The Drifter's Mail-Order Bride: (A Western Historical Romance) (The Dalton Brides Book 4)

by Cassie Hayes

  Bonnie blinked. “Short straw?”

  Papa flushed red. “Uh, nothing,” he stammered as he hurried from the room. “I’ll set everything up for a month from today.”

  Whatever guilt she’d been feeling about lying to her parents and potentially embarrassing the old deacons vanished. They’d drawn straws to see who would end up stuck with her! They deserved whatever humiliation they got.

  A week before the wedding, Bonnie dropped into Elizabeth’s office at her home, as she had every day for two weeks. “Oh, Bonnie! I just received the brothers’ response. Here.”

  Bonnie carefully took the sealed envelope Elizabeth held out and sank into a nearby chair. It was from the oldest brother, Walton, proposing marriages between the three brothers and the three sisters. There was little else except the funds for three second-class train tickets.

  Almost before she finished reading, Bonnie was rushing down to the station to buy tickets for the next train out of Beckham, which was bright and early the next morning. Only then did she return to Elizabeth’s to dash off a reply with their arrival date.

  She could hardly contain her excitement at the dinner table that night. Libby looked at her funny several times but Bonnie didn’t want her sister acting strange in front of the family so she didn’t tell her until after they’d retired for bed. When she finally did, Libby squealed like a little girl who got a doll at Christmas.

  “Shhhhh!” Bonnie laughed, covering her sister’s mouth with her hand. Only after Libby regained control of herself did Bonnie let go.

  “Tonight’s the night, Libby. Are we packed?”

  Libby was flushed and breathless. “Yes! All except our toiletries. I did pack some for Gwen. Mama’s old set was in a trunk in the attic. Do you think God considers that stealing, Bonnie?”

  “I don’t think so, Libby. Not under the circumstances. After all, we’ll be leaving Gwen’s set, which is far nicer, if Mama ever needs a spare set.”

  Libby looked mollified, then quickly jumped to their traveling trunk and pulled out a small bag. “I managed to collect twelve dollars,” she said proudly.

  Indeed, that was probably the most money her little sister had ever seen, but it would make for thin eating for three people all the way to Texas. And no ‘just in case’ money.

  “Good job, Libby. Now let’s get changed into our traveling clothes and wait for the house to go to sleep.”

  In the wee hours of the morning, Libby and Bonnie dragged the trunk out of the house using a small carpet as a sort of sled. Much to Bonnie’s surprise, they hardly made a sound. Of course it was more difficult when they made it outside. They had to carry the heavy trunk to the barn where they kept the horses and a small buckboard wagon.

  They’d just dropped it for the third time when someone stepped out from behind a tree. “And where do you think you’re going?”

  Libby squealed again but slapped both hands over her mouth before waking the entire town. The figure stepped out into the moonlight. It was their brother Hank.

  “Hank!” Bonnie hissed. “What are you doing out here?”

  Hank smiled easily and leaned back against the tree, crossing his arms across his broad chest. “You first, big sister.”

  Bonnie was grateful he couldn’t see her blush. She paused for a moment, wondering what to do, but decided there was nothing for it. She’d have to trust him.

  “We’re running away, Hank. We’ve received proposals from ranchers in Texas and we’re leaving on the first train. We’re taking Gwen with us.”

  She squared her shoulders, daring her younger brother to argue. He didn’t argue, but he did look concerned. “You’re leaving without saying goodbye? You know that’ll kill Mama.”

  Bonnie thought bitterly that their mother would only be sad over losing Gwen and Libby, but instead said, “Probably so, but they haven’t left us any choice. You can’t honestly think we should marry those vile men Papa picked out for us, can you?”

  Something like anger flashed across Hank’s face. “No! Absolutely not. I tried to talk him out of it but you know how he gets.”

  All three stood on the front lawn just looking at each other for a few moments. Then Hank stepped forward and grabbed one of the trunk’s handles. “Looks like you need a little help.”

