by Gina Welborn
Also by Gina Welborn and Becca Whitham
Come Fly With Me (e-novella)
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
The PROMISE BRIDE
Gina Welborn
and
Becca Whitham
ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Epilogue
Teaser chapter
ZEBRA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2017 by Gina Welborn and Becca Whitham
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-1-4201-4397-3
eISBN-13: 978-1-4201-4398-0
eISBN-10: 1-4201-4398-0
To the baristas of Starbucks
on Cache Road in Lawton, Oklahoma.
You’ve been with this project from the beginning,
fueling our creativity with sugar and caffeine.
Thank you from the bottom of our cups.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are a huge number of people to thank for their help and support while we worked on this project. Unfortunately, we couldn’t name everyone and their contributions, or this section would be longer than the book itself. We would, however, be negligent if we didn’t mention a few people who have contributed greatly to this story.
First, we are grateful to Dr. Ellen Baumler of the Montana Historical Society for her help with maps and articles about Helena during this time period. Much of the history we incorporated comes from what she sent, including information refuting what we found online. It’s been great to have a dedicated historian working with us. Any factual errors are ours. Second, our agents, Karen Ball and Tamela Hancock Murray, worked hard to find a home for this series. We’re glad it landed with Kensington Publishing in the hands of Selena James and the rest of the team there. Third, we’ve benefited from fabulous critique partners who have helped us hone our writing skills, specifically (for Becca) Kim Woodhouse, Kayla Woodhouse, and Darcie Gudger. Fourth, we want to thank Kelly Long for the off-hand conversation she had with Gina that put the idea in her mind to submit to Kensington.
Our families deserve special thanks for putting up with the writing craziness. Our husbands, Jeremy Welborn and Nathan Whitham, will be receiving special jewels in their eternal crowns because, let’s face it, being married to a writer is probably the world’s toughest job. Finally, thank You to our Lord for instilling in us the desire to write, for arranging our life circumstances so we would meet one day at a Starbucks, and for assuring us in both big and small ways that He is with us.
The vision is always solid and reliable;
the vision is always a fact.
It is the reality that is often a fraud.
—G. K. CHESTERTON
Let no debt remain outstanding, except the
continuing debt to love one another.
—ROMANS 13:8a (NIV)
Chapter One
Chicago, Illinois
Saturday, April 2, 1887
Fortune favored the persistent.
Emilia Stanek smiled, climbed into the cable car, and found her usual spot on the second bench on the left. As she adjusted her father’s old leather army haversack from her side onto her lap, she noticed a brass button on the blue woolen coat she wore over her Spiegel uniform was, literally, hanging by a thread. She tugged it off. Rolled the tarnished metal with her fingers. The balls of her feet throbbed from so many hours managing the customer-service counter, and her fingers ached from filling out complaint forms and bill-paid receipts. She’d lost too much sleep, spent too little time with her siblings during the last nine months. And her cheeks were cold from the wind. Still . . .
She smiled.
The extra dollar a day she’d earned from volunteering for a Saturday shift made the inconveniences all worth it.
The cable car bumped up and down as people continued to load.
Emilia lifted the haversack’s top flap and dropped the button inside, where it came to rest against her week’s wages. She settled against the seat. With what she’d saved since she’d begun corresponding with Finn, in three short months more, she would have the rest of the funds needed to purchase train fare for Roch, Luci, and Da to move with her to Montana. Montana. Her heart warmed at the thought of the heavenly word. Once they were settled, her dear Finn would spend a month courting her properly before he proposed. His last letter had mentioned how perfectly he believed they were suited. Oh, she agreed.
Mrs. Phineas Collins.
Emilia Stanek Collins.
Emilia Collins.
She closed her eyes. How perfect her name sounded with his. Finn’s soon-to-be proposal would be more than she’d ever dreamed. More than a mail-order bride could ever hope for. She adored him. She relished knowing God had answered her prayer for a good man. She loved the future they’d have together on his ranch. Luci needed time to enjoy the remaining years of her childhood. Roch needed to escape the gang he was running with. Da’s lungs needed fresh, healing air, the kind found out west.
Montana Territory was the land of many opportunities.
Chicago—
Her upper lip curled. Chicago wasn’t the land of any opportunity, despite the buildings rising along the streets. The noisy city smelled of industry, sewage, and slaughtered pigs. If only they could leave now, before the summer heat blanketed the area with the stench that gave her headaches, made her nauseated, and interfered with her sleep. No sense bemoaning her circumstances, though. Finances and Da’s health dictated they wait until the dry air of July to leave. She could endure three and a half more months in Chicago.
Mrs. Phineas Collins.
