A Bride for Esau

by Parker J Cole

  The ache in her heart throbbed anew. Pulsing like a wound.

  “I wish I could meet them,” she whispered longingly into the darkness around her.

  Something seized her body. It overwhelmed her with its intensity, and she sat up in the bed.

  Could…could…she possibly…

  No, that’s impossible! What did she know about living in the sparse land of Montana? She’d never stepped one foot outside of Philadelphia. The Society had been a part of her life for so long, she had no other recollection of living outside of it.

  All the same, now that she’d given thought to the desire, the impact of it grew. The Reverend Caldwell needed a mother for the babe.

  Couldn’t she be it?

  No, Delilah, your place can be here at the Society. To be an example to the other Magdalens about the joys of righteous living.

  She couldn’t. She just couldn’t!

  Until she heard the story of the reverend and the baby, Delilah had supposed that in the end, she’d have to stay here. Now she had a choice.

  Was it the right choice?

  What did she know about being a mother? Her own had left when she was still a child. The bad blood that coursed through her mother flowed through her as well. What if she became just like her, entering riotous living?

  The staff at the Society had never felt like a family. Further, how could she leave the hustle and bustle of the city of brotherly love?

  How could she survive in a place as wild and untamed as the Montana territory?

  How could she leave the gallant, wonderful man alone to raise a child?

  How could she let another child grow up without a mother like she had?

  With a small sob, she slid out of the bed, taking the covers with her. They tangled around her limbs, but she didn’t care. Her head bowed, hands clutched tightly together, she prayed.

  Dear Lord, you already know what I am thinking. Is this what you want me to do? Do you want me to be this man’s wife and a mother for this baby? What do you want me to do? Shall I stay here at the Society, or do you want me to go?

  Mr. North seeks to cheat and defile me. Matron seeks to rip me away from Anna. What do you want? Her eyes smarted with tears. I will trust you in whatever it is you want me to do. A raspy breath escaped. I just want to do what you want me to do. I’ve been a good Magdalen. I’ve not let the evil traits of my mother come forth. I’ve obeyed the Society in almost all things. I’ve smiled even though it hurts.

  Yet, I am drawn to this man I have never seen or heard of before now. I am burdened with the welfare of this child. Is this a private call of my own heart, one I have denied for so long? Or is this you? Hot tears scalded her cheeks. I am obedient to you, Lord. I will do whatever it is you want. Please guide me in the direction and let me find peace in whatever it is you desire.

  But I must say I want to be this man’s wife so I can be this child’s mother. I believe this reverend to be kind and good and full of your holiness to take a baby in and raise him as his own. I admire that so much that I want to help him.

  Give me the answers I seek, dear Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

  ***

  “You may now kiss the bride,” the minister announced.

  Nothing satisfied Tom North more than hearing those few words. With a wide grin, he bent his head and kissed Heather sweetly on the lips.

  “Oh, that was beautiful,” Miss Anna gasped, taking a little handkerchief, and dabbing the tears from the corners of her eyes. “So beautiful.”

  Heather’s green eyes lifted to his. Tom almost drowned in their depths. His chest expanded and without being able to contain it anymore, he let out a yell and lifted Heather in all her finery into his arms.

  “Thomas!” She squealed as he whirled her in a circle, her laughter settling over them like a blessing.

  He couldn’t wait until he finished his business for the reverend and his brother so he could take Heather back to the ranch. He hoped she wouldn’t mind the quietness of the life out there in the territory. Being here for a few days, he knew he wasn’t cut out to live in a city. Too much noise, and too many people everywhere.

  Give him the open country any day.

  As they were leaving the marriage agency, Miss Anna asked, “Where are the two of you going now?”

  “We are going over to the hotel and you’re both coming with us to celebrate.”

  “Us?” Miss Delilah exclaimed, her brown eyes wide. “Surely you can’t think we should be joining you?”

  “Of course,” Heather said. “I wouldn’t want to celebrate this day without you.”