  ~ * ~ * ~

  Bonnie turned the key as slowly as she could to keep the tumblers inside the lock from making a racket. The screech of the hinges pierced the silence of the darkened house and she expected to hear her father come rumbling down the hall at any moment. Pausing, she heard nothing but his muffled snores.

  Once the door was fully open, the three siblings were shocked. The room itself was a mess. Clothes littered every surface and, as her eyes adjusted, Bonnie could see that many of the dresses were torn or cut to shreds. The chamber pot stood in a corner, thankfully not too full, but the smell from it almost gagged her.

  But there was something else, another scent she couldn’t quite place. When she caught sight of a sleeping Gwen she knew what it was: hopelessness.

  Gwen had always taken great pride in her appearance, but after being held captive in her room for two months, and then told she must marry against her will, she’d given up on herself. Her normally perfect blond curls had matted into a flat, greasy helmet. Her porcelain skin was speckled with blemishes. And, judging from the sharp stink coming off her in waves, she hadn’t bathed properly since being banished to her room.

  Libby looked wide-eyed at Bonnie, the question left unasked. What were they going to do? The train would be leaving in four hours, and there was no way they could board with Gwen looking like death warmed over. There was only one option.

  “Quick,” Bonnie whispered. “Hank, get her coat. Libby, find a traveling dress and anything else to make her presentable.”

  As the other two rushed to their tasks, Bonnie knelt beside her sister and gently shook her shoulder. “Gwenny, wake up. Gwen, can you hear me?”

  “Muh?” Gwen mumbled. Bonnie grimaced at her breath. It smelled worse than the chamber pot.

  “Gwen, do you want to marry old man Bellafonte?”

  Gwen’s eyes snapped open, filled with fear. “No!” she cried out.

  “Shhh! You can’t make any noise, understand? If you don’t want marry him, we need to leave tonight.”

  Gwen rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “But where will we go?”

  “To visit my old school friend, Anna Simpson, in Texas. We already have tickets and we’ve packed as much as we dare because no one in the family knows. If we wake them up, they’ll stop us and we’ll be forced to marry those old men.”

  Just then Hank hurried in with the coat. Gwen gasped and scrambled backward. “No!” she whispered, tears filling her eyes.

  “Darling, Hank is helping us,” Bonnie whispered. “He’s the only one, and he’s promised to keep our secret until his death.” She turned to give her brother a withering look. “Which will come quickly if he betrays us.”

  Of all her siblings, Hank was her favorite, but the look she gave him told him exactly what kind of pain he would suffer if he ever said a word. To his credit, he nodded somberly and wrapped the coat around Gwen’s trembling shoulders.

  “Let’s go, Gwenny.”

  “But…look at me,” she whined quietly. Bonnie was cheered that some of her vanity was returning. That seemed like a good sign.

  “I have a plan, but we have to leave now.”

  Thirty minutes later, the three sisters were on the front porch of Elizabeth Miller’s home. The house was dark and Bonnie hated to wake Elizabeth but they were desperate so she pounded with all her might.

  She’d sent Hank on to the station to drop off their trunk and return the buckboard back home. They could walk to the station in just a few minutes. Saying goodbye to him had been harder than she imagined and she was suddenly grateful they were sneaking away in the night.

  After the third hard pounding on the door, a candle flickered through a window when the draperies were pul
led back. Elizabeth’s white face peered out.

  “Ladies, come in,” she gushed when she opened the door. “What’s the trouble? Oh!” She’d finally gotten a good look at Gwen, who was utterly embarrassed.

  “Our train leaves in about three hours, Elizabeth,” Bonnie explained. “We need your help.”

  The kind woman nodded and proceeded to scurry around the house. Two hours later, Gwen looked almost like her normal beautiful self. Her hair was clean and dressed, as was her body, and she smelled faintly of lilac. It was an amazing transformation, and it had a profound effect on Gwen.

  “Libby, why didn’t you bring my cornflower dress,” she whined as she spun around in circles. The pale yellow dress matched her hair perfectly and left everyone in the room breathless by her beauty.

  Libby rolled her eyes. “I see you’re back to normal again,” she muttered.

  “What was that?”

