His Secret Bride (The Brides of Paradise Ranch (Spicy Version) Book 8)

by Merry Farmer

  “Stop it, sweetheart.” Bonnie laughed, hugging her again. “You worked damn hard for this, and you deserve all the credit for it.”

  “But if it wasn’t for you,” Samantha argued, “I might still be stuck in that awful saloon in Jackson Hole, taking two or three men a night.”

  Bonnie shook her head. “Say no more about it. That girl doesn’t exist anymore. You’re off to a new life.”

  “With a new name,” Pearl added. She giggled and turned to Bonnie to say, “She’s chosen the name Millicent Horner.”

  Samantha blushed and lowered her head. “I hope you don’t mind me taking your last name. I wanted it to be a tribute to you for all you’ve done.”

  The compliment stung Bonnie’s heart, especially since Horner hadn’t really been her name for nearly ten years. She wiped a tear from her eyes before saying, “That’s just fine.”

  “I’ve got her documents all prepared,” Pearl said, tugging Bonnie over to one of the room’s side tables to show her. “Brand new birth certificate, school report cards, even a few letters from her Granny Pearl in case anyone asks questions.”

  Bonnie gaped as she picked up the forged birth certificate. Anyone with any inclination to question Samantha’s new identity would have a hard time proving she wasn’t who she said she was. That had become Pearl’s specialty and joy. And Samantha would need it.

  “Has Mr. Gunn approved all these documents?” she asked.

  “Mmm hmm.” Pearl beamed proudly. “He says I would have made a right good spy.”

  Bonnie didn’t doubt it. She didn’t doubt that Theophilus Gunn would know all about spying either. The man’s life before he came to Haskell had been vivid enough to fill a whole library’s worth of dime novels. Bonnie was glad she had him on her side.

  She glanced across the room to where Samantha had gone back to celebrating with the others. She was glad Gunn had brought up the idea of sending girls who had turned their life around at Bonnie’s Place overseas to England to start anew. Elspeth Strong had gotten involved in the last few months too, using her connections in great English houses to find positions for a few girls as maids. Not all of the girls had wanted to go to such extremes to start over, but plenty of them had jumped at the chance to flee far away from the misery of their early years that an ocean was just the sort of thing they wanted separating them from their past.

  “Samantha will do well.” Bonnie’s smile grew wan as the surprise of the moment fell back into the gloom she’d carried with her from Everland.

  “I think so too,” Pearl agreed. Pearl had one of those voices that made her sound like she was about twelve years old, in spite of being well into her twenties. So it was jarring when she turned around and asked, “Were you able to take care of your special business in Everland?” with all the authority of a judge.

  Bonnie’s smile vanished completely. Tears threatened to spill all over again. She shook her head.

  “Uh oh.”

  Pearl took her hand, leading her through the throng of celebrating girls, across the hall, and down to Bonnie’s private sitting room. Bonnie managed to grab her carpetbag along the way. She went to work emptying its contents to keep herself from having to look Pearl in the eye.

  “What happened?” Pearl asked. “Didn’t he want to sign those divorce papers?”

  Bonnie shook her head.

  Pearl frowned and pursed her lips. “But you and he haven’t lived together in, what was it? Five years?”

  “More like eight.” Bonnie paused. “No, nine.” She sighed. “It doesn’t matter anyhow.”

  “Because he won’t sign?”

  “And other things.”

  She felt her cheeks blaze red-hot as the memory of her body and Rupert’s entwined, both of them wild with passion, sweating and straining to be one in every way possible.

  “Ohhh.” Pearl drew out the single syllable. She may have looked and sounded younger than her years, but she was as worldly as they came. “It went that way, did it?”

  Bonnie swallowed and forced herself to stop fussing with the contents of her carpetbag. She dragged her eyes to meet Pearl’s. “I forgot that it could be that good.”

  No further words were needed. Pearl understood her completely. Her frown turned puzzled. “But this is a good thing, right? I mean, he is your husband, even if the two of you haven’t seen each other or lived together in so long.”

