Taming the Rancher: Mail Order Bride (Brides and Twins Book 2)

by Natalie Dean

  “Not lately,” he said finally. “I’m afraid I’ve been too busy with the church. The town is growing very rapidly.”

  Hoping to avoid further questions, he took a large gulp of tea and regretted it immediately. The water was still far too hot and burned his throat on its way down.

  “I would think that a wife might help to ease that burden,” Bernadette continued undeterred.

  Elijah felt his cheeks warm again even as a wry smile crossed his face.

  “But, seeking out that wife would put a greater burden on my shoulders than is there now,” he said. “Here, finding a woman willing and able to marry is a chore in and of itself.”

  Suddenly, as though she were waiting for Elijah to make this argument, Bernadette reached into the pocket of her apron, pulled out a small booklet and handed it across the table to Elijah.

  After only a moment’s inspection, he realized what it was. Heaving a heavy sigh, he read the title: The Hand and Heart.

  “This method worked wonderfully for both my husband, Matt, and Billy,” Bernadette said. “Perhaps you should try it yourself.”

  “Forgive me, Mrs. Jacobs,” Elijah said. Arguments to this line of reasoning already half prepared. “But, both Billy and your husband had land, a home and opportunity to offer their brides. A pastor makes very little in the way of money. And everyone knows the work that comes along with being a pastor’s wife. Particularly in a small town.”

  “Am I to believe, Pastor,” Bernadette said with a thoroughly disbelieving smile. “That you do not believe one woman anywhere would be willing to become the wife of a pastor?”

  “I’m saying that it is unlikely,” Elijah said. “Girls in that booklet are looking for opportunities. I can’t offer them any.”

  “You would be surprised,” Bernadette said. “Some are looking for a good deal more than money. At least look through it. For my own peace of mind if nothing else.”

  Elijah shook his head and returned to his tea.

  Though there was no more talk of marriage or writing for a bride that evening, Elijah took the booklet home with him.

  When he arrived in his small cottage just behind the church, it was well past dark.

  Before the lamps were lit, the house looked cold and lonely. Even after he lit the lamp in the parlor, the small room did not improve.

  Even this tiny cottage had begun to feel large and empty within the last year or so. He’d blamed it on the strain of his growing flock but, now, after speaking to Bernadette, he realized it was more than that.

  Reaching into his pocket, his hand hit against the little booklet she had given him. The booklet that he knew was filled with advertisements from girls back east hoping to be joined in matrimony to men in the Western territories.

  Suddenly, at home, as he sat down at the small table that was still too large for one person, the idea of answering one of these advertisements did not seem as laughable as it had only one hour before.

  Slowly, he took out the booklet and began to search through it. It wasn’t until later that night, after he had nearly given up, that he found what could be the perfect bride for him

  Chapter Two

  Agatha made her way from the second floor of the boarding house where she worked, down the steps to her room in the basement.

  She had not always stayed in the basement of this run-down boarding house in Angelica, New York. Once, she’d lived in one of the nicer rooms upstairs with her mother.

  But, that was before her mother had died. Before Agatha lost her job at the town’s textile factory. Before she’d fallen on the wrong side of the factory foreman, Luke Crenshaw.

  Now, the owner of the boarding house, Mrs. Rankin, had allowed Agatha to stay on in exchange for housework. She’d made up the room in the basement for Agatha the day Agatha had been dismissed from the factory.

  Agatha reached the basement and opened the door with a tired sigh. Every part of her body ached from the day’s work. But, she knew it would be no use complaining to anyone. Especially not Mrs. Rankin.

  The old woman liked to remind Agatha as often as she could how lucky she was to have work at all.

  “Most people in this town wouldn’t give you a second glance,” Mrs. Rankin said. “Not with the rumors running around about what you girls got up to at that factory.”

  The rumors. Those rumors were what had ruined her reputation, her job, her life.

  They were the reason she knew she had to get out of Angelica as fast as she could.

  Agatha heaved another sigh as she slumped down on the grimy mattress in the basement corner. It took a moment before her tired eyes noticed the small mail envelope beside her bed.

  Heart racing, she picked it up and moved it towards the lamp on the other side of her makeshift bed. Placing it under the light, she read the return address on the envelope.

  It was from a man named Elijah Rhodes in Wyoming.

  Immediately, Agatha knew what this meant.

  Someone had answered her advertisement. The one she had placed in a booklet weeks before.

  Just after she was thrown out of the factory, one of the girls she’d worked with had told her about such booklets. Young men out west would look through them to find girls back east willing to become brides.

  Often, the men out west would place their own advertisements in the booklets. But, sometimes, women would as well.

  “If I were you,” she said. “I would put an advertisement in as soon as possible. That way, it might only be a matter of months before you find someone who could pay for your passage west.”

  Not knowing what else to do, Agatha had taken the girl’s advice. Of course, she knew that there was a possibility rumors could follow her even out west. Tales as persistent as the ones told about her and some other girls in the factory were not likely to disappear easily.

  Taking no chances, she had given herself a false last name in the advertisement. Instead of Agatha McPherson, she became Agatha Thorne.

