Pearl took in a shaky breath and touched her abdomen again. Could she confide in her friend? She wanted to, but she didn’t want the burden of worry to rest on anyone else’s shoulders. Her pregnancy was something she had to worry about.
“Nothing. It’s just…hard with Jim gone.” A fresh wave of grief rolled over her at the broken look in her friend’s eyes.
Jim, her husband of four years, was gone. Killed in a freak accident while he crossed the street. Trampled like a piece of trash under some wealthy man’s carriage no doubt. She didn’t know the details, only the facts. Jim was gone. She was alone. She was pregnant with their child.
“I’m here for you,” Collette said. “Whatever you need, just tell me. Promise me you will.”
She forced a smile, taking on the weight of being all right so that Collette’s burden would be lessened.
“I promise. Now I must go, there are many details to attend to.”
“Of course,” Collette said, “I’ll see you at the funeral.
Pearl turned, paper still in her hands and determination on her face. She wouldn’t break down into tears here. She couldn’t break down here. Not in public. She needed to be strong. To figure out a way to take care of herself and her unborn child.
Jim’s child.
The worst part was that he’d never know. He’d never get the chance to see their son or daughter smile, laugh, or even cry. Worse yet, their child would never know him.
She ran a hand over her face, trying to wipe away the overwhelming feelings of loss and the stress of tiredness. The paper crunched in her other hand and she looked down at it again.
It was her way out. Her only hope of salvation in the midst of a dire circumstance. Jim left her with almost nothing through no fault of his own. He hadn’t had a steady job in months and they were almost at the end of everything they had.
Her small income from her seamstress work that wouldn’t pay half the rent, let alone any food, or coal for the fire in the winter. She shivered just thinking about the winter, despite the warmth of the sun on her shoulders as she walked toward their small tenement building.
No, this paper was her one hope. Her last chance.
She pushed in the door and took the stairs up to their second story apartment. Securing the door behind her, she pulled out the last piece of paper they had and an old fountain pen.
Sitting at the table near the window she read the advertisement again.
Wanted: Mail Order Bride
The word bride made her stomach clench at the wrongness of the situation, her husband not even in the grave yet, but she knew she had no other choice.
Breathing out a prayer for forgiveness, she chose her words carefully.
The truth wasn’t something she could afford at this point.
Haven, Arizona Territory | July 1868
“I couldn’t have heard you right, son.” Willie Jones, sheriff of Haven, leaned against a post, arms crossed. “You’re what?”
A smile broke over Charlie Ackerman’s face. “I said, I’ve ordered myself a bride.”
“Then I did hear you. What in land sakes is a mail order bride?” The sheriff scrunched up his nose, the gray hair at his temples belying his age.
Charlie let out a laugh. He enjoyed the sheriffs company and had found a good friend in him. “Let’s say it this way. I’m getting married.”
“Now that is something I understand. How’d you get a lady to agree to that?” Willie’s laughter came out rough and scratchy.
“Not rightly sure,” Charlie admitted, shrugging. “We’ve been writing letters for a few months now and she says she’s willing to come to Haven to marry the likes of me.”
Charlie thought back to the letters they had shared. Pearl seemed like a sweet and caring woman, if he was really able to tell that through letters. There was something gentle in the way she worded things.
“When’s she coming?”
“August.”
“What about the circuit?” Willie asked.
Charlie’s gut clenched. He wasn’t in the mood to talk about the circuit. Then again, when was he in the mood to talk about it? Let alone think about it?
“I see I touched a nerve there,” Willie said. “What’s eatin’ at you, son? You’re recovering nicely, so Doc says.”
“Nice to see Doc informs you of my healing progress.”
“I’ve got a vested interest.”
Charlie laughed. “How do you figure?”
“Well,” Willie said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I’ve got that new roof the missus wants me to put on the house, and as I recall, I helped you with that shack you call a home. I think its only right you pay me back with your time.”
“Is that so?” Charlie asked, mischief sparkling in his eyes.
“Yes, sir. So, I’ve got Doc keeping me up to snuff with when you’ll be ready to help. That’s all.”
Charlie shook his head, taking his time to stand up from the chair. “Then you’ll likely know before me. But count me in. You know I'm good for it.”
“That I do, son.”
Charlie clapped Willie on the shoulder and turned toward the post office. “Got to go see if my bride had written me back.”
Willie just shook his head and Charlie made his way across the street. His gait was labored due to the injury he’d sustained to his leg and hip, which was still healing. He felt better, but not completely healed. It had taken him much longer this time to get back on his feet. It was part of the reason he’d decided to settle down. And it was the main reason he didn’t want to talk about—or even think about—the rodeo circuit he was no longer a part of.
He let out a sigh, rubbing a hand along the back of his neck. He missed the life. Traveling, spending days with the other men trading stories and laughs. Riding a dangerous animal and not knowing if you’d walk away alive each night. The thrill of it was half the draw, if not more. Every day was an adventure.