  “But we can’t!” Miss Delilah denied. “You need time to yourselves.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about that none,” Tom assured her, “I’ll make sure we will. But I don’t mind sharing my wife for a couple of hours.”

  “No, we can’t. Married couples need—”

  “Please?” Heather reached out and clasped Miss Delilah and Miss Anna’s hands into one of her own. “Won’t you celebrate with us?”

  Who could say no when the prettiest woman on God’s green earth turned those big green eyes on them?

  Tom had hired a carriage for a few hours, and it was waiting for them when they went outside. The weather had warmed some, and it was a good day. He lifted Miss Anna and Miss Delilah into the carriage before lingering outside the door with Heather.

  “Thomas, what?”

  “This is to tide me over until I have you all to myself.” He tilted her chin up and stole a longer, deeper kiss, hoping she’d know from his urgency that he was eager for her and hoped she wouldn’t let her friends intrude too long on their day. Not that he minded their company, and he wanted Heather to be happy. But he’d waited a lifetime for a woman like Heather, and he wasn’t going to let too much time pass before he made her his.

  When he drew back, her eyes were dreamy and heavy lidded, her mouth puffy, and her fingers clutched at his shoulders.

  He bent his head, whispering in her ear, “Now, you look like a bride.”

  Arriving at the hotel, they were led to the dining room. Tom kept staring at Heather, unable to believe that somehow, God had led them to be together. He wanted to tell the whole world how happy he was.

  When the server led them to sit down, he couldn’t contain himself anymore. He stood up and shouted at the top of his lungs. He wanted the folks in Montana to hear him.

  “Everybody! I just gotta tell ya!”

  Heather, Miss Anna, and Miss Delilah froze, their gem eyes staring up at him in horror.

  “Thomas,” Heather whispered frantically, “what are you doing?”

  He chucked her chin lightly and shared a smile with Miss Anna and Miss Delilah. “I want everybody in the world to know. I done gone and married the prettiest ladies in the world.”

  Smiling he looked around, waiting for the cheers to go up or someone to clap their hands.

  Nothing but silence.

  The smile started to droop from his face. Why was everybody staring at him like that?

  “Thomas?”

  He glanced down at Heather. Her face turned almost beet-red. Miss Anna and Miss Delilah wore similar shades of color. Why were they acting like that? Sure, maybe he was a bit too loud and all but at least he thought they’d find some sort of humor in it.

  Maybe folks in Philadelphia didn’t know how to have a good time anymore.

  Reason enough to leave for Montana as soon as they could.

  “Thomas, please sit down.”

  He did as she asked, shaking his head. “Folks sure are strange here. You’d think they never heard a man get married before.”

  “It’s not that, Thomas,” Heather said, her fingers nervously smoothing the white tablecloth. “It’s what you said.”

  “What I said?” He gave a hearty laugh. “I said I done married the prettiest lady in the world.”

  Heather’s head dipped. “No, Thomas, you didn’t say that.”

  “I didn’t?”

&n
bsp; “No,” Miss Anna added, clearing her throat. “You said you married the prettiest ladies in the world.”

  “I know,” he laughed again. “I told you I said that.”

  “No, Tom,” Miss Delilah interjected, her brown eyes trained steady on him. For once, she didn’t have the smile she usually wore on her face. “You said, prettiest ladies, not lady. Though I’m flattered that you should consider me in the same caliber of loveliness as your wife, everyone now thinks you’re a polygamist.”

  Tom started to correct her when he mentally went over his words. “Ah, Sam Hill!”

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t my little brother.”

  The sound of Simon’s voice made the skin along his back tighten. He had hoped he could avoid even seeing his brother. He knew he lived close by but he’d no desire to visit. Tom went to turn around when he glanced across the table and saw Miss Delilah’s face. She’d gone pale as snow, her mouth falling open, the lips bloodless. The pulse at her neck beat rapidly, and her eyes were so wide and shiny he thought they were set to fall out.

