The Most Eligible Bachelor Romance Collection: Nine Historical Romances Celebrate Marrying for All the Right Reasons

by Amanda Barratt, Susanne Dietze, Cynthia Hickey, Shannon McNear, Gabrielle Meyer, Connie Stevens, Erica Vetsch, Gina Welborn

  Her heart swelled. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as if her life depended on it. Which, if she thought about it, was true. He was her life. It had taken a crazy competition to prove that to her.

  “I pick you, Sadie Rollins. Will you marry me?”

  “Oh yes, Zeke.” She tightened her embrace, crushing her flowers. She didn’t care. She could pick more flowers.

  “Then we had better get going before the others think we aren’t coming.”

  “What about Lucy and Ruby?”

  “I had a messenger deliver notes to them.” His smile faded. “I couldn’t stand the thought of them waiting when there was no chance. It’s always been you, Sadie.” He ran his fingers through her hair. “I like your hair down.”

  She slipped her arms through his, loving him more at that moment than she thought possible. Only Zeke would care so deeply for the other women’s feelings. How could she have thought him callous, even for a moment, in regard to Annabell?

  “I promise to never come up with another crazy scheme.” She hugged his arm. “Look what I’ve put you through.”

  “Don’t you dare promise that. Crazy schemes are part of who you are.” He led her down the path toward home. “If you stop, life won’t be nearly as much fun.” He grinned, a dimple on the right side of his mouth winking.

  “Can you handle a wife who can’t stand the sight of blood?” She giggled. “I’ll be useless as your nurse.”

  “You can remain with the newspaper if you’d like.” He glanced down at her. “Or work as my receptionist. Whichever appeals to you more. I won’t stifle you.”

  “Oh.” She stopped to pick another bundle of flowers. Ma would already be aghast at the sight of her daughter’s hair flowing down her back. The lack of a bridal bouquet might set the poor woman over the edge.

  They passed her house and headed down the sidewalk. At the end of the street, the town gathered, clapping as they neared. Sadie’s face heated. What a spectacle she must make, with her wild hair and dirty hem. Still, with her arm in Zeke’s, she felt like royalty.

  The town’s citizens formed two lines, and Zeke led Sadie between them. He couldn’t be happier or more proud of the woman on his arm.

  He glanced around the crowd. Ruby was in attendance, but Lucy seemed to have chosen not to come, along with her parents. Same with Annabell and her family. He didn’t blame the girls. Ruby’s letter had stated that she would like nothing more than to be chosen by Zeke but wasn’t too blind to see who had claimed his heart.

  As they made their way to the church, he couldn’t help but think this was the most unconventional wedding he had ever attended. He smiled at his bride-to-be. But it suited Sadie. She wasn’t conventional in the slightest.

  The congregation followed them into the building, taking their seats while Zeke led Sadie to the front. They took their places and faced the pastor.

  “Well, I must say I’ve never witnessed such a way of getting two people together,” The pastor said. “But it seems to have worked out well for these two. We must never question the will of God. Our God has a sense of humor, of that there is little doubt.” He smiled at Zeke and Sadie. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered…”

  Zeke heard little else until it was time for his vows. He said “I do,” and slipped his mother’s emerald ring on Sadie’s finger. Her eyes glimmered, matching the stone. She fixed her eyes on his and repeated her wedding vows.

  “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” The pastor announced. “You may kiss your bride.”

  Zeke dipped Sadie over his arm, her face tilted toward his, and planted a hearty kiss on her lips as the townspeople cheered. He raised her back to her feet, her face as red as a rose. “I love you,” he whispered, his lips close to her ear.

  “I love you, too.” She caressed his cheek. “My husband.”

  “Good people of Oak Shadows, may I present to you Dr. and Mrs. Phelps.” The pastor beamed.

  Zeke took Sadie’s hand and headed outside to the church steps where they would greet each of those who attended the wedding. While they received hugs from person after person, he kept a hold of her hand. He would never let her go.

