Mail Order Bride- Springtime

by Sierra Rose

  The room absolutely reeks of grease.”

  “I know. But you have to admit the soup was delicious.”

  Camellia started clearing away some of the clutter, but Hannah, already tying an apron in place, shooed her away. “No, no, I’ll take care of this. It’s good training. You just go and—and hold your hero’s hand, soothe his fevered brow, whisper sweet nothings into his ear.”

  Hannah’s tongue, Camellia reflected uneasily, as she moved sideways to take her sister’s advice, was really growing a little too sharp for comfort.

  It was almost a relief when Dr. Havers had showed up, much later, to serve as surprised but willing sparring partner. It seemed that Hannah needed a target upon whom to focus her spleen, and who better but the good doctor?

  They had, indeed, murmured together, husband and wife. He had asked her several times how she was feeling, honestly; she had done the same. With pleasantries out of the way, he could question the state of affairs at the mercantile, and whether she had talked to Jimmy, and what the sheriff had to say, and so on. In private discussion, Ben and Camellia had worked out a tentative plan for tomorrow, pending the doctor’s approval.

  Once the kitchen had been returned to order, Hannah decided to stroll over to the boarding house. She was anxious to see how her younger sisters were faring, and she wanted to let them know the latest news. (She was also intent upon giving the newlyweds some privacy.) It was a successful visit, with the girls sending along their best wishes and hoping to stop by the Forrester home soon; and Hannah returned in time to open the door to Gabriel’s importunate knock.

  It was almost as if he had been lying in wait for her. Except that he looked exhausted.

  “Well, well,” she greeted him waspishly, having barely had time to remove her bonnet. “Here for supper, I presume?”

  Gabriel let out a groan. “Be kind to me. Been dealin’ with a boy fulla bee stings this whole afternoon, and I’m whipped. Got any coffee?”

  “You know,” Hannah reminded him over her shoulder, as she turned to the kitchen, “there are perfectly good restaurants in this town.”

  “Ahuh. But where else could I enjoy such delightful company?”

  “Delightful. Of course. Some men have to pay for that. And what happened?”

  “Oh, to the boy?” Slinking into the parlor, to collapse like a jellyfish in his favorite chair, his expression changed from jocular to grave. “It was touch and go for a while. Reckon the boy’s system can’t handle that much venom all at once. But he’s better, despite all the painful bumps. However, I suspect he won’t be tryin’ to steal more honeycomb from hives in the near future.”

  Speaking to Ben, while the hearty soup was being heated and dished up, he approved of the proposition being made for the morrow: that Hannah would stay, for part of another day, and Camellia would spend a few hours in consultation with Jimmy. (The couple had already decided that her sister could return to her own life, after that. She had unstintingly devoted enough time to dealing with the fate of the Forresters.)

  “Don’t like havin’ her gettin’ involved in business,” Ben quietly fretted. “But I don’t see any choice. I may be laid up here a couple more days yet—”

  Gabriel interrupted with a snort. “Even a stubborn ole mule like you ain’t that strong, my friend. At least a week before I’ll let you venture out. Meanwhile...” He couldn’t hold back a sly smile, remembering his prophesy of how the pride of a certain headstrong mayor might be headed for a fall.

  What more fitting punishment than this, that Ben might have to depend on the good sense and intelligence of a mere woman!

  “Meanwhile, what?”

  “Oh, nothin’ much. Nothin’ much a’tall.”

  The doctor stayed, making a nuisance of himself with comments directed Hannah’s way like arrows straight to a target. It wasn’t until about nine o’clock, and full dark, that she yawned conspicuously, picked up one of the kerosene lamps, and started for the stairs.

  “I’m way too tired to stay awake any longer,” she grandly informed those remaining. “Good night, everyone. Good night, o mighty physician.”

  Gabe took the hint.

  When the doors were closed and locked, and the house had grown quiet, Camellia was ready for bed, as well. She paused beside the settee, to inquire whether Ben wanted or needed anything before she settled in.

