Mail Order Prairie Bride: (A Western Historical Romance) (Dodge City Brides Book 1)

by Julianne MacLean

  The room brightened and George sat down on the sofa. “Sarah was upset after you left. She didn’t eat any supper. She went straight upstairs to bed.”

  Briggs leaned against the door frame and folded his arms. “Are you trying to make me feel guilty? I’m not the one who lied.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  George raked a hand through his hair. “I’m not on anyone’s side. I just think Sarah needs—”

  “Sarah needs? I’m your family, George. Me. She lied to me from the beginning and you act like I’m the one to blame here, like I’m the one who’s being unreasonable.”

  “I don’t think that.”

  Briggs moved into the room with deliberate care, trying not to knock over the lamp on the side table as he passed it by. “Then what do you think?”

  “You can’t turn your back on her, Briggs. She has no one.”

  Briggs squeezed his eyes shut against the throbbing sensation in his head. “No one? Did she tell you the story of her poor deceased parents?”

  “Yes. Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “So you lent her your sympathetic ear, did you?”

  “You’re not making any sense.

  Briggs walked to the mantel. He leaned one elbow upon it, rested his temple on two fingers. “George, you don’t understand.”

  George rose and gripped Briggs’s shoulder. “You need to get some sleep. You’re a mess. And Sarah does love you.”

  Wincing inside, Briggs stepped away from his brother. His speech was slurred. “I don’t want to hear that.”

  “But you care about her, Briggs. I know you do. You’re just gun-shy.”

  “Damn right, I’m gun-shy. And you don’t know everything, big brother. You think you know her because you’ve spent some time with her, but you don’t. She’s beautiful and she uses that to get what she wants. You’re playing right into her game.”

  George backed away with a frown, retreating into the dark kitchen. “You’re drunk.”

  “Am I?” Briggs followed him.

  George said nothing. He went to the kitchen window and pulled it closed.

  “You’re always taking her side,” Briggs went on, “like I’m the one who did everything wrong. Granted, I haven’t always been easy to get along with, I’ll admit that, but hell, George, I’m your brother. We really don’t know anything about Sarah.”

  George sank into one of the kitchen chairs. Leaning both elbows on the table, he said, “I’m sorry, Briggs. I just can’t accept what you’re saying.”

  “I know that—because you were taken with her the moment you saw her at the train station. Weren’t you?”

  George shook his head. “No. She’s your wife.”

  Briggs laughed bitterly. “Funny, you were the one trying to convince me not to marry her in the first place. You wanted me to get to know her first.”

  George leaned back in his chair. “I remember. I had a bad feeling about everything.”

  “And you were right. You have no idea what I learned tonight.”

  George inclined his head, curiously. “Well? Are you going to tell me?”

  “I sure am.”

  A half hour later, George sat back in his chair and sighed. “Do you believe him?”

  “I don’t know what to believe,” Briggs replied. “I’m just starting to have the feeling that this marriage was never meant-to-be. I thought I was avoiding trouble by getting myself a mail-order bride. I thought it would be simpler.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Briggs rested his forehead in his hand and squeezed his eyes shut. “I should do what any man in my position would do. But the idea of it…”

  George looked up. “The idea of what?”

  “The idea of….” He couldn’t believe this was happening. “God, George, I do care for her. I’m practically obsessed, because I can’t stop thinking about her every damn minute of the day. But that’s crazy, and I can’t let how I feel about her change what has to be done. I know it’ll be hard, but I gotta do the right thing. I gotta protect myself, and I’m going to need your help.”

  George exhaled heavily and sat back in his chair.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sarah lay awake in the darkness staring at the ceiling. The pain in her arm had woken her an hour ago, and she’d tip-toed into the hall only to find herself alone in the house, which was odd because it was past midnight.

  Her mind had already created an alarming number of unpleasant scenarios. What if Briggs and George had gone out to find Garrison? What if something terrible had happened to them? What if they’d reported everything to the sheriff?

