Adventure For A Bride: A clean historical mail order bride romance (Montana Passion Book 3) (3 page)

“What? That can’t be right,” Wyatt said, sitting up. He tried to hide his disappointment because he knew that he didn’t even understand it himself. This should be a relief, shouldn’t it? He tried to find a wife, just as everyone expected, but it didn’t work out. Now he could go home to his cabin, to his children… and to his private heartache. “Her letter said she’d be arriving on this train, on this date.”

“I’m sure there’s a good reason for it, never fear,” Pryor said, patting Wyatt’s shoulder reassuringly while giving Kieran a nasty look. “We’ll sort it out. Maybe she had a connecting train that was delayed somewhere along the line, and prevented her from catching this one in time. There’s no reason to worry just yet.”

“No, she decided not to come! I know it!” Wyatt cried, sitting up. “And to think that I didn’t want her here, but now she’s…” He stopped himself from finishing his sentence. He wasn’t ready to admit that it hurt for her not to show up, especially after the way he’d had to be convinced to even write to her in the first place.

The three men waited around anxiously, not quite certain what to do next, until Gretchen returned from Jorgenson’s mercantile with a cold cloth and a tin cup of water. Wyatt took them gratefully, but also took his time feeling better.

“Well, I guess there’s nothing to be done but return to our homes,” Pryor said, feeling an awkward sting of embarrassment. “We’ll look for her again next time the train comes through. Given the warmer weather lately and the bustle of this town growing up around us, it shouldn’t be too long.”

He helped his friend to his feet and kept an arm out behind him in case Wyatt started to fall again. Gretchen linked her arm through her husband’s, feeling sorry for the man who’d been through so much.

Before any of them could take a step down from the platform, they were startled by the arrival of a shiny black stage coach, an uncommon site in New Hope. The coaches didn’t usually run this far from the Barnett outpost, as the risk from marauders was simply too great to travel without a regiment of guards. Most people who did go by coach still disembarked at the fort and found other means to travel to their final destinations.

The coach driver let the team of six horses slow to a natural walk, their heavy hooves kicking up small clouds of dust on the wide main road. The spring rains had only ended a week or so ago, and already the ground had dried enough that the dust rose with their footfalls, signifying what would become an overly warm summer.

They looked to the coach to watch its passengers, shielding their eyes from the noontime sun. The driver held fast to the reins while an armed footman jumped down from his place at the back. He opened the door for any passengers who may be getting off, then skittered around to the back of the coach to retrieve a few trunks and some parcels of mail.

Two men, a father and a son judging by the difference in their ages and their identical mops of flaming red hair, climbed down from the coach and stretched their legs. They waited patiently while the attendant untied their one trunk apiece from the top of the coach, then handed down their canvas rucksacks filled with supplies. They left, carrying their belongings, leaving the four watchers to stare in bewilderment.

“Well, that’s a new sight in these parts,” Kieran said. “I think the only neighborly thing to do is to go introduce myself and see to it that they’re not up to any trouble.” He kissed his wife on the cheek then nodded to Pryor and Wyatt before following the two new arrivals. The three remaining friends turned back to find Pryor’s wagon, but stopped when another movement caught their eye.

This time it was a woman who stepped down from the coach, a fetching lady dressed in a fine traveling coat and plumed hat. She wore kid gloves on her small hands despite the spring weather, and the slippers on her feet were so dainty that even Gretchen felt an urge to carry her over the coarse ground and set her safely on the wooden platform. When both feet had reached the ground, the woman smiled to herself and took in the small village, turning in a wide circle as she breathed deeply.

“Would you smell that air?” the woman called out to no one in particular, even though Wyatt, Pryor, and Gretchen stood close enough for conversation. “I tell ya, there’s nothing like it back east. The city? Pshaw, not with its dirty air and grimy streets. There’s no air like this back in the city, that’s for sure!”

She stepped over to them after the attendant had retrieved her things, piling them on top of each other on the wooden sidewalk beside the mercantile. She smiled and shook each person’s hand one by one, grinning as she spoke.

