by P. Creeden
A Bride for Henry
The Proxy Brides
P. Creeden
Contents
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
About the Author
Brokken Rising
A Bride for Henry © 2019 P. Creeden
Cover by Virginia McKevitt
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A Bride for Henry
A spinster raised to run a ranch. An injured man with a broken heart. A wedding neither of them want, but both need more than they will ever admit.
Brienne Walsh has resigned to life as a spinster and the lone heir to the Walsh Ranch upon her grandfather's death. She's always been too tall, too strong, and too unprepossessing to be appealing to any man. Yet when the bank calls on her grandfather's loan, telling her to either pay the full amount due by the end of the month, or marry, she is thrown into an arrangement she can't abide but must endure.
Love has been unkind to Henry Miller. His first love promised to wait for him to return from fighting for the Union in the War, but when he returned, he found her married to his best friend. The betrayal cut him deeper than the bullet from a Confederate Springfield. He lost his fiancé and his best friend in one fell swoop two years ago, and now he finds himself losing his father and his home in another. With nowhere else to turn, he chooses to follow his father's wishes and sign a document he never thought he'd consider again—a marriage certificate.
This is a short, clean and wholesome, American western historical romance. The 8th in The Proxy Bride Series. Each book is a stand-alone HEA romance and can be read in no particular order.
Chapter 1
October 1867, North Texas
Brienne Walsh was not allowed the luxury of mourning her grandfather. He, himself, used to say that only people who didn’t work on ranches had the time to be angry, sad, or depressed. Those who worked with horses and cattle had to put their emotions aside in order to get the jobs that needed to be done today, done today. She took those words to heart, swallowed down her emotions and kept working. Pain ached in her chest, and though she rubbed the spot with the heel of her palm, it refused to go away.
She was fixing the last bit of post and rail fencing that had been broken when a bull leaned on it to scratch an itch. The drought had made all her cattle lean, and several of her cows were open, and didn’t take to the bulls the way they should have. It was enough to make her anxious about how many fewer calves she’d have in the spring. And now she didn’t even have her grandfather to talk with about her worries.
Red clay dust filled the sky in a cloud behind the two horses and riders who were coming down the road on the way to where she stood. As the two riders rode nearer, it became clear who they were.
She straightened and wiped her brow, and then slipped between the rails of the fence so she could greet her visitors from closer to the road. “Mr. Bernard, what brings you out this way?”
The man behind Mr. Bernard was one she didn’t recognize, but the style of his clothing was similar to Mr. Bernard’s, so she assumed that he, too, was a banker. Mr. Bernard pulled off his hat for a moment, smoothing his dark, coiffed hair back before replacing it again. Then he leaned against the horn of his saddle. “I know that this isn’t the best time to talk about financial matters, considering you just buried your grandfather yesterday, but the reality is that loans don’t wait for a better time.”
She narrowed her eyes at the man as she pulled the leather gloves from her hands. “I’ve helped my grandfather with delivering the payments every month for the past four years. I owe forty a month, due on the fifteenth.”
Slowly, Mr. Bernard shook his head. “That was what your grandfather owed, yes, but now the debt is transferred to you. Because you are young and unmarried, the bank sees you as too much of a risk for holding a loan. They would like the full amount owed by the end of the month.”
Brienne swallowed and blinked at the man. “The full amount?”
“Yes. The balance due on the loan is six hundred and thirty-four dollars.”
Her knees weakened, and the ache in her chest sharpened. “How am I supposed to get that kind of money in less than three weeks?”
He let out a slow sigh. “I know your grandfather usually held back the cattle he culled to sell until spring, but you could drive them down to the sale in Plano next week.”
“But the drought, Mr. Bernard. The drought has made the cattle thin, and I won’t get much for them. I was hoping to spend the winter fattening them up, and cattle always sell better in the spring than they do in the fall anyway.” This was all crazy. Her head spun.
“It can’t be helped. If you don’t find a way to pay the loan off by the end of the month, the bank will take possession of the farm and all its assets, including the cattle. And then the cattle will be sold in the fall anyway.” His eyes were hidden behind the shadow of his hat, but it made no difference, since he wasn’t looking her direction. It was obvious he didn’t want to see a woman cry.
And though Brienne wasn’t much of a crier, tears did sting the backs of her eyes. “There must be something we can do. There must be some way that the bank will be reasonable with me and transfer the loan without asking for full payment in such a short amount of time?”
Mr. Bernard shook his head. “Nothing that I can think of.”
“Well, there might be one way,” the man on the other side of him suddenly said.
“What is it? I’ll do anything.” She clung to the desperate hope that there was some way out of this horrid situation.
“The bank would reassess your ability to pay if you were married.”
