The Bargain Mail Order Bride

by Ruth Ann Nordin

“Is she?” Juliet’s gaze went to the woman’s stomach, but she couldn’t tell by looking at her that this was true.

  “She’s not due until the middle of March,” Caroline explained as if she could read her mind. “It’s still too early for her to be showing.”

  They reached her, and Phoebe set the crate on the floor. By the expression on Phoebe’s face, Juliet knew this was as awkward for Phoebe as it was for her. And knowing that, the tension in Juliet’s stomach eased.

  “Phoebe, this is Juliet,” Caroline began, “and Juliet, this is Phoebe. You two have something in common that I envy. Both of you can cook without threatening to burn the cabin down.”

  Phoebe chuckled. “Caroline, you mustn’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve learned a lot since you came out here.”

  Juliet knew Caroline had made the comment about her cooking to lighten the mood, and she had to admit, it worked. The last of her tension was gone.

  “I have a feeling Caroline’s not as bad as she claims,” Juliet told Phoebe. “I think she’s saying that for our sakes.”

  “You’re probably right,” Phoebe replied. “I suppose we might as well get it over with. I’m Abe’s wife, and you’re Carl’s wife. Obviously, our husbands don’t get along, but I see no reason why we can’t.”

  Juliet smiled. “I agree. Everything that happened between them is because of their father. Neither one asked to be put in the situation they’re in. Carl had no control over his father seeking out a mistress, and Abe had no control over being born illegitimately.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but I can see how their father had a lot to do with how things are between them.”

  “That doesn’t mean things have to continue to be bad,” Caroline spoke up. “I like to believe that our past doesn’t have to determine our future.”

  “I hope not,” Juliet replied, more for her sake than Carl’s or Abe’s.

  “I know it doesn’t,” Caroline said. “It’s not what’s happened in our past that defines us. It’s what we do now that matters.”

  “I don’t know,” Phoebe replied. “There are a lot of painful wounds from the past. Even if there could be an agreement of what to do with the stream, would it be enough to undo the damage their father did?” She lowered her voice. “Abe hated their father.”

  “Carl hated their father, too,” Juliet whispered. “He only wants the stream so he can get the gold he needs so he can leave this town. I’m helping him find the gold, and there’s a good amount there that needs to be panned out. Once we get enough, we won’t have a need for it anymore. Then Abe’s free to do whatever he wants with it.”

  The door opened, and the three women looked over at the door in time to see Abe enter the store. Immediately, they took a step away from each other as if they’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t have been.

  Abe glanced at each one, his eyebrows furrowed.

  Phoebe was the one who broke the silence. “Caroline was introducing me to Juliet.”

  Abe gave a nod to Juliet. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  Sure her face was bright red, Juliet smiled and said, “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

  “We should go,” Abe told Phoebe.

  “Yes, we should.” Phoebe made a move to pick up the crate, but he did it for her. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Juliet.”

  Juliet expressed the same sentiment as the two headed for the counter.

  Caroline let out a sigh of relief and whispered, “That went better than I thought it would.”

  Yes, Juliet supposed it did. She could only guess how tense things were between Carl and Abe. It had been difficult enough to face Abe by herself. There was no doubt about it. Abe really didn’t like Carl. Though he’d been nice to her, he was wary of her because she was Carl’s wife. Phoebe, it seemed, was a lot easier to deal with. But then, it wasn’t Phoebe’s father who did all the things Abe’s father had done.

  “I was wondering,” Caroline began, “if you and Carl might like to visit with me, Eric, Allie, and Travis? Carl gets along with Eric and Travis. It might be nice to have a meal together. You can come to our home.”

  “I should ask Carl before agreeing.”

  “Of course. I already asked the others, and they think it’s a splendid idea. I don’t think the gentlemen get together a lot. It’ll be good for them to talk.”

  The door opened, and this time it was Carl who was coming into the store. Unfortunately, Abe and Phoebe happened to be leaving right at that moment, and the two men paused as soon as they saw each other.

  She hoped this wasn’t going to be one of those situations where emotion overran logic and the two started throwing punches. She’d seen such situations firsthand a few times with her brothers and their enemies. There wasn’t anything she or the other women could say to stop them if that happened. When men got angry enough, they just didn’t listen to reason.

  Fortunately, the two passed each other without saying anything. Juliet released her breath, unaware she’d been holding it. Good. At least they had more restraint than her brothers did.

  Caroline offered Juliet a smile and whispered, “I should probably get going. I’ll go out to your cabin in a couple days to find out if you and Carl will be coming to lunch at my place.”

  That was probably for the best. Juliet doubted Carl was in the mood to accept an invitation to a get-together.

  Carl headed over to Juliet just as Caroline left. Caroline offered a greeting, which he returned, then hurried to the counter.

  “Did you find a suitable pair of gloves?” Carl asked.

  “Yes. I gave them to Daniel.”

  “Good.” He glanced around the store. “Is there anything else you want to get?”

  “To be honest, I haven’t had a chance to look through here.” She gestured to the many shelves. “While I was trying on the gloves, Caroline came over to talk to me, and we’d been talking ever since.”

