by Amanda Boone
Making her way through the parlor, the dining room, and back to the kitchen, Bridget took in the small rooms. They were painted white and had furnishings appropriate, but Bridget wasn’t impressed. Still, it would be their home, which meant they wouldn’t be living with her parents. That in itself was nice.
She ascended the stairs off the foyer and went in search of Matthew. There were three open doors, two across from each other in the hallway with the doors open, and one at the end with the door closed. She peered into the two as she passed them. Again, they weren’t anything special, just a couple of small rooms already furnished with a bed, an armoire, a nightstand and a washstand. Even the quilts were basic.
Maybe he had furnished their bedroom nicer. Maybe that was why Matthew waited in it with the door closed.
As she approached the last room, she heard noises. Unsure of what to do, she opened the door slowly. There, on the bed before her, lay Matthew—completely naked and pumping into a woman lying beneath him with her feet planted firmly on the bed, her knees up and her legs spread to give him access.
“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed, her heart breaking in that instant.
She raced from the building as Matthew called her name. She had no intention of ever talking to the man again. In her heart, she knew that Herb was aware of what was happening in that house. Why else would he have offered to wait for her? But she didn’t care. He was going to take her home, and she would have him tell Matthew that she never wanted to see him again.
***
At home, she wrote Matthew a letter calling off their engagement, and after crying about what happened with her mother, she asked that Mary take care of canceling the wedding plans.
Matthew had deceived her, had cheated on her, and had embarrassed her beyond belief just three weeks before their wedding. She would never marry a man who could cheat on her.
Her heart breaking, she sat down to write a letter to her best friend, who lived in Illinois. She couldn’t tell Elise everything, but she told her enough to let her know that the wedding was off and she no longer needed a maid of honor.
Chapter 1
Tearing into the envelope, Bridget could hardly wait to see what Elise Anderson was doing. It had been several weeks since she’d heard a word from her best friend, and she was anxious to find out how Elise liked Forestville, California. She’d never met anybody who had lived in California, but she’d heard it was really nice—no freezing cold weather like New York City and many sunny days. Now that Elise had been there for the change of seasons, Bridget wanted to know if what she’d heard was true.
“My dear friend,” the letter started.
Life in California is much different than in New York or Illinois. Autumn is more rainy than cold, and I understand that snow is a fluke in Forestville. It happens very rarely.
I am engaged now but not to the man I followed here. I’m engaged to a wonderful Swede, Moya Sten, who treats me like a queen. He is kind and giving and wants only the best for me. I would like to set a wedding date, but I can’t quite yet. I want you to be my maid of honor, just as you wanted me to be yours. We will make arrangements for a date after I know when it’s convenient for you to come.
Now that I’ve asked you to come, I have another announcement. My employer, Jared Coleman, has asked if I know of any women who might be interested in moving out here with the purpose of marrying him. He is 28 years old and has a 5-year-old daughter, whose mother died in childbirth. She is the sweetest, smartest child you could ever want to meet. (I’m teaching her Swedish, and she catches on right away.) Jared is kind and gentle. I can attest to this because I’ve seen him handle his daughter’s occasional temper tantrum. I truly think you two would be a good match.
Please come to Forestville to stay. I would dearly love to have my “sister” near me again.
Elise had signed the letter, “Your sister in life.”
Bridget was thrilled for Elise, but she wasn’t sure her father would pay for her to go to California. That would be quite a sum of money, and as rich as he was, he did have his limits. Since she’d never had a job other than as a volunteer for the suffrage movement in New York City and had always helped her mother around the house, she depended on her father to support her. Despite her involvement in women’s rights, she needed her father’s permission to move.
At dinner that night, she broached the subject with trepidation.
“Da,” she said, “I need to ask you for a favor.”
“What is it, Sparky?” he asked, using her pet name. He called her that because, as he’d said many times, she always brought a spark of sunshine into his life.
“I got a letter from Elise today.”
Mary O’Riley interrupted. “How is she doing?”
“Well. She’s getting married, but she won’t set a date until she knows if I can be there.”
Patrick O’Riley smiled at his daughter. “Say no more. That is the favor, isn’t it? You want me to pay for you to go to your best friend’s wedding.”
“Would you, Da?”
“That’s a long trip for an unmarried woman. I understand rugged, uncouth men travel around to rob trains. There and back also costs a lot of money.”
“I know. I wish I had my own money to pay for it, but I don’t. I wish I could just pack up and go. I don’t know how I could repay you.”
“If one of your brothers will accompany you, I’ll agree.”
Bridget hated to bring it up, but she knew she must. “Um, there’s one more thing. I, uh, want to, um, stay there.”
“What?” Mary exclaimed. “Never! I can’t let my only daughter leave forever.”
“You don’t understand, Mum. There’s a man there who asked Elise if she knew of somebody suitable for him. She said that I am, and that I would like him.”
“Like isn’t enough for marriage,” Patrick pointed out. “Love is the only reason to marry someone.”