But he was embarking on a new journey. A new thrill. He’d gotten Pearl’s letter and felt a jerk in his gut that he couldn’t ignore. She was a widower, but she wanted to start over. Haven would be the place for them both to do that.
Marrying Pearl would be his next great adventure.
Chapter 2
Haven, Arizona Territory | August 1868
Pearl shifted in the seat of the coach again. She felt large, awkward, and uncomfortable, but that had become her existence. The thoughts and anxieties of what Charlie would do when he saw her floated before. Would he send her back? Leave her at the stagecoach station? Have her locked up for her lie?
She pressed her back against the slight padding of the coach. She was overreacting and she knew it. Intentionally taking in a deep breath, she closed her eyes and placed a hand on her swollen abdomen. Breathe. In and out.
The motion of the coach began to slow, and her heart rate picked up again. It was almost time to face him. She hoped she would recognize him from the description he’d given, because he was surely not going to recognize her.
The coach slowed to a stop and the door opened, sending bright rays of sunlight into the darkened interior of the coach. It was hot—much too hot to be traveling—and all Pearl could think of was sitting stationary and sipping a glass of cool water.
Her feet touched the dirt and she raised her eyes to the thin crowd milling about.
There. A tall man with brown hair and the unmistakable stance of a cowboy who was as accustomed to wearing chaps and spurs as he was to breathing. Charlie. It had to be him.
Taking what little courage she had left, Pearl picked up her small suitcase of the wordily belongings she hadn’t sold in the months leading up to her trip, and approached the man.
“Are you Charlie Ackerman?” Her voice came out more boldly than she would have expected.
The man blinked. “I am.” He sounded hesitant and she saw his eyes flicker to her stomach.
It took her one last second to bolster the courage, but finally she said, “I’m Pearl Edmonton.
”
Confusion, followed by shock, dashed across his face light lighting on a hot summer evening.
“Pearl?” He frowned and looked at her abdomen again.
“Yes,” she said. “I—I should have told you.” The words were out, but she needed to know what his reaction would be. She thought she had judged him to be a fair man, but this was beyond asking for quick forgiveness. This was much more than that.
“Wow.” He said the words and she saw his hand reach up to rub his neck.
All around them activity swirled, mixed with the dust kicked up by the foot traffic. The August heat beat down on them in waves, maximized by the absence of a breeze.
Pearl waited, wondering what he would say, but he seemed to be stuck. Frozen in time by the shock of her condition. She felt sweat trickle down her back and bead on her forehead. She needed to get inside soon, or she’d melt. Worse yet, she’d faint.
“Look,” she said, boldly. “I need to get into the shade here or I’m likely to faint dead away. That would likely make a bigger scene than you talking with your pregnant betrothed. Is there somewhere we can go?”
In the span of a minute he seemed to process everything she said then nodded once. “Yes, of course. I’m s-sorry. Here, let me take that.” He reached down and took her valise then nodded his head toward a large building across the dusty street. “We can go to the hotel.”
He looked down at her stomach again, as if making sure he wasn’t seeing things. She almost laughed, wanting to tell him he didn’t have to worry, he couldn’t catch what she had. Instead, she ducked her head and followed him.
Jim had always said she had a mouth bigger than any woman was allowed. She’d teased him about marrying her anyway, and he’d always said he liked her mouth just the way it was.
The sharp pain of loss stabbed her directly in the chest but she tried to ignore it. She couldn't give in to the emotions now. Once the funeral had been taken care of she’d given in to a long cry. The kind where all the tears you had left were spilled out in one great flood. Then she’d faced the reality that she had to provide for herself and their child.
Charlie’s first letter to her had cemented her hope. She had done the right thing by writing back to him. But now, walking behind him in this strange town with no plan aside from the one she’d created in her mind, she started to wonder if that had been a mistake.
Had her faith been misplaced? Had she read Charlie wrong through his letters? He seemed like a nice man, like an understanding man, but only time would tell if her initial instincts had been right.
Charlie rubbed his neck again, still trying to reconcile what his eyes saw and what his mind knew. The woman he’d met at the stagecoach stop was Pearl, and she wasn’t.
Of course it was her, but she was…more. A whole additional person more.
His mind spun with the reality of what he was now faced with. He’d brought this woman out to marry, and now that she was here he was expected—almost contracted—to do. But what about the child she carried? He hadn’t signed up to be a father when he’d agreed to marry her.
He’d considered the reality that they would have children someday, but he hadn’t expected it to be so soon.
Risking another glance at her, his eyes told him what his mind refused to belief. Pearl was pregnant. She was going to have a son or a daughter, and he would have to take care of them both if they were married.
If they married.
Heat spiked through him at the thought of going back on his word. He couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair to Pearl to have come all this way to be turned down. Or worse yet, left to fend for herself. It was just so much more than he’d bargained for.
They sat at a table in the hotel restaurant and he ordered two slices of pie, asking for water as well. He still hadn’t said anything, though he had a feeling she was getting ready to say plenty.
