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

by Charity Phillips

  "He's handsome," she said.

  It was an almost lavish compliment coming from my usually stoic and unpoetic sister, and I took the picture back to look at it again. I hadn't really noticed the first time I looked at it, but now I saw that she was right. He looked to be about my age in the picture, the combination of his youth and a slightly off-kilter haircut giving him a boyish charm that I was sure was a driving force in his wife's attraction to him.

  I followed the slope of his face with my gaze and looked back into his eyes. Even in the dullness of the photograph I could see their sparkle, and I wondered if it ever snowed in the Frontier.

  ****

  Dear Mr. Grey,

  Thank you for your letter. Your daughter sounds lovely. My own mother died when I was only a year older than she is and I can tell you that while it left a tremendous void in my heart, my father meant the world to me. I am grateful every day for how much he loved all four of his daughters and the efforts he took to ensure we lived happy lives. I am sure that Lillie will feel the same for you.

  There is little to tell about me except that I live where I always have and the thought of being somewhere else frightens me. My sisters, however, tell me that is time I start living. I suppose I can do that anywhere. Is there anything you can tell me about the Frontier that will make it not seem so strange and desolate?

  Sincerely,

  Jane Adams

  The world was finally thawing out and I was beginning to see the first tiny touches of spring when another letter finally came. Lucy sulked at the door when I came in carrying it. She hadn't heard from the man she had been corresponding with for a few weeks and I could see her patience was wearing thin.

  Like had become my tradition, I waited until I was alone in my room to open the envelope and withdraw the letter. As I withdrew it, another picture fell into my lap. It was far more recent than the one he had sent of himself, and when I turned it over I saw the wide eyes of a little girl staring back at me. Ringlets fell like a cloud around her face and her lips were slightly blurry as if she had started to smile when the picture had not fully developed.

  Dear Miss Adams,

  I would hesitate to say that there is nothing else about you other than where you live. Perhaps it is being in the same place for so long, however, that has convinced you of such. As for the Frontier being strange and desolate, I do not know how to convince you otherwise. I have never been to Boston, so I do not know how it is different and how it is the same, or what you may think is strange, and what you would find completely normal. I think your question may be better answered by you seeing the land yourself. Maybe then we could also do more to get to know each other without months to wait between letters. If you agree, we can plan for your passage.

  Sincerely,

  John Grey

  Though I had been anticipating him asking me to join him since I first responded to his advertisement, I was still taken slightly off-guard by the request. He hadn't asked me to come to marry him; only to get to know him. I found comfort in that, relieved that I wasn't locked into any agreements before I left and that I could change my mind if I wished after I arrived.

  I found myself fighting tears as I took out paper to write a response. They stung in my eyes and I blinked them back to keep them from smearing the ink as I wrote. I wrote only two words – "I agree" – and tucked the paper into an envelope. Again, I had nothing more to say.

  I stared at the envelope on my desk for some time before I slipped a photograph in along with my letter. It was a more recent image than the one he had sent me, but I still worried about what the two years since it was taken had done to my appearance. I didn't so much mind what he may think of me, but I had heard stories of women arriving so far from home only to have the man on the other end of the letters refuse her because of her looks. I hoped that the picture was still accurate enough that he would at least be prepared.

  ****

  June, 1866

  Dear Diary,

  It is my last night sitting in this parlor writing to you. I can hear the minutes ticking by on the clock behind me as if it is reminding me that I am getting ever closer to walking out of this home for what will likely be the last time. It is so dark outside I can see nothing beyond the window, but Rebecca is still scurrying around upstairs. We are so fortunate that she also received a request to come out and we will be able to go on this journey together.

  I have no doubt that Lucy will join us soon enough. Her eyes have seemed even more dreamy lately and though she will not allow any of us to read the letters from her "beau" as she calls him, I am sure there is far more romance in her correspondence than in mine and it is only a matter of time before she announces her engagement. I only hope we will be close enough to visit. I have no idea how large the area is where we are going or how far apart we will be when we finally settle down.

  I cannot imagine daily life without my sisters.

  Rebecca and I will leave on the first train in the morning. The journey will take less than two weeks. I will never understand how the railroad can get people from one side of the country nearly to the other so quickly when it can still take more than a month for a letter to arrive.

  I am leaving Boston during my favorite time. We are finally beginning to feel warmer temperatures and the flowers are blooming along the streets. I still lay awake at night wondering what it will look like in Oregon. Soon I will know.

  --Jane

  I had never traveled by train before, and my stomach was filled with butterflies as I walked along the platform with Rebecca close at my side. We knew we wouldn't be able to bring everything we owned with us, but it still felt lonely as I watched the men take my two trunks and place them in the cargo car. That was everything I had now. My entire life, packed into two trunks.