  “I said—”

  “We need to let Elizabeth get back to sleep and get ourselves to the train before it leaves us to a horrible fate,” Bonnie interrupted, trying to stave off what would undoubtedly turn into yet another bickering match between the two.

  The pair glared at each other but finally nodded, gathering up everything they brought. Elizabeth gave Bonnie a hug and showed them out. As they were hurrying down the path to the street, relief washed over Bonnie that Gwen hadn’t recognized Elizabeth as a matchmaker and that Elizabeth hadn’t spilled the beans.

  Then Elizabeth called after them. “Now you three have a safe journey, and be sure to write to tell me how everything is going with those three brothers!”

  Bonnie raised a hand in acknowledgement but kept the other two moving.

  “Brothers? What brothers?” Gwen asked.

  “Our brothers, silly,” Bonnie replied. “Now get moving or we’ll miss the train.” She cast a sideways glance at Libby, who was biting her bottom lip to keep from laughing. In the distance, a lone whistle sounded.

  ~ * ~ * ~

  Bonnie was startled out of her reverie by a conductor opening the door of the car and stepping out. He was as surprised to see her as she was him.

  “Oh! Miss, I apologize, but you should return to your seat soon. We’re approaching the next stop and it’s dangerous to be out here when the train is stopping.”

  “I will in just a moment. Thank you, sir.”

  He nodded curtly and entered her car. As the door closed, she heard his clear, ringing voice announce, “Weatherford Station! Next stop Weatherford Station!”

  Bonnie’s stomach clenched and apprehension wormed it’s way through her. This was their stop. Their long journey was over. There would be three men standing on the platform, waiting to whisk them off to the closest pastor or judge. And then their new lives would begin.

  She wondered if they would draw straws.

  Chapter 2

  The gentle rustle of yellowing leaves pulled Bart Dalton out of a deep slumber. Lazily peeking one eye open against a brightening sky, he was mesmerized by the swaying of the branches overhead. He couldn’t think of a better way to start the day.

  A blue mockingbird landed on a branch, causing two leaves to begin a slow, fluttering descent toward the ground. On the branch, they were kept apart, barely brushing against one another, but once they left their straight and narrow home, they seemed to take joy in dancing with each other on the light morning zephyrs.

  A strange heaviness settled deep in his chest. Hunger maybe? Something — a speck of dust perhaps — must have blown into his open eye because it started watering something fierce. Wiping away the wetness, he took a deep breath and threw back the wool horse blanket he used when he was on one of his ‘safaris’. It was time to pack up camp and head back.

  As soon as he joined his brothers to start a ranching ‘empire’ — his brother Walton had grand plans — Bart made it very clear that he would need to take off into the wilds of north Texas from time to time to keep his itchy feet from getting too itchy. Nearly every month since arriving, he’d disappeared to go ‘hunting’ for a few days, though he often never even bothered to unpack his Winchester.

  Ever since he left his family’s Oregon City home when he was seventeen, Bart had been a drifter, and he liked it that way. He was only there to help his brothers get up and running, then he’d be back on the trail, searching for something he suspected he’d never find — mainly because he didn’t know what ‘it’ was.

  He had to admit, he’d grown fond of their little parcel of land. Parcels, really. Walton had claimed his own stretch. He’d written them each — Bart was in San Francisco and Nate was in Colorado — to come claim their own parcels, and they’d dropped whatever they were doing to help the oldest of the triplets.

  The moment they arrived, the brothers got busy building cabins for each of them, one after the other. Bart’s had been the last, and it was definitely the sparsest. That didn’t bother him, though, because when he wasn’t at Walt or Nate’s place, he was out on safari.

  He discovered the term the previous year after reading H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines. It was a grand adventure tale set in the heart of Africa, detailing Allan Quatermain’s search for a missing man. Bart immediately related to the lead character and decided to dub his little jaunts ‘safaris’.

  His brothers didn’t really understand his need to keep moving. Walton was more than ready to settle down and have a family — he said as much in his letter inviting the brothers to join him — and Nate was getting close, even though he didn’t like to admit it.