  “Ahuh.” He had reached for her hand, dangling loosely in the folds of her skirt, “Will you bend down here, and give me a kiss b’fore you go upstairs?”

  Her heart immediately started picking up its beat, in response, and her insides twisted deliciously. Of course she would kiss him. She was his wife. With last week’s quarrel long past, and its cause pushed into the grey mists of memory by near-catastrophe, and a fresh realization of what’s important and what’s not, she would do whatever she could for his well-being. They had the whole future to prepare for.

  It was meant to be a light, gentle peck on the cheek.

  But he had turned, at the precise moment of contact, so that their mouths met, instead. Their mouths touched, and heated, and sparked. More intensity, more pressure, a sense of hunger, and of desire temporarily denied. Her free hand curled over the back of his head, and into his unruly, tumbled hair; his palm moved up to curve around her unbruised cheek, and then slipped down to a more enticing locale.

  Finally, breathing hard, the invalid gently, reluctantly released his clasp.

  “Cam, darlin’,” he whispered, his eyes blazing into hers.

  “Ben, darling,” she whispered, and gave a fluttered, nervous little laugh.

  “We got a lotta talkin’ to do, still. We gotta work out how to deal with each other. T’morrow.”

  “Tomorrow.” It was a pledge and a promise.

  “And—Cam...’Fraid I ain’t gonna be much good to you for a while—uh—as man and wife. But I think we need to make a fresh start there, too, whatddya say?”

  “I say—” Still shaken by the depth and power of that kiss, she was working to put words together, “I say you’re absolutely right.”

  She had gone to bed at last, with all the stars in the night sky gleaming with diamond brilliance, and all the bird flocks suddenly fluting in joy.

  Chapter Nineteen

  SO HERE SHE WAS, BLINKING herself back to the present, still seated at a small round table in a back corner of Forrester’s and being attended to by the kindly and caring Jimmy Dunlap.

  Would he feel offended if she asked for the business records? Would he feel she (or, worse yet, Ben) didn’t trust his abilities?

  “I wonder,” she asked him now, “since I seem to be tucked out of the way, might I see the account ledgers you keep?”

  “Absolutely, Mrs. Forrester. Let me leave you for just a moment, whilst I go fetch what you require.”

  Camellia spent several hours poring over the books, making sense of what had been written, trying to understand notes and instructions, and what the figures meant. (In Ben’s scrawled or crabbed handwriting, the words might have compared to Egyptian hieroglyphics.) Orders placed, and with whom, and when; orders received, and the date, and where stored. Cost of goods; final purchase price.

  And a separate list of just a few names, originating some number of years ago, showing a balance due for each.

  She swallowed a hard lump in her throat. Charity. Clearly, Ben was extending charity to those who desperately needed what he had, but couldn’t afford to pay for it.

  According to what she could see, Forrester’s was turning quite a tidy little profit. And had been, for some time. That was a relief. Even bereft of a substantial dowry, she would not be a millstone around Ben’s neck. Nor would her sisters, should she try to help them financially until they were able to survive completely on their own.

  It was interesting to watch how efficiently and affably both Jimmy and Miss Gotham dealt with customers. And Camellia’s excuse for that watching couldn’t have been more reasonable: she was enjoying a bit of leisure, and what was
left in her pot of tea.

  During a lull in business, she asked more questions of both the clerks. She also finally met the two young men who helped out on an irregular basis—Jesse Milgrim, a quiet, dark-haired handyman around town; and Matthew Palmer, a shy blonde boy barely out of his teens.

  Thanking everyone for their assistance and information, she left the mercantile much later than she had planned, brimming over with ideas to improve and enhance. The several hours of her absence had doubled, and she found Ben, still ensconced on the settee, looking anxiously toward the door when she walked in.

  Of course, that might have been because the doctor was once again in residence, and he and Hannah were wrangling over whether he might just as well pack his bags and move to an upstairs bedroom. Had he mistaken the Forrester home for Mrs. McKnight’s boarding house?