  The inside of the train was as beautiful as I hoped it would be, with velvet seats and sumptuous curtains we could pull across the windows during the day to block us from the sun. At night, the seats transformed into beds for us to rest. On that first night when I was able to change out of my heavy traveling dress and stretch out on the berth, I was exceedingly grateful that we had made reservations in one of the luxurious new private sleeper cars.

  The fare seemed exorbitant, but my sisters reminded me that soon none of us would be at Father's house any longer, and that there was no better way to use the money he left us than to ensure comfortable passage as we said goodbye to our childhood home and set out into the unknowns of adulthood on the Frontier.

  Both Rebecca and I were sick for the first few days of the journey. It was difficult getting used to the constant sway and tremor of the locomotive. I wondered if this was a similar feeling to the sea voyages that brought the first settlers to America. Those brave women, however, endured months on the ships to get here. We had only ten days on our ship of metal and steam as it brought us to our own version of the New World.

  ****

  Dearest Lucy,

  We are set to arrive today, but I wanted to write to you while we are still traveling so that you do not seem quite so far away. It seems I am already having difficulty imagining what the weather would be like at home now. I know it is ridiculous. It has been only a little more than a week and I have been away from home for far longer, but it is as if every mile that this train crosses erases just a little bit of my past.

  I wonder if you have heard more from your beau. I hope that you have and it is only the best of news. I do not want to think about spending much time without my sisters. Has Rose started a courtship yet? I worry that she will be the one who is left behind and we will have to convince her to travel with you as your companion. I am thankful now for being in this private room with Rebecca because I just laughed at the thought of Rose playing a dutiful companion and I would not want any strangers to see me sitting alone laughing to myself.

  I will mail this letter as soon as we get to the station. From my experience with letters from Mr. Grey, it may be the middle of summer before you get i
t. If it is, please drink a glass of lemonade for me and remember to water the flowers.

  I do hope I will be seeing you soon. I will already miss a birthday with my sisters. I cannot bear to think of missing a Christmas, too. I would say that I am sending all of my love to you, but I honestly think it is all still there. I could not fit it into my trunks and had to leave it all behind.

  Love,

  Jane

  I had the letter to my sister clutched to my chest when I stepped off of the train. Rebecca stepped off after me, and for a moment we both just stood on the platform wondering what to do with our next breath. It is an odd sensation to know you are breathing air that is completely new to you. In just one moment you exhale and suddenly you have become a part of a brand new place. I wasn't sure I was ready.

  "Miss Adams?"

  Both Rebecca and I turned to the voice and I saw a man I didn't recognize. Beside me, Rebecca's face lit up and I realized that this must be the man who she had chosen from the advertisements. That was a sobering thought. I was such contrast to the stories we'd heard of old friends who had joined agencies and had been placed in catalogs sent to the men in the Frontier. It seemed no one chose a wife or husband anymore. Men chose a photograph. Women chose words.

  Rebecca gave me a tight hug and whispered that she would see me soon. I had the address she had been writing letters to written on a slip of paper and tucked into one of the books I brought along with me so I could write to her when I settled in. In a moment, she was gone and I was alone. I gathered my skirts and walked to the ticket window where I handed the elderly man behind the glass my letter to Lucy, asking that he add it to the post. I just had turned around after thanking him when I saw Mr. Grey standing at my trunks.

  "Mr. Grey," I said, walking toward him.

  He offered me a soft smile and I could see how his face had changed since the picture he had sent me. Though the smile didn't touch his eyes as it used to, the years had been kind to him. They had taken a youthful, boyish face and matured it into a more rugged, handsome man.

  "Hello," he said, reaching to take my fingers in greeting.

  I looked around the platform but didn't see the curly-haired little girl from the second picture.

  "Where is Lillie?" I asked.

  "I brought her to stay with a neighbor for the night. I wanted to give you an opportunity to settle in before you meet her."

  I took a step back.

  "Settle in?"

  His eyes registered shock and then a moment of embarrassment.

  "I built a larger house when Lillie was born. The original house is still there. That is where you may stay for now."

  I nodded at the explanation and felt myself relax slightly. His voice was disarming and strong, without hint of aggression or expectation. Without another word, he gestured to a steward who took one of the trunks while Mr. Grey took the other, and started off of the platform and through the station.

  ****

  June, 1866

  Dear Diary,

  I have been here for a week and I do not feel that I know Mr. Grey any better than I did before I came. He is kind enough, and Lillie is a precious child, but for the most part we live separate existences. I prepare meals in the kitchen of my own tiny little house and bring them to Mr. Grey and Lillie in the larger house, do any cleaning that needs to be done, and then slip away, back to my own space. He has not asked me to do any more. He has not mentioned marriage.

  In the afternoons, Lillie likes to come to my house and play. She calls it her dollhouse because it is so much smaller than the main home. I am so lonesome for Boston and my sisters; I simply don’t know how I will get through much more of this. At night, I think of Adam and my heart hurts with such ferocity I fear it will split in two. Sometimes I almost hope it will.

  --Jane

  "Miss Adams?"