  “What is it, Miss Delilah?” he asked.

  “Now, you can’t be ignoring your own brother over these ladies, can you?”

  The tone in his older brother’s voice as he referred to the women at his table made his hackles rise. Tom turned. “Simon, what do you want?”

  “I didn’t even know you were in town,” Simon said, although his eyes rested on Miss Delilah and then traveled over to Heather. His brother’s gaze lingered, a queer light entering his eyes. “Well, well,” his brother drawled. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

  Before he could stop him, Simon grabbed a chair from a nearby empty table and dragged it to theirs. He set his heavy bulk down on it, the chair creaking ominously.

  “It appears congratulations are in order. You got married to…that redheaded one over there?”

  Tom felt a distinct warning come over him. Reverend Caldwell told him that sometimes the Holy Spirit spoke to folks. He knew he had to protect Heather and that was all that mattered.

  Turning his attention back to Heather, he saw she’d gripped the edges of the tablecloth with white knuckled hands. Like Miss Delilah, she’d gone pale and listless. She could barely keep her mouth closed it was trembling so bad.

  Tom touched her shoulder, but she jumped as if she’d been struck by him. “Heather?”

  “Thomas,” she said weakly. “Can we please go now?”

  What in the Sam Hill was going on?

  Naw, that wasn’t the right question.

  What did Simon do?

  “Ain’t no need for all that, Heather,” Simon said with a kind of nasty glee. “We’re family now.”

  Heather gasped, the sound more like a sob than an inhalation of breath. She refused to look at Simon or him, preferring to stare down at the tablecloth, her hair falling forward to shield her face.

  There was a sick note in Simon’s voice. Sick and familiar. Tom hadn’t heard that in years, the last being when he saw his brother beating an old dog. Tom recalled the pleasure in his brother’s face as he hurt that dog, and after fighting with him, managed to save the dog’s life.

  Tom’s eyes strayed toward Miss Delilah who had averted her face, her own body shivering. He looked at his wife again, and she was on the verge of breaking into tears.

  The blood inside his veins burned. It didn’t take a smart man to figure out his brother had been cruel to both women in some way. Anna was the only one staring with hard eyes at his brother, unabashed.

  His fingers coiled into a fist. He didn’t want to know what happened. Had a feeling that if he did, he’d beat his brother or worse.

  In your anger, do not sin…

  Reverend Caldwell said that all the time. It was all right to be angry but in being angry, you had to be careful not to sin. Anger could be good but if you hauled off and whacked someone with a butt end of a shotgun, that wasn’t gonna help the situation.

  Lord, I got a feeling that my brother got something do with Heather and what she used to do. I don’t wanna know about it but I’m askin you to help me stay calm so we can get out of here.

  “Let’s go, ladies,” Tom ordered. The women all stood, ready to hightail it out of there.

  “Not so fast, little brother.” Simon clamped his hand on his shoulder. “It’s rude to just up and run like that. Not when we all need to get to know each other.”

  Tom yanked his brother’s hand off his body. Leaning forward until his nose almost touched his brother, he gritted out. “Simon, I don’t know what you did. I don’t even wanna know, but that’s my wife you hurt. I’m going to go now, but I don’t ever want to see you near me or what’s mine again.”

  “Or what are you going to do?”

  A violent vision came over him of doing harm because of what his brother had done to Heather. It would feel so good to just beat him to a pulp. But if he did that, then who would protect Heather? Who would be there by her side to let her know that her past, no matter what it was, wasn’t her future?

  “Don’t try me, Simon.”

  He got up and the women came with him. Wrapping his arms around his wife’s shivering form, he used his body to shield her face from having to look at Simon.

  “You always were one to go after lame dogs, Tom.”

  Simon’s laughter followed them out the door of the hotel. For some reason, the tension which had gripped him seeped away and he felt like a victor.

