The Mail-Order Brides Collection

by Megan Besing

  At this point, she didn’t care.

  She would leave.

  Tomorrow.

  John stared out the window of the passenger car heading west, wishing for the hundredth time he hadn’t listened to the pastor. Exhausted from his responsibilities with the girls and the ranch, he’d agreed to take the slower train from Sophia’s parents’ to allow him time to refresh and renew for his new life ahead.

  Seemed he was using a lot of energy getting accustomed to a new life every time he turned around. First the new life with his second daughter. The new way of life when Sophia fell ill. Then this brand-new, unfamiliar life when she died so suddenly.

  And now? Preparing to be a bridegroom for the second time.

  Except this time, to a woman he didn’t know. Didn’t love. Couldn’t truly envision spending the rest of his life with.

  Well, he didn’t need to spend the rest of his life with her.

  He simply needed to get through the next twelve years. Then she could leave, and he could finish raising his daughters.

  The train rounded a bend and jolted him back to the present.

  Outside, oak and cottonwood trees had adopted their autumn colors. Reds, oranges, and yellows brightened an otherwise browning landscape. Cattle, their black hides contrasting with the brown, mirrored his thoughts.

  Black and dark. Like his mood.

  He should have taken the direct train. He would be home now, running his ranch, preparing for this woman from Pennsylvania.

  Not that he had anything to prepare. Martin agreed to set up her sleeping quarters in the girls’ room. Although, his foreman had raised his eyebrows in question of that particular instruction.

  John smiled at the memory of his response. “I want her to get to know the girls quickly so we can settle in right away.”

  His foreman was not fooled.

  And no matter how many times John told himself he was doing this for his daughters, he wondered about his motives. What if this woman was as beautiful as Sophia? He shook his head. No. He would not fall in love with another woman. No matter what, Sophia was his one and only. To love another would be to dishonor her life. And her death.

  And he couldn’t imagine partaking of the physical side of a marriage relationship with a woman he didn’t—couldn’t—love simply because she was beautiful.

  He settled into his seat, crossed his arms over his chest, and tipped his hat down. But his mind wouldn’t quiet as he recalled his visit with Sophia’s parents. Although still saddened by their daughter’s death, they understood his need for a mother for the girls. They insisted he wasn’t dishonoring their daughter’s memory. They looked forward to welcoming this woman into their granddaughters’ lives.

  But still there was a slight hesitancy in their attitude. And then he realized why.

  They were afraid of losing this final connection with their daughter.

  He hastened to assure them they were welcome to visit anytime. This woman was an orphan, so his daughters still needed them as grandparents. They were family.

  Unlike Miss Johannson, who never would be.

  He shifted in his seat as the train whistle blew, alerting him to yet another stop along the way. The next big city was Chicago, then St. Louis, Denver, Albuquerque, and in three days’ time, Bakersfield. Martin would be there with a wagon, and he’d travel the few miles home to Heartbreak.

  How ironic he lived in a town with a name that so perfectly reflected the state of his life.

  Chapter 3

  Mary sighed. Would nothing go right today? Her stomach rumbled. She’d not eaten since midday yesterday. And she was exhausted.

  Matron’s gift, amounting to seventy-four cents, was not enough to buy meals every day. Despite the rocking motion of the train, she hadn’t closed her eyes for more than a few minutes over the past two days. A succession of travelers came and went through the passenger car, some she might like to know better. Some she was glad kept to themselves.

  The conductor made his way down the aisle. The grizzled dark-skinned man named Thomas nodded. “Good morning, Miss. Next stop is Clarkesville. Small town, but it has a diner at the train depot. We’ll be there for about thirty minutes. Should be enough time to get something to eat. Cheap and good. Tell them Thomas sent you. They’ll throw in a piece of pie for free.”

  She smiled. “Thank you, Thomas.”

  He handed her a magazine. “Found this on a seat back yonder. Thought you might like something to read to pass the time.”

  She accepted his offering. “I would. Thank you for thinking of me.”

  “Not often I see such a brave woman as you heading west to make a new life. Not many would do what you’re doin’. No, siree. That’s a fact.”

  He passed down the aisle, checking tickets and answering questions from the dozen or so passengers. If not for Thomas, she didn’t know what she’d have done. She missed her original train in Chicago and didn’t know what to do or where to go.

  And then along came Thomas, pushing a cartload of luggage, mopping his brow despite the cooler temperatures. He stopped and listened to her tale of slow trains and cattle crossing the tracks and waiting for a passenger at the previous station.

  He nodded then directed her to another platform. “You go on over there, miss. That there is my train. I’ll be with you in a few minutes. We can’t get you to Heartbreak on that train, but we can get you to Bakersfield, and Heartbreak is only a few miles down the road.”

  At his words, her heart sank to the tips of her dusty boots. Already feeling she was on precarious footing with Mr. Stewart, she had no desire to put him out. “Are you certain there is nothing else I can do?”

  He shook his head. “Sorry, miss, but that fast train only goes once a week. I guess if’n you want to stay here in Chicagoland for a week that would be fine. But you’ll get where you’re going faster if’n you take my suggestion.”