Her boldness and matter-of-fact way of stating things intrigued him. It was different than how he’d imagined her from her letters, but he liked it.
But he did wonder if she was as stubborn as she came off. Or was some of that from fear? She had to be afraid, at least a little, even if she wasn’t showing it.
Charlie rested his elbows on the table and stared her down. He was tempted to wait until she said something, just to see what she’d say, but he thought better of it.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
Her cheeks were flushed from the heat, and she fanned herself with one of the paper menus left by the waitress. She had beautiful, deep blue eyes and dark blonde hair that was pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck. Her rounded cheeks and snub nose gave her a youthful look, but it was her eyes that drew him. They held wisdom and…something else. Was it sorrow?
“Honestly? I didn’t think you would agree to marry me if you knew I was with child.”
He appreciated her honesty but he wasn’t sure what he would have done. He’d like to think he wouldn’t have cared but he knew that wasn’t fully true.
“That makes sense.”
She looked down, breaking their eye contact in the first display of faltering confidence. What was she thinking?
Her voice was quiet and he had to strain to hear her. “I had nowhere else to go.”
The reality of her words broke something deep inside of him. Then a stream of protectiveness flooded into him like water from a ruptured dam. Every part of him that was strong and masculine leapt to life with the thought that he could help her. That he should help her.
“I’ll still marry you.” The words came out and satisfied his need to do something—anything—but they hadn’t been fully thought through.
It was too late, though. Her eyes shot to his, the light of hope flaming in them. They sparkled like sapphires in firelight and he wanted to cup her face and reassure her that the burdens she’d been carrying would be lighter now, if not gone completely.
He had to slow down, though. He was being rash and making decisions without thinking them through. This vulnerable woman, as fragile as a tiny sparrow, caught him off guard and tricked him with her sweet smile and a strength that masked whatever weaknesses she may have had.
“Are you sure?” Her eyes didn’t leave his.
She offered him a way out and his rational mind screamed at him to take it, but he’d never listened to that voice anyway.
Husband and father. This was his adventure.
“I’m sure.”
Chapter 3
Pearl’s thoughts swirled around her, jumbling together and mixing with one another. The marriage ceremony had been quick, much faster than she’d expected. And just like that, she was a married woman again.
She’d allowed her thoughts to trail back to her wedding day to Jim. He’d had tears in his eyes as he’d pledged to love her until death parted them. She’d agreed the same, never thinking it would actually happen and cause them to part.
How foolish love was. It convinced you that you were invincible, then lulled you to sleep within the circle of its arms. But life had a way of breaking into that comfort with bold force.
Now she stood in the main room of Charlie’s home. It was barely more than a shack, but she was grateful for a roof over their heads if nothing else. He stood next to her, uncertain. The look on his face was one of awkward expectation. As if he was waiting for her to make the first move toward normalcy.
What was normal in this situation, though? Did she dive into work in the kitchen? Did they sit and talk, trying to get to know the person each had just pledged vows to? Did they agree to go their separate ways?
She turned her eyes to his, silently pleading for him to make a decision.
“Why don’t I show you to the…the room and you can rest if you’d like.”
As much as she wanted to push through and assure him she was fine, she didn’t feel fine. Her head was fuzzy, and her body was tired from the heat. Maybe a rest was exactly what she needed.
“All right, I could stand to lie down for a time.”<
br />
He nodded and made his way toward the back of the house. There was one door, one room.
“Here you are,” he said, indicating the small space. “There’s a loft that I can stay in…”
Though he didn't say it, she knew he meant he would stay until they knew one another better. She was thankful he didn’t mean to force her to take on more than she was ready for. The situation was so new for them both; time would be critical.
He stood at the doorway, hands in his pockets and shoulders raised. She needed to say something—anything. “Thank you, Charlie.” She used his name to show him she was truly grateful. “I…I don’t know what else we would have done.”
At the mention of her child, she saw his eyes shift to her stomach, then jump back to her face.
“Look,” he said, drawing her attention. “I’m not going to stand here and say that this will be easy, for either of us. I don’t know anything about being a husband, let alone a father, but I’ll try my best.”
She appreciated his words, knowing they came from a place of honesty.
“I know you will.” And somehow, she did.
Their letters, though not in depth usually, had shown his character to her. She knew he was a man she could trust. And more than that, he was a man she wanted to trust.
He nodded the turned to go. “I’ll be out taking care of the horses and doing some chores. If you need anything, just come out and holler for me. I won’t be far.”
She watched as he strutted out, his broad shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of her problems. At least she hoped so.
The silence descended around her, and she willed her memories to behave. She couldn’t slip back into thoughts of Jim every time she was alone or feeling somewhat lonely. It hadn’t been very long since his death, but she knew Jim would have wanted her to carry on. To protect their unborn baby.
She had done the right thing, and yet it still felt like betrayal.
Laying back against the lumpy pillow, Pearl closed her eyes and rested her hands on her abdomen, rubbing slowly back and forth. Things would become clear in time. They always did.
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