. Not bright, pleasant, and sunny as it was now.

  She pushed herself up from her cot and wondered when she would be moved back to Tennessee.

  If the men in the Applewood Sheriff’s Office were prompt in their response to Sheriff Branson’s wire, she could be on her way back as soon as tomorrow.

  She knew it was not likely to be longer than that.

  Rolling over onto her back, she stared up at that bright, sunny window as tears began to fill her eyes once again.

  She had almost been free.

  She had almost succeeded in making a life with a man she loved.

  But, as she had told herself last night, it was foolish to think that freedom was possible for her. And, even more foolish to think that Sam would stay when he knew who and what she was.

  Now, she knew she would never see him again.

  The door to the back room creaked open, and Fiona reluctantly pushed herself up on the cot.

  “Breakfast,” the young, dark haired deputy with a scar across his cheek said. He opened the door slowly and slid the tray in to her.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly though the words were nearly lost as a loud voice she recognized echoed from the front room.

  “You can’t keep her here any longer!” Sam was saying. The young deputy turned towards the front room in surprise. Nearly forgetting to lock the cell door before he did.

  “Now, Sam, please, calm down,” Branson’s voice, lower, cut across Sam’s. “There’s no reason to- “

  “You can’t keep me from seeing her at the very least,” he said.

  Before Fiona could take stalk of what was happening, Sam had pushed his way into the small back room.

  “Sam!” she exclaimed as soon as he arrived. “What are you- “

  “You’re innocent,” he said excitedly, rushing up to Fiona waving a small piece of paper in his hands. “We’ve proved it! They can’t keep you here.”