Emilia Stanek—
The cable car bell rang.
“Hold the car!” two familiar voices called out.
Emilia looked to her left. Jonny and Harv, two of Spiegel’s weekend stockmen and her self-appointed guardians, shoved their way through the pedestrian traffic, waving their newsboy caps. They jumped onto the car next t
o her. As they did every Saturday. Harv scrambled over Emilia’s legs to take a spot to her left, while Jonny sat on her right. The pair smelled of bratwurst, beer, and sweat. The packed cable car gathered speed, leaving the State Street stop and heading west toward the gold-and-pink sunset.
West. She sighed. Thank You, God, thank You for bringing Finn into my life.
With each bump and turn, the wooden slats of the bench pressed into Emilia’s back. Jonny and Harv squashed her shoulders. The chilly, late-afternoon breeze caused by the car’s twelve-mile-per-hour speed blew wisps of hair onto Emilia’s face, despite the black bonnet she wore. She shivered yet continued to smile. Hope warmed her soul. Joy flooded her heart.
Someday soon . . .
“Anything exciting arrive today?” Emilia asked after giving Jonny and Harv time to catch their breath.
Harv shifted to face her. “Teak tables from Burma.”
Now that was interesting. Emilia scrambled through her haversack for a pencil and her historical research journal. She’d already investigated Venice, but Burma was an unknown. “Burma”—she printed the letters—“as in B-u-r-m-a?”
Harv nodded. “It was what were stamped on the crates.”
The car stopped, and passengers unloaded and loaded.
Emilia swayed her shoulders, nudging the male bookends to give her space. Just because she barely weighed a hundred pounds, was a good twelve inches shorter than they were, and looked more fifteen than twenty-one, it didn’t mean she had less of a right to equal space on the bench.
Jonny bumped her shoulder. “What’d ya learn about the fifth King Henry?”
“One of these days,” she warned, “I won’t be around to do the studying for you.”
Harv eased up the tip of his cap. “You don’t look like yer dying.” For all the disbelief in his tone, concern flickered in his blue eyes.
Emilia patted his arm. “I’m not dying.” And because she couldn’t contain the joy she felt, she grinned. “I’m moving to Montana this summer.”
Silence.
The cable car’s bell rang.
Harv’s laughter began a split-second before Jonny’s.
Emilia pursed her lips to hold back a retort. Whether they believed her or not, she was leaving Chicago on July 16, once the public school’s summer term ended. She and her family were moving to a cattle ranch on the magnificent grasslands of Montana. Where the air smelled of wildflowers and sunshine, where she could sing at the top of her lungs. Where Roch would learn to smile again. Responding to Finn’s mail-order bride advertisement had been the best decision of her life.
As their laughter mellowed, and because she had sunlight, she flipped several pages back in her history journal. “Henry of Monmouth became king of England in 1413 . . .”
By the time the cable car reached the tenement stop, she’d given them a decent lecture on the young medieval monarch and his nine-year reign. They debarked the cable car and continued to talk as they headed down the uneven sidewalk, passing decrepit two- and three-story wood-frame and brick buildings that lined the unpaved streets. Clothes hung from windows. Dogs barked incessantly. Family fights were neighborhood fodder. Compliments of the factories within walking distance and the slaughterhouses farther south, not even the smells of roasted pork and fresh-baked bread could cover the stench of the neighborhood sewage.
Soon, though, this would all be a distant memory.
Emilia refocused on her notes. “In 1599 William Shakespeare wrote his play about King Henry’s—”
“Ah, Miss Stanek,” a craggy voice called out.
Emilia looked ahead. Her stride slowed, Jonny and Harv matching her pace. Her landlord descended the outside steps to the wooden tenement’s second floor, where her family lived. For all Mr. Deegan’s three-piece suits and oiled mustache, the man who owned the entire block was as grimy as Chicago. The only times he visited were when he came to collect the rent, which wasn’t due for another month. But he’d clearly been upstairs. In the last year, from the moment Da returned home from the cotton mill on Friday, he never left the house, save for attending Sunday worship. Deegan had to know Da’s pattern. This could only mean the two had talked. For how long?
Emilia shoved her journal inside the haversack. Her grip tightened on the bag’s strap across her chest. Her pulse skittered.
Mr. Deegan’s chestnut mare, tied at the post, looked fairly rested. Thirty minutes? An hour?
Heartbeat pounding, Emilia met Mr. Deegan at the bottom of the stairs. “Can I help you with something?”
Jonny and Harv towered behind her like the archangels they weren’t.
Mr. Deegan’s narrowed gaze shifted from her to Jonny and Harv, then back to her. “I expect you can.” He withdrew a folded sheet of paper from inside his suit coat and held it out to her.