  Back in bed now and turning onto her side, she rested her cheek on the back of her hand. If only she could sleep through this physical pain and emotional uncertainty.

  About a half hour later, she heard a wagon pull up in front of the house. She leaped out of bed and hurried to the window.

  They were back. A sigh of relief escaped her. She stood at the window, one hand resting on the sill. George and Briggs spoke for a moment. Then George hopped down from the wagon and came to the door.

  Briggs drove off.

  A sick feeling crept into Sarah’s stomach. Where was he going?

  She wrapped her shawl around her shoulders and hurried downstairs where she met George in the kitchen. “Where were you?” she asked, unable to hide her fear and desperation.

  George laid some papers on the table, and seemed to have some trouble meeting her eyes. His tone was cool as he spoke. “You’d better sit down, Sarah.”

  Her heart began to thump inside her chest. “Why? What happened? Where did Briggs go?”

  “Please sit down,” George suggested more insistently as he pulled a chair out for her.

  Sarah hesitated, then slowly made her way into it. She sat there waiting while George flipped through the papers. “Would you like a cup of tea before we begin?” he asked as he put on his spectacles, hooking the wires behind his ears.

  “No, I don’t want anything,” she replied, feeling confused and anxious, “except for you to tell me what’s going on.”

  George folded his hands on top of the papers in front of him. “I’m afraid it’s not good news.”

  A jolt of fear left her paralyzed.

  “I’m sorry, Sarah, but Briggs has decided to seek an annulment.”

  Everything seemed to grow dark around her as George’s words settled into her mind. An annulment? Had she heard him correctly?

  “He feels very strongly about it, and he hopes you’ll understand.” George took a deep breath. “He doesn’t want to see you again.”

  Tears flooded her eyes. She swallowed hard, trying desperately not to cry. “Did he tell you why, exactly?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss that with you, Sarah, but I will say this much—it’s on the basis of fraudulent misrepresentation. You may want to seek your own counsel if you wish to contest it, as I am representing Briggs now.”

  The chill in her brother-in-law’s voice wounded her deeply, for she’d always felt that George thought highly of her. Now it seemed as if the whole world was turning against her.

  “Does he still love Isabelle?” she asked, her voice cracking.

  “As I said, it’s not my place to discuss that with you.”

  But she could not back down, because this made no sense. “Did Garrison say something to him?”

  George picked up the papers and ignored her question. “Everything’s right here. You should read it over carefully. Briggs has already signed it.”

  Staring in disbelief at what George held in his hands, Sarah felt a sudden burst of anger. When she made no move to reach for the documents, George offered her some information.

  “It may come as a relief for you to know that it doesn’t implicate you as a bigamist. We discussed it at great length, and he doesn’t want to see you go to jail. His just wants his freedom. So we came up with a phrasing that
would—”

  “I don’t care about that,” she blurted out. “I just want to know what his reasons were. Because everything was fine this afternoon. I still believed he loved me.”

  George cleared his throat awkwardly. “It says you misrepresented yourself. That you led Briggs to believe things about yourself that were not true.”

  She shoved her chair back and stood. “This annulment won’t make me go back to Garrison if that’s what Briggs thinks. I’ll make my own way. I want you to tell Briggs that.”

  George stared at her, his face pale. “I will.”

  “And if Briggs can walk out on me knowing how much I love him, and how much I wanted to be his wife, then I welcome this annulment. If he’s incapable of trusting me—or of loving me—then I’m better off without him.”

  Heart racing, she turned and walked out of the kitchen, but stopped at the bottom of the stairs. The papers. She hadn’t signed the papers….

  She squeezed the railing. Should she do it? Should she let Briggs go so easily, without a fight, or without an explanation on his part?

  Sarah’s anger quickly became a scalding fury. After all they’d been through together, how could he leave her without even saying goodbye? He’d sent his brother to do it for him.