  Ruby approached them, pretty in a gown of deep pink. “You made a good choice, Dr. Phelps. May I present you with a gift?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I would like to give you a room for the night.” Her eyes twinkled. “Have you thought of where you would spend your wedding night? I doubt your room above your office is accommodating enough for a new bride.”

  She was right. While he’d thought of little else than their wedding night since seeing Sadie in the woods, he hadn’t spent much time thinking of where they would spend it. He flushed. “I, uh—”

  Sadie giggled. “We appreciate and accept your offer. Come, husband. Let’s eat, so you won’t have to answer any more embarrassing questions for a while.”

  This time it was Sadie who did the leading. Ruby’s offer seemed to have left her new husband in a stupor. She couldn’t help but remember his comment about a doctor being familiar with the human anatomy. It seemed as if coming together with his bride was a different story.

  She loved the idea that she could fluster Zeke. She hoped to affect him the same way for many years to come.

  A table had been set up for them in front of several others at the side of the churchyard. Lanterns gave the area a festive glow, and mason jars of flowers adorned each table. The women of the town had outdone themselves, despite Sadie’s foolishness. She was a blessed woman indeed.

  After the pastor led them in a blessing for the food and for their marriage, Sadie and Zeke were served a meal of beef, potatoes, and fresh vegetables from someone’s garden. Tears pricked Sadie’s eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” Zeke peered into her face, his eyes clouded with worry.

  “I’m so happy is all. When we were young and I made you promise to marry me, I never thought for a moment that this day would actually come. Then you returned, and I didn’t think I could have a career and a marriage.” She sniffed. “I thought I had come up with a great idea to auction you off like a prize bull. Then, I thought I’d lost you. Despite my stupidity, I got everything I dreamed of.”

  He laughed. “Stop dwelling on the contest. I’m glad you did it. While it was embarrassing at times, I had a lot of fun. Those other girls will realize in time that I wasn’t the husband for them. Relax and enjoy the evening. We’re married now.”

  “You’re right.” She lifted her glass of iced tea. “A toast to us and many happy years together.”

  “To us.” He leaned closer, claiming her lips again.

  Life was good, and God had blessed Sadie beyond all reason. She couldn’t wait to see what the future had in store for the adventurous daughter of a newspaperman and the town’s most eligible bachelor.

  Cynthia Hickey grew up in a family of storytellers and moved around the country a lot as an army brat. Her desire is to write about real, but flawed characters in a wholesome way that her seven children and five grandchildren can all be proud of. She and her husband live in Arizona where Cynthia is a full-time writer.

  The Highwayman

  by Shannon McNear

  Dedication

  To my darling family, who remain the lifeblood of my inspiration.

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to Lisa K. Jilliani, historian and living history interpreter, for the copy of the William Alexander diary, which first introduced me to the life of a colonial wagon master. Also to the lovely Liste Members of the 18cLife Yahoo group, especially Robert Sherman, living history interpreter at Middleton Place of Charleston, South Carolina, for patiently answering questions about colonial-era men’s boots and handling teams of oxen. As always, I uncovered a wealth of information I was barely able to tap in the course of one small story.

  My thanks also to Becky, for taking a chance on a nobody writer, and to Ellen, for making my first real edits as fun as they were challenging.

  A nod of
thanks—and apology—to Alfred Noyes, for his poem “The Highwayman.” My deepest thanks to the Lord, who shuts doors but also opens them. And to my first readers and critique partners… both those who loved the story and those who didn’t. You all serve a very important purpose in my life!

  The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

  SONG OF SONGS 2:8, 10

  Chapter 1

  The Great Wagon Road, lower Shenandoah Valley, on the eve of the American Revolution

  I can’t do this anymore.”

  Samuel Wheeler said the words so quietly, he wasn’t sure his cousin Jedidiah heard him over the patter of rain and the creak and rattle of wagon and harness.

  But Jed’s ears were sharp. “What do you mean? We have to make this run. All the way to Philadelphia and back, by the end of the month.”

  The oxen foundered in a patch of mud. “Get up!” Sam called, tapping them with the slender goad he always carried, and they forged ahead.

