Mail Order Bride – Alice in Winterland: Clean Sweet Western Cowboy Romance (Seasons Mail Order Brides Book 3)

by Annie Lane

  Louise and Henry are thrilled with the idea of becoming grandparents. In fact Louise has already started knitting so many bonnets and booties that I’ll never have a dresser large enough to store them all. I shouldn’t complain though — they are absolutely adorable!

  The repairs on the workshop are finally coming to an end. Gabe has worked tirelessly these last few weeks. He’s put in many hours of back-breaking work and now the blacksmith’s depot is almost twice the size of the original barn. The walls are repaired and the glass windowpanes have been replaced. The benches are now overflowing with more tools than I’ll ever care to know anything about.

  Gabe even had a fancy new sign made up to hang out front that reads —

  G.W. Calhoun Metalworks

  est. 1884.

  And he made sure to leave enough space right there in the middle to add the words —

  & Sons

  … just in case the need arose.

  My husband is easygoing about most things, but he certainly does like to plan ahead and for that small mercy … I will be forever grateful.

  Love,

  Alice.

  The End

  I hope you really enjoyed Alice & Gabe’s story – if you have time, a review would be really appreciated.

  For a sneak peek of Book Four — Spring Belle, please turn the page.

  And, if you’d like to be notified as soon as it’s available, please sign up to my mailing list by clicking HERE.

  * * *

  Sneak Peek — Spring Belle

  Seasons Mail Order Brides

  Book Four – Spring Belle

  Seattle

  March 21st, 1887

  Chapter 1.

  Belle Saunders was furious.

  She was so angry that her plump cheeks took to trembling in a way that they never had before and her fingers twitched, balling up into fists at her sides.

  The walls were closing in on her. Never before had she felt more like a wild bird trapped inside a cage – a cage built of moss-stained bricks and smothered in an arching spread of vines.

  She could barely breathe.

  For almost fifteen years, Belle had toiled away as the Mistress of Seattle’s Saint Anne’s Orphanage, and while, most days, she liked her position – cooking and cleaning and caring for children who had no one else to love them – it was a thankless job and often, a lonely life.

  Life’s too short to waste, and tomorrow isn’t a given.

  These words her grandmother had often whispered to her when she was just a small girl. She would lift her up onto her lap and hold her in her frail arms – brushing, braiding and tying pretty ribbons into her long, flowing hair.

  Now she understood her Granny’s words. Belle knew that if change didn’t find her soon, then she would have to take matters into her own hands, and go looking for it instead.

  What she needed was a vacation. It was long overdue.

  But apparently Saint Anne’s owner, Mr. Graynger, thought otherwise.

  Belle placed the pot of steaming broth back on the stove and stormed out of the kitchen, following Mr. Graynger down the corridor toward his office. “Please, Sir ... I think a change of scenery might do us all the world of good. Just a month’s leave is all I’m asking for. I haven’t taken a single day off in over a decade.”

  “Oh, what a sad story,” he deadpanned. “I told ya my answer twice already, so git off my back. I ain’t got money just laying ‘bout to waste on dead wages. The cost o’ replacin’ ya for a month would be as hefty as heck and you rightly know it.”

  He spun on his toes and closed the door in her face.

  But Belle had other ideas.

  She knew the old miser would think that way. He was tighter than bark on a tree after all. So she stretched out her arm against the wood just before it met the frame, and she suddenly wished that she still had hold of that pot – for she was in a ripe mood to tip it straight over the foolish man’s head.

  “Please Mr. Graynger,” she begged, hoping to find a hint of compassion buried somewhere deep down inside him. “My dear father is terribly unwell. He lives all alone in Albuquerque and needs me to take care of him. He hasn’t another living relative left here on this good earth. I’m the only one he can depend upon until he’s back on his feet again.”

  Belle concentrated hard then on keeping her features smooth and her eyes focused. She wasn’t overly proud of herself for lying to the man – straight to his face no less – but right or wrong, she knew it was the only way.

  Thoughts of her father filled her mind – down there in sunny Florida, the picture of perfect health, keeping company with her mother. The pair of them laughing together, playing hand after hand of rummy, sipping lemonade on their back porch – and she knew she couldn’t so much as flinch or Mr. Graynger would know.

  For he was certainly no fool.

  If he caught wind of her intentions to travel instead to Montana to visit the two girls she’d raised as if they were her very own daughters – her dear friends Mrs. Charlotte Ackerman and Mrs. Elizabeth Mason – then she would undoubtedly find herself unemployed, and promptly tossed out on the street like a worthless bag of trash.

  Mr. Graynger frowned. “And what do you propose happens to this place in your absence? I’m far too busy to be wastin’ my precious time washin’ dishes while you’re off gallivantin’ ‘round the countryside and fussin’ over your father.”

  Mistresses Belle was one step ahead of him. “I’ve arranged for a temporary worker from the agency. A lovely young lady by the name of Emma-Jane Brown. She can start forthwith and has agreed to a fair and reasonable tariff, Mr. Graynger. I interviewed her just yesterday on the off chance you might change your mind. I’m sure you’ll find her perfectly delightful. She comes highly recommended from one of the wealthiest families in town, and she’s...”

