Annie: A Bride For The Farmhand - A Clean Historical Western Romance (Stewart House Brides Book 3)

by Charity Phillips

  “And then he just left. No warning, just left in the middle of his planned visit, bought a ticket on a ship and is heading off to Europe! Can you believe it? His father would have been so ashamed, the poor girl was in tears. This is the fourth courtship he’s walked out of. We can’t keep finding women for him while he’s locked in his studies. And the rumors about him at school…”

  “Go on.”

  “I mean, I love the boy—of course I love him—but why would he keep doing this? Knowing what people say? Why won’t he just get married?”

  Lila Hawkins looked at Willy tearfully from her place on the huge barrel of flour opposite him in his storage room. Her huge green eyes were shot through the whites with streaks of pink and red, and her complexion was blotchy. Lila’s usually steady voice was strained, and strands of her wispy blonde hair were sticking out around her ears. She was wringing her hat between her fingers as she spoke, but not too vigorously—Willy knew she would look just as composed coming out of his shop as she did while she was coming in.

  He thought a while before answering, staring at his own squarish hands while Lila sniffled in the warm room. “Have you asked Hank why he’s done these things?”

  Lila looked affronted. “What? Why would—what do you mean by that?”

  “Exactly what I asked,” Willy said pleasantly. “Have you asked him why he doesn’t want to date right now?”

  Lila gaped at him for what felt like an hour. “No,” she said finally. “I hadn’t. I guess I don’t know his feelings on dating at all.”

  Willy nodded, watching Lila smooth her hair down and brush her tears away. After a moment, her breathing had returned to normal, and her features were back to their normal, haughty default. She shoved her Robin’s egg-blue hat over her blonde hair and stuck out one gloved hand for him to shake before he pulled the door open for her.

  “Thank you, Willy,” she said loudly as they walked into the main shop. “I think that’s exactly the tenderizer my husband was talking about. I’ll tell him straight away.”

  “Please do,” Willy said, amused. He watched her sail out the door, as cool and collected as she ever was. There wasn’t anyone there, and he had these sort of impromptu visits all the time, but some people seemed more ashamed of their vulnerable sides than others. Lila actually insisted on never speaking of family matters with anyone who wasn’t blood related—except, of course, for Willy, who was the exception to a lot of rules about secrecy in Davinia. That afternoon he’d already helped four people, in fact; people came to him because he knew things, but knew that he never used those things for his advantage. It was an incredibly rare quality that Willy had been aware of possessing his entire life—it had earned him many things, including his butcher’s shop. Before Davinia, his trustworthiness meant he avoided trouble in his orphanage more often than the other boys, and could help boys too ashamed to ask for it just by being silent and seeming safe.

  Willy stretched his arms as he strolled through his shop, wondering if he could manage an early lunch before someone else came in. Maybe he could even go grab chicken pot pie or something from Bonnie’s; he needed something filling after battling the urge to tell Lila the truth about her son.

  Hank himself had come to him a year before. Willy remembered seeing him come into the shop to buy his best cuts with his father up until he was fourteen, when he suddenly stopped coming in. He didn’t see the boy for eight years, then one day he came into the shop with his voice lowered, explaining that Willy was known as a man who could help with problems of almost any kind.

  Willy laughed when he heard the description. “I’ve never heard it put so succinctly,” he said. “I suppose that is what I do.”

  The boy nodded—and he really did seem like a boy; long limbed and big-eyed, exactly like his mother but with none of her grace. He perched on the barrel Willy kept, even though he also kept a pile of hay covered by beaten wool that was far more comfortable. Willy sat in the hay and waited for Hank to speak, his pale skin made paler by the shoulder length blonde hair he let swing over his shoulders. The older man smiled, and Hank’s posture relaxed almost as soon as they locked gazes, as though the butcher’s deep brown eyes held some sort of spell.

  “My mother wants me to marry,” he said the next moment. “But I want to go and continue my studies in France. She thinks that because I have my basic schooling down, I can go and assist Doctor Billings while I learn to be real physician. She doesn’t understand that I need to learn as much as I can—and live as much as I can—while I still have the chance.” Hank sighed, and his jade eyes were troubled. “Do you understand what I mean?”