“Hi! The name’s Millie Carter, I just came out here from Boston,” she said in a funny accent like none that any of them had ever heard. They were too surprised to speak for a moment, but it was Gretchen who finally remembered her manners and introduced herself. She introduced the other two gentlemen, then waited for Millie to explain.

“My paper says right here that I’m to meet a Mr. Wyatt Flynn,” she said proudly, holding out her letters. Wyatt visibly paled and took a step back, shaking his head slightly at Pryor’s questioning glance. Pryor came forward, dragging Wyatt by the fabric below his shirt collar.

“This is Mr. Flynn,” he explained, grinning broadly and nudging Wyatt with his elbow until he did the same.

“Well, Mr. Flynn, my future husband!” Millie cried. “How thoughtful of you to be waiting on me when I hadn’t even told you when I’d be here.”

Wyatt stammered for a moment, his attention diverted by the boisterous woman in front of him. “But you said you’d be here on the train,” he began hesitantly, leaving off as he pointed to the empty tracks behind him as though they held some mysterious answer.

“Oh, I decided to leave off with the train. Train travel is fine and all, but the way to really experience this country is to get out there in it, to let your hands and feet be a part of it,” she said proudly, holding up a fist as though it still contained some of the dirt from the frontier.

“But Ms. Carter, you should naw have gone to such an expense,” Gretchen began, somewhat appalled that a lady rode such a great distance in a carriage with strangers.

“It was no expense at all!” Millie answered, shaking her purse. “I didn’t work all those years in that sweaty factory, fighting the manager’s grabby hands and the other workers for their shifts, just to have to ride in some old train car. I used my passage fare, provided by Mr. Flynn for the train, then added the rest of the cost for the coach out of my earnings. I knew it was the only way I could really see this country. And here I am!”

Millie held her arms out wide and turned in a sweeping circle, gesturing to all the land that surrounded them. It was off-putting to find a woman so unaware of her own frailty, but even Pryor could see the logic in her words. This trip by coach may be the only time she ever traveled so far again, God willing, and it was equal parts odd and impressive that she would be so bold about her journey.

“My, that’s… quite ingenious of you!” Gretchen said, captivated. She herself had snuck off from home in the middle of the night, leaving Ireland behind as she made her way to New York by ship, so who was she to decide a lady had no place traveling to the frontier by coach?

Wyatt, on the other hand, wore a dark scowl. He’d only just laid eyes on this woman, but already his mind had counted more ways than he had fingers that she was nothing like his Anna Mae. He had specifically instructed the agency in what type of woman he was looking for, but this… this had to be a joke.

“Well, come on then. Go on with the O’Conners, they’ll see you home.” Wyatt turned on his boot heel and stalked off in the other direction after ordering Millie to head to the cabin. Pryor and Gretchen looked after him for a moment in shock before turning to Millie, prepared to politely ignore his inexcusable behavior.

“He’s awfully romantic, isn’t he?” Millie said, laughing. “I knew it would be unnerving to meet a stranger for marriage, but I had no idea that he’d be a complete horse’s ass about it!” She looked completely unruffled by the way Wyatt had behaved, but Gretchen was horrified by her assessment of the man who was to become her legal husband, the head of her family and her affairs.

“Oh, no, Mr. Flynn isn’t usually anything like that,” she began, but Millie was shaking her head.

“You don’t have to make excuses for him, dear. He’s his own person, and he owns his own behavior. I’m sure he’ll come around to the idea once he settles in. After all, it’s hard when someone twists your arm and makes you get married.”

“I beg your pardon?” Gretchen asked innocently, but Pryor cleared his throat and looked away. That wasn’t the way it had happened at all!

“Yes,” Millie continued, unbothered by Pryor’s uncomfortable expression. “His father. Mr. Flynn told me all about how his father insists he get married and set up a household to keep his land.”

Pryor and Gretchen looked at each other, their mouths hanging open for a long moment before they remembered themselves and recovered. Again, Millie seemed not to notice, or seemed too chipper to care.

“I see,” Gretchen said breathlessly. “Well, let’s get ya on home. I’m sure you’ll wish to bathe properly after a journey such as that one. We’ll have ya fixed up and feeling like new in no time!”