She blinked, her stomach suddenly twisting. Black spots crowded her vision. She’d never fainted before in her life, but the sudden feeling of overwhelming thoughts and emotions squeezed in on her from all sides and she had to push it back to make the black spots recede from the corners of her eyes. “I... I...”
Mr. Bernard clucked his tongue and shook his head slowly. “I hear that Mr. Murray has already offered you a proposal of marriage, but you turned him down because of your grandfather’s failing health. Now that circumstances have changed, perhaps you’ll reconsider. You have until the end of the month to either marry and resubmit your loan paperwork or pay off the debt in full. Please come see us when you’ve made your decision.”
And before Brienne could say another word, the two men made a red dust trail again, away from her farm. The autumn breeze wasn’t doing much for the sweat that had appeared on her brow and on her nose. Sh
e swiped at it with the back of her hand. Mr. Murray was a weasel. The man had money, but always wanted more. He wanted her grandfather’s ranch, the reason for his proposal of marriage. Not to mention the way his gaze slipped over her in an ungentlemanly way. She’d rather sell all the cattle at half-price than marry Mr. Murray. But what other prospects did she have? They had two workers on the ranch to help with the cattle, but both were already married and had no sons of marrying age.
Wait a moment. Was she really considering marrying a man just to get the loan called off? She huffed a laugh. The reality was that even if she sold the cattle, she’d need to pay the ranch hands first. She’d need to stock up on oats and barley for the winter. It would force her to sell some heifers, too, instead of just the steers if she wanted to pay the loan off entirely. And she couldn’t do that. It would cripple the ranch after the bad year they’d had. She needed to come up with a plan, but nothing was coming to mind.
“Brienne, what’s going on?” Cal Miller, her foreman rode up behind her. He had to have seen the red dust cloud coming up the roadway, too.
She shook her head, her eyes still unfocused. Her heart squeezed in her chest, and that dull ache intensified. A sob lodged in her throat. This was all too crazy. She swallowed it down and finally cast a glance toward Cal. “The bankers came to call. It seems I need to sell some steers in Plano to pay off Grandpa’s loan. Or... get married.”
Cal blinked at her, his brow furrowing over his brown eyes. He removed the kerchief from around his neck and swiped it across his face. Then he shook his head. “Did I hear you right? Did you say get married?”
Slowly, she nodded. “The loan can’t transfer to me directly, my being young and single, they say. If I were married, they’d consider it.”
After removing his hat and pushing the kerchief across the top if his head, Cal pushed his hat back on and then lifted an eyebrow at her. “So, even if you got married and told them, they might still say that you can’t transfer the loan?”
Suddenly she found herself chewing her bottom lip. What Cal said seemed right. What if she went through the trouble of getting married, only to then have her paperwork rejected? She met eyes with him again. “What am I going to do?”
“We’ll find a solution. Just think on it but don’t worry too much.” Cal let out a slow sigh and then sat up straighter in his saddle. “Let me go talk to some people. Let Georgia know I’ll be a little late for supper.”
Frowning, Brienne just watched Cal go the same direction as the bankers had gone, but he was at a full gallop. What solution could Cal possibly have? She swiped the tears that had fallen down her cheeks. She had even less time for them then before.
Chapter 2
Cal still hadn’t made it back by the end of supper. Brienne didn’t have much of an appetite but at least picked at the food, knowing that the last thing she wanted to do was irritate the older woman who’d been taking care of their home and cooking her meals since she was eight years old, the year she’d lost her mother to fever. Brienne’s father had passed away four years later in a flash flood on a cattle drive. It was one of the reasons her grandfather kept her from going on the cattle drives with Cal and Evan. Instead they hired out for two more cowboys to help each year while Brienne stayed home to take care of the heifers and cows.
“Cobbler?” Georgia asked as she set a small bowl in front of Brienne with an eyebrow raised. Silver streaks accented the heavy-set woman’s dark hair like light playing on a stream. Georgia kept her hair in a braided bun at the base of her neck, but tightly-curled tendrils of her hair framed her forehead.
Brienne shook her head. “I’m not very hungry tonight, Georgia.”
She frowned. “Are you feeling all right, child?”
With a sigh, Brienne answered, “I’m twenty-three years old, Georgia. I’m far from a child anymore. But I’m feeling fine.” She forced a smile.
Georgia wasn’t easily fooled. “I’ll leave this bowl here anyway. Things always look a little brighter with a bite of cobbler. Your grandfather agreed, too, you know?”
And that made Brienne’s smile a little bit less forced, even if it was tight-lipped. She picked up her spoon and took a purposeful mouthful of the cobbler, eyeing Georgia the whole time. Georgia nodded and moved on to the others around the table. Cal and Evan both lived on the ranch with their families—both were married, but only Cal had two small children. Evan’s wife was expecting their first. To help make things a little easier on the families, Georgia and Grandpa had always offered to have everyone over for supper every day. If the families made other plans, they just let Georgia know in advance, so she didn’t cook enough for an army. Still, she always seemed to have leftovers.