  Getting back in the carriage, the silence settled over them. Heather had drawn away the moment they got into the carriage. Her hunched shoulders shook, and Miss Anna went over to where she sat and held her, rocking back and forth.

  Tom wanted to comfort her, suspecting she may feel as if he thought less of her. If it took him the whole night, he’d prove to her once and for all that he didn’t give two figs about her past.

  Miss Delilah sat across from them, a pensive expression on her face.

  “I want you to be honest with me, Miss Delilah. What did my brother do? And don’t you leave anything out.”

  ***

  Five days later

  “Please, Thomas, don’t. Please.”

  Heather’s high, clear voice made it through the roar of blood that pulsed through Tom’s head. He snarled, but his fingers didn’t tighten any more around Simon’s fat neck.

  His brother’s face was flushed beet-red, eyes bulging as he ineffectively hit at Tom to let him go. Tom leapt up from straddling his brother’s body in the decimated office. At some point in the tussle, the desk was upended, and books and papers littered the floor.

  “Heather,” he breathed in shakily. He launched himself over to her, grabbing her in his arms, holding her so tight he had a feeling her ribs would break from the pressure.

  But he couldn’t stop. He wasn’t there to protect her from the glob of spit that was his brother a year ago. The idea that they shared the same blood made him feel tainted. How could a man misuse a woman like Heather? How?

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered as he buried his face into her neck, clutched her even closer. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t, Thomas.” Heather’s hands moved in the small amount of space he allowed and caressed his cheeks. Something hot and wet trailed down his face. “Don’t cry.”

  “I would have never let him hurt you had I known.”

  “Oh, Thomas, please, don’t do this. You didn’t know.”

  “You miserable piece of—”

  Tom looked over his shoulder to see Simon laboring to his feet. He wheezed and then coughed, spitting out a tooth along with a nursing a bloody lip.

  “You shut up, Simon.” Tom unlatched himself from Heather’s small frame, but he kept her hand in his. “I can’t do nothing about the past but I’m telling you this now. You come anywhere near Heather, Miss Delilah or Miss Anna, I’ll shoot you like the rabid dog you are.”

  “You can’t do nothing to me,” Simon sneered then winced. His left eye was starting to close up. “You t
hink any law is gonna care about some whore?”

  Tom took a step forward, seeing red again but Heather, with her tiny hand, stayed him.

  “Don’t, Thomas. Let’s just go.”

  Tom admitted he didn’t want to let it go. He wanted to finish what he started. He wanted to beat Simon until he was nothing more than a lump of useless flesh on the floor.

  The anger surged anew, battling for dominance, for release once more.

  A small voice echoed in his mind. In your anger, do not sin…

  If he did do as the anger bid him to do, then he’d kill his brother. He’d kill him and then would have to suffer the consequences for it. He couldn’t do that. Heather was his wife to protect. They had their entire lives to live for each other. He couldn’t, wouldn’t let anything rob him of that.

  “You take that money I gave you for Miss Delilah’s debt and you keep it, you hear? You keep it and stay away.”

  Simon hadn’t wanted to take it, but he had no reason not to. The fact that Delilah would be able to leave his clutches had enraged him; however, there was nothing he could do about it.

  “Can we go please, Thomas? I don’t want to spend another second in this place.”

  Tom turned his back on his brother and said one final thing. “You are dead to me, Simon. Don’t ever speak to me again.”

  With that, they left the office. Tom never looked back.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Montana Territory

  Ten days later

  “You’re making a terrible mistake, Miss Hampton. And you’ll come to regret it.”

  Matron McDonald’s words echoed in Delilah’s ears. Though the woman had voiced her own doubts, she had stood firm in her decision. The Lord had let Delilah know through the chain of events that had occurred, that to be the wife of Reverend Esau Caldwell and the mother to his son was the right step to take.

  After the altercation in the hotel with his brother, Tom made her relate the set of events that led to her association with his brother and how Mr. North was taking advantage of her. Even having gone so far as to have the receipts stolen from Heather’s room at the boarding house.