  Bonnie planted a fist on one hip. “You want to be the one to explain things to Rex?”

  Pearl bit her lip and flopped against the back of her chair. “He’s gonna be madder than a hornet in a jam jar.”

  “Madder,” Bonnie said with a sigh. She went back to unpacking. “I hate to say it, but we’re all going to have to tighten our belts around here.”

  “Loosen them, you mean,” Pearl said. When Bonnie turned to her with a questioning look, she shrugged and said, “We’re either gonna have to raise our prices—which we should be doing anyhow, if you ask me—or draw in a lot more business.” A sour look twisted her mouth as she fell into her thoughts. “I hate quick transactions, especially when there’s not a real bed around, but I suppose we’ll have to start riding out to distant ranches or renting space in one of the warehouses when the train comes through again.”

  “No.” Bonnie stopped her before she could plan any farther. “I’m not asking any of you to do anything like that again. I only want you keeping a regular clientele of friends or entertaining the men you choose the way you want.”

  “Yeah, but if it’s that or going hungry…”

  Pearl’s words faded off. A shiver slipped down Bonnie’s spine. Never again. She never wanted to be faced with the decision of surrendering her dignity or starving again. It robbed a woman of her humanity, gave her a damaging kind of guilt that she could never shake. The whole point of the Place was to save women from that, not to force them back into it.

  “I’ll come up with something.” Bonnie sighed, carrying an armful of clothing into her bedroom, which adjoined the sitting room. She left it on the bed where she could decide what to wash and what to simply put away later. Pearl was still lost in thought when she crossed back into the sitting room. “I said, I’ll think of something,” Bonnie repeated. “You don’t have to worry yourself about it.”

  “I most certainly do.” Pearl sat straighter, her blue eyes going wide. “You’re my friend, Bonnie. No, you’re like a sister to me. I’m not letting you, not letting us, go down without a fight.” She jumped up from her chair and over to the table where Bonnie continued to unpack.

  Bonnie shook her head. “I got us into this mess, I should be responsible for getting us out.” She took the last of her toiletries and the blasted divorce paper out of her carpetbag, then marched to toss the bag into a cupboard. “I…I suppose I could see if any of the other successful ranchers nearby need a…” She couldn’t bring herself to say any other words but, “lady friend.”

  Pearl picked the divorce decree up as Bonnie spoke. When Bonnie choked out her last word, Pearl fixed her with a frown. “The whole point of attaching yourself to Rex was that you didn’t have to give him the sugar to get the cream in return.”

  It was a statement of fact. There was no point replying. Not even to say how sick it made her feel to think of sharing a bed with anyone but Rupert. She had no qualms about any of her girls choosing to continue their profession, but the thought of going back to the oldest way a woman had to make money herself would probably kill her soul for good.

  “Rupert won’t sign,” she mumbled, rehashing the impossible situation. “I can’t marry Rex if he doesn’t. Rex will cut us all off once he finds out. There’s nothing I can do.” She paused before adding. “I should have just married him anyhow and never mentioned a thing about Rupert. At least my chances of securing the Place before being caught and prosecuted for bigamy would have been pretty good.”

  Of all things, Pearl laughed. The sound came close to offending Bonnie in her current mood, but when she snapped to face
Pearl, she was surprised to find her friend not even paying attention to her. She was staring at the divorce decree instead.

  “What?” Bonnie demanded.

  Pearl blinked out of whatever thoughts were making her grin and turned to Bonnie with a smile. “The solution is obvious, isn’t it?”

  Bonnie arched a brow and rested her hands on her hips. “No.”

  “Of course it is.” Pearl’s smile grew, and she searched around the room. “Do you have a pen?”

  Bonnie didn’t need to answer. Pearl spotted one on the writing desk to one side of the room and skipped over to get it. She plunked the divorce paper on the desktop, tested the fountain pen on the desk’s blotter, then scribbled something on the decree.