“I tried love, Da. It ended with me finding him in bed with another woman. I can’t go through that kind of humiliation again, Da. And I can’t fall in love again because it hurts too much when it ends.”
“But, dear,” her mother said, “you shouldn’t go through life without someone to love.”
“I’m fine without love, Mum. I just want to start a new life where nobody knows what happened, where I’m not embarrassed by the looks of people who know what happened. I hate that they look at me with so much pity.” She turned her gaze to her father. “Please, Da? I just want to start over.”
“I can’t support you when you get there. What will you do to put a roof over your head and food on your plate?”
“I’ll do something. I have skills for cleaning, doing laundry, sewing. I have very good penmanship, and thanks to working for the suffragist movement, I can use a printing press. Not many people can do that. So you see, I have plenty of skills that they might need in a small town. Maybe I could open a newspaper—with somebody to back me, of course. And before you say anything, Da, I don’t mean you. I’ll find somebody or a group of people there.”
“It does sound like she’s thought this through, Mary,” Patrick said.
“Do you really want to see your daughter leave us like that?” Mary replied. “She’ll be so far away.”
“Now, Mary. She’s a grown woman. We need to let her make her own mistakes.”
“It won’t be a mistake, Da,” Bridget said, offended that he thought it would be. “I can do this.”
“Yes, you can,” he agreed. “But I still want you to have one of your brothers escort you. Michael isn’t married. Why don’t you ask him? I’m sure he would love to see Elise again, and he might even like a chance to start a new life, too.”
“Now you’re sending my son away forever?” Mary shrieked. “How could you?”
Patrick raised his hand in a halting gesture and smiled. “That’s not what I mean, dear. If he wants to stay, he can, but I would prefer that he return to New York.”
Chapter 2
&n
bsp; Elise had said that she would be waiting when they arrived in San Francisco, but as Michael helped her from the train, Bridget saw her friend nowhere.
“Do you see her, Mike?” Bridget asked as she stepped off the last step of the train stairs.
“Not yet.” Michael picked up the bags they carried with them and headed toward the terminal. “Maybe she’s in the depot. Come on.”
They made their way into the train station, where Bridget was thrilled to see Elise. Running to her, Bridget wrapped her arms around her friend and hugged her tightly. Elise responded in the same manner. For several minutes they just hugged and cried, glad to be reunited.
“Is this hug just for the ladies?” Michael asked, laying his hand on Bridget’s shoulder. “Or can a lonely man get in on it?”
Bridget stepped away, and Elise flew in to Michael’s spread arms.
“Michael!” she exclaimed. “Bridget didn’t tell me you were coming.”
“Da wouldn’t let her come alone,” he explained as they embraced briefly, “so she asked me to escort her.”
“Well, I’m glad to see both of you again.” She pushed away from him and turned her gaze back to Bridget. “Are you just here for the wedding, Bridget? Or are you planning on saying? You didn’t say in your last letter.”
“I’m here to see if your gentleman friend is as good for me as you claim,” Bridget replied.
Elise embraced Bridget again, this time for only a moment. Then she linked her arm with Bridget’s.
“Do you have more baggage?” Elise asked, looking over at Michael.
“We do,” he replied. “You two wait here, and I’ll see if it’s been unloaded from the cargo car.”
Michael started out of the station, and Bridget led Elise to some nearby benches.
“Did you bring your fiancé, Elise?” Bridget asked as she scanned the large room for a man who might be watching them.
“No, he was too busy. You’ll meet him as soon as we get to Forestville, though. I’m having him, Jared and Emily for dinner so everybody can meet at one time. With everybody around, you won’t be as nervous meeting him.”
“Who’s Emily?”
“His daughter,” Elise explained. “And of course, Stina and Karin will be there.”
“The girls you lived with in Illinois, right?”
“That’s right.”
To Bridget’s surprise, Elise hugged her again. Elise had always been reserved and had never embraced anybody so spontaneously, and Bridget wondered why she did now.
“You’re awfully huggy,” Bridget teased with a smile.
“Moya’s brought a lot out in me that I didn’t know I had. That’s just some of it.”
At that moment, Bridget saw Michael approaching them and rose to help him carry their luggage. Chatting amicably, Elise followed her. She was very glad that they’d come; she couldn’t wait for Bridget to meet her fiancé; she loved Forestville and just knew that Bridget would, too.
“What about you, Michael?” Elise asked. “Surely, you didn’t come all this way to San Francisco just to turn around and go back home. Tell me you can stay for a few days.”
“I go by Mike now, Elise,” he said as he toted three bags while Elise took two and Bridget took two. “And I’ve decided to stay in Forestville—if the town will have me.”
Bridget and Elise chuckled.
“I think they’ll let you stay,” Elise said, “even if they would rather have women in town.”
“He thinks we might be helpful there,” Bridget inserted. “We’ll explain our ideas on the way.”
To Bridget’s surprise, Elise had booked passage on a schooner along the Pacific Coast to Forestville. Not knowing that Mike was joining them, though, she didn’t have a ticket for him. After paying for his trip, they boarded the ship and settled into two separate cabins.
