Mail Order Wife
Page 12
“It is true that I love Amelia, but I am in love with you and now it is different. Amelia will always be my first love.” He had moved silently and held her by the shoulders and turned her around. “The difference is that you have my heart now, Elizabeth.”
“But how? How do you know that it is me that you love, and I am not just a shadow of your wife?”
He smiled gently at her. “You are in my heart, in my mind, Elizabeth. When I am away from you, all I think about is you. You are the last person I think about before I fall asleep, you are the first person I think about when I am awake.”
“Oh!” Elizabeth’s tears rolled down her cheeks. William gently wiped them away.
“Tonight, when I realized that I could lose you, my heart felt as though it was breaking. I knelt down and recommitted my life to God, and prayed that He would protect you and keep you safe, and in His mercy, He heard my cry and delivered you out of the hands of those wicked men.”
Just then they heard thundering hoofs and William reached for his rifle and kept it trained on the approaching intruders. Then he lowered it and chuckled.
“What?” Elizabeth looked up at him in confusion.
“It is only Primrose. I didn’t see her at the camp.”
“No, she got left at the tavern in town. I had tethered her. How did she break lose?”
“Someone must have untied her, probably with the intention of stealing her, when he saw that she was alone.” He chuckled. “No one can steal my horses. They are crazy, and always find their way home.”
Primrose stopped beside Black Thunder and the two horses began muzzling each other.
William turned his back to them and back to his wife.
“And I have finally found my way home, Elizabeth. I love you so much, and I want to say that I am sorry for not treasuring and cherishing you as I should have. My love, please forgive me.”
“Oh, William,” she put her head down, but he raised her chin.
“I declare my love for you, and I love you so deeply. It took a near disaster to wake me up to my real feelings, feelings that I have been trying to hide and battle for a long time now.” He smiled at her. “When I lost Amelia, I vowed that I would never love another woman again, and no one would take her place. Then you came into my life, into our lives, and all that changed. My stubborn pride and stupidity refused to acknowledge what my heart was telling me, that I could love again. I actually selected you from a number of others because you sounded so businesslike, and did not seem to be someone who would interfere with my feelings. Little did I know that slowly, as I watched you love my daughters and take care of us and love us, that I would end up falling in love with you.”
“Oh, William.”
“And tonight, after we kissed, I had to flee because that was when I realized just how deep my feelings were for you. I felt as though I was betraying Amelia, but when I was in the woods everything became clear to me. This is a second chance that I have been given, and I was throwing it all away by being a stubborn fool. I hurried back to the house with the intention of telling you how I felt, and asking you to forgive me and give me a chance to show you how much I love you.”
Elizabeth could not believe all she was hearing. She felt as though she was dreaming.
He dropped his hands and stepped away. “When I found you and the horses gone, I thought you had left me because I had not showed you how much you mean to me, how much I love you. I was coming after you to ask you, no, to beg you to come back to me. Then I met Virginia and she told me what had happened.” His voice trembled, and Elizabeth reached out a soothing hand and laid it on his chest. “I thought I would die, especially when I realized that I could lose you. I prayed for you, Elizabeth, and I am so humbled that God honored my prayers and kept you safe.” He stepped away from her and her hand fell to her side.
“I need to know, Elizabeth. I know you said you were not interested in marriage, in the true sense of the word, but do you have any feelings for me?”
Elizabeth smiled through her tears and her dimples showed. “William, I think I fell in love with you the first time I saw you, but I resisted and fought my feelings, because I could clearly see that you were still in love with your dead wife. I knew you were in a lot of pain, and I did not want to be bothersome to you.”
William gave a happy cry and scooped her in his arms, and put his forehead to hers. Their tears mingled: tears of joy, at being restored and reunited. Then he gently let her back down to her feet. He kissed her deeply and she responded, love overflowing in her heart. He raised his head and smiled at her, his eyes so full of love and devotion.
“Elizabeth, I want you to be my wife, in every true sense of the word: the wife of my heart; the love of my life. And not just because of Mary and Abigail, but because I need you to help me get back to God. I lost my way for a moment, but now I want to find my way back, and I need you to help me. Will you do that for me?”
“Yes, William,” Elizabeth laughed happily, holding her husband close. “Yes, yes, yes.”
He smiled in contentment. Free at last, happy and fulfilled, he took her hand and led her to the door.
“I never welcomed you properly. Mrs. Edwards, step over the threshold, and welcome home.”
The End
MAIL ORDER GOLD RUSH
CHAPTER ONE
Mary Richards stood in her kitchen baking. Though the kitchen was spacious, Mary’s pride and joy, the heat from the oven had made the room hot, and sweat stung her eyes. As she reached for the edge of her apron to wipe her plump jolly face, the crash and rattle of the front door being shoved open and then slammed shut again made her look up with a sigh.
It wearied Mary that such explosions of temper had become the norm for her household, but since her seventeen-year-old daughter, Cora had begun ‘blossoming’ into womanhood, Mary’s home was more of a battlefield than a sanctuary.
Mary glanced towards the hallway just as Cora charged into the kitchen, her arms rigid at her sides with her fists tightly clasped.
Yes, a storm was brewing.
Mary closed her eyes and took a breath before opening them again. This little girl that she had brought into the world sometimes taxed her beyond the patience of a saint, but she loved Cora so much. Mary rubbed the wine colored birthmark on the right side of her forehead. It was a nervous habit from childhood, and one she’d never managed to break.
Cora Richards caught sight of her mother, and her frown deepened.
Mary was glad she had finished kneading the dough for the bread, and as she waited for her daughter to let her know what the trouble was, she reached for a wet cotton cloth and covered the dough, letting it alone so it could rise.
Cora stamped her foot and then shouted in a way that sounded more like a wounded sow than a lady. “I am so angry!”
Mary nodded. It was futile to speak to Cora while she was raging. Better to let her stomp, rave and blow off steam until the fury ran through her and in the calm that followed, reason could bloom.
Cora was in a right state this afternoon though. She practically vibrated with fury as paced the floor of the large kitchen. The room was spacious with two large, glass paned windows above the counter. The windows faced out towards the back of the Richards’ farm house. On one side of the kitchen was a large kitchen stove which her husband had bought for her. It had a flat top surface and an oven and the delicious smell of baking bread filled the kitchen, but all this was lost to the girl who was pacing furiously.
Mary and Cora shared some features like their height, eye color and the color of their hair. However, that was where all similarities ended, because Mary was easy going, agreeable even when she didn’t agree with the things that were going on around her. Mary knew how to compromise and create peace.
Cora, on the other hand, rushed headlong into everything and could be stubborn to the point of annoyance when she was not getting her own way. Mary likened her to a cross between a mule and a hummingbird, immovable and yet somehow flighty at
the same time, with a pixie face that could transform from one emotion to another within seconds.
Apart from her family, very few people could actually subdue the seventeen year old girl. Most people were quite wary of her because they never knew when her temperament would change.
Cora paced and complained for another minute or so, clenching and unclenching her fists and finally she ran out of steam and flopped on the floor, another unladylike gesture, her short legs sprawled, and Mary glimpsed the breeches under her long cotton dress.
No matter how Mary tried to get her only daughter to behave like a lady, the girl was determined to prove that she was just the same as her brothers, without their occasional gentlemanly manners.
But bringing up the trousers at this time would only make things even worse, so Mary chose to smile instead.
“Cora dear, what is the matter?” Mary asked. She loved her daughter so much, but the girl exasperated her to no end.
“Ma, I am going to tar and feather your son, and then skin him alive with my bare hands, and you know what? I will have a big smile on my face as I do it.”
Mary’s lips twitched but she forced her laughter back down. “You will have to be more specific, since I have two sons.”
“Your eldest son, Michael.” Cora fumed. “Ever since he joined the militia for Lincoln—“
“For Ohio.”
“Yes, yes. But Michael treats me like a helpless child! He’s only a year older than me, and he never saw any fighting.”
“And thank the Dear Lord for that!” Mary cut in. She had prayed every day that her sons would be spared, and she could only be grateful that her husband had insisted that neither son could volunteer to do more than serve in the militia until they reached their majority. She’d been terrified Henry would run off anyway, though he was a year younger than Cora.
“But we all made sacrifices for the war! He has no right to treat me this way. It makes me so angry!”
“Calm down, and tell me what my eldest son has done this time.”
“He threatened to cut Wilbur Owen’s thumbs off if he spoke to me again? With his bayonet!”
Mary almost burst with the laughter that was bubbling inside her and she made it come out as a cough instead.
“Cora, your brother is only looking out for you.”
“Ma,” Cora scrambled to her feet, “I cannot believe that once again you are taking Michael’s side.”
“I am not,” Mary approached her daughter cautiously as one would a nervous gelding. She took Cora’s right hand and gently tugged it, leading her to the large kitchen table at the center of the kitchen where the family had most of their breakfasts and lunches. Dinner was a very formal affair in the Richards’ household and that was the only time the dining room was used.
“Sit, Cora,” Mary pointed at a chair and waited as her daughter sat down and then she sat opposite her. “Michael is protecting your honor so that no man takes advantage of you.”
“But Ma, I am seventeen years old. Most of my friends have suitors and are getting ready to get married and settle down. I, on the other hand, I have no prospects of finding me a mate. Michael and Henry won’t let anyone speak to me, let alone court me. And none of the eligible young men in church will even talk to me.”
Mary gave a small laugh, “Cora child, you are exaggerating.”
“Am I? Am I, Ma?” The tiny girl leaned forward with a fierce glare in her eyes. “Tom Hopkins was told that he would be tied to his horse and flogged. Bernard Hastings was told he would be hanged on the nearest apple tree, Zedekiah Mitchell was threatened that his head would be chopped off and his body fed to the wild beasts, Jonathan Cooper was told he would be scalped alive, Robinson Sanders and Gilbert Moore were told they would be tied up and handed over to the Comanche or Cherokee Indians to be used in their sacrifices to their gods,” Cora’s small bosom was heaving. “Need I go on?” She demanded, in spite of the fact that her mother was bent over, laughter bubbling from her lips. Her mirth was contagious and soon Cora was giggling.
“Oh child,” Mary wiped her eyes with the edge of her apron. “You and your brothers will be the death of me yet.”
“But Ma, how will I ever find me a good suitor when my brothers have scared off all the likely candidates?”
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All the best, Montana
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ever since she was a child watching Westerns like Hondo and the Big Valley with her dad, Montana West has always had a fascination with the Wild West. Now she lives on her Indiana farm with her husband, Jim, two cats, four horses and an elderly goat named Bluebeard. Montana and Jim are avid collectors of the work of artists of the American West, her favorites of the Hudson River School whose artists like Thomas Hill celebrated nature through their transformative works.
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