Mail Order Bride: 9 Book Boxed set : 9 Brides for 9 Cowboys: CLEAN Western Historical Romance Series Bundle

by Faye Sonja

  She didn’t respond to his question though. She was sure saying yes would lead to something she was not yet ready to admit. She kept silent and she could feel his eyes burning into her mind.

  “I love you Samuel,” she whispered to him, finally looking him the eyes. “And that is the truth.”

  “The truth?” he asked.

  “Yes, and I know you might find that hard to believe but it is,” she said.

  “You just don’t love me the way you would love him,” he said. This time when he spoke it was not anger that was in his voice. It was surrender. “I see the way you look at Joshua… you have never looked at me like that.”

  “I-I,” she began, wanting to tell him she was sorry but not sure how. She was sure that an apology would not be enough. She knew that if she were in his position it certainly would not be enough for her.

  “I have tried to understand since it happened and I simply cannot, because a part of me was still holding on to the possibility, but now I understand,” he whispered to her. “I met girls like you in the English world so I understand your indecision. I just never thought it would happen to me.”

  She looked at him in shock, was he saying what she thought he was saying. “What does that mean?”

  “It means your secret is safe with me Jessica, but I cannot live your lie with you. I have loved you for years and this is painful, but I would rather move on and try and find some amount of happiness elsewhere than to live the lie you are living that will no doubt bring you down.” He paused. “My advice to you is to be honest with your parents, because at the end of the day, they will be the ones you hurt most.”

  She wanted to tell him that was not true. The people she was hurting most were him and the man she loved. Her parents would have to accept who she chose, and if they didn’t… well, she didn’t want to think about that. She was relieved to find he was this understanding though; maybe a stint in the English world was not so bad after all. Though she would never consider it. The problem was that even though she knew he would keep her secret safe, it did not eliminate the fact that she would have to explain to her parents that after all these years she would not be marrying the man they thought she would.

  “Thank you,” she whispered to him taking his hand in hers.

  “Don’t thank me just yet,” he said pulling her to him for a hug. “The real trial is about to start.”

  She sighed and looked across to where Joshua sat with her brother and friend. She smiled at the sight of them. Trouble or not, she had the feeling it would be worth it. But trouble loomed on the horizon, because as church let out, she headed towards him in time to hear him accept an invitation to a picnic with another one of the women who was hot on the heels of marriage. It struck her to the core.

  Did she really just hear him accept that or was her hearing going?

  “I will see you then,” said the woman ignoring her standing there.

  “I am looking forward to it,” Joshua said before walking off. Again Jessica could not believe what she had heard. Had she just given up Samuel for a man who had then taken up another woman in her place? She was livid, but she couldn’t vent now, and with her mother close by there was no way she was going to get the chance to escape the after church get together, and so she held it in, changed her direction and went back to where Samuel was seated with the children. She could use the distraction.

  * * *

  “You stare at my sister a lot,” Jessica’s brother startled him from behind.

  “I do not!” he protested. Joshua had been watching the little boy and had come to like him quite a bit. He was one of the smart ones who was not too precocious and who doted on his sister just as much as he did.

  “Yes,” Cas said flatly sitting beside him. “You do stare at her a lot but she knows.”

  Joshua was not so sure what to make of the little boy’s words and so he did not dignify his statements with a response.

  “You should talk to her more often, who knows you both could become really good friends,” he said.

  There was a hint of mischief in his voice and a twinkle in his eyes that told him he knew something he was not letting on. He looked across the field at the woman in question and watched her as she fed the hungry multitude.

  “What is she like?” he asked Cas who had gotten quite comfortable with him.

  “Jessica?” he asked. “She is awesome. I love her. She is my best friend and we tell each other everything. She is kind too and I think she is unhappy these days because there is something she can’t tell our parents just yet. But she is lovely. She is my big sister and I love her.”

  He stressed the word everything and this time there was no doubt in his mind that he knew. The smile he gave confirmed as much.

  “I bet you do,” he said lost in thought. There was not much else he could say to the ten year old. All the things that came to his mind were things he wanted to tell Jessica, but it didn’t seem the night would offer that opportunity.

  “You should talk to her more often,” Cas said again before running off to where their parents were seated. He watched him with a smile. Had he just gotten courting advice from a ten year old?

  He had and it was simple and good advice. It was certainly better advice than he had been giving himself and he had to just accept that the little boy with the hat two sizes too big for his head was an old sage packed with wisdom he would not ignore. One thing was sure, he did not want to be the person to make Jessica upset. If only their situation was a simple one. With one last look at Jessica he excused himself and escaped for the peace and quiet of the river bank he had come to love. It was after all the place he had his most pleasant memory- their first kiss.