  And so here she was, on Thomas’s train, as he called it, headed west.

  She glanced at the magazine. Romance stories. Her breath quickened. Such an exotic find. She studied Thomas’s back as he disappeared through the door and into the next car. He was a good man. She hoped Mr. Stewart was half as good as the old conductor.

  Mary opened the magazine to the first page. She’d had little time to herself in the orphanage, squirreling away a nub of a candle so she could read in her room late at night. She’d read every book in the town’s tiny library at least twice, including the encyclopedia.

  But a real, honest-to-goodness magazine she didn’t have to share with anybody else? That was a treasure beyond comparison. And she would enjoy every single word.

  This was probably the only romance she would ever know.

  John gritted his teeth. The pastor was wrong. There was nothing relaxing about this train ride. Besides the fact they stopped at every backwater town and cattle crossing, he had to change trains yet again.

  He picked up his carpetbag, exited the train, crossed the platform, and followed the sign for Bakersfield.

  That was the other thing he hadn’t realized when he booked this trip: he could go east out of Heartbreak, but apparently the train didn’t make the return trip. Not without a weeklong layover in Chicago.

  John handed his bag to the porter, an older, stooped Negro, who nodded and smiled, thanking him for riding with him. John held back the sharp retort itching on the end of his tongue for release. It wasn’t the old man’s fault he had to change trains.

  He climbed the three steps and hesitated. Left or right? With no assigned seating, the only question was which car would be quieter. He’d had his fill of crying kids and snoring men.

  He glanced through the door of the car on his left. A woman reading a magazine, and two men playing cards. On the right, a woman with three children who ran up and down the aisle.

  Left it was.

  Inside this car, he sat in the second row. The woman was to his right, and the card players were behind him. He propped his feet on the seat facing
him, crossed his legs at the ankles, tipped his hat over his face, and closed his eyes. With any luck, he’d have a good long rest before the conductor woke him for dinner.

  But while his body screamed for sleep, his mind wouldn’t settle. He worried about his daughters. He fretted over how Martin was handling things on the ranch. Sure, he was experienced. Sure, he’d managed things before when John was preoccupied with Sophia’s illness.

  But he’d always been there in case Martin had a question. Now he was hundreds if not thousands of miles away. What if a cow went into a breech labor? What if a steer broke through the fence again and ended up in the mire? What if—

  He snapped his head up. He could “what if” himself to death. John drew a deep breath and settled his chin on his chest. No matter how bad things got in Heartbreak, there wasn’t one thing he could do about it. He might as well relax.

  Pages rustled beside him, and he glanced at the woman reading the magazine. Pink tinged her cheeks, and her mouth formed a tiny “o” as though she was reading something pleasing. He couldn’t make out the cover of the magazine from this angle, but he doubted it was a Sears catalog. She was much too engrossed in it.

  The irony of the situation didn’t escape him. Here he was, caught up in worrying about what was happening in the real world—his real world—beyond the confines of this train, and there was this young woman purposely losing herself in the make-believe world of her reading material.

  He envied her.

  At the touch on her shoulder, Mary looked up into the wizened face of Thomas. “Yes?”

  “Excuse me, miss. But I came to tell you we won’t be stopping any more this evening. We’s a little behind schedule, and the engineer says we got to make up some time.”

  “Thank you, Thomas. I appreciate you letting me know.”

  “Because we won’t be a-stopping, the engineer opened up the dining car to all the passengers for free. So if’n you want to head that way, I’ll give you a head start.”

  She patted his hand. “You are most kind.”

  “Thank you, miss.”

  Mary tucked her magazine into her purse and headed toward the dining car. Without the money to buy a meal aboard the train, she’d only smelled the food and heard the stories of the wonderful offerings from other passengers. The opportunity to eat at no charge was too good to miss.

  Along the way, she noted the other passengers, wondering if any would make good traveling companions. There were several families with children, a couple who gazed into each other’s eyes so intently they must be on their honeymoon, and several dandies, complete with cravats and monocles. Probably traveling gamblers. Two older couples dozed in their seats, and several younger men, working class judging by their calloused hands and rough clothing, occupied the other cars she passed through.

  She selected a table for two in the farthest corner of the dining car and slid across the leather seat so she faced the rest of the tables. Perhaps she could pass the time—and the miles—by watching her fellow passengers.

  A waiter took her food order then set a steaming cup of coffee before her with a large jug of cream and a bowl of sugar cubes. She applied both generously to her beverage—she couldn’t recall the last time she enjoyed sugar at the orphanage—and sipped. Delicious.

  The door behind her opened, and about twenty people hurried in. One man by himself glanced at the empty seat across from her and then at her. She offered a timid smile, not wanting to encourage him, but at least wanting to acknowledge him.

  His eyes traveled up, ending at her neck. His cheeks flushed, and he turned away.

  She tugged at the collar of her dress. Perhaps she should skip her meal and return to the safety of her car. If she kept her nose buried in her magazine, nobody would bother her.

  The door at the far end of the car opened, and she glanced up. Three men from her car—two traveling together and a lone passenger—strolled in. The pair chose a table near the middle of the dining room, where they sat and chatted amiably.

