by Natalie Dean
“I wasn’t strong then, Molly.”
“You survived.”
“Until you came to Mesquite, that’s all that I was doing. Surviving. I built the ranch and built up the herd, and I was prospering, but it felt like I was empty inside. Then I decided to find a wife. And you answered. Little Molly O’Hara with that red hair.”
“You once said that my hair was so bright that God would always hear my prayers because he couldn’t miss seeing me. Do you remember that?”
“I remember.”
“I prayed for you.”
“Maybe so, but God wasn’t in Andersonville. There was nothing good in Andersonville. Just the dead and the dying. Even for those of us who walked out, there was death in us.”
“God was there, James.”
“Molly, you weren’t there,” he said angrily. “You weren’t there, and you have no way of knowing what I went through!”
“’Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,’” she quoted, “’Thou art with me.’”
“Molly, I’m trying to understand why you believe the way you do, and I’ll never interfere. But don’t ask me to believe the same way. I’m telling you what I know from a place where I was, and you weren’t. God wasn’t in Andersonville. We were abandoned.”
“How can I help take Andersonville out of you?”
“You can’t. I’m just not the man that I once was, that man is gone; you’ll have to be satisfied with that. You can call me James if it makes you happy, and you can tell me about Reddington and the plantation, but don’t expect me to fall in line. I’ll be as good a husband to you as I can be. That much I can promise. Don’t ask for more.”
“I want all of you, James. I want your joy and your pain, I want your light and your darkness.”
“What does a little thing like you know about the dark places of a man who’s been to hell?”
“James,” she said slowly. “If I die giving birth, will you raise our baby to know me?”
“Don’t talk like that,” he said. “Don’t talk of dying. Don’t you know that I think about it every day, fearing it?”
“There’s no other way to bring life into the world except with the risk of dying. I accept that. I pray that I’ll bring many children into the world. Mary Grace Watson had to wait years before she finally had a child. But she didn’t stop hoping, even though it grieved her. Cree Hardwick had to put her husband in the ground, and she’ll never stop missing him, but she’s marrying again. My mother stopped living when my father died. She didn’t love me enough to keep on going, even though my father would have wanted her to. You knew my father.”
“I’m responsible for his death,” James said, his voice low.
“How can you be responsible for his death? You didn’t shoot him in the battle.”
“I was the one who told him about the bounties that rich Northerners were offering to men who would take their place in battle. He wanted that money for you. And he died because I told him about it.”
“James, it takes a powerful lot of pride to think you have so much control over life and death. When I was thirteen-years-old, I put up my hair, and I took my mother’s position as housekeeper because she couldn’t do it anymore and we had to have a way to support ourselves.”
“My father would never have turned you and your mother away.”
“No, but my father wanted me to live on my own terms. Your father understood that, and he wanted me to have the same. I suppose the folks in Reddington must have had a jolly time laughing at Mr. Turner for letting a mere girl run his household, but he didn’t listen. I made mistakes, but I learned, and by the time he died, he knew that he could count on me. “
“You’re something, Molly O’Hara.”
“I’m Molly O’Hara Turner now,” she said. “And I’m not married to a coward. Before you leave on that cattle drive, I need to know that you’re brave enough to face the uncertain.”
Tenderly, she placed her hand on the edge of his face. “I love you, James Turner.”
“I love you, Molly O’Hara. Molly O’Hara Turner.”
She stood up. “I think you do. But you’ve got a ways to go before you love me with your weakness instead of just your strength and I want all of you. I won’t rest until you’re all mine, the shadows as well as the light.”
“You might never have all of me,” he muttered. “Not all of me is worth having.”
Molly bent over him and buried her face in his thick black hair. “I’ll decide that.”
As the day grew nearer for his departure on the drive, James seemed to need her more at night and less during the day. At night, he held her so close to him that she teased him for it. During the day, he was gone all day, and when he returned home, he was silent over supper. She wasn’t sure that he was entirely caught up in the details for the drive, although she knew that he’d taken on more men to work and had a number of tasks that needed to be completed before they could depart.
She had meant what she said, that she wanted all of him and would not be content for him to leave for the cattle drive until he had completely disclosed to her that pain that he felt. But even though James had opened some of his private doors, others remained closed, and she could not unlock them unless he gave her the key.
He would be leaving on Monday. On Sunday, she left early for church, knowing that she needed the prayers of the congregation to wrap him and the other men in the protection of their combined faith. Cree Hardwick’s fiancé, also a rancher, was joining with James to drive his herd to market, and like Molly, she was fearful of the separation to come and the threats that the men would face. The West was far from tamed; the Comanche remained a threat; rivers flooded and cattle stampeded, and a minor wound could cause death so far from medical attention. Knowing their fears and the just cause for them, the Reverend Lawrence always prayed for the men who would be leaving, and he preached upon the topic of the dangers that men of the Bible had faced while their womenfolk waited at home.