  “And,” his cousin said, “you can’t avoid seeing Sally again. As if you’d want to.”

  Sam gritted his teeth.

  “Of course, if you mean you can’t keep silent any longer about your feelings for Sally,” Jed went on, all reasonableness, “that’s a good thing.”

  “You know very well what I mean.”

  Hunched against the rain, Jed snorted. “Ah. That.”

  “It’s ridiculous.”

  “’Tisn’t.”

  “You are to blame for the entire thing.”

  Jed chuckled. “You put on the coat and boots. Tied the kerchief around your face.”

  Sam swallowed back a burn. “At your instigation. It was mad.”

  “Ah, come now. Admit you’ve enjoyed it.” Jed grinned. “You picked up the whip and stood down tyranny. Put those redcoats on the run, muskets or nay. And they can’t find a shred of the one who did it, though his exploits are told all up and down the Great Road.”

  The familiar elation rose within Sam, but he held on to his grump. “I get no sleep to speak of.”

  “You slept well enough last night.”

  “Aye, one whole night in three.”

  “Stop bellyaching already. Besides, it’s tonight you’ll see Sally again.”

  Sam backhanded his cousin’s shoulder, and Jed laughed, swaying away. “If we get there in time,” Sam said.

  “Oh, we will, rain or no. Nero and Brutus are solid enough, aren’t you, boys?”

  It wasn’t just the oxen. Sam eyed the trickling runoff in the wagon ruts ahead of the trusty pair. If a wheel or yoke didn’t break—they’d had that happen often enough, to be sure. He shifted his gaze to the low-slung clouds, draping the treetops that pattered with the drips and obscuring the rolling mountains above. Nothing overly threatening there, although one could never tell.

  “In all seriousness, though.” Jed elbowed him. “When will you finally speak to Sally? It’s killing me to watch you make calf eyes at her and never say a word.”

  An image of her face rose before Sam—deep brown eyes, flame-red hair peeking from beneath her cap, small white teeth flashing with laughter as she navigated tables at her father’s inn, a jaunty chin with a tiny cleft. Freckles scattered across cheeks too thin, some might say, for beauty, but—her whole being radiated more light and joy than he carried in his little finger.

  A light and joy that drew him, moth to a flame, till he burned with a longing he could not douse, scorching hotter with each trip up the Great Road and back. But every time he found himself near her, his tongue grew thick in his mouth, his breathing difficult, his hands and feet clumsy. Speaking was out of the question.

  Speaking his heart, unthinkable.

  What did he have to offer her, after all? She was Sarah Brewster, called Tall Sally of the Lower Valley by some, daughter of the best-kept inn along the Shenandoah. Responsible for a good part of that keeping, herself. He was but an apprentice wagon master who made the run from his home in Charlotte Towne to Philadelphia, beholden to his uncle since childhood.

  He had nothing. Might always have nothing.

  Beside him, Jed snorted. “And still you say naught. Cousin, you’ll die a lonely old man if you don’t change your ways.”

  “I can’t change who I am,” Sam muttered.

  “Can’t you?” Jed shot him a smug little smile. “You put on the Highwayman costume—yes, at my behest, but you wear it. Redcoats and Tories alike shake in their boots because of you. What is one slip of a girl?”

  The girl I love, Sam wanted to say, but he’d not admit that to Jed. His cousin would never let him hear the end of it.

  And this Highwayman business complicated everything. He could be shot, for heaven’s sake. At the least, found out. It wasn’t like that severely out-of-fashion coat didn’t mark him, or the boots—

  It was the boots that started it all.

  “Sally, where are the fresh linens?”

  Her mother’s voice carried from the great room to the kitchen, near the back of the first floor. Shaking her head, Sally kept kneading, quarter turn, fold, push, not missing a beat. “On the table near the counter,” she called out. Then more softly, “Right where I told you, Mama.”

  A pang of guilt assailed her. ‘Twasn’t Mama’s fault for being so beleaguered. Not when Jacky, already not a strong child, suffered a fever for three days straight, and in the meantime his twin, Johnny, got into enough mischief for the two of them. As if he sensed the seriousness of their little brother’s illness and poured all his worry into making trouble.