  That was an easy enough decision and easier to remember. Thorne was her mother’s maiden name. Before she’d become ill, but after Da had died, Mama had sometimes used the name Thorne to find work.

  There were still people in New York weary of last names that sounded too Irish. Thorne sounded more American and was a safer bet.

  It had been weeks since the advertisement was placed and she had not heard any word yet. This would be the very first.

  Hastily, Agatha opened the letter. As soon as she did, a blurry photograph fell into her lap. She picked it up and studied it.

  It showed an impossibly tall man in a dark suit. Standing outside a whitewashed chapel. A Bible clutched in his hands.

  A pastor.

  Agatha could not help but smile. She remembered going to the church in town with her mother. Watching the pastor give his sermon.

  He’d always sounded so sure of himself. Sure, of his faith and sure of God’s love.

  Even when she was very young, she remembered thinking that one day, she wanted to marry a man like that. A man who was calm and confident. Sure of himself and of his God.

  Agatha still went to Church each Sunday, even after her mother’s death. And, though the Pastor was still full of faith, Agatha had found her own faith wavering.

  Aside from her mother’s illness and eventual death, other things had happened to make her question her faith. She never questioned whether God was real. She knew he was.

  But, she questioned whether a good God would be able to forgive. God was perfect and, given the things she’d done, she most certainly was not.

  She longed to feel as confident and sure of God’s love as that pastor seemed to be. Perhaps marriage to this cool, confident pastor in the photograph would give her that.

  Slowly, she took her eyes away from the picture and looked at the letter in her hand.

  “Dear Miss Thorne,” it read.

  “I must tell you how intrigued I was by your advertisement. Specifically, that you promoted yourself as a woman o
f faith. As you can, no doubt see, I have a good deal of faith in our Lord myself. As a pastor, it is something of a requirement.”

  Agatha could not help but smile at that. She realized suddenly that she had not smiled, truly, in a very long time.

  The rest of the letter followed in a similar vein. The pastor told her about his work and a bit about the town in which he lived. All with the same dry, self-deprecating humor.

  In the end, he asked her, if she was so inclined, to write back to him.

  Agatha knew instantly that she was so inclined.

  She also knew that this was the first man in a very long time who had spoken kindly to her. Even if his words were only written and not said aloud.

  She was used to factory foremen barking orders or men who lived in the boarding house berating her for not cleaning their room well enough.

  She could not remember the last time she had received a compliment or a kind word from a man. This pastor’s letter was filled with both.

  Still smiling, her heart leaping in her chest, she reached over to the letter box beside the mattress, took out her pen and began to write.

  Dear Mr. Rhodes…

  Chapter Three

  Agatha Thorne held the parchment in her hands, bending the corners backward and forward as she bumped along in the carriage.

  She was the only one going to Laramie today. The other four passengers, two couples, had disembarked in the last town. In this small carriage, with nothing to distract her, she found herself becoming more and more anxious.

  That was why she had taken out his letter.

  At first, she had thought of taking out the other pieces of paper in her bag. The ones she had taken from the factory. The ones she should not have in the first place.

  But, she was afraid even now. Even thousands of miles away from New York, that someone would see them and know what they meant.

  So, she kept the secret pages locked away in her bag and took out the letter instead.

  The last letter Pastor Elijah Rhodes had sent to her before she left. Her hands ran over the parchment, but she did not move her eyes to read it. She had read it so many times that she now knew it by heart.

  “My Dearest Agatha,” he’d written. “I cannot express to you how happy I am that you have accepted my proposal. Though I realize my life here is humble, I will make every effort to see to your comfort and happiness.”

  It may not have sounded romantic to most women. But, after the men Agatha had known in New York, this Pastor’s simple, gentle promise to see to her happiness was, literally a God send.

  Though she’d wondered about God and her own faith back home, through Elijah’s letters, she was slowly starting to believe again.

  To believe that, perhaps, God did love her. That he was not punishing her for the crimes she had committed against him.

  Though this hope was starting to spring in her chest, there was something that still held her back from completely believing it. Something in the back of her mind that whispered she was tainted. After what had happened in New York, after what she’d done, she would never be whole again. Not really.

  Agatha tried to push these thoughts aside as best she could. Perhaps they would disappear when she reached Laramie.

  The letter still crumpling in her hand, she glanced out the window and saw the makeshift wooden sign that marked the boundary for Laramie, Wyoming.

  She expected to see buildings and people as soon as they entered the town. Instead, the plains and open fields continued to stretch until they stopped at a small group of buildings she had seen in the distance.

  This, she knew, must be Laramie.

  It was vastly different from the towns back home. In New York, there was hardly room anymore between one town or city and the next.

  Here, there did not seem to be any towns or cities to speak of at all. And, when the occasional building did dot the horizon, it was nearly indistinguishable from the wild landscape in which it sat.

  She could tell immediately that the buildings of Laramie were like that too. The small wooden dots stood like temporarily erected tents against a wild, mountain filled sky.

  As they neared the town, Agatha put the letter as gently as she could back into her coin purse and looked out the window at her new home. They passed the church first.