“Joshua faced the dangers of the Canaanites when he and Caleb went to scout out the land the Lord had promised them,” he said. “But he had to go forth to do the Lord’s bidding. But let us not forget the women who wait…,” he paused, and his gaze went to the back of the church. Like the rest, Molly’s eyes followed his direction.
Standing at the entrance, his hat in his hand, dressed in trousers she had never seen him wear and the new shirt she had sewn for him, was her husband, looking as if he didn’t know how to move forward. Then his eyes caught Molly’s gaze and, as if she had thrown him a rope, he walked down the aisle to sit at her side on the bench, his tan face a deeper shade of bronze, embarrassed at the public view of his path.
The Reverend Lawrence smiled. “Let us not forget,” he repeated, “those women who are brave enough to wait for their men. Women steel themselves every day to face dangers that we men know nothing about. They bring life into the world; they sustain us with their nourishment and the work of their hands. We men like to think that we are the providers, but we forget that without our women, we would be lost. God designed us for different dangers, but make no mistake, we are all soldiers in the battle to live, and God has never forsaken any of us, man or woman, if we take up His holy standard and fight in His name. And make no mistake, the women among us are as valiant as the men.”
James reached for her hand and held it, concealed in the folds of her skirt. Molly’s fingers squeezed his in response.
“Know, then, that as you leave Mesquite, the Lord God goes with you, and His angels surround you. We are weak and frail, and we don’t know what the future holds, but we know that we are sustained by the unbreakable bonds that were forged by the blood of the sacrificial lamb. Does anyone doubt that?” he demanded. “Does anyone here quail at the thought that God is mightier than our fear? No matter what lies before us, God stands beside us. Go forth into the battle of your labor and trust your soul to your Lord. Do you vow to do so?”
The congregation called o
ut their affirmation.
“Do you swear before God to acknowledge that He will care for you and those you love during good times and bad? Do you swear it?”
This time, the congregation’s answer resounded throughout the small church building. James pressed her hand. “I swear to you, Molly O’Hara Turner,” he pledged in a low voice, “before God, that I am yours entirely, in darkness and in light.”
Tears glistened on her face as she turned to him. She couldn’t kiss him in church, but her eyes told him all that he needed to know. Love hoped all things, believed all things, endured all things. Love would triumph over cattle drives and childbirth and the hell that had been Andersonville and the loss that Reddington had known. James might be a novice in the ways of faith, and perhaps it would take time before he allowed the light of Molly’s love to shine into the grim crypt of his war memories, but even a candle’s single flame could overcome the darkness around it.
Epilogue
September 1880
“A girl this time,” James said firmly.
They were on their way home, finally, after the long trek to Reddington to settle the Turner estate. James and Molly Turner would not be coming back East, but they had realized that they needed to go back to take care of things at the plantation. Mr. Falls and James had business to discuss, and Molly wanted to let Mrs. Rollings, Lizbeth, Betsy and the others see the children, all four boys, that had arrived since she had married James Turner. The visit had gone well, with many tears and much laughter as they rejoiced together, aware that, great though their losses had been, their blessings were many.
When Mr. Falls learned that neither James nor his wife wanted to retain Turner Plantation, he had accepted their suggestion to let Mrs. Rollings and Mr. Styles run it. It was highly irregular, he had told them, but then, it was highly irregular for a woman to cross the country and go all the way to Texas as a mail-order bride to find the man she thought was lost.
Molly had thought that, once she was back in Reddington, she wouldn’t want to leave again, and she wasn’t sure how James would react. But Texas was their home now, and they were eager to return. The children had enjoyed seeing the plantation, but they missed the broad expanses of the Texas landscape. As the train chugged along its route, marking off the miles of the country from the settled East to the Wild West, Molly was thoughtful.
It pleased her that, during their stay at the plantation, she and James had conceived a child. The child, which James hoped would be a girl, would be born in Texas but would always have some West Virginia roots. Whether the child was a boy or a girl, the latest of the Turner brood would be a Texan, as were nine-year-old Will, seven-year-old Liam, and the four-year-old twins Johnny and Jamie.
“What are you thinking about?” James asked her. The children were asleep, so his voice was low. They made much of the journey at night while the Turner young ones were slumbering.
“’No visible scars.’”
“What’s that?”
“You. In your advertisement, the one that I answered. You said that you had no visible scars,” Molly recalled.
“Did I?” He smiled faintly. “I wonder what I was thinking.”
“I think it was a warning.”
“A warning to a woman I’d never met?”
“I think so.”
“Molly O’Hara, you think more than any woman I know.”
“There’s a lot to think about.”
“Even after ten years?” he asked, sounding amused at the thought. “We’ve been married a long time.” He pointed to the sleeping children. “We have them to show for it. And the next one. If it’s a girl, I want to name her after you.”
Molly smiled. “Let’s see. If she ends up being another boy, we’re out of family names.”