When Cal’s boots hit the floorboards of the front porch, Jordy, Grandpa’s shepherd leapt to his feet. Brienne jumped to her feet as well. Georgia eyed her, wiping her hands on her apron as Cal came through the door. He removed his hat and nodded toward both Brienne and Georgia before sliding in next to his wife, Mabel. He met eyes with Georgia again. “Sorry I’m late.”
But he said nothing else as Georgia put a warmed plate in front of him. Every hair on Brienne’s body stood on end with what was left unsaid. She could see it in his eyes that there was more he had to say. “What happened?” she asked.
He took a big mouthful and looked up at her while chewing. Once he swallowed, he watered it down with a sip of tea. “I could make no headway at the bank. I offered to take the loan in my name, knowing that it would have done right by your grandpa. But the bank refused me, saying that because I don’t have direct ownership of the land, they can’t use it as collateral for the loan.”
Brienne hadn’t expected him to do that. It warmed her heart that he’d even tried to. She shook her head. “You didn’t have to do that.”
He nodded, swallowing down another mouthful of food. “I know, but it felt right at the time.”
Slowly, Brienne sank back into her chair. That was that. She needed to find a way to get the loan paid by the end of the month. She’d need to hire a hand or two to help with the driving the steers to Plano and decide which heifers would bring her the most money in the sale. She’d deal with the consequences of it later.
“I rode to Plano and telegraphed my older brother in Maryland,” Cal said, still talking around a mouthful of food. “His son, Henry, was in the guard right up to the end of the War... well, two weeks before the end, he was wounded.”
Brienne dropped her gaze back down toward the bowl of cobbler in front of her. Even the sweet goodness of the fruit and warm crust in front of her wasn’t going to help take away the sour feeling in her gut. Her mind barely paid attention to the story Cal was telling. She had other things to think on.
“...so Henry can be here in a little over a month.”
Brienne blinked and shook her head. She didn’t need another ranch hand. She couldn’t afford it. “I’m sorry. My mind wandered. What do you mean?”
“My brother is dying. His only son has no other family, and they currently live in a rented house. Henry will be left homeless and jobless, though he’ll have a small sum of money to his name. My brother already asked if he could come out here and live—I’d already talked to your grandpa about it. Anyway, my brother said he’ll talk to him about becoming your husband.” Cal’s gaze had already dropped down to his food—he was avoiding eye contact with her.
She frowned as her chest squeezed. “Husband?”
Cal nodded, still not looking up from his dinner. His two children had finished their bowls of cobbler and had begun trying to climb their way into their father’s lap.
Mabel worked to constrain them and ended up grabbing them both by the hands. She met eyes with Brienne. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll take the children on home to get ready for bed. Cal, you stay here and get things settled with Miss Walsh.”
With a bob of her head, she headed out the door. Evan and his wife also made their excuses and slipped out the door as well. When Brienne
looked up, she noticed that Georgia had escaped to the kitchen. All these things only made the weight of Brienne’s problem land squarely on her shoulders. Cal wasn’t joking. Everyone in the room knew he was serious, even though they didn’t know the full weight of the issue.
Brienne sank into her chair. “It wouldn’t matter. You said it would be a little more than a month. I’ve got to submit the paperwork and get it approved or pay off the loan within three weeks.”
The metal fork clattered against the side of the empty plate as Cal dropped it. He shook his head. “If Henry agrees and you agree, you’ll be married as soon as tomorrow.”
Whether the world actually spun, or Brienne imagined it, she wasn’t certain. But she grabbed hold of the table to steady herself. “How is that possible?”
“We’ll sign and submit the paperwork with the preacher, and Henry will do the same. I’ll stand in for Henry, and you’ll be married by proxy.”
“You arranged all of this by telegraph?”
“My brother has been worried about Henry for a while. We’ve been corresponding by letters but couldn’t come up with a solution of what to do about the young man when his father’s been dealing with sickness, and his mother passed years ago, in childbirth of their second, stillborn child. Henry was raised by a servant. He’s a good man—always been kind and well mannered. He’ll make a good husband.”
Brienne swallowed. Was she really considering this? Cal was right that it was the best solution for her to get married instead of trying to sell the steers. And the only man who’d expressed any interest in her was Mr. Murray. But that man only looked at her and saw dollar signs. He wanted her land. He wanted her ranch. He didn’t want her. No man had ever wanted her. She was too unladylike. She’d never been accused of being delicate. Instead of dresses, she wore breeches and chaps—except for the one dress she wore to church on Sunday. Her skin was darker than most ladies, from being weathered by the sun. When she was twelve, some of the boys had teased one another by saying that courting her would be a punishment. She’d resigned herself to a life on the ranch, unmarried.