  Willy paused, unsure of how to phrase what he was thinking. “What’s in France, Hank?”

  Hank’s eyebrows knotted in the middle of his gaze, and his spine straightened. “What do you mean? I just told you what’s in France. Weren’t you listening?”

  “You’ve told me you want to continue your schooling,” Willy said, tipping his head toward Hank. “But there are plenty of good schools for medicine here. Why France?”

  “I…I want to go out of the country,” Hank sputtered, his cheeks reddening steadily as he spoke. His tone was less sure, however, and Willy could see they were getting somewhere. “A lot of my schoolmates are overseas, and they’re having the times of their lives. I’ve always wanted to study abroad.”

  “Yes, but why France? Your mother doesn’t disapprove of your going to school, it seems, just going to school abroad.”

  “She suggested an English school,” Hank said drearily, as though he would rather do anything else. “But I’ve got my heart set on France.”

  “Why?” Willy pressed.

  “Well, it’s exhilarating. Even their plain old orchards and vineyards are so much more beautiful and complex than anywhere else in America I’ve ever seen. I worked on an orchard for a summer with—”

  Hank’s mouth froze open in midsentence. His cheeks darkened in color dramatically, and he shut his mouth while his eyes lit up in a sudden realization. “It seems like a nice country,” he finished, and Willy saw that he’d hit a sensitive place.

  “Enchanting, I bet,” Willy said gently. “I think that when you’re choosing between two paths, you have to weigh the consequences of losing yourself in the destination. Do you get me?”

  Hank shook his head.

  “It sounds as though there’s a reason you’re going to France,” he explained. “A reason why you need to go, from the sound of it; you like the feel of their orchards a lot better than anyone else’s. Some people aren’t going to be happy with you, but that won’t matter if there’s no way you’ll be happy here. Your mother can’t convince you to settle for what seems like moldy Granny Smiths if you’re already enamored by a juicy Golden Delicious. So, don’t settle. Make a decision, and if you don’t mind me saying, one side seems plainly worse for you. Shakespeare once said, ‘There’s small choice in rotten apples’.”

  Hank laughed, and the sound was startled. “How do you know Shakespeare?”

  Willy shook his head in mock offense. “A butcher can’t read?”

  The boy smiled and stood up, stretching out one hand for Willy to shake. He noticed that it was work-roughened, though summer was long over.

  “Been working now?” Willy asked as he walked him out the door.

  Hank turned to him, his eyes considerably clearer than before. “Yes, in a family friend’s orchard. I guess I know now why I’ve been drawn to more apples lately; I guess I should have paid attention to the signs I was getting, huh?”

  Willy had hoped the matter would work itself out, and it looked like it finally had—in a dramatic fashion. This sometimes happened when he had a hand in things—but, at least, they always worked out.

  It was large comfort for a man whose life used to be so rife with complications: he was orphaned shortly after birth, and his home for twelve years had been a dismal building overrun with temperamental boys. Then he’d been sent to apprentice for David Butler in Da
vinia, and he’d stayed ever since. He was happy to take the name from Old Man Butler, who had never married, but who seemed to serve as the town’s collective grandfather until he died, ten years after Willy started training. Then Little Willy took over—and though he became Butcher Willy or just Willy to most people, many people remembered him as the kind, silent boy who shadowed Old Man Butler and who only ever had nice to things to say. Almost overnight, he had a role, and it was an important one: the store’s central location meant he saw nearly everyone on a regular basis, and people trusted him almost by default. Willy knew things about the town that most citizens wouldn’t ever find out until they died, and he took their trust in him seriously.

  He took a lot of things about his interactions seriously, in fact—which was how he’d ended up looking through personal ads shortly after meeting with Hank. Willy did read more often than most people assumed, but he remembered the Shakespeare quote simply because the Bard was his favorite, and it always seemed to put him in a romantic mood. Willy loved his customers, but he could never feel like anything more than a friend after everything he heard in his shop; people tended to drone on for far longer and louder than they thought while they were around his shop. So he turned to the papers instead, eying descriptions of young widows, students, and old spinsters detailing the sort of man they wanted.

