“I wish the poor boy didn’t have to deal with the Jacksons, but there will always be times in our lives when we have to deal with people we don’t want to deal with for the sake of the greater good. Remember that, Child. Odds are, they are always going to be a part of this estate in one way or another, and whether we like it or not, we are going to have to deal with them.” Mrs. Cunningham shook her head, and Charity nodded, though she didn’t know what to say. She hated the thought of Annabelle always being a part of Chase’s life in any way—and she stopped herself suddenly at the thought.
Charity wanted to tell herself that she felt that way for Chase’ sake, but the truth was that she felt that way because of her own emotions—and attraction to the man. She didn’t like the thought of Annabelle being alone with him, or the fact that she may try to win his affections once again. From what she had said to Charity, she had made it sound as though there was a chance Chase may still love her.
Though Chase had told her what he had on the ride home from town, Charity didn’t know him well enough to know whether he was telling her the truth. Perhaps he was really just saying those things because he did still have feelings for Annabelle and he wasn’t sure if he would be able to win her back.
“Mrs. Cunningham, there is a visitor for Mr. Cunningham,” Olga said as she walked into the room. Charity felt her heart sink, but it sank even further when Annabelle walked into the room behind the girl.
“Thank you, Olga, but I don’t need you to announce me. Or then, do I? I guess I’m not quite used to being important enough to be announced.” Annabelle laughed at her own statement, but neither Charity nor Scarlett joined in. They both rose from the table, however, and Annabelle looked horrified.
“Oh, my goodness! Did I interrupt your breakfast? I certainly didn’t mean to, where are my manners? I hope that I didn’t get Chase up from his meal!” She looked as horrified as she could muster, though Charity felt she could see through the attitude. She didn’t like Annabelle, not one bit, and it certainly didn’t help that she was going to now go out to the barn with Chase.
“Don’t worry, we just finished,” Scarlett said with a forced smile herself. Charity wasn’t certain if Annabelle could see the falsehood in the smile, but if she could, she certainly didn’t say anything about it. In fact, she acted as though she didn’t even notice. Turning to Charity, she smiled broadly.
“I hope you don’t feel uncomfortable with the history Chase and I have, I mean, I’m sure he’s going to have a difficult time concentrating on strict business with me around so much, but really, I am only here for business, I promise.” She puffed out her chest and put her hands on her hips as she spoke, and Charity felt her own chest grow tight with jealously. She wanted to walk over and slap the girl, telling her that she had no business doing anything to ruin anything between her and Chase, but at that moment, Scarlett spoke up.
“Chase is going to be rather busy, Miss Jackson, I am sure he is going to be able to answer any of your questions, but he isn’t going to have much time besides. Don’t worry—Charity knows plenty about the horses and what we are going to want to happen around here, you are welcome to come to her with questions if you can’t find Chase.” Mrs. Cunningham clasped her hands in front of her, and Annabelle’s smile froze into an evil grin. Charity felt her heart skip a beat, and she herself was about to respond and Chase suddenly walked into the room.
“Ah, Miss Jackson. I hope you weren’t waiting too long. I was getting ready as quickly as I could, but with the short notice that you have given, it wasn’t really enough time to get completely ready.” Chase was adjusting the cuffs of his coat, and Annabelle’s demeanor suddenly changed.
“Oh, Chase! You don’t have to worry about getting ready for me. I already think you are quite handsome.” She laughed as she stepped over to him, but Chase maintained a reserved attitude.
“That is not at all what I meant, and in the future, I would like it if you gave me more time to get ready for such things before you arrived. It’s practically arriving unannounced, and that is something no one cares for.” Chase spoke in a quiet and direct manner, but the smile didn’t fade from Annabelle’s face. Charity could see immediately that it was going to be difficult for Chase to get rid of Annabelle, and it made her cringe inside. Mrs. Cunningham motioned for Olga to start with the table, and soon, Charity found herself alone in the dining room.
Chase had gone outside with Annabelle, and Scarlett had retreated upstairs to take breakfast to her husband. Of course, Charity wanted to help with the dishes, but she knew that it wouldn’t be a good time to do so—especially with Annabelle around. Part of her wanted to go out and join the two in the barn, but she knew that that, too, wouldn’t be a good idea. It would be horribly humiliating if Chase were to ask her for some privacy, or, worse, if she were to do something that would make it uncomfortable for Chase with Annabelle around.
Charity walked to the hall where she could look out the large window toward the barn. The doors were open, and she could see that there were several of the hired hands riding about and tending to the chores of the place, but it was difficult for her to see where Chase had gone with Annabelle. The new horse was running back and forth in the corral, clearly agitated by what was going on.
Suddenly, Chase and Annabelle came out of the barn, Annabelle with her hands wrapped around Chase’s arm. It was clear that Chase was doing his best to get away from the girl, but she wasn’t taking any of his hints. Annabelle was laughing and clinging to him without any of the class that a well-bred woman would have, and she didn’t seem to even notice the looks that the other hired hands were giving her.