  * * *

  8

  Chapter EIGHT

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  “ She hoped he would be something

  more than just the same traditional

  gentleman she was growing tired of.”

  .

  Jessica stayed as long as she could with the children. It was a welcomed distraction to the thoughts of what she knew she was going to be doing come evening time. She had listened to Samuel and she was not going to continue with the pretence. As the sun dipped low in the sky over an hour later, she washed her hands by the pipe on the outside of the common area. She was trying to decide whether she would go hunting for Joshua or not. No, she was too upset with him. She wanted to get some quiet time though and so the river was her next best option.

  “Maem!” she called to her mother. “I am going for a walk by the river.”

  “Take a coat,” her mother called back to her and she grabbed one and headed out. She took her sweet little time, getting there in no rush, but as fate would have it, she was not to be on the river bank alone. She heard a deep familiar masculine voice humming. It was a sweet melodious tune that soothed her ears as she approached and she stood in the shadows of the trees listening for a while.

  “Singing to the fish?” she asked, startling him when he paused...

  Joshua smiled up at her. “They seem to like it. They have not yet asked me to leave.”

  “Yet,” she added with a chuckle, forgetting that she was mad at him at the moment. Jessica smiled feeling all anger slip from her beneath his gaze. “So I heard you agreed to go out with another woman?”

  Joshua squinted up at her. “I agreed to join them for a picnic. It was a judgement call. I didn’t want to force you into ending it with Samuel,” Joshua’s words were a clear apology for the feeling of betrayal she knew he could see in her eyes.

  “I had not yet been given the opportunity to do so. How was your date?”

  “It has not happened yet and I am sure if it ever did it would be filled with thoughts of you,” Joshua smiled at her. She thought he looked angelic in the moonlight.

  “Somehow I doubt that,” she retorted, sitting beside him.

  “Wh
y would you?” he asked surprised. “I have never given you reason to doubt that the things I say were true.”

  There was a long pause and Joshua instantly reached for her hand. She accepted the show of support with a sigh. There was something weighing heavily on her heart and she did not know where to even begin to express it. He kissed her cheek and pulled her into him as he rested back on the tree bark.

  “Tell me what is bothering you,” he said as he wrapped her in a warm hug.

  Jessica closed her eyes and listened to the night around them. Somewhere in the distance a dog yapped and an owl hooted overhead while the crickets carried on with their coral.

  “I will have to tell my parents Samuel and I are no longer together,” she said at last.

  He sighed. “That will not be easy considering they are no doubt expecting you both to get married.”

  “No it will not be, and what is worse is that I do not want to lie to them.”

  Kissing the top of her head Joshua whispered, “Telling them the truth might be a little tricky.”

  She knew just how tricky it would be. “The joys of adulthood,” she lamented turning her face upwards so he could kiss her fears away. And so he did.

  “I don’t think I will be able to stay here when I tell them the truth,” she said. It was a thought she had been having for a very long time. Long being the last couple weeks. To defy the wishes of your parents in a community such as this was to be shunned. And she knew for a fact that they would not take lightly to it when she tells them that he has been shunned from his community, because for sure her father would be interested in his reason for leaving now that he was involved with his daughter.

  “Will you be telling them the truth?” Joshua asked her.

  She nodded and fell silent. The rest was an unspoken epistle that needed no words. They both knew all too well what would happen if she told her parents she liked another man.

  “I don’t need you to,” Joshua assured her.

  “I know you don’t. But I will need to come clean sooner or later and they have expectations of me that I will never be able to fulfil, Joshua. I will not disgrace my parents by lying to them.”

  “There is something else isn’t there?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “I will have to tell them that you were shunned and they will not approve of you.”

  He knew what that meant and she knew she did not have to explain it. “Well, I will leave if I have to and I hope if that is the case that you will come with me.”

  Jessica pulled him closer. “We might both have to leave, because defying your parents in this community is strictly forbidden.”

  Joshua held her closer stroking her face and the tears of sadness for what was to come flowed down her face. If only life was not this hard all the time.

  “Shhhh,” he whispered to her, kissing away her tears. “For now, let us just sit here and enjoy each other and leave all the problems for when we must face them.”

  She held on tight to the man her heart cooed for and there they sat fingers intertwined and hearts beating to the same drum for longer than she could tell. When the night grew still they knew it was time for them to go and with a parting kiss they promised each other to be there again tomorrow. This time Jessica hoped tomorrow would not be a week away, but who knew what fate would again have in store for them?

  * * *

  9

  Chapter NINE

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  “ She hoped he would be something

  more than just the same traditional

  gentleman she was growing tired of.”

  .