  As she stood at the base of George’s staircase, she began to wonder if this swift death to her marriage had been inevitable from the beginning. They hadn’t known a single thing about each other when they spoke their vows at the courthouse, not fifteen minutes after they’d first met. Surely that had been madness.

  Of course, Sarah knew why she had been so desperate to become someone’s wife that day, to change her name and disappear into the vast Kansas prairie—but what had driven Briggs to act so imprudently? Clearly he hadn’t been in his right mind either, after the loss of his family, and then the heartbreak of his broken engagement to a woman he might very well still love. Now reality had set in, and he had come to realize that marriage to a stranger wasn’t what he’d thought he wanted after all.

  And as desperate and frightened as Sarah had been on her wedding day, she couldn’t deny that she had been wrong to deceive Briggs, and perhaps this was her comeuppance.

  Fighting her grief over how it had all played out, Sarah spun on her heel, walked into the kitchen, and hastily scrolled her name.

  * * *

  The sun was just coming up when Briggs drove into his yard feeling sleepy, sore, and hungover. He’d driven all night in a post-drunken stupor, brooding over Sarah’s lies and deceptions. At the same time, he’d fought the urge to turn back around, rip up those annulment papers, and bring her home with him. Though now, he had to wonder what there was to come home to. Dead crops? A tiny structure made of sod? A bitter cold winter on the way, which he would spend alone, missing her?

  He pulled the wagon to a halt, set the brake and hopped down. The chill of the night had not left his bones with the advancing dawn. Autumn would soon be here. With the sky growing brighter, he could see his breath.

  The barn door swung open just then, and Frank Whitiker appeared.

  “Briggs! You’re back!” the boy shouted. “I was looking after Maddie for you. She’s milked and the pigs are fed.”

  Briggs walked toward the boy and messed his hair. “Thanks, Frank. I knew I could count on you.”

  The boy’s face beamed with pride. Briggs smiled, but noticed how much effort it took to do so.

  “I should be getting home,” Frank said. “I still have my own chores to do before breakfast.” He bolted across the yard, but stopped suddenly and turned back. “Wait until I tell Ma and Pa you’re back! They’ll want to come over again for more dancing.”

  Briggs frowned. He wasn’t looking forward to explaining any of this to Howard and Martha. “Mrs. Brigman isn’t with me, Frank. She stayed in town.”

  Frank scratched his head. “Oh.”

  “You can tell your folks not to worry, though.”

  The boy hesitated, then slowly turned and took off across the barren field.

  An hour later, Briggs sat down at the table and stared at the dirt wall while the wind roared eerily across the endless ocean of prairie. Why did he not feel more relieved? He’d just cut loose a deceptive wife—gotten out of it legally—yet the only thing he could think about was how desperately he wished she was here.

  * * *

  After purchasing a train ticket to Caldwell—it was as good a place as any to start over—Sarah went out to walk for a while. She wasn’t feeling very well and thought some fresh, cool air and sunshine might help. She stepped up onto the Front Street boardwalk, her heels clicking in a steady rhythm as she walked by Mueller’s Boot Shop. The smell of fresh bread emerged from the bakery next store and an unexpected wave of nausea moved through her.

  Not again, she thought, holding her gloved hand up to her mouth. Her eyes searched frantically for a place to go, but where? She gagged, then turned and ran into the fenced-in alley beside the boot shop. With one hand on the tall fence, she bent forward and retched.

  A moment later, she was wiping tears from her eyes and sniffling. What else would she have to endure today? Making her way back onto the boardwalk, she tried to ignore the curious stares. She waited for the sick feeling to go away, but it lingered. When she imagined getting on the train and rocking and swaying for the entire journey, she nearly retched again.

  “Are you all right?” an older woman asked her. “You don’t look well at all.”

  “I’m fine.”

  The woman stared sympathetically. “Why don’t you let me take you to the doctor? I couldn’t live with myself if I left you here.”