  Mr. Graynger held up his hand. “Exactly how old is this young lady?”

  Belle sighed. Of course that’s the first thing you’d ask, she thought to herself, mindful of avoiding his putrid breath and the abhorrent sight of his stained teeth right there in her face. “I’m not entirely sure, Mr. Graynger, but her qualifications are...”

  “Blonde or brunette?”

  Belle felt her shoulders slump. “I believe the young lady has dark hair. She’s also well educated, resourceful and...”

  “Lips?”

  “Yes, Mr. Graynger!” she huffed. “The girl has lips! Now could we please…?”

  “Pretty lips?

  Belle raised her voice without thinking. “How is that in any way pertinent?”

  “I think we both know the answer to that question,” he said, his voice thick with implication. When Belle sneered in his direction, his smirk fell clean from his face and he scoffed, “Oh, for Goodness sake ... book your ticket for the end of the week, I can’t stand the constant bleating a moment longer.” He pointed a finger sharp at her chest and jabbed her once. “But you’ll see to it before ya leave, that Miss Emma-Jane moves her belongings into the spare room right across the hall there. Right where I can keep my eye on her. That way she’ll be nice and close if I happen to get lonely late one evening.”

  “Uh ... but ... but that’s Charlotte’s old bedroom.”

  “Yes, you’re absolutely right.” Mr. Graynger licked his lips and slowly nodded. “You said it yourself; Mistress Belle ... a change of scenery might do us all the world of good.”

  Chapter 2.

  Spring had arrived in the small town of Conrad, Montana. The frozen ground had finally thawed and life was beginning to flourish once more – wildflowers sprung from the earth and danced and swayed in the meadow over behind the church, the sweet scent floating in the night air.

  Doc Lawson stepped out onto his front porch, careful not to let the door creak too loudly behind him. It was close to midnight and all six of his children were tucked safely into their beds, fast asleep.

  It had been a long day and his entire body felt worn out. Every one of his two hundre
d and six bones ached. He knew facts like that. Two hundred and six bones. It came with the territory ... being that he was the only medical man for many miles around.

  Resting his back against the hard timber wall, he pressed his fingers into the skin behind his neck, massaging away some of the tension that had settled there. He’d been so preoccupied lately that he’d overlooked how desperately his hair needed cutting and the shaggy ends tickled his collar as a result. Although not quite yet forty years of age, the amount of grey somehow outnumbered the brown by at least two to one.

  His beard was a little scruffy too for that matter, but it certainly didn’t bother him. He preferred it that way in fact. He could hide behind it and not worry to know what others really thought of him. He used it as a mask of sorts, for he didn’t enjoy being seen so clearly. Not by strangers at least.

  Not by anyone if the truth be told.

  He liked to slip into the background; always the observer. And while it wasn’t just his appearance that’d recently taken a beating – being that the house was in complete disarray, the laundry was piling up all around him, and more often than not his children ate sandwiches for supper – he couldn’t help but concede that perhaps life was just simply getting the better of him.

  Doc Lawson took a deep breath then – slow and purposeful – before he blew it out again through his billowed cheeks. He pushed himself off the wall and paced the length of the porch, like he’d recently taken to doing. Up and down. Over and over again. He had some important thinking to do. The time had finally come.

  Or had it?

  That’s what he needed to get straight in his head.

  Was posting that letter such a good idea?

  The decision to take a new wife – a mail order bride – was not one to be made lightly, and it played some on his mind. He’d found the address right there in the matrimonial advertisement – the newspaper thin and worn around the edges – and while he knew he’d written all the things a man ought to write in such a letter, being that he was loyal, trustworthy and honorable beyond repute, he still couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that came over him from time to time.

  Winter had certainly come and gone, but Doc Lawson had never felt more snowed under in his entire life, and a constant loop of questions occupied his thoughts.

  Was this really what he wanted? Could he marry a girl he’d never met before? One with which he shared no connection? Would they ever grow to love each other? Or did he just want someone to care for his children and tend to the house and the finances?

  He sighed. No. That wasn’t his idea of marriage at all.

  For as far as he was concerned, marriage was more than just a business transaction. It was a sacred union, one to be cherished by two people who loved one another. It said so right there in the good book after all.

  With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

  But what other options did he have?

  He certainly didn’t have time to be out searching the land for eligible young ladies. And the chances of finding one with such kindness and willingness to take on all six of his children – especially young Sophie, who was a special case unto herself – were slim at best.

  Doc Lawson sighed as he gazed out into the evening.

  The street was deserted, and if it weren’t for a few chickens still rustling around in the coop out front, the odd whinny of his horse out back, or the gentle flicker of candlelight coming from Gabe Calhoun’s place next door – most likely due to the fact that his wife Alice was expecting the couple’s first child, and her morning sickness wasn’t so much limited to the morning time at all – then he might just have thought he’d been left by the entire town to fend for himself.