  Joshua sat at his desk and wrote a letter to Jackson to explain his situation and that he really wanted to go home. That day he made his way to the town on permission from one of the elders and sent a telegram home. He waited for three hours for a response and had almost given up, when the messenger boy found him by the dock and informed him of a response.

  Joshua,

  I have delivered your message to the elders and they have agreed.

  Should you need to come home with your prospective wife who is also Amish, you will be accepted, but you must be baptized immediately.

  Your friend, Jackson.

  His heart felt as light as a feather and he knew that once he was baptized he would never be able to leave the community again. If he ever did he would be excommunicated from the faith completely. Not even his mother would speak to him.

  His mother... he missed her. He missed her so much and he knew that should she ever get the opportunity to meet Jessica, she would love her. It was a bitter-sweet thought, because she was hoping there would be no need for them to leave her home and plunged her into the misery he had felt when he had left everything he knew for a world that was new to him.

  When he got back to the community, Cassandra sat at the doorway pulling beans from their pods. “Why do I have the feeling you are preparing to tell me goodbye?” she asked him.

  He paused in ascending the stairs and looked at her in shock. It was almost as if she could always read his mind. “I might have to,” he confessed.

  “You taking your girl with you?” there was a twinkle in the old woman’s eyes as she spoke.

  “I am taking her with me if she will come. As it is it not certain she will agree, and a part of me hopes she will never know the pain of having to leave her own home.”

  “In an ideal world we would never suffer those things love, but this is not an ideal world,” Cassandra paused to tuck his unruly hair behind his ears. “We live in a world that is as unforgiving as it is rewarding. It is all about what side of the fence you land on.”

  He looked up at her. “I will miss you if I have to go.”

  “And I will miss you more, and for as long as I live you will always have a home with me and a place in my heart.”

  He took comfort in that because he was beginning to feel like a rolling stone without much direction. The only thing holding him together was the love for the woman who somewhere was preparing herself for a meeting to disappoint her parents.

  He would miss this place if he had to go. With that thought he made plans to visit Smith before he left. Without that man he would never have survived in this city. He said a prayer for all the good people he had met along the way, and clung to the hope that he would be seeing his mother soon.

  * * *

  “Jessica! Over here!” Chrisanne called to her. Chrisanne was never late for anything including chores and Jessica admired that about her. But today she was not alone. Her younger sister who was a bit of a talker was helping Chrisanne pick apples. It would be the last day of the harvest of the first fruits from the tree, and the orchard was a bit scanty.

  “How did it go?” Chrisanne asked her excitedly. Jessica was sure if Chrisanne bubbled any more with excitement, she would bubble herself right off the step ladder and break a limb or two.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked confused.

  “I have seen you with Joshua. You both have an inkling for each other and I am happy because I knew somehow that Samuel was not going to be your pick for the rest of your life,” Chrisanne said to her.

  “I had a fun time with a friend,” Jessica said and glanced knowingly at Chrisanne who took the point well and sent her sister to the barn with the basket of apples she had already picked. She knew better than to try and hide anything from her. Chrisanne could see through any fib.

  Chrisanne climbed down from the ladder and looked at Jessica with concern. “So how did it go?”

  “I am not sure,” Jessica replied honestly. “It was okay”

  “Tell me,” Chrisanne urged, but there really was not much to be told. She had barely heard a word David had said on their date. She had simply been biding her time for it to be over so she could go meet up with Miriam who was nowhere to be seen in the orchard that day.

  “There r
eally isn’t much to be told,” she assured Chrisanne who looked very disappointed.

  “Come on, don’t hold out.” She laughed at Chrisanne’s eagerness.

  “Well, for now we are just getting to know each other and I like him a lot. I like him enough to give a life with him a go.”

  Chrisanne handed her an apple and she took a bite, pondering on the things she was about to tell her while she chewed.

  “I heard my sister saying that he had left his previous community but nobody knows why,” Chrisanne said. “Has he told you?”

  Jessica smiled inwardly knowing Chrisanne’s big family was tapped into all forms of gossip happening around the community. “Yes, but that is not my story to tell so I will leave it to him should he want to at some later date.”

  Chrisanne was definitely not the person she would tell Joshua’s secret to and not before she told her parents which she was planning to do that night. Her friend wasn’t exactly happy with that but she let it go.

  She continued. “Well, turns out he is a really good person and he has his heart in the right place.”

  “Oh, that is good,” Chrisanne said sadly, “If his secret is something that will cause him to be shunned, what is he going to do?”

  Yes, Chrisanne was astute enough to pick up on the fact that his story might be something to worry about. She shrugged her shoulder hoping she could resolve it with her family. The rest of the day passed by quickly with them thinking up possible situations to get Joshua out of his bind or her parents to accept him, but she was stumped at every turn.