  Though, when she looked at the tiny, whitewashed building, she could not help but think that this could hardly be called a church. Back in New York, they might have called it a chapel.

  A place for the factory workers to go and pray when the nearest parish was too far to walk after a long day working at the machines. But, here, she supposed, chapels were the only churches available.

  A finer lady might have turned her nose up at it. But, Agatha could not help but smile as she passed the small building.

  She could see her Mr. Elijah Rhodes preaching in a place like that. A small, simple building where the trappings and pretense of the world was gone. Only the word of God remained.

  They passed the church and came to a bank and several store buildings which were shakily built and looked as though they had been erected in a hurry. The largest of these was a building with a weathered sign out front which named it The Watering Hole Saloon.

  It was immediately clear that this was the newest building erected in the town. The wood was not weathered and was still shining with a fresh coat of paint.

  Agatha blushed when she saw girls in various stages of undress leaning against the doorway or hanging out the windows attempting to entice passing men.

  As she looked hastily away from the saloon, she felt the carriage pull abruptly to a stop. She turned to the opposite window and saw the weathered wooden building that was the hotel. This was where Elijah had promised to meet her.

  Her heart began to beat quickly again in her chest as her hands absently moved to her pocket to touch the corners of his letter. As though brushing against the parchment he’d sent her would bring her luck.

  Stepping out of the carriage, she was indeed met with a tall, thin male form that she vaguely recognized from the blurry photograph she had first received.

  Elijah Rhodes was as tall as she imagined he would be. Nearly as tall as the steeple of the church in which he spoke. His face, though clearly still young was lined with wrinkles and strain. She supposed that came in the form of his job. Remembering the women outside of the saloon, she knew his work here could not be easy.

  But, when his gray eyes locked onto hers, they lit up for half a moment before he smiled. That smile made the strain in his face nearly disappear. Agatha could not help but return it as he made his way towards her.

  “Miss Thorne?” he asked almost hesitantly. Agatha winced imperceptibly at the last name she was not quite used to yet.

  “Please, call me Agatha,” she said, hoping that the haste in her voice didn’t make him too suspicious. His smile remained in place, and her heart settled.

  “Agatha then,” he said taking her hand. It was warmer than she had expected it to be. For the second time in as many minutes she felt her cheeks go warm.

  “I can’t tell you how happy I am to finally meet you,” he said. It was clear that he was every bit as nervous about this meeting as she was. For one reason or another, knowing that, put her more at ease.

  “I am as well Mr. Rhodes.”

  He chuckled and seemed to relax. Apparently, her nerves put him at ease too.

  “If you’re to be Agatha to me,” he said. “I’ll be Elijah to you.”

  “Elijah, then,” she said echoing his words. His smile widened and, for a moment, they simply looked at one another.

  Their gaze was broken by a high-pitched and clearly excited voice coming from the doorway of the hotel.

  “Oh! You must be Miss Thorne! Elijah has told us all so much about you, dear!”

  Just as Agatha turned towards the sound, she found herself enveloped in a fervent embrace. She was squeezed so tightly that she could hardly register that the arms circling her belonged
to an elderly and rather large woman.

  When Agatha was finally released, she pulled back slightly to take in bright green eyes and the round face of the woman she assumed to be Mrs. Matthews, the owner of the hotel who Elijah had told her about in his letters.

  “I hope you’ll forgive me for being so familiar, dear,” the older woman said. “But, Elijah’s talked of you so often I feel as though I know you already. Please come in! Oh, don’t worry about your bags, Robert will take them to your room for you. While he does that, both of you must sit down in the kitchen for some tea. I’m sure you’ll need it after the journey you’ve had.”

  She said all this very quickly while nearly pulling both Agatha and Elijah over the threshold of the hotel. Eyes wide, more than a little overwhelmed, Agatha looked over her shoulder at Elijah. He gave her an understanding, humorous smile.

  As soon as they were over the threshold, he took her arm as Mrs. Matthews moved quickly ahead of them.

  “I’m sorry about Mrs. Matthews,” he said. “I realize she can be a bit overbearing at first.”

  “I suppose you’re used to it,” Agatha said looking up to him again. He smiled down at her and, once more, she felt a little flipping sensation in her stomach.

  His hand remained gently on her arm until they reached the kitchen where he pulled out a chair for her at the long wooden table. Again, Agatha smiled in thanks, her cheeks growing warm.

  She was still very unused to such genteel behavior from a suitor. In the last five years, working at the factory back in New York, the only men she met were brash and coarse. Certainly, nothing like Elijah Rhodes.

  “I’m certain you’ll enjoy living in Laramie,” Mrs. Matthews said in her quick, bright manner as she brought in a steaming pot of tea and set it on the table. “It really is a lovely community. Nothing like those horrid tales you might have heard about some of the other towns out west. Though with the new business in town, I do wonder if we’re not headed down that dark road.”

  “New business?” Agatha asked looking from Mrs. Matthews to Elijah.

  “Mrs. Matthews is speaking of the new saloon that opened only one month ago,” Elijah said. “She seems to feel that it will attract a certain…undesirable set to our community.”