Charity felt anger well up in her chest—not only because of what Annabelle was doing, but because of what Chase was doing as well. He was doing his best to pull his arm away from the girl, all the while making it clear that he didn’t want to have anything to do with her in that way—but, Charity felt that he could be trying a lot harder to get away from the girl than he was.
At the same time, she was horrified to see that he was not only trying harder to get away from the girl, but that he was actually smiling. She couldn’t tell with the window in between them, but it almost appeared to her that he was laughing about the way Annabelle was behaving, and allowing it to go on for much longer than she thought it should have. Charity couldn’t help but feel the jealousy take over inside her, and she wanted nothing more than to go out and tell Annabelle that she could go ahead and have Chase, because she herself would be leaving as soon as she possibly could.
The two were walking back to the house, and Charity pulled herself further inside. She didn’t want either one of them to see her from the window, and she certainly didn’t want Chase to know that she had been watching the two of them while they were outside. She could see that Annabelle was composing herself more the closer they got to the house, and Chase, too, was fighting to maintain a more serious expression as they drew near to the door. Charity felt such tightness in her chest she worried that she was going to be sick, but there was nothing she could say about any of it.
Chase didn’t know that she had seen them outside, and she wasn’t about to tell him that she had. What would he think of her if he knew she was spying on him? But then, what was she to think of him when he was acting one way toward her or when she was around, then acting another way when he thought she wasn’t looking? No matter what their situation happened to be, Charity felt that he had lied to her about his feelings for Annabelle. She had seen people flirting enough to know when it as happening, and whether he had instigated it or not, he was certainly going along with it.
Charity turned and walked quickly toward the stairs, not wanting to be caught by either one of them as they walked into the house. They were still discussing the horses when they walked through the door, but Charity had a feeling they were talking about a lot more than that when they were out in the barn. She saw Chase looked up at her as she rounded the corner of the railing and headed for her room, but
she refused to make eye contact with him.
Annabelle was by his side, smiling broadly. Charity couldn’t stand the sight of either one of them, especially together. She closed the door behind her and threw herself onto the bed, trying to rid her heart of the swirling emotions that had overtaken her. She didn’t want to think of Chase or Annabelle, and she certainly didn’t want to think of what was going to happen between them as soon as she left.
She could just imagine it—she would go when his parents left, and Annabelle would take the opportunity to move right into her place. Chase would feel remorse for breaking off the relationship when he had, and he would forgive her for what she had done to him. They would get back together, and would get married, and live happily ever after. There were tears in her eyes as she thought about it and Charity angrily swiped them away. She didn’t want to admit that she had developed feelings for him, and she certainly didn’t want to admit that she felt like she had to compete with Annabelle.
Charity sat up in bed, an idea filling her head. If Chase was going to pursue a relationship with Annabelle—no matter what he called it—she could do the same thing. She would get his attention one way or another, and she knew someone who would be more than happy to oblige.
It would be simple—all she would have to do would be to find Cory Jones once more, and talk to him. Chase was right, he would be more than happy to woo her if he could, though she would not at all care for him to do so. Yet, it appeared as though Annabelle was doing a fantastic job of wooing Chase, so why not allow herself to be wooed by a man whom Chase didn’t like? It was so confusing in her own mind, she didn’t know what to make of it. Surely, there was more to the story than Chase not wanting to see her get hurt. She knew men—she had grown up with many boys who had competed with each other through the years, and there was always more to the story than them not wanting to see their girls get hurt.
There had to be some other reason why Chase wouldn’t want her to have anything to do with Cory, and she may nor may not find out what it was, but she knew that there had to be something. Chase might care for her, but he didn’t care for her that much. Even if she always had been the popular girl in her social circles, she still knew how many men behaved, and she couldn’t see Chase only caring for her happiness.
Charity didn’t know what she wanted to do. She didn’t want to seek out the attention of any of the men in town, that was too much like what Annabelle would do—but at the same time, she didn’t want to turn them all down at the first glance, either. It was all so hard to reconcile, she really didn’t know how to handle it.
There were tear stains running down her cheeks, and her hair was disheveled from throwing herself on the bed as she did. She had worked hard on that bun that morning, wanting to get some sort of compliment from Chase. He had looked at her with admiration in his eyes when she walked in and sat down at the breakfast table that morning, and she had had a brief flashback to their ride home the night before.
Having the memory and the accompanying feeling rush over her made her question whether she was doing the right thing with her plan. She remembered what he had said about him and Annabelle in the past, as well as what he said about his brother and the girl. Perhaps she wasn’t thinking about this whole thing clearly, and perhaps she was allowing this to bother her more than it should. After all, when Annabelle had arrived that morning, it certainly hadn’t seemed as though Chase had given her a second thought.
It was only after they were out in the barn with her that he was laughing and allowing her to cling to his arm like he was. It didn’t make much sense, even to Charity. No matter how she thought about it, she couldn’t see why he would suddenly change his mind when he was out there in the barn with the girl.