She linked her arm through Millie’s and led her toward the wagon where Kieran already waited, Millie’s trunks already having been loaded into the back. Gretchen shot Pryor a scathing look over her shoulder, clearly demanding that he get to the bottom of this.

“What in the world was the meaning of that?” Pryor demanded in an angry hiss, catching up to Wyatt and jerking him back by his arm.

“The meaning of what? She’s here, I met her, and now I’m headed home. I fulfilled my obligation, so let go of me!” Wyatt pulled his arm back out of Pryor’s grasp angrily and continued walking to where his horse stood, patiently munching oats from the general store’s trough.

“And that’s how you think you should greet her? I’m surprised at you, Flynn. You’re not the man I thought you were.” Pryor spat on the ground almost as if for emphasis. “Then there’s this business of telling her you had to get married to keep your farm? What’s that all about?”

“That’s my business, not yours!”

“You just made it my business when I had to cover up your lie! Now turn around and face me like a man and explain yourself!” Pryor stepped in front of Wyatt and stared him down, his breath coming faster as he thought about the possibility of having to fight this man. “You weren’t a no-good liar and I’ve never heard you say so much as a cross word to a lady, and today of all days is when you choose to become someone you’re not?”

Wyatt seethed. Instead of backing down, he stepped closer, placing himself toe to toe with Pryor. “Call me a liar one more time, and I’ll see to it you don’t walk for a month,” he hissed in a quiet way that was so filled with threat that it was a tangible feeling between them.

“Do it, Flynn, throw the first punch. I’d love an excuse to whip your tail in front of this whole town. With any luck, your new wife will still be here to get a front row seat and find out what a low coward you are, a coward who would treat a lady that way.”

“What kind of lady is she, anyway? A lady wouldn’t take off on a stagecoach with Lord only knows who, going on for days and days with other menfolk riding with her!” Wyatt fired back, and Pryor saw through just one layer of his façade. Wyatt had known Anna Mae since they were little kids learning to read together in the one-room schoolhouse; now this Millie, Wyatt had no idea who she was or what her past was like. But that didn’t let him off the hook for being a liar.

“That’s your cheap excuse for not liking her? She took a stage coach instead of the train? And did you think the train car was gonna be full of nothing but women all the way from New York? Train or coach, it makes no difference. She was traveling all this way to see you, remember? If she wanted to dally with some other man, she could’a done that back home and saved herself the trip!”

Pryor flushed red to the top of his scalp at the way they were discussing a female. Moira would tan his hide if she could hear him, and he silently thanked the Lord that she was laid up in the bed with their new baby. Wyatt didn’t answer, but he looked away from his friend’s steely gaze.

“Look, Wyatt,” Pryor said quietly, aware that their argument had brought some prying eyes out into the open. “I know this is hard. I can’t even imagine all you’ve been through. But you have to give her a chance. She’s come all this way, and it’s not her fault you decided not to tell her the whole story.”

“I don’t have to explain myself to anybody. And I sure don’t need to go telling people about my Anna Mae. They don’t deserve to even know her, let alone pry into her life,” he answered defiantly.

“Well, if you don’t tell Miss Carter, I will. And that’s a promise.” Pryor turned to go, but Wyatt shouted after him.

“You don’t got any right to go talking about Anna Mae!”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. I dug her grave, if you remember correctly, and it’s my wife who left home for days on end to care for her until the last minute she drew breath. Your dead wife is wearing my wife’s dress, a dress made from the cloth I paid for by working my land. And who do you think has been feeding your young’uns all this time? I’d say that does give me every right to tell this new lady what she’s getting herself into, since you haven’t decided to do it. Did you even tell Miss Carter you have children?”

Wyatt didn’t answer, and Pryor swore under his breath before kicking at the ground in front of him.

“I don’t have to go telling people my business, and those children are my business. Anyone who wants to know about ‘em can come out here and look me in the eye first!” Wyatt proclaimed, crossing his arms defiantly in front of his chest as if that somehow settled it.

“Well, good. Because Miss Carter has done that. So I’d say you have some explaining to do before the next train comes!” Pryor shot back. “And you either tell her the truth about Anna Mae before sundown, or I will!”

“Who’s Anna Mae?” a bright voice called out behind him.