  Sensitive young woman seeks burly woodsman to provide for her in a cozy cabin home. 22, pleasing to the eye.

  Widow with no children and multiple-level home seeks loving companion for her busy social life. I am learned, quiet, and smart as a whip. Summer house in Spain.

  He read through these for hours each day, drafting first and sometimes second drafts to women whose faces he could never clearly picture. Some of them had specific demands, some were short and vague, but none of them had the urgency he was hoping for when he started his quest. He recalled the brilliant look of certainty in Hank’s eyes when he realized his heart really was in France; Willy wanted that sort of exuberance in his life. He could never achieve it when people didn’t even bother to properly assess him, preferring instead to give their secrets over to his hands and trust the content of his character. He wanted passion, joy, life—the sort of the thing a twenty-two-year-old student had a better handle on than thirty-year-old Willy. Finally, he drafted a letter, asking for someone who shared his sudden need for a compelling bond. Then a month had gone by, and he’d given up hope.

  Then, a week before, he’d stumbled upon an ad, five lines long, but full of such electric urgency that he’d only read it once before responding:

  William,

  I am drawn to you and the pureness of your words like a moth to a flame. I, too, am in need of something I can’t find here, and I think you can give it to me. I fear I can’t discuss it over a letter, but if you can allow me to explain it to you in person, I’m sure you’ll understand. For my entire life, I’ve been wandering like a comet in search of a cluster, and I’ve finally found that place. If you say yes, I’ll be there in fifteen days.—Jessica Bryant.

  And he had said yes—immediately and emphatically. He’d thrown away every other response he’d gotten unopened and promptly suppressed the whole thing, preferring instead to throw himself into his work. Jessica hadn’t written back, but she said she’d be there in fifteen days, and it had been seven days now with no letter. How much longer could he go without addressing his rash decision, he wondered. Probably about as long as I never hear from her again, he thought.

  A bell tinkled over his door, and he looked up to see Richard Greene coming through with what looked like a sack full of animal meat.

  “Hey,” he said as he plopped the sack on the counter. “How are you?”

  “Good,” Willy said good naturedly. “What do you have for me?”

  “Twenty-five squirrels,” he said proudly. “That gets me five chickens, doesn’t it?”

  Willy whistled, impressed by the haul. “Sure does,” he answered. “Just a minute.”

  He hurried to the back to get the chickens he kept for trading and returned with a bag of his own. “I’m afraid it’s not as nice as the sack you have, but I’ll trade it back next time.”

  “Aw, you can keep it,” Richard said. “You helped me so much this year, it’s the least I can do.”

  “Are you sure?” Willy asked, eyeing the sturdy material as Richard nodded eagerly. Must have a big secret brewing to make up for the gift, he mused.

  He didn’t stay, however, and Willy was relieved to have a breather in his day. The next six hours were as action-packed as his first four—he hardly had the energy to close up shop as the sun was finally sinking below the horizon. The bell tinkled again as he was wiping down the counter, and he felt a stab of annoyance in his gut as he turned to tell whoever it was to leave.

  A tall woman stood before him, lithe and olive-skinned, with golden-brown hair in two long braids on either side of her oval shaped face. She wore a heather gray dress that looked like it could use a washing, and maybe some new stitching. Willy wondered how long she’d been wearing it for. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her midsection, and her back was hunched—as though she had a wound, or her appendix was bursting. Despite her discomfort, her face was striking and inviting, the kind of face Willy knew he could never forget even if he never saw her again: full, pink lips, a pert nose, shapely black eyebrows and lush lashes to match. A smattering of freckles dotted her cheeks, golden brown spots as dark as her hair. Most captivating were her eyes—two huge orbs of ghostly gray, as though they were borrowed from a specter and never returned. They gave off an intensity that felt familiar to him, and he felt an answering heat rise to meet her from somewhere deep inside himself. His heart beat wildly, and he was suddenly sure that she could hear every noise his body made, because her eyes must have been capable of seeing through his skin and at the tattoo his heartbeat was pounding against his ribcage.