  She tucked the bread dough into a stoneware bowl, covered it with a towel, and set it in a corner of the sideboard. It would rise and be ready to bake by morning.

  “Sally.” Mama came around the corner, her plump, pretty cheeks flushed with exertion. A quick smile flashed despite the last few days’ worry, then faded. “I may need you to fetch the doctor for Jacky. I do not like the look of his fever today.”

  Sally nodded. “Let me know when.”

  It gave her a reason to call on her older sister, married to the blacksmith, with a pair of children of her own. Polly was small and round and pretty in the same way as Mama, making Sally feel scrawny and awkward by comparison—but she loved Polly dearly and still missed her daily company.

  “Later. For now, go count how many rooms remain empty upstairs. We may have unexpected guests on such a wet night.”

  They’d had many such guests. Sometimes the good weather brought them, as people traveled harder and farther, but others pressed on despite the rain. These were especially grateful for a warm fire and a hot meal.

  Well, the inn was ready.

  She whisked away to do as Mama asked, and while she was upstairs, the rattle of a wagon outside came to her ears. She peeked out the window at the end of the hall. It looked to be the Wheeler boys from Charlotte Towne. On their way up, if she remembered aright. Papa kept track of such things, and she should as well.

  Task finished, she lifted her skirts and ran down the stairs, slowing just before reaching the bottom. Then back to the kitchen—yes, the stew and corn bread were ready. A good thing, too, for the Wheeler boys owned hearty appetites.

  She hesitated in dishing it up—no telling how long it might take them to unyoke and stable the oxen and linger to talk with Father outside. So she kept herself busy with other things until she heard boots stamping at the back door. Johnny’s voice rose above the lower rumble of older male voices. “Any new reports of the Highwayman, Jed?”

  Sally stifled a groan. That lad was obsessed with tales of the vigilante.

  And of course Jed Wheeler indulged him. “Well, now, I just might. Let me think…”

  The sound of their tromping covered his words as they made their way into the great room. Sally shook her head, ladling stew into stoneware bowls. As if it weren’t bad enough that every time a new tale made its way up the Road—or do
wn—the other village girls were all atwitter. Not that such a figure wasn’t romantic enough, of course, but—a man like that would never look twice at her, not with all the others to pick from.

  Especially not when someone more staid and plain never looked twice at her, either. But she was too sensible to care a fig for that.

  She arranged the bowls on a tray, slid in a plate of still-steaming corn bread, added spoons and a generous pat of butter. One last moment to smooth her apron and kerchief—even a sensible girl had her vanity, after all—and then she picked up the tray and sailed into the great room.

  Jed and Sam had already found seats at their favorite table, hats off and hanging on the wall, with Johnny’s lean form draped over a chair facing them, his boyish face rapt. His back to Sally, Jed gestured wildly with both hands as he talked in that loud, brash voice of his.

  Sam, as always, sat quietly next to his cousin, broad face placid and unmoving. He glanced up at Sally’s entrance, blue eyes meeting hers and widening a fraction before he nodded once and looked away.

  Aye. Like that.

  She pasted on a smile and kept walking.

  “And then—the sheriff himself showed up to clap irons on the pair. The Highwayman had triumphed yet again, without ever firing a shot. Oh—hullo, Sally! Mm, what do you have for us tonight?”

  She set the tray on the table and unloaded it. “Oh, just our usual stew and corn cakes.” A laugh bubbled—sparked by Jed’s infectious grin, she was sure—but other than a flicker from Sam, no response came from that quarter. She ignored the leadenness of her heart and set the empty tray against her hip. “So where are you boys off to this time?”

  “Lancaster then Philly,” Jed answered, jovial as you please.

  “Any mishaps on the way, so far?”

  “None. It’s been as fine a trip as we could ask for, apart from the rain.”

  Mama bustled in, carrying a pitcher and two tankards. “Gracious, Sally, serving the food before drink! Here you are, boys. Watered ale, our best for you, as always.”