  Sarah was about to decline the lady’s offer, but thought better of it because she felt so weak and dizzy. Perhaps she did need some help. She would put the visit on Briggs’s account. He owed her that, at least.

  “Thank you,” she said, her body shaky as she tried to walk. The kind woman held Sarah’s good arm and led her slowly down the street.

  * * *

  “Pregnant!” Sarah shouted, staring wide-eyed at Dr. Green. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Sarah collapsed onto a velveteen upholstered chair by the door. The doctor knelt in front of her, his brown eyes full of compassion. “Is there a problem, Mrs. Brigman?”

  A problem? Only if one considered it a problem to be pregnant and not know who the father was.

  She stood up and touched her fingers to her lips. Did the baby belong to Briggs? If so, she could not possibly dispute what she felt—a joy so intense, it could not be matched by anything else in this world.

  Something inside her told her that it was his, but how could she be sure?

  She whirled around and pulled the door open, her skirts spiraling outward.

  “Mrs. Brigman! Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to tell my husband!”

  * * *

  From where he sat in the barn milking Maddie, Briggs was agonizingly aware of the late afternoon silence. The wind had died down, the grass had gone still. If not for the rhythmic streaming of Maddie’s milk into the wooden bucket, he would have questioned whether or not his ears still worked.

  He hunched forward beside the cow and remembered all the days during the past month when he’d looked forward to returning to the little sod dugout after a long day’s work. It’s true what they say, he thought, squeezing the last drop of milk from Maddie’s udder—you don’t appreciate what you have until it’s gone.

  He gripped the bucket’s rope handle and rose to his feet, wondering if what he missed was simply the smell of hot cornbread and pork roast. Any woman could prepare a meal and create a cozy feeling in a sod house. All it took was a few flowers, a tablecloth, a curtain hung on the window.

  But would another woman make this empty feeling go away?

  Suddenly he wanted to saddle one of the horses and gallop straight back to town, get down on his knees and beg Sarah to forgive him for being such an ass, such a coward. When
had he ever just let himself love her without fretting about it? When had he ever given her what she’d given him?

  He stopped suddenly. And why in God’s name had he believed that no-good scoundrel, McPhee, over Sarah? Briggs could barely remember what he had said now, on account of the whiskey.

  He turned to carry the bucket outside, but stopped when he heard something. Hoof beats?

  Anticipation rippled through him. Had Sarah come back to give him another chance?

  Heart flooding with hope, he bent forward to set the bucket on the ground. The hoof beats came to a halt just outside and someone hopped down.

  Briggs moved to the door. His mood began to rise. He was beginning to shake with joy, the urge to laugh! The orange sun came into view as he stepped outside into the light, ready to break into a run, to take his wife into his arms and apologize for everything.

  He stopped dead in his tracks, however.

  Approaching him, with her long flowered skirt sweeping to and fro, was Isabelle.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Clutching her skirt in a tight fist and holding onto her hat, Sarah burst out of the doctor’s office and ran up the street toward the livery. She would hire a buggy and drive out to the farm. Then she would tell Briggs she was expecting a child. A child!

  As she ran, each long stride sent a jolt of pain up her arm, enough to make her feel faint. She raced into Ham Bell’s Livery, but skidded to a halt, realizing she’d never be able to steer a buggy with a broken arm. Maybe she could ask George to drive her. She just couldn’t give up. This news had to change things.

  She was about to turn around and leave when a man in blue overalls approached her. “Hey there, what can I do for you?”

  “I came in for a horse and a buggy, but—”

  “We got that. How long do you want it for?”

  Sarah struggled to catch her breath. “I need to drive out to the Brigman farm, but I’m probably going to need someone else to take me.” She held up her arm in the splint.

  Ignoring her broken arm, he stared at her, his face lighting up like the Fourth of July. “Are you the one that left him for the fancy-dressed gentleman from Boston?”