  I could hear Mr. Grey calling in to me from the front door, but I made no move to open it. Usually when he came to the door, I was able to put myself together enough to open it, find out what he needed, and let him leave before the waves of sadness took over again. This time, however, I felt immobilized by the pain racking through me and all I could do was lie on the low bed in the corner and cry.

  After several minutes of knocking, the door creaked open and Mr. Grey stepped inside.

  "I hope you don't mind, but Lillie was playing in the lean-to and opened the trunk I put out there," he said softly, "I could bring it inside for you if you'd like."

  I shook my head against the pillow, not wanting to turn to face him. His strong, unwavering presence unnerved me slightly. I was accustomed to men who ran as fast as they could as soon as they saw any emotion from a woman, but he stood in the center of the one-room house like he would stand there as long as I wanted him to.

  "I brought something that I thought might bring you some comfort."

  I heard him walking across the room, his boots thudding heavily on the wooden floor, and suddenly I felt a soft, heavy warmth over my shoulders. Without opening my eyes, I reached up and wrapped my fingers over the edge of it, stroking my fingers across it. I knew it was the quilt I had made for Adam, the one I had tucked into the very bottom of my trunk because I couldn't stand the thought of leaving it behind.

  "I didn't know you had been married before," he said.

  His voice carried no suggestion of anger or judgment. I wanted to correct him, but I felt my fingers touch the patch where I had carefully embroidered intertwining wedding bands and the tears overwhelmed me again. It had been a long time since I had simply allowed myself to cry for Adam and it seemed my heart was releasing everything it had stored up.

  After a few more minutes I heard Mr. Grey walk out of the house. I lay there for some time until I felt my shaking quiet and the tears stop. Sitting up, I held the quilt close to me and ran my fingers along the stitches in the fabric. It was as if each one of those stitches represented a moment I had shared with Adam or a tear I had cried for him. Those stitches were permanent, just as those moments had been. Even if I tore them out, I still would have stitched them. There was nothing I could ever do to un-stitch them, just as there was nothing I could do to make those moments not exist.

  I could, however, decide what moment I would have next.

  I stood up from my bed and smoothed my hair back, and then splashed cool water on my face from my basin before stepping outside. Lillie was running in the open area between the two houses and I could see the shape of Mr. Grey bent over in the vegetable garden, pulling weeds. I smiled at Lillie and walked over to him.

  "His name was Adam, but I was never married. We were only engaged when he left for the War. He never came home."

  Mr. Grey straightened and looked at me.

  "I am very sorry."

  "Tell me about your wife."

  He looked slightly startled, but he wiped his hands on his pants and sighed.

  "Her name was Claire. She died almost two years ago. Fever. She was carrying my son at the time, so I suppose I lost him, too."

  "I am very sorry," I said, repeating his sentiment and truly meaning it. "I am going to go in and start supper."

  He nodded and I turned to walk away, feeling like something had changed in that moment, though I wasn't sure what.

  "What do you miss most about Boston?" he called after me.

  I turned back to look at him.

  "My sisters," I answered, "and letters. You were right when you said that the post runs slower here. I wrote a letter to my sister Rebecca just one town over when I first arrived and I haven't heard back from her yet."

  He gave a hint of a smile and I turned back around to go into my house and start making supper.

  ****

  I awoke the next morning to a low, steady thumping just outside my house. It was not even dawn yet and blue light still filtered through my window. I covered my head with my pillow, trying to will myself back to sleep for a few more minutes, but the thumping continued. Curiosity brought me out of my bed. By the time
I had dressed, however, the thumping had stopped and the world was still and quiet again.

  I opened my door and stopped before stepping outside. A few feet away from my house, there was a wooden post driven into the ground, and at the top of the post was a small box with a hinged door. I walked toward the new mailbox and reached up to the door, my hand shaking slightly as I opened it and withdrew the envelope inside.

  Dear Miss Adams,

  You said you missed your letters, so I wanted to, in some small way, give them to you. Thank you for coming to be with us and for sharing your story with me. I hope you will find comfort here.

  Sincerely,

  John

  I stood in the middle of my house, my hand still shaking slightly, and reread the letter just as I had reread his advertisement months before. The words touched me in the same way, giving me a stronger glimpse of the man behind them than even standing in front of him had. I sat down at the table and wrote a response. Taking the letter he had written me and tucking it into my trunk, I slipped my letter into the same envelope and quickly put it into the mailbox, dipping back into my house before he could see me.

  Dear Mr. Grey,

  Thank you for my mailbox and for telling me your story. Thank you, also, for having me here. I have already grown so fond of Lillie. I know I will never replace her mother, but I hope that in some way I can be something positive in her life. Perhaps that will bring you comfort.

  Sincerely,

  Jane

  Dear Miss Adams,

  Lillie certainly has grown fond of you as well. You may have only been here a short time, but she already seems happier. I know that I am. It is not just her that brings me comfort.