James looked down at the sleeping boy in his arms; little Jamie was a miniature version of his father, lively and tousle-haired and blue-eyed. Johnny looked the same, but history repeated itself in his personality. Johnny was more inclined to be serious, a balance of gravity to the levity of his twin brother, whose irrepressible high spirits conjured up the memory of Mr. James for Molly.
But Texas wasn’t Virginia. There were still times when James was Jim Turner again; fewer now, but occasionally the dark places showed up. She knew that there would always be dark places in life. But love was a candle, and that single flame alone had banished most of James’ dark shadows.
THE END
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About Author - Natalie Dean
Natalie Dean has always loved reading historical fiction and writing. She pursued creative writing courses in college, but due to trying life circumstances, couldn’t pursue a writing career as she wanted in her early days. Now that her children are all grown, she is finally able to pursue writing like she has always dreamed of doing. She has several cats and one very spoiled Pomeranian at home. In addition to writing, she also has a beekeeping business that keeps her busy.
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Other books by Natalie Dean
Brides of Bannack Series
Lottie
Cecilia
Sarah
Brides and Twins Series
A Soldier’s Love
Taming the Rancher
The Wrong Bride (coming soon)
Brides of Boulder Series
The Teacher’s Bride
The Independent Bride (coming soon)
STANDALONE TITLES
Mail Order Groom
Sneak Peek: Taming the Rancher (Brides and Twins Book 2)
Book Description
TAMING THE RANCHER
Brides and Twins Book 2
Bonnie Yankovich is twenty years old and particular. None of the young coal miners in Pittsburgh suit her, so her mother tells her it’s time she looked elsewhere for a husband.
That's when Bonnie decides to head west to Texas to marry Zachary Taylor Kennesaw; the handsome grandson of a strong-willed woman who rules her twin grandsons the way she rules her ranch. BUT...when Bonnie meets her husband-to-be, he’s wearing nothing but his trousers and a winning smile; he lost his clothes in a poker game.
William Henry Kennesaw, as unlike his twin brother as a saloon is from a Sunday school, is mourning the loss of his beloved and in him, Bonnie finds a friend. But when Zachary Taylor starts showing signs of cold feet, and his friends start to tease him about losing his freedom when he’s married, Bonnie knows that she has to prove to her husband, and his poker buddies, that marriage isn’t going to be the end of him. And if that means going into a saloon herself to prove it, then that’s where Bonnie will go!
What will Zachary Taylor and his friends think of Bonnie when she shows up at the saloon?!? Will Bonnie be savvy enough to tame Zachary Taylor, or will her plan backfire on her?
Chapter 1
Even though he was squinting in the sun to see her, Bonnie could tell that the young man had beautiful blue eyes, with a shade of green, which set in his face like matching, smooth-surfaced gems. His hair was thick and tousled, the color of a pie crust that had been baking long enough to take on the hue of brown before it burned; the sunlight overhead danced on the surface of the locks, leaving shards of golden light among the strands. He was the only man she’d seen since arriving in Texas who was not wearing a hat, which accounted for the squinting. And if not for the fact that, in addition to being without a hat, he was also shirtless and unshod, she would have said that he was the most handsome man her eyes had ever seen.
It was not that he needed a shirt and shoes to
be handsome. The absence of an upper garment revealed that he spent much of his day out in the sun, apparently divested of a shirt then as well. She could not speak as to the comportment of his feet; they looked to be well-shaped beneath the dusty fabric of his trousers.
Bonnie Yankovich was not accustomed to seeing a shirtless man sitting on the front step of the general store on the main street of the town. In Pittsburgh, such a thing was unimaginable; of course, Pittsburgh was a great city, not a little Texas town of ranchers and farmers whose human population was vastly outnumbered by cattle. But growing up in a family of thirteen brothers and sisters had prepared her to deal with the unexpected, and so she held out her hand in greeting.
“Might you be Mr. Zachary Kennesaw?” she inquired.
The man grinned, showing an even, white smile that seemed to find the question most amusing. “If I am, then you must be Miss Bonnie Yankovich,” he said, rising to his feet in a smooth, seamless motion to take her hand. His grip was firm and warm and calloused, the evidence of the work he did apparent in the texture of his skin. “Zachary Taylor Kennesaw, pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Yankovich. My friends call me Z and, as we’re set to become husband and wife, I hope you will too. While we wait, I trust that I can call you Miss Bonnie?”
There was an easy gallantry to his speech that Bonnie found appealing. The drawl had a lazy, idle intonation that was quite different from the accents she was used to in the speech of the immigrant coal miners who lived in the Pittsburgh neighborhood where she came from; a place where different languages were as common as the dust and soot that layered the city in grime throughout the daylight hours. Here in Texas, there was plenty of dust, but to Bonnie’s eyes, it hardly appeared worth making a fuss over compared to what she was used to back home.