MAIL ORDER BRIDE: A BRIDE’S UNEXPECTED LOVE
A WESTERN ROMANCE BOOK
ANNABEL ALDEN
Contents
A THANK YOU GIFT
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
About the Author
A THANK YOU GIFT
I would like to thank you for purchasing my book. I cannot even begin to explain how much it means to me.
As a thank you gift, I would like to give you my full length novel “The Perfect Bride.”
It’s available only to the people who have downloaded one of my books and you can get your Free copy right here.
Copyright © 2018 by Annabel Alden
All Rights Reserved.
No art of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Prologue
Autumn 1863
Charity felt someone grab her rear end. "Don't—" she yelped and turned around to scold someone, but there was no one there. She decided she had better hurry to the front of the line before another barbarian could get his feel.
"Excuse me. Sorry. I hate to interrupt, but is there any way that you have a free room for the night?" Charity Stevens couldn't seem to get a word in. "I really am sorry, oops!" Charity took a step back as a man pushed past her, ignoring that she was standing in front of the swinging door. She recoiled from the sting in her hip.
How had she gotten there?
Now with a sore side and a sore rump, she groaned. Heading west wasn't as easy as she thought it would be. She was in some crowded hotel—although it felt like a brothel—somewhere between South Carolina and Oregon territory.
The journey hadn't been what she had expected it to be thus far. She certainly hadn't expected to be shoved among a crowd of strangers. But she was happy, and grateful, that she had made it on her own for so long. That fact didn't make it any less daunting that she was going to have to continue on this trek the next morning—likely to be groped the following night, too.
Exhaustion swept over her and she found herself closing her eyelids in slow motion just to see the illusion of darkness. She prayed in that moment she would be able to get a room. There was noise and shuffling around her, but Charity could only hear the man directly behind her.
"Yeah, I'll take that room," he said loudly.
Charity was brought back to reality. "Hey! I was here—"
"Look," he eyed her up and down, "I dunno where you came from, doll, but this ain't where you belong." He seemed to snort and Charity backed away while simultaneously brushing loose strands of hair away from her face.
"I can belong," she muttered to herself.
She had been to the hotel that was closer to the train station first, but they had been full. The clerk told her she was going to have to try her luck at the other hotel in town if she hoped to get a place to sleep for the night. The idea in itself made her nervous, as Charity had heard many tales of girls who had gone West on their own, and who were never heard from by their families again…
Charity was beginning to believe she would become another statistic.
There was little wonder as to why—the rails were filled with danger in every way imaginable. Whether the train itself were to crash, or if it were to be robbed by outlaws. Even a band of Indians could attack, tearing apart the men with their bare hands. She had even heard that there were Indians who would carry off women and children back to their camps to enslave and make their wives.
She hadn't liked the idea of traveling West alone from the moment she knew she was going to have to make the journey, but now that she was on her way, she only focused on the moment at hand and how she could make it easier on herself. She moved out of the way once more when another man pushed past her, doing her best to keep the attention of the clerk while at the same time staying out of the way.
Charity was from the corner of a larger city in South Carolina, but she had to admit, she wasn't used to this many people. She spent her life going to only the places she needed to be in her corner of the world, and keeping at home where she was needed by her parents. Her idea of peace was strolling around the market on a quiet morning. Not this.
She wasn't used to crowds pushing past her, and she certainly wasn't used to the way people were telling her to simply get out of their way without giving her any idea of where to go.
The clerk seemed to really be taking his time as he flipped through the ledger, and she nervously shifted her weight from side to side as she waited for his answer. At last, he put his finger on a page and slowly drew it down the list of names before patting it with an air of finality.
"Here we are. Yes, there is a room on the third floor, but it's not big, and it's rather loud. Not the choice room by any means, but you are free to take it if that is what you want." He looked up at her from beneath his spectacles, and she nodded, pulling out the little coin purse she had tied to the string around her wrist.
"How much is it going to be?" she asked. She didn't have much left in her purse, and she knew she had to be careful with what she did spend. After all, she was still going to be on the train for a few more days pressing ever onward toward Oregon territory. She was relieved when the amount was less than she had anticipated, and she counted out the coins quickly.