  “William?” the woman said, barely audible. She swayed on the spot.

  “Yes,” Willy said, and he moved forward quickly, in case she fell. “You can call me Willy, actually. How can I help you?”

  The woman pressed her lips together, and her breath hitched while she decided whether to continue to speak. “I…I’m not sure you can. Perhaps this was a mistake.” She started to back away, and her back slammed against the door as she tried to escape.

  For some reason, this made Willy’s heart beat faster. “What do you mean? Are you lost? Do you need me to help you find someone?” What’s going on? he wanted to add, but he knew that it would come out soon enough.

  The woman was shaking her head, fear filling her pale eyes. “Never you mind. I’ll just go, I’ll be on my way. I’ll find someplace else—” she turned and put her hand on the knob, ready to wrench the door open and flee into the evening. He hadn’t seen her before this moment, and who knew if he would see her again if he let her leave? He had to find some way to stop her without outright restraining her, but how? Then he had a thought, and it was like a match had been struck.

  “Jessica?” Willy blurted out.

  The woman froze, and frightened gasp slipped between her lips. She spun around, her huge eyes somehow open wider than before. “What?”

  Willy narrowed his eyes. “Jessica Bryant. You wrote me a letter, asking to come to me. It’s okay. I understand that you must be in some sort of trouble, but you have to start by telling me who you are first. Are you Jessica?”

  The woman gulped and tugged on her braids suddenly. “Yes,” she said finally, her voice soft again. “I’m Jessica. I’m sorry, I just…I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be doing this, I really should just be on my way—”

  “How about a meal first?”

  Jessica laughed and dropped her hands to her sides. “What?”

  Willy nodded toward the back. “I have some chickens, I could whip us up something. Or, I could take you home and make you something more substantial there; your choice.”

  Jessica was shaking her head, her express
ion one of soft wonder. “Take me to your home?”

  Willy laughed. “I did approve this with my letter, you know. Just because you’re a little early doesn’t mean I’m going to change my mind.”

  Jessica chuckled, and it was tired. “I suppose you’re right…” she said, chewing her lip and gazing at him thoughtfully.

  “I was just closing up here,” Willy pressed. “It’ll only take me a minute, and even less to get home.”

  ****

  After he took her upstairs to his spacious living quarters, Willy filled a basin with water to wash in while he roasted the chicken in the oven downstairs. He listened to her pacing around after she changed into the dressing gown he had that was too small for his body, and willed himself to keep calm. His thoughts were racing, and his hands were trembling a little as he sliced the meat and laid it next to tender potatoes in a serving dish to carry upstairs. It looked small from the outside, but the apartment had two rooms and small dining area, fine for a couple, or even a parent and child. Willy found Jessica sitting at the table now, looking diminutive in the billowing red shirt he’d loaned her minutes before. Her hair was undone, and it fell past her shoulders in a mass of gentle brown waves that shown in the lamplight like beaten brass.

  She shot him a wary smile. “Smells wonderful,” she said softly, looking at the food in surprise. “You’re really a butcher?”

  Willy chuckled at the note of disbelief in her voice. “Really. What made you doubt I was?”

  “Your letter,” she said sheepishly as she set a plate and fork in front of her. “You sounded so…learned.”

  “I am,” Willy admitted. “I mean, compared to most tradesmen, I suppose. My father had been to college, but he took over for his father here when he died, and I learned a lot from him. He had a lot of books, too, and I suppose I picked up some habits and speech patterns from reading those.”

  She nodded and took a bite, and her eyes closed as chewed, an expression of bliss slowly spreading over her features. She took another bite, and when it seemed that she wasn’t interested in continuing to speak, Willy started to eat too. She took seconds before he was finished, and when he noticed her cheeks looked more colorful than before, he wondered how long it had been since she’d last eaten.