  Just then, young Sophie set free a tiny whimper that carried all the way down the hall. Anyone else would probably have overlooked it, mistaking the sound for a crying kitten or the teeny peep of a church mouse, but Doc Lawson well knew that the sound was neither of those things. She was dreaming again. He waited for that sound every night. It was all he had, after all.

  For young Sophie had not once uttered a word in all of her five years.

  There were no medical reasons for her lack of voice, and she certainly wasn’t deaf as first considered. Quite the contrary in fact. Sophie was more than capable of communicating.

  She would nod and shake her head if asked a question, and she had her own unique way of expressing herself – which usually consisted of her stomping her chubby little foot and pouting her bottom lip, and on occasion she’d been known to poke out her tongue in an act of pure defiance.

  He wasn’t a selfish man by any measure, but those small sounds in the dead of night were the only times he got to hear his beautiful daughter’s voice. And although he knew her dreams came from a painful place deep inside her, it was also just about the sweetest thing to ever grace his ears – for it was a sign that one day she may find her voice and speak. So he stood there just a little while longer before he made his way back inside the house.

  He stopped first by Samuel’s bedroom and pushed the door partly open. Inside the room he found a messy pile of sheets strewn across the bed, his son’s long legs sprawled out in opposite directions. Samuel had just turned fifteen, and insisted he was far too old to be sharing a bedroom with his younger brothers anymore. So about a week ago, Doc Lawson made the decision to forgo his small study at the very front of the house, and an entire afternoon was spent heaving and lugging and shifting mattresses all over the place until all concerned were satisfied with the new arrangement.

  Seth and Solomon certainly weren’t complaining. Samuel snored terribly, and they were both glad to see the back of him. To their way of thinking, he considered himself too good for them anyway – now that he had fuzzies on his chin and his voice was all deep and croaky.

  But the funny thing was, they noticed it always got extra squeaky when he talked about Nancy Galway.

  And he talked about her a lot.

  Apparently she was doggone annoying and too chatty, but it sure didn’t stop him talking about her all the same, and the two younger boys couldn’t quite work out what was wrong with him. To their way of thinking their brother had gone right loopy.

  Doc Lawson simply smiled and shook his head.

  Their time would come soon enough.

  A little further down the hallway he peered into the second bedroom on the left, where he found the two boys in question – twelve year old, Seth, and nine year old, Solomon – both sound asleep over by the window, their breathing deep and peaceful.

  Leaving the door slightly ajar, Doc Lawson then walked carefully to the very back of the house, where all three of his daughters shared a single bedroom. Thirteen year old Sarah slept closest to the wall. Her father tip-toed toward her, accidentally kicking a rag doll under the bed and stubbing his foot on a bucket of goodness-knows-what, before he leaned down to gently kiss her forehead.

  “Good night, my angel.”

  Stella stirred in the next bed over. She was seven years old, and the most fiery of all his children. He cringed, desperate not to wake her. He’d never hear the end of it if he did – for Stella was loud and opinionated, and didn’t take a backward step if she had something worth saying. And according to Stella – she always had something worth saying.

  Out of all the children, Stella looked the most like Doc Lawson. The others took more after his wife’s side of the family. They were all flaxen hair, fair skin and big blue eyes, whereas Stella had dark hair and bottomless brown eyes to match. Her jaw was a little square, her lips were a little full, and her cheek bones sat a little high up on her face – but without a word of a lie, she was hands down the prettiest girl in the whole school yard.

  Just ask her. She’d tell you alright.

  Doc Lawson chuckled to himself as he pulled the covers up tight beneath her chin.

  “Sleep tight, sweetheart.”

 
He glanced across at Sophie then. The bright moon shone through the window and lit her sweaty brow. He paused at the end of her bed, taking just a moment to watch her, and her broken cries filled the hollow space in his heart.

  “Hush now baby girl, Pa’s here...” he whispered, laying down beside her and pulling her into his strong arms. “Things will be better real soon. I promise ya, Sophie, you just wait and see.”

  * * *

  That’s the end of the sneak peek of

  Book Four – Spring Belle.

  It’ll be released during September 2015 , but if you’d like to be notified when it is available, please sign up to my mailing list by clicking HERE.

  (I promise to never share your email address with anyone,

  Annie x)

  Also by Annie Lane

  Series 1 – Seasons

  Book One – Charlotte’s Summer

  Book Two – Falling for Beth

  Book Three – Alice in Winterland

  Book Four – Spring Belle – coming in September 2015

  Series 2 – Seasons Sons & Daughters

  Due for release later in 2015

  If you’d like to be first to know when my next book is available, please CLICK HERE to sign up to my newsletter.

  My friend, writer Juliet James, has enthusiastically encouraged me to write and publish my books ( and even helps with editing) and I can highly recommend her books too!

  Come-By-Chance Series 1 – Brides of 1884

  Start with Book One - Ruby

  Connect with Annie