August (Prairie Grooms, #1) (3 page)

Wilfred stuck his head back inside. “You do know this is Clear Creek, don’tcha?”

The women looked at each other, wide-eyed. “You ... you mean this is it?” a brown-haired girl asked. “The end of our journey?”

“Yessiree,” Wilfred confirmed.

The third woman swayed to and fro as if she might swoon. “Eloise!” the redhead snapped. “Get a hold of yourself!”

The blonde snapped to attention, teetered a bit, then stilled. “Yes, Penelope,” she said docilely.

The redhead – Penelope – straightened in her seat. “We must leave the stage now, sisters. I’m afraid there’s no help for it.”

“Must we, Penelope?” The brown-haired girl lamented. “Perhaps the gentleman is mistaken.”

“I very much doubt it, Constance. I’m sure the gentleman knows where he lives. Now be brave. The Duke of Stantham would not have sent us halfway around the world for