  “H’lo, Cam,” Ben greeted her with lighted eyes and enthusiasm but a telltale pallor that did not bode well.

  “Hello, husband of mine.” With so many changes recently taking place—“Turnabout,” indeed, in so many ways!—she felt no compunction whatsoever in spontaneously giving him a prolonged and passionate kiss—before witnesses, no less. Then she went after them. “Are you two upsetting my patient with all this bickering?”

  Hannah began an immediate protest. “I hardly think—”

  Just as Gabe chimed in, “She’s always after me about—”

  “Tut-tut-tut,” an irked Camellia interrupted. “Do you see how he looks? I’ll have no more of it, not when it’s adversely affecting Ben’s recovery. So kindly call a truce, right now.”

  “Huh,” muttered the doctor. Then he glanced up from under heavy brows to ask meekly, “Can we start up our squabblin’ again once Ben is back on his feet?”

  Of course he stayed for supper. That was the man’s primary purpose in showing up. And Hannah’s deliberate slamming down of plates onto the table certainly showed her opinion of having to suffer through yet another visit. They finished off the soup, for which Camellia gave a silent prayer of thanks. Tasty though it was, the fare was beginning to get monotonous.

  “I was so pleased to find that you have some lovely fresh fruit at the store, Ben,” she offered, once they had finished eating and the omnipresent dishes were waiting to be cleared. “I must go in and do some actual shopping on Monday.”

  He managed a weak, sallow grin. “Forrester’s will appreciate the business.”

  After the usual kitchen work had been taken care of, Hannah retrieved her perky little hat and reticule. “I’ll be off now. You won’t need me tomorrow, will you?”

  “No, you may have a day to yourself, Hen.” Camellia enveloped her sister in a fierce hug. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for everything.”

  Gabe harrumphed at the door, which he was holding open. “C’mon, princess, I’ll walk you to Mrs. McKnight’s. Wouldn’t wantcha gettin’ lost along the way.”

  “It’s still full light outside,” Hannah pointed out with only a slight degree of coolness. “I certainly doubt that—”

  “Oh, tarnation, just move it, will you? I’m tryin’ to be nice here, and you’re spoilin’ the whole effect.”

  Once they were gone, and Camellia could draw up a chair beside her husband, she sighed feelingly. “The two of them sometimes weary me no end,” she confessed.

  “Yeah, me, too. Glad we’re finally alone. So, tell me,” a bit of color had risen to Ben’s bearded cheeks, “how things went for you at the store. Figured you to be home a bit earlier.”

  She would be careful about which exciting suggestions for Forrester’s she broached. Realizing that Ben would not take easily to new concepts—to change of any kind, for that matter, being the resistant person he was—she would have to gradually introduce each one, and let him get used to the idea of his wife taking an active part in the business he had established, built up, and coddled.

  “Ben, it was so fascinating I simply didn’t keep track of time!”

  “Glad to hear it, sweetheart.”

  Looking deeply gratified, he took her hand in his. Just like an old married couple, spending a quiet evening together, with nothing more compelling to do than share quiet conversation and make new memories.

  Camellia was so looking forward to their future, with the sort of hushed joy that precedes some spectacular event or adventure: celebrating a spirited bout of Christmas cheer, perhaps; traveling overseas to an exotic locale; meeting and talking with an exalted personage.

  For wasn’t this, embarking upon marriage to a man who, she knew, would turn out to be the love of her lifetime, the most spectacular adventure of all?

  “Ben,” she said with a wide smile that promised heaven and earth, and all the realms in between, “I have finally found where my talents lie. I have found where my calling is. With you, my dearest. Always, ever and ever, with you.”

  The End

  Don’t miss the summer bride next!

  Each sister will get a story!

  Book 1 - Mail Order Bride: Springtime

  Book 2 - Mail Order Bride: Summer

  Book 3 - Mail Order Bride: Fall

  Book 4 - Mail Order Bride: Winter