Jonny and Harv didn’t move.
Emilia nodded to the four-story brownstone across the street, where Mr. Bello, standing on a ladder, had begun his round of lighting the tenement streetlamps. “Go on,” she ordered. “Please. Mama Bello has dinner waiting for you two.” She paused until her erstwhile guardians crossed the street to their boardinghouse before she turned back to Mr. Deegan’s beady gaze. She took the paper he offered. “What’s this?”
“List of repairs needed.”
Emilia scanned the words from the Health Department compiled after their latest—and humiliating—round of inspections of heating, lighting, ventilation, plumbing, and drainage. How can you live in this? had been the inspector’s silent question each time he’d glanced her way. It wasn’t as if anyone in the tenements had a choice . . . as long as they stayed in Chicago. Both hands on the letter, she crumpled the sides, her mouth sour over the inspector’s findings.
Disease is not a moral but a sanitary problem.
Not something she needed any health inspector to tell her. Diphtheria, typhoid, cholera, smallpox, yellow fever—most of the tenement deaths in the last decade had been from one of those diseases. Including her mother’s. Showing her the official letter from the Health Department made no sense. Mr. Deegan was as literate as she. If anything, this was for show. To remind those in the tenements of his power and control.
“According to this, you”—she fixed him with a pointed look—“have been issued citations for multiple offenses.”
“Offenses for which I am not at fault.”
Did he think she was stupid? Despite their repeated requests for repairs, not a shingle had been replaced or window resealed. One of the walls of the privy they shared with the Jaegers still had bullet holes from the last street fight.
She glanced around to see a growing crowd on the street despite the chill in the air. “Sir, our monthly rent, which has been doubled from three years ago, is sufficient to cover the cost for repairs.”
“Au contraire, my dear.” He whisked the paper from her hand and read, “‘Remedies for violations include repairing defective plumbing, construction of new sewers and drains, ventilation applied to waste and soil pipes, cleaning privy vaults, and lime-washing rooms. Thirty dollars will do.’” Mr. Deegan refolded the paper. “To be fair, I’ve divided the cost of repairs equally among each tenement. You have until this time Monday.”
“You expect me to come up with thirty dollars in two days?”
He nodded. “I’m a generous man. Considering this is the fourth notification in the last two months, I could evict you instead.”
Emilia flinched. Fourth? Her heart pounded against her rib cage. For all Deegan’s sleaziness, he didn’t look to be lying. Da had to know about the inspection report and extortion demand and had kept the truth from her. But why? She had the travel money from Finn, plus what she’d saved by working an extra shift. They needed every penny for train fare. She couldn’t leave her family. She wouldn’t.
She swallowed to ease her tight throat. “We don’t have the money.”
“How strange.” His left eye twitched; the corner of his mouth curved. “I know that wealthy rancher of yours wire
d train fare for you to come to Montana. Thirty dollars, I hear. Enough to buy his mail-order bride a first-class ticket in the ladies’ car. He must think highly of you.”
Emilia gritted her teeth.
At her silence, he smirked. “Miss Stanek, unlike you, your sister is quite the hostess. Cordial, inviting, talkative.” He stepped closer, close enough for her to smell the bitter coffee on his breath. “You’d be wise to stop thinking you’re better than everyone else in these parts. You ain’t going nowhere. This, dearie, is your lot in life.” He tipped his hat to her—“Until this time Monday”—and then to the crowd, which began to disperse with mumbles and backward glances.
Without another word, Mr. Deegan mounted his horse and rode off.
Emilia gasped for air. She dashed up the stairs to their two-room tenement and jerked the door open; the smell of coffee and stew hit her. “Da!” She closed the door hard. He exited the bedroom Emilia and Roch shared with their twelve-year-old younger sister, Luci, who followed. Before either could speak, Emilia pulled the haversack’s strap over her head. “Were you watching through the window? Did you hear everything? When were you going to tell me Deegan’s extortion attempt?”
Da and Luci exchanged glances, their dark eyes wide.
“I’ll set the table,” Luci muttered. As she went to work, Da stroked his salt-and-pepper beard as he always did when pondering what to say.
Emilia hung her bag and coat on an empty wall hook next to the door. Roch’s coat was missing. If he wasn’t home soon, he’d break the curfew she’d insisted Da give him. Someday he wouldn’t need a curfew. Someday Roch would have his own room and not have to sleep on the floor. Da would have one, too. No more sleeping on the couch for him. No more living in cramped spaces with grimy, paper-thin walls and sharing a privy with another family. This was not their lot in life. Once she married Finn, they would have privacy. Their lives would be better. Once they moved to Montana.