Finally, they left port and began their journey northward.
On the two-day ride to Forestville, Bridget and Mike explained their plans for earning money there. If the town didn’t have one, they wanted to start up a newspaper. This was what Mike had always dreamed of, even when attending the university to study banking and accounting. Bridget was thrilled to know that they didn’t have a newspaper and that several people had expressed an interest in one, Jared Coleman being one of those people.
“I even know how to run a printing press,” Bridget said enthusiastically. “I worked with one when I was volunteering for the suffragist movement in New York.”
“Do you think I could do a smaller version of the newspaper for the Swedes who live there?” Elise asked.
“That would be a great idea,” Bridget replied. “Don’t you agree, Mike?”
“That is a good idea,” Mike agreed, “if it’s cost-effective.”
“Always the banker,” Bridget said in a taunting tone.
They all laughed and settled in for a lively conversation about their time together in New York City.
***
Upon their arrival in Forestville, Elise took them to the hotel and made sure that they had comfortable rooms. Then she left them to freshen up, telling them that she was headed home to begin their dinner that night. She promised that she would return later to escort them to her home.
After Elise left, Bridget turned to Mike and said, “Elise has certainly changed, hasn’t she?”
“She has,” he agreed. “She was always so quiet, almost shy, but now she’s chattier than I’ve ever heard her.”
“That’s what I told her. I can’t wait to meet Jared Coleman. Elise thinks I’ll like him.”
“I know, I know,” he said with a chuckle. “You’ve mentioned it enough.” Then he turned serious. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to marry a man just because he wants a wife? This big brother isn’t very fond of the idea you and Elise have cooked up.”
“We didn’t cook it up,” Bridget said, offended by his words. “Jared wanted to meet a woman. Nothing is definite yet. I don’t have to marry him if I don’t want to. Elise told me that Jared said so. And I can go back to New York if I decide not to marry him. He’ll even pay my way home.”
“That makes me a little more comfortable, but I’m still not fond of this situation.”
“I don’t care. It’s my life, Mike, and I’ll live it my way.”
With those words, she stormed upstairs to her room, determined not to let Mike spoil her good mood. But Mike’s words echoed in her mind as she ascended the steps.
“That suffragist movement has changed you as much as Elise’s new life has changed her,” he called after her.
Bridget used the key the clerk had given her to unlock the door to her room. When she was finally inside it, she slammed the door. At last, she could get rid of some of her irritation.
Looking into the mirror, Bridget examined herself. That bright red hair always set her apart from everybody else, and her alabaster skin, which burned in the sun then faded into its original color, always made her look sick. The one thing she did like was the unusual color of her eyes, a mixture of her father’s green and her mother’s blue eyes.
With a sigh, she plopped down onto the bed and lay on her back. Hopefully, Jared liked red hair enough to still want her as his wife. They hadn’t met yet, of course, but she already liked him from everything Elise had told her during their trip along the California coastline. Hopefully, he would like her, too.
According to Elise, an ocean voyage had been the fastest, straightest way for them to get from San Francisco to Forestville. The train went out of their way by at least a hundred miles, and the stagecoach would have taken them several days. Even though she’d been a bit seasick on the journey, she was glad Elise had chosen that route. Now she could rest for a few minutes before she prepared herself for meeting the man she hoped would be her future husband.
Chapter 3
A knock on the door startled Bridget, and Elise turned from her chore of making biscuits, asking, “Would you please get that, Bridget? My hands are messy.”
When she opened the door, she stood there, stunned. The man before her was one of the tallest she’d ever met, and he had a head of blond, curly hair. The smile adorning his lips brightened his entire face, including the shockingly blue eyes.
“You must be Bridyet,” he said with a heavy Swedish accent. “Elise talks about you all de time. I’m Mauritz Sten, but call me Moya.”
“You’re Moya?” she asked in surprise.
“Ja. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
He thrust his right hand toward her, and they greeted one another with a handshake.
“Come in, Moya,” Elise said from the counter near the cast iron, wood-burning stove.
“Excuse me, Bridyet,” he said as he passed her and strode over to Elise.
Elise lifted her head and accepted his quick kiss on her lips. Bridget was a bit stunned by Elise’s reaction to Moya. The one person Bridget could always count on to be reserved was Elise. Now her friend was kissing a man in front of her. Granted, it wasn’t a passionate kiss, but it was a public kiss nonetheless. As far as Bridget knew, Elise had never even kissed Lars Olsen, let alone publicly.
Using a towel to avoid burning her hands, Elise put the biscuits in the oven of the cast iron stove. The action released a blast of hot air in the already warm room, which lessened when Elise closed the door again.
They all went into the living area where Mike sat on the Victorian chair. He rose as they approached and held out his hand toward Moya.
“Moya,” Elise said, “this is Bridget’s brother Mike.”
“How do you do, Moya,” Mike said pleasantly as they shook hands. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. On the way here from San Francisco, Elise couldn’t stop talking about you. She’s clearly smitten.”