Suddenly, the sound of their voices drifted up the stairs, and she could hear it followed by Annabelle’s laughter. There was something about her laughter that simply rubbed Charity the wrong way, and made her skin crawl. It was cheerful and bubbly, but there was something fake about it that made her see through what the girl was doing. She could only imagine that it was a laugh that had been practiced over and over again—until it was perfected for Chase.
But, it wasn’t that laugh that got to her—it was the sound of Chase’s laughter joining in with hers. She didn’t know if it was a joke that Chase had said or if it was one of the things Annabelle decided to laugh over, but either way, it was enough to get a laugh out of the both of them. As the laughter continued from down below, Charity felt her heart grow hard once again, and as she looked at herself in the mirror, she knew she was going to have to do something to get Chase’s attention once more.
It wasn’t going to be enough that she was posing as his fiancé, she was going to have to do something that would catch his eye and hold it—whether that meant that she was going to have to get the attention of another man, or if she was going to have to do something bigger—better. Charity walked back to her bed and sat down, letting her brown curls out of the bun and fall about her shoulder.
She didn’t know why she cared so much about whether Chase cared for her or not, but she did. It was a feeling she couldn’t deny, and it certainly was something she couldn’t simply ignore. She sighed. She was never the kind of girl to play games, but perhaps she would be less uptight about everything.
Perhaps she would merely let go and see what happened with Chase—or if there was something else that was meant to be.
Chapter 16
“Don’t worry, we are going to just stop by their house on the way into town, and it’s going to be brief. There are just a couple of things that I need to talk about with Mr. Jackson, and we will be on our way.” Chase explained as they climbed into the buggy. He hadn’t said anything about stopping by the Jackson mansion until they were getting into the buggy, and Charity now gave him a rather odd look.
Chase had noticed that Charity had been acting rather strange the past couple of days, but he didn’t have time to figure out why. He wondered if he had somehow upset her with the way he had leaned his head on her when they rode back home the other night, but then, she had been the one who had put her head on his shoulder first. He felt as though she ought to be the one to say something about it if that was the case, not act strangely toward him.
It was even harder for him to have time for her with the other things that he had to worry about as well—he still didn’t have the time to work with the new horse he had purchased, and he feared the longer that it went without him working with the animal, the harder it was going to be for him to break through to the animal when the time did come. He wanted to make a good horse out of the creature, and he knew that Norman could breed good animals—it was just a matter of training.
But, with the other men working on the fences and with the cattle, and him having to work with the Jacksons and bringing in the new horse stock, it was more than he had the time to work with. Not to mention it was hard with his parents getting ready to make their move and Charity still doing what she was doing. He thought she would be more than ready to get out of the territory by now, but it seemed to him that she wasn’t in any hurry to really leave.
He didn’t want to believe that she really liked it there, but it seemed to him that she might. Of course, Chase wasn’t going to ask her about it—he didn’t want to set himself up for any more heartbreak in life It was hard enough for him to be dealing with Annabelle as it was—and she was being nearly impossible. Sure, she was a lot more charming than she used to be in some ways, and she had been rather funny the day before, but he wasn’t going to allow him to put his guard down in any way.
He had given her the chance at being his bride in the past, and she had shown him her true self. He could bring himself to be civil with her now, but he was never going to open up and allow her into her life like had he in the past. Charity looked rather irritated as they turned to head into town, but she didn’t say anything.
“Would you like me to drop you off in town while I go do that? I don’t want
you to be bored out at their house, you know how Mr. Jackson can be,” Chase looked at her with a concerned look in his eyes, and waited for her answer. It seemed as though Charity was torn, and he wanted to know why, but he wasn’t going to ask.
She had been acting different toward him since Annabelle had last been at the house, and he wanted to know why—he hadn’t seen Annabelle say or do anything to Charity while she was there, and his mother hadn’t mentioned that anything had happened, so he was going to just let it go and see if she was going to say anything about it.
When she didn’t, he was just left to assume that all was fine between them, and he wasn’t going to bring any of it up out of fear that she was going to be angry with him. He didn’t want to have any trouble with her, even if she wasn’t going to be staying much longer. His mother had told him that very morning that she was getting more of the details worked out, and they were going to be heading for the coast soon.
Charity road in silence alongside him, and he wanted to ask her if there was something wrong, but he couldn’t think of any way to word his question. He wondered if she knew that his parents were planning on leaving soon, and he wondered if he should tell her. If she was going to be leaving herself, she would need the time to make plans, but then, she wasn’t going to be able to leave before his parents did, or his plan would be ruined.
Chase was feeling torn—and he didn’t know how to handle it in his own mind. He wanted the mansion more than anything, but he was beginning to find it impossible to think of living lie without Charity there. She had brought so much happiness to the place since she had moved in, and though he didn’t want to admit it, he didn’t want to think about how things would be when she wasn’t there any longer.
He drove her into town and dropped her off by the general store with a smile. They had ridden in silence for much of the trip, but now that he was leaving her there, he wanted her to go with a warm smile.
Mail Order Bride: A Bride's Unexpected Love: A Western Romance Book Page 11