  “What’s the hurry,” Nate would say whenever Walt brought up the topic of wives. “We’re only twenty-seven, brother. Let’s get the ranch established, then we can have our pick of ladies.”

  Yet Nate had taken great pains to make sure his cabin was furnished with the finest furniture and frilliest things he could afford. Any time Bart gave him guff about it, he’d turn beet red. “Easier to get all this stuff now than to have to do it all over again later,” he’d mumble. Meaning, when he got married.

  Bart had less refined needs. He built himself a small bed out of scrap wood and used a few clean blankets as a mattress. He’d slept on harder surfaces most of his adult life, and he didn’t want to get spoiled by one that was too luxurious. Too many of his traveling buddies had been tempted by the superficial comforts of a home life, and he didn’t want to join their ranks.

  On paper, his cabin looked identical to his brothers’, but step across the threshold and it was a whole different story. Walt had ordered three stoves for them, which went to waste at Bart’s place. He’d never lit it, not once. He did manage to cobble together a small table and one chair, for the odd days he was there, but he mostly used it when he sat down to pull on his boots before heading to Walt or Nate’s for mealtime. There was no other furniture, and certainly no decorations, in the cabin. And it was about as much home as he ever wanted to have.

  Stretching deeply, Bart gathered up his bedroll and kicked dirt on the smoldering embers of last night’s campfire. With all the dead leaves blowing around, he didn’t want a wildfire to kick up. He strapped everything on his horse Roamer’s saddle and gave the chestnut pony a good rub down.

  Roamer had been his constant companion for most of his life. Growing up on a dairy farm in Oregon City, the triplets were tasked with caring for the farm’s animals, including the handful of horses they had. One dark morning, when the boys were about ten, they stumbled out to the barn to start their chores and found one of their pregnant mares on her side, thrashing around in agony.

  Nate ran back to the house to get Pa, while Bart ran to the business end of the horse to see what was wrong. The colt’s head and forelegs were hanging out of poor Dimple but nothing more was coming. She was breathing hard and fast, trying to stand up and push, but the colt wouldn’t budge. Finally, her eyes rolled back and she laid still.

  Bart worried that she’d fainted, or worse, died. He was also worried the colt would die since Dimple stopped pushing.
Running on instinct, he reached out and tore open the white sac covering the colt’s face. Grabbing the legs as he’d seen Pa do a few times, he started tugging. The colt didn’t move. He tugged harder, putting all of his meager weight into it, and got some traction.

  Only when Walt wrapped his arms around Bart’s waist and lent his bulk to the effort did the colt slide easily from Dimple and plop to the ground. A shiny dark face looked up at Bart, blinking in confusion. As he was cleaning it off, his father rushed in.

  “What the Sam Hill…”

  Walt was soothing Dimple, who had come around but was still exhausted. “Bart saved them, Pa! Dimple here stopped pushing so he grabbed the colt and pulled it right out!”

  Pa crouched down next to where Bart was rubbing the colt with an old blanket. It was small, smaller than any he’d ever seen, and was barely moving.

  “How long was he stuck, son?”

  “I dunno, Pa. Dimple was in a bad way when we got here and he was half poking out of her. Do you think he’s gonna be okay?”

  “Only God knows for sure, but you did a fine job of giving him a fighting chance. I’m proud of you, Bart.”

  Bart stroked the poor, exhausted colt’s head, wondering how such a tiny critter could worm its way into his heart so quickly. Please, God, let this one live. I’ll take care of him, I swear! He wasn’t much for praying — he and his brothers mostly pinched each other during church — so he hoped God heard this one.

  Pa patted his shoulder, then turned to his brothers. “I’m proud of all of you for working together to save this mare and her baby. When you three team up, there’s nothing that can stop you.”

  Of course, the colt not only survived, but thrived. It was touch and go for a while, but between Dimple and Bart, Roamer grew stronger and bigger than any runt should have. Almost from his birth, he followed Bart wherever he would go. They had a connection his brothers envied. They even tried to fool Roamer into believing they were Bart but the horse was smarter than they were.