Charity soon found herself in her room, her carpet bag by her side. She hadn't packed much she didn't have much to pack, really. Her parents had given her all they could spare when they left, but even that wasn't much. It wasn't that they didn't want to send her things when she moved away from South Carolina, it was that they didn't have much to send her.
She unwrapped two biscuits she had kept from that morning the hotel she had left in the previous town had breakfast included in the price for spending the night, and she had slipped a few of the biscuits into her carpet bag before she left on the train that morning. She didn't want to spend any more money than necessary, but she knew she had to eat while on the road so she gathered and kept food when and where she could.
Nibbling on the corner of the dry meal, she laid back on the bed, being sure no crumbs fell on the breast of her dress or the crisp linen of the bed beneath her. Truth be told, she was exhausted. She had been traveling for over a week, and she was more than ready to get to her destination but only for the sake of arriving.
As a mail-order bride, she wasn't looking forward to getting married to the man she was traveling toward. As she took a deep breath and let it out again slowly, the events that led up to her being in the hotel in the first place slowly came back to her.
Charity had always considered herself to be l
ike the other normal boys and girls in her school all of them had come from homes without a lot of money, but with faith in God to take care of them. They all came together to take care of each other, and they all were there to hold up the others when something bad happened. She had grown up believing no matter what happened to her or anyone else in the little corner of the town they would all come together to take care of each other.
She grew up thinking she was going to find someone who cared for her someone who would fall in love with her and take care of her. Someone she could have a family with and do her part in the community, just as her parents did.
But then, everything changed.
The war broke out and the North began to fight against the South . Life took a terrible turn. Her childhood friends were sent off to battle, and the girls were left at home, doing their best to support the soldiers, while at the same time also trying to maintain their homes in spite of the fighting and the hardship of the war that had been thrust upon all of them.
She finished the last of her biscuit and closed her eyes, silently praying for each of the members of her family. She had one little brother and three little sisters all much too young to have to handle the trouble that had been pushed on the family.
The soldiers came and took their food, their money. They took supplies and used them for their own good, not caring about the hardship it was putting on the families they were taking the supplies from. Her family was running out of money faster than they were able to make more, and though Charity worked alongside her parents to do anything and everything they could to keep together, it was quickly becoming evident that there wasn't going to be enough money to feed everyone in the coming winter.
Food was already scarce, the war made it scarcer still. With all the mouths to feed in the house, and the lack of supplies to feed them, it was becoming clearer each day that the older members of the family were going to have to go hungry with each passing month just so the younger members of the family could have enough to eat.
Charity hadn't minded at all sharing her food with her younger brothers and sisters, but it soon grew to the point she and her parents were going to have to go without sustenance completely. There simply wasn't enough to go around, and there was no end in sight. As each day passed, they grew more and more desperate about what to do and how they were going to make it through.
When Charity lost the job she had been working with a local bookkeeper, it became clear what they were going to have to do. The entire family was going to have to make more sacrifices. More than they had made before. Though no one wanted to say so, but Charity knew she was going to have to make the ultimate sacrifice. She felt she didn’t have any other option. She was going to have to find somewhere else to live, pretend to love some man she didn’t know…but it would support her family, and that’s what came first in her heart.
Clearly, the only way to do that would be to find someone to marry, and with all the young men fighting with each other across the countryside, her only option was to move West. She knew her parents were going to try to find their own solution to the problem, also leaving South Carolina behind them, but even them moving wouldn't be enough for her to go with them.
The one and only solution she could do was find someone to marry who was away from the war. Someone who was able to take care of her, but someone who wasn't going to put her in danger. As a mail-order bride, she could move far, far away from all the fighting, and find someone who would be able to take care of her. Take care of her family.
But, there was still one problem: she hadn’t had the time to correspond with the man before coming West to marry him. Laying there in bed, she groaned. She hadn’t planned out the details very well in her haste to flee the war…however, this provided her that little opportunity to escape. It was the only control she had left over the situation. The man would find out soon enough…this was her last bit of freedom.
To make matters worse, her parents choose someone she would never have chosen for herself. They chose an arrogant man—or at least he appeared arrogant in his brief description. He would probably enslave her when she arrived like the Indians.