  Now every seat was filled.

  Except the one across from her.

  Mary shrank into her seat and pulled her magazine from her purse. If she was engrossed in her magazine, the final passenger might decide to let her sit by herself. At the very least, he wouldn’t try to strike up a conversation with her.

  A shadow fell across the table. She looked up.

  A cowboy, his face tanned by the sun and wind, hands calloused by hard work, wrinkles where there should have been laugh lines, stood before her.

  Just like the sad soul in the magazine, he now occupied flesh and bone.

  In the story, that cowboy had lost hope, and the heroine—a woman of virtue and gentleness—loved this cowboy right out of his misery.

  And out of the story had stepped this man. Not handsome by most standards, there was a longing and an intensity about him that called to her.

  This man had deep wounds, invisible to everybody but her.

  John waited a couple of extra heartbeats for the young woman to acknowledge him as he stood beside her table. There were no empty seats, and he hoped he wasn’t breaking some secret rule about asking a single diner to share their table.

  The waiter appeared beside him at that moment and set a plate of lamb chops with parsley potatoes and baby carrots before the woman, who nodded her thanks. The waiter then turned to him. “Take a seat here, sir. It’s the only empty seat.”

  Heat rushed up John’s cheeks as the woman studied him through slitted eyes, her mouth twitching. He waited an extra minute, hoping she would invite him to join her, but she busied herself with her meal.

  He sat, feeling like ten kinds of a fool. She didn’t want him there.

  The waiter stood beside him again, notepad in hand. “The special is the lamb chops. Or you can have steak and kidney pie.”

  “Don’t like kidney. I’ll have the lamb.”

  “Very good choice, sir. And coffee?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  He studied her as she ate. While not as beautiful as Sophia, there was a deep sadness, perhaps related to the scars on her neck, that called to him. Her chin was more pointed than Sophia’s, her hair less golden and more brown, her eyes closer together yet large and clear.

  Finally, he could keep silent no longer. “You were reading.”

  “You were sleeping.”

  This was an unexpected response. In his limited experience, most women were glad to keep a conversation going for ten minutes or more, jumping from topic to topic.

  Either this woman had the social graces of a weathervane, or she was sparring with him, as it were.

  He tried again while she sipped her coffee. “Are you heading toward or away from something?”

  A moment of panic crossed her face as she glanced from side to side and her mouth pursed into that attractive little “o” again before she answered. “Both.”

  Well, two could play that game. “Me, too.”

  She tipped her head in question. “Both?”

  “Yes.”

  The waiter set his dinner and coffee before him, and John forked a potato into his mouth like he hadn’t eaten in a week. Within two minutes, his plate was empty. He glanced up.

  She studied him. Her food, growing cold on her plate, no longer interested her as much as he did.

  Well, two could play that game, too.

  He dumped four sugar cubes into his coffee, stirred the liquid, and drank, making great slurping noises before setting the empty cup in its saucer while he stared at her over the rim.

  A smile tickled at the corners of her mouth.

  He set his cup down and allowed a smile to mirror hers.

  She covered her mouth with her napkin and chuckled into the white folds. After a minute or so, she wiped her eyes. “Sorry. That was very impolite of me. But you should have seen the look on the waiter’s face. I thought he was going to have an apoplectic fit.”

  “Probably confirmed everything he knows about cowboys. We’re not s
uitable company for respectable folk.” He tipped his head. “I’m John, by the way.”

  There. That same moment of—of panic? Fear? Surprise?—passed over her face, but she recovered quickly and returned the nod. “Mary.”

  Mary. The same name as the woman he would wed in less than two weeks. He shrugged off the similarity. Mary was a common name. A poll of the passengers on the train would likely reveal most had a Mary in their family. And he’d probably find two or three women with the same name.

  Still, he sobered as he reminded himself he was on this train, heading home, to ready his household and his heart to wed.

  If she was half the woman this Mary was, he’d have little to complain about.

  Chapter 4

  Pushed and jostled by the large number of passengers around her, Mary boarded the train again in Denver, eager to be on her way. As she made her way to her seat—the one she called hers—the woman with her three small children clambered up the steps ahead of her.

  She felt like she’d spent a lifetime on this rattling box of glass, wood, and metal that hissed at her now like an angry serpent, and they’d been aboard the train even longer.

  The woman’s shoulders slumped, and dark circles under her eyes bespoke sleepless nights of watching over her children. Their faces were marred with the jam bun they’d just consumed like hungry ravens in the depot diner, and their clothing was wrinkled and dirty.

  The youngest, a little girl with a head full of curly, blond hair, whimpered something to her mother, who sighed and picked her up.

  Mary studied the woman’s actions, searing them into her mind. Soon she would be a mother, and although she’d spent much of her life at an orphanage full of young ones, she’d not been their sole support and care.

  Most of the other passengers were already seated, and she worried she might have to share with another, but no, she was in luck. Her seat was still empty. The woman and children continued down the passageway toward the rear of the car. She slid onto the wooden bench and clutched her purse to her bosom as she considered her situation.