  “What are you doing?” Bonnie jumped toward her in alarm.

  “There!” Pearl finished writing with a flourish, then held the decree up to Bonnie. “Your husband has officially signed the papers. You’re divorced.”

  Bonnie gaped and took the decree from Pearl with shaking hands. Pearl had signed Rupert’s name to the paper in big, bold strokes. “But…but you can’t just do that.”

  “Why not?” Pearl shrugged. “I’ve been forging documents for over a year now. Mr. Gunn says I’m a natural. Why not forge Rupert Cole’s signature too?”

  “Because…because it won’t hold up in a court of law,” Bonnie answered.

  “Does it need to? Is Rupert going to come over here and contest the claim of divorce?”

  The question was far more dangerous than Pearl knew. In her heart of hearts, Bonnie hoped and prayed that he would. She would have given anything for him to come running after her, for him to demand that she do her wifely duty by him. Even if he was furious, she would have welcomed the sight of him with open arms.

  If it hadn’t meant disaster for her girls.

  If he would come in the first place.

  But no, she’d burned that bridge good and proper. Leaving him once was horrible. Leaving him twice was unforgivable. Rupert would never forgive her now. That hope was dashed.

  “I suppose this is an answer,” she said, barely above a whisper, blinking rapidly. “No one would ever know the truth.”

  “You can still marry Rex and figure out how to give him that heir he wants.” She leaned closer. “And I have some ideas about that.”

  Bonnie looked up at her so fast her neck hurt. “You do?”

  Pearl shrugged. “It’d be easy as pie to adopt a wee little baby from one of the charity orphanages that caters to our sort. You just need to get Rex to agree, make the announcement, wear some padding for a while, then go away just around the time you’re supposed to be due, adopt whichever baby Rex likes the look of, then come home and claim it’s yours.”

  Something about the plan made Bonnie vaguely sick. Maybe it was the knowledge that it just might work. She swallowed hard and stared at the divorce decree. “All I need to do is take this up to George and get him to file it with whatever authority he files the marriage licenses with, and we’ll be home free.”

  She and Pearl exchanged looks. Pearl’s grin of triumph turned wistful. She shrugged. “I don’t think we have any better options.”

  Bonnie huffed an ironic laugh. “That’s the story of our lives, isn’t it? I’m sure there are countless men and women out there who would like to condemn us straight to hell, but what they fail to understand is that sometimes there really are no better options.”

  She headed for the door, squeezing Pearl’s arm as she passed. Pearl followed her as far as the party, still in full swing in the front room. A few of the girls called for Bonnie to come and join them, but the sooner she went over to the church to give George the decree to file, the sooner she could move on with her sad, sorry excuse for a life.

  Haskell’s church was always the center of attention on weekends. Aside from services themselves, the town had a long-standing tradition of a community potluck just afterwards, and when weather permitted, a baseball game after that. But on weekdays, especially near suppertime, it was eerily quiet.

  Bonnie walked around to the back of the church, knocking on the door to Rev. George Pickering’s apartment. She took a step back and chewed her lip as she waited for him to answer. She and George might have shared the most pivotal moment of each of their lives, but since then, their friendship was strained at best.

  Her stomach fluttered with anxiety as he opened the door. The cheery smile he’d put on for his visitor hardened to a stiff, blank expression at the sight of Bonnie. The delicious scent of roasting meat and baked bread wafting from the apartment was a strange contradiction to the look that settled on his face.

  “Good evening, Bonnie,” he greeted her.

  “Evening, George.” She stared at him, praying for the words she would need to finish the task in front of her.

  “Can I help you with something?” he asked when she said nothing.

  Well, she wasn’t going to help more girls like Samantha start new, clean lives if she didn’t take this horrible first step. She cleared her throat and handed the divorce decree to him. “I need you to file this wherever you file the marriage certificates you take care of.”