But he was wealthy. Charity had always wanted to marry a kind, hardworking man like her father. Being ordered like a book made her feel invaluable. She had tried to argue against the marriage, that was purely out of fear of the unknown, but she knew this was her only option. Charity had promised her parents she would honor their wishes when it came to the man she married, but she had never thought they would choose someone so unlike her in any way. Why couldn’t they have chosen a wealthy, kind man?
His monetary gain would benefit her in the long-run, but it was odd to her that this man was looking for a bride who would move out West as soon as possible. A woman who was ready to uproot her life and come to him without spending months on letters. She thought it strange that he would be so eager to marry when he had all this money and support to offer an eligible young woman, but that was not what her parents were concerned with.
They wanted her to get away from the war as soon as possible, and settled into her new life. Her parents had scraped together everything they could manage to spare, and they had given it to her, sending her off into her new life with only the memories of the happy times they once shared.
She sighed and rolled over, finishing her prayer for her family and loved ones. Tomorrow she would get up and continue West. She would press onward, putting more miles between her and everything she had ever known, and plunge onward to this new life she was destined to face. Charity knew it was going to be another sleepless night in this barbarian tavern.
Early as it was, she took another deep breath. She would need her sleep. She had a future husband to find.
Chapter 1
Charity slowly blinked, opening her eyes as the sunlight poured in through the slits on either side of the curtain. This hotel wasn't as nice as the other one in town, but it was a roof over her head, and a locked door between her and everyone else in the world. Although she loved that she didn't have to hear the sound of distant mail-order during the night, she didn't know if she liked the sounds coming from the saloon any better.
There were gun shots in the streets in some towns, but mostly it was the sound of drunk people shouting at each other and getting in fights. The language she heard shouted from one man to another was enough to make her skin crawl, and she was horrified such people were allowed to roam the streets. Though she lived her life without passing any judgments on those around her—other than her arrogant husband-to-be—Charity also found it shocking seeing the saloon women walking around on the streets and hanging off the balconies.
They were dressed in such promiscuous and vulgar ways, it was enough to make her blush even when she glanced at them and she couldn't help but wonder what kind of life they had to lived that caused them to choose such a life for themselves. She silently thanked God that though hardship had come upon her, he had provided her with another solution to changing her life rather than turning to a saloon.
She rose from her bed, not feeling as though she had slept at all. She had tossed and turned all night, listening to the sounds that were not only rising from the streets below, but within the hotel itself. It seemed many of the rowdy men who would get drunk at the saloon from across the street would then stumble into the hotel and rise a raucous as they came up the stairs and stumbled into their bedrooms.
The sound of the train whistle blowing prompted her to get up and out of bed quickly, slipping into her dress and buttoning down the front. She was wearing a soft white calico that was covered with tiny blue flowers it was long sleeved with buttons from the throat down to the hem, and even more buttons on the cuffs.
At one time, there had been lace at the hem, but that had torn one summer when she was helping her mother in the garden, and she had to pull it off before sewing on a new hem. If there was one thing Charity was good at, it was fixing the clothing she had to make it last even longer.
She had a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach, knowing that it was only a matter of days now until she met the man she was to marry. She scoffed at the thought of this being her one true love—a love she burned for. Chase Cunningham the heir to a large ranch nestled in the Oregon territory. She didn't know much about him, save for the ad and letter her parents had given her when she left. His original ad was brief merely stating that he was a young man only twenty-five years of age and he was going to inherit his father's fortune when the man passed. That didn’t sound like a man of virtue. Since his father was sick and wanting to move overseas, Mr. Cunningham was to inherit the house and land before he was going to inherit the rest of the wealth. Charity rolled her eyes at the thought. Her future husband likely hadn’t worked a day in his life.
Besides that, he was looking for a young woman who was willing to marry him quickly, as his parents wanted him to be married before they left for England. He didn't say anything else not what he looked like, not what he wanted in a wife not even what a wife could expect living with him. He simply stated that he wanted a woman to marry, and that was that.
Since he didn't say what he was looking for in a bride, her parents knew that they would be able to send her to him without him asking too many questions and secure a future for her where they believed she would be happy.
Mail Order Bride: A Bride's Unexpected Love: A Western Romance Book Page 1