  She decided not to mention her brief conversation with Phoebe. It didn’t seem like something he wanted to hear, especially not after running into Abe on his way into the store.

  Instead, she opted to add, “Caroline invited us to have a meal with her, Eric, Allie and Travis. She didn’t say when she wanted to do this. She only extended the invitation, so we don’t have to give her an answer today. She’ll come out to our place in a couple of days to get our answer.”

  “Is this something you want to do?”

  “Me?” He wanted to know what she thought of going to the lunch?

  “She’s really inviting you. I’ll just happen to come with you.”

  That was an odd way of putting it. She had mentioned that Eric and Travis would be there. Surely, he understood that the men would want to talk to him.

  “If you want to go, the answer is yes,” he said. “If you don’t, then we’ll tell her I said no.”

  He might not have realized it, but his comment revealed something sweet about him, something that she hadn’t expected. He cared about her enough to let her make the decision. More than that, he was willing to look like the spoilsport if she didn’t want to go.

  Smiling, she touched his arm, careful to keep it light in case she startled him. “I think we should go.”

  That way, it wouldn’t make him look bad, and it might even be nice for him to talk to Eric and Travis. Caroline was right, after all. Men should have a chance to talk to each other, and Carl had spent all of his time with her at the cabin.

  “We can agree to stay for one hour and then go back home,” she suggested, in case the thought of going made him uneasy.

  “No. We’ll stay for as long as you want to be there.”

  “Well,” she glanced over at Caroline, “maybe I should tell Caroline we’ll go while we’re here. Then she won’t waste her time coming out to our place to find out what we decided.”

  Since he indicated his agreement, she talked to Caroline about the lunch and then used the rest of their time in the store to pick out a few more item
s she thought would be good to take home.

  Chapter Twelve

  Later that day as Carl sat in the barn, he reread the words on the Wanted poster. He was surprised Juliet had given him her real name. If there was a bounty on his head for $25,000, he would have made something up. Beyond marrying him, she must not have thought through her plan of escape from Texas.

  Well, at least now he knew why she’d come up to meet him as quickly as she had. Phoebe had taken time to say good-bye to her family. Juliet, however, had started her journey up here as soon as she received his letter.

  Carl read the contents on the Wanted poster again, as if doing so for the hundredth time would tell him more than what little he knew. It only said she was wanted “dead or alive” and that there was a $25,000 reward for turning her in. There was nothing about what crime she’d committed. But if there was a $25,000 bounty on her head, it had to be serious. That was a lot of money. A person could go anywhere in the country and live very well off of that kind of reward.

  As soon as the thought came to him, he dismissed it. No. He couldn’t do that. Not to her. He liked her. He wanted her to stay with him. She was the first person who’d treated him like he mattered, like he had something worthwhile to offer. If she’d been Lydia, he would do it without blinking. But then, he never did like Lydia.

  He heard Juliet calling out to him from the cabin. Jerking to his feet, he folded the poster, shoved it into his pocket, and went to the barn entrance before she came out to find him.

  “What is it?” he called out to her.

  “It’s time to eat,” she called back.

  “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  She smiled. “I think you’ll like it. I made shepherd’s pie. Ever have it?”

  “No, I can’t say I have.”

  “My grandmother on my mother’s side brought the recipe with her from Scotland.”

  “I look forward to trying it.”

  He waited until she slipped back into the cabin before he pulled the Wanted poster out of his pocket. No. He wouldn’t turn her in. And more than that, he couldn’t risk someone finding this poster. He had to get rid of it.

  Scanning the barn, he caught sight of the lantern hanging by the door. Of course! He’d burn it.

  He went to the table and unscrewed the lid from one of the jars and pulled out a match. After he lit it, he set fire to the poster, holding it until the fire almost reached his fingertips. Then he let go of it and stomped on the flames until he put them out.

  He knelt by the bits of the paper that remained. Good. They were too small to tell that they’d once been a Wanted poster. He picked up the scraps and dumped them outside before he went back into the barn and screwed the lid back on the jar.

  There. Now Eric wouldn’t get the poster, and no one would be the wiser. He could tell Juliet, he supposed, but since he’d gotten rid of it, he saw no reason to alarm her. He lived all the way out in a small town, and better yet, his cabin was well-hidden in the trees. Someone had to know how to get here in order to find it. As long as he kept her away from town, a stranger coming through wouldn’t recognize her. If the preacher stopped by, he would deny it was her. The man was naïve enough to believe anything. So she was safe. Without a Wanted poster, no one living here would know she was an outlaw.

  Reassured he’d taken enough measures to keep her safe, he went to the cabin. The moment he stepped into the small home, the smell of the freshly cooked meal greeted him. He’d never had shepherd’s pie. Until today, he hadn’t even heard of it. But if the smell was anything to go by, he suspected he was going to enjoy it. Then again, he liked all of the meals Juliet made.

  He shut the door then removed his coat and hung it on the hook.

  “I wanted to try something different,” Juliet said as she placed two cups of coffee on the table next to the plates of hot food. “I don’t know about you, but I was getting tired of stew and sandwiches.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t mind it.” He sat in his seat. “Besides, you made more than those things for supper.”

  “Maybe, but it seemed like I made those two things the most.” She put the coffee pot aside and went to her chair. She sat across from him and smiled. “It feels nice to have a wide selection of food to make. I missed it.”

  He picked up his fork. “Did you make a lot of different meals in Texas?”

  “I did. I lived in a bigger town, and the general store was only a few blocks from my home.”

  “Really?” She hadn’t spoken much about Texas. He had assumed she’d lived out of town since she was so comfortable in pants and insisted on wearing braids. “Do women wear pants down there?”

  “No. Well, they do if they live on a farm, but they don’t in town. Though I have seen some cowgirls coming through Texas, and they wore pants.”

  “Cowgirls?”

  She nodded and put her fork into her portion of shepherd’s pie. “Most of the cowgirls were Indian or Mexican, but that isn’t surprising since most of the cowboys were Indian and Mexican, too.” She took a bite of the pie and glanced up at him. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  Oh, right. The food. If he hadn’t been thinking of that Wanted poster and trying to figure out what she’d done to earn such a high bounty, he would have been paying better attention to the meal. When she’d asked him not to inquire about her past, he hadn’t given it a lot of thought. He wasn’t looking for someone who’d be a friend. That being the case, he didn’t care what had happened to her. But now as he watched her, he realized that was exactly what she’d become: his friend.

  “I promise, the food won’t hurt you,” Juliet teased.

  He chuckled. “I know. I’m just thinking over everything that’s happened today.”

  “Well, there was a lot we brought back from town. I don’t know how you managed to fit all our supplies into the wagon with that hay, but you made it work. My brothers would have envied you for that.”

  “Your brothers?” This was the first time she’d told him so much about her past. There was the snippet about the cowboys and cowgirls, and now he was learning she had brothers.

  She cleared her throat and turned her attention back to her plate. “I had a couple.” She took another bite of her meal. “It doesn’t matter.”

  He wanted to ask her what didn’t matter. Was she talking about her brothers? Maybe they had something to do with that Wanted poster. But then, whatever had happened, it might not have had anything to do with them.

  He glanced at the meal in front of him. He had promised her he wouldn’t ask about her past on the day they married, and he wanted to keep his word, especially since she treated him better than anyone else ever had.

  After a long moment, he decided she was right: it—whatever it was—didn’t matter. Her past had nothing to do with their future. He didn’t care what crime she committed. The only thing that mattered was that she was with him.

  Yes, it was selfish on his part, but he wasn’t going to do anything to ruin the one good thing he had. Maybe that made him a bad person. But he didn’t care. He was tired of being alone.

  He finally dug his fork into the food and took a bite. She looked over at him, as if she wanted to know what he thought.

  With a smile, he assured her, “It’s good. I like it.”

  She returned his smile, and his heart warmed. Whatever it took, he decided he would do everything he could to keep her safe. It was the only way to ensure they would stay together.

  ***

  Four days later, Juliet woke up to an unexpected chill in the air. Despite her nightshirt and blankets, she didn’t feel all that warm. She was tempted to pull the blankets over her head and burrow into the bed, but the traces of daylight filtering through the window told her it was later than she thought.

  She threw off her blankets and hurried to get dressed, glad she’d thought to add a thick dress when she had packed her things. She’d been in such a hurry that she hadn’t been sure she remembered to do that. But she had, and it was nice
to put on something warm.

  A quick glance out the window notified her why the cabin was unusually chilly this morning. There was a fresh layer of snow on the ground. It wasn’t more than a skiff, but it was enough to cool things down. On top of that, the day was a cloudy one. She didn’t know if that meant they could expect more snow or not. Either way, she had to be diligent about keeping the cabin warm.

  She put some wood into the cookstove and started a fire. Soon enough, it would start to warm things up. In the meantime, she gathered the ingredients she’d need to make breakfast. She glanced out the window, this time looking at the barn.

  Carl never came in until she told him breakfast was ready. She suspected he did that because he was afraid he’d catch her without her clothes on. He still wasn’t making any move to touch or kiss her. If she felt at liberty to talk about their wedding night, it might not be so awkward to broach the topic.

  He couldn’t very well get a child by looking at her. It was a shame she didn’t know more about his marriage to Lydia. She was sure it’d clear everything up. Then she’d know the best way to deal with it.

  Her gaze went to the ingredients she needed to make pancakes. Maybe today she’d make breakfast while he was in the cabin. It’d be nice to talk while cooking for a change.

  Decision made, she grabbed her coat and slipped it on before she went to the barn. Usually, she’d find Carl feeding the horses or sitting in a chair as he stared off into space. But today, he wasn’t doing either of those things. In fact, it appeared as if he hadn’t even fed the horses.

  Eyebrows furrowed, she climbed the ladder that led to the loft. Carl was curled up in the corner of the small area, eyes closed and shivering under his blankets.

  “Carl?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer, so she crawled into the loft and approached him.

  She lightly shook his arm. “Carl?”

  His eyes flew open, and she realized she’d woken him up. How could he sleep while he was cold? She touched his cheeks. Even the stubble on his face didn’t hide how chilly he was.