  George stared at the paper, brought his eyes up to meet hers again, then took the paper. His blank expression fell to a disapproving frown as he unfolded it and discovered what it was. He glanced up to Bonnie again. “Come in.”

  “I’m not here to make this a social call, George. I just need you to—”

  “Come in,” he repeated, slower.

  Bonnie’s heart sank like a rock in her stomach. She sighed and picked up her skirts to cross George’s threshold.

  George shut the door behind her then turned to face her. His apartment was more or less just two rooms, the main room and his bedroom on the other side of a closed door. Another door led to his office, which led to the church proper. On all of the other, rare occasions Bonnie had been in the apartment, it had felt cozy and snug. At the moment, it felt stifling and overbearing. Or perhaps that was the way George stared at her in disappointment.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  She wasn’t going to play games. “You can see what it is.”

  He pursed his lips before going on. “Is this the same document from four years ago?”

  Bonnie hesitated, unable to meet his eyes. She’d enlisted his help in the early stages of getting the divorce decree all those years ago. He should know better than to ask now. “You know I had to get that signed if I’m going to marry Rex.”

  “I can’t believe you would actually go through with it.” His frown deepened.

  “What, filing for the divorce or marrying Rex?”

  “Take your pick.” George crossed behind her to toss the divorce decree on the table. He then stepped over to the small stove to take his cooking supper off of the fire. “I can’t believe you’re stooping this low.”

  “Well, what would you have me do?” she fired back.

  Instead of answering her directly, he said, “I can’t believe you would turn to a man like Bonneville for help.”

  Something slippery clicked into place in Bonnie’s mind. “Why? Would you have me turn to you for help?”

  His head jerked up as he scowled at her. “I think I’ve helped you enough.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the girls or the money.” She crossed her arms. “Don’t you think it’s time you stopped hoping and praying that I’ll see the light and realize that you’re the perfect man for me?”

  His cheeks flared red and he looked away. Jaw tight, he answered, “I stopped chasing that foolish fancy years ago. But if you still think that I refuse to help you because I’m secretly in love with you, it only proves my point about why I can’t, in good conscience, give you any more money.” He looked back at her. “What you’re doing is wrong, Bonnie. All of it.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” she burst, reaching the end of her patience. She took a step closer to him. “Can’t you see that every choice I have in front of me is the
wrong one? It’s nice to be able to stand at the front of your church every Sunday, talking about all the ways that good people can follow God’s will, but some of us don’t have that choice.”

  He shook his head. “I disagree.”

  “Do you? Then try living in my shoes for a week and see how that makes you feel.”

  As soon as the words were past her lips, she wished she could take them back. Even uneasy friendships were still worth nurturing. Whatever else had happened, she and George had shared a momentous experience the night of the fire in Denver. He was the reason she was able to do what she had. Offending him was never her intention.

  With a supreme effort of will, she steadied her emotions and took a deep breath. “Could you please file that document?”

  He stared at her for several long, uncomfortable moments. At last, with a sharp exhale and a shake of his head, he said, “I’ll do what I can.”

  Bonnie’s moment of relief quickly evaporated into guilt. Knowing that Pearl had signed Rupert’s name was almost like asking George to lie for her, but it was a lie that needed to be told. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed a hand over her roiling stomach. She was doing this for the girls. If she could keep Rex happy, they had a chance. Every one of the girls back at her Place celebrating would have a chance to celebrate even more thanks to the sacrifices she was willing to make.

  “Thank you,” she said when she opened her eyes. George still didn’t look even a little bit happy. “Thank you for helping my girls find better lives for themselves.”

  That seemed to have some impact. George’s stern frown melted into weary concern. “Bonnie, it’s not just those girls I’m concerned for. Whether you believe me or not, I really and truly want you to find happiness and forgiveness for your sins.”

  “I’m sure you do,” she drawled, hiding her sorrow with sarcasm.

  He let out a breath and crossed his arms. “I only met Rupert Cole that one time, but it was clear as day the man loved you.”

  “He still does,” Bonnie muttered.