The Rodeo Star's Return (Sapphire Springs Book 1)

by Angie Campbell

  The town, though small, now boasted of a general store, owned and operated by William Harris, along with a butcher shop, owned and operated by Joshua Miller. For the last ten years George Carter had been the sheriff. The Townsend ranch had been large enough by the time the little town had really taken off, Abraham Townsend hadn’t had the time to do anything but ranch. A lot of the town’s growth had been attributed to the Townsend ranch.

  Due to the size of the ranch, Tobias’s father had, had to hire several ranch hands. Those ranch hands had brought their families with them. Due to the influx of people, a large number of them young couples with small children, they had to come up with a better way to get daily supplies. The town also now had a post office with a telegraph, a hotel and restaurant, tailor and seamstress, a barber shop that sat next to the saloon. Of course, there was also the sheriff’s office with the livery stable next door, a stagecoach office, the school for the children, and a church with a small cemetery beside it that was maintained by the preacher, who’s little house sat behind the church. No town would be complete of course without an undertaker and a hospital, which ironically, or not, sat side by side, to the west and just a little-ways out of town.

  The Townsend ranch house was known for being the only one in the area to have indoor running water and a flushing toilet. Newly built. Cade had seen a washroom like it in a hotel, in New York the year before and decided they just had to have one put in their house. Tobias still hadn’t figured out Cade’s justification for the expense, but since he had footed the bill all on his own, he could find no real reason to argue with him.

  Tobias walked over to the kitchen counter and grabbed a glass and started pumping water from the pump. Once his glass was full, and the pump off, he turned to prop his tall, muscular body against the counter. He was just taking his first drink, when his younger brother Thaddeus walked in the kitchen.

  “Hey, Tobias, I need to talk to you about something,” he said, his voice shaking.

  He looked at his younger brother, noting how much he had grown in the last few months. He was thinking they were going to need to take him to the tailor for some new clothes. They probably could buy him a few ready-made things, as well. He raised an eyebrow at the dark-haired boy, the spitting image of their late father, except for his coloring. “Why do you sound nervous? What do you need to talk to me about?”

  The younger boy dipped his head, staring at the floor, and his shuffling feet. “You need to go into town and meet the stagecoach.”

  He laughed, shaking his own dark head. “Why would I need to meet the stagecoach?”

  “Well...,” the boy hesitated, gulping air. “You need to go get your mail-order bride,” Thaddeus said in a rush, trying to get it out fast, before he vomited in the floor because of his nerves.

  He stood up straighter, placing his water glass on the kitchen counter. “What do you mean, I need to go get my mail-order bride?” he asked on a laugh, thinking his brother was trying to make some really, bizarre joke. “I didn’t order a bride.”

  “I know. I ordered her for you,” he said, sweating, trying not to panic and run.

  “What?” Tobias asked, thinking he may have fallen down the rabbit hole. He felt for sure he hadn’t heard his younger brother right.

  “I ordered her for you.” He only managed to finish his answer because his brother was in such a state of shock. “Her name is Sadie Johnson. She’s coming from New York. She’s supposed to arrive at one by...”

  “Why?” Tobias barked, taking a menacing step toward his little brother. If it had been one of the older ones, he would have already had them laid out cold on the floor.

  Thaddeus looked up with surprise in his eyes. “Why what?”

  “Why did you send for me a mail-order bride?” he roared loud enough to nearly rattle the rafters.

  Thaddeus stood up straighter, placing his hands on his hips. “You’ve scared off all the young women around your age in the area. Ever since...”

  “Why do you think I need a bride?” Tobias snarled, working really hard to resist the temptation to grab his brother around the throat.

  “You need a wife. We need someone around here who can actually cook. Who will clean house during the day, while we’re out on the ranch,” he said, getting excited when Tobias didn’t stop him again. Taking his silence as agreement, not realizing Tobias had been momentarily stunned again, he continued on. “She’s supposed to even be able to keep the books straight. You know how much we all hate that chore.”

  Tobias snorted. “Somehow, I doubt she’s going to be able to do that.”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” his little brother huffed.

  He threw his hands up in the air with a roar. “I do not want a wife.”

  “Why not?” Thaddeus asked, truly sounding confused.

  “You know why.”

  His little brother stamped his feet, balling his hands on his hips. “We need a woman in this house.”

  “Then you marry her.”

  “She’s expecting a twenty-seven-year-old man, not a sixteen-year-old kid,” his younger brother said, throwing his own hands up in the air.

  “Oh, now you call yourself a kid?” Tobias shouted, starting to pace the small kitchen like a caged tiger.

  “You know what I mean. I’m not old enough to get married,” Thaddeus shouted back.

  During the course of their argument, both of them had steadily grown more agitated, and they had gotten quite loud. Their voices had risen enough in volume to draw the rest of the brothers to the kitchen with them. Though they had gone unnoticed, until Cade, raising his own voice above theirs, asked, “What are you two shouting about?”

  Tobias turned to face him, pointing back at Thaddeus, “This idiot sent for a mail-order bride for me. He thinks we need a woman in this house.”

  “Oh,” Cade gasped, turning to look over at Thaddeus. “Is Miss Johnson due in today? I thought we had another week.”

  That wasn’t anywhere close to the response he had thought he would get. “What?” Tobias snarled. “You mean you were a part of this?”

  Cade just shrugged his wide shoulders, letting one of the others answer for him. “Well, not until a couple of weeks ago, when he told us what he had done,” Ezekiel said, giving his brother a big grin.

  “You, too?” Tobias asked, this time just sounding shocked. “Have you three become a bunch of meddling, old women?”

  “Now, that really was uncalled for,” Ezekiel chortled, obviously having way too much fun at his older brother’s expense.

  “Actually, we all know,” Cade answered. “And we agree with him. I’ll admit, at first I thought it was a bad idea, but after I gave it some thought, I reconsidered.”

  “Reconsidered?” their oldest brother roared. “Have you lost your mind? I don’t want a wife, and you all know why.”

  “That’s the biggest reason I think this is necessary,” Cade said, spreading his feet and crossing his arms over his chest, like he was preparing for a fight. “I don’t think you’re going to let go of the past, until someone holds you down and forces a future on you.”

  “I won’t do it. I don’t care if you have all agreed, I’m not marrying this girl,” he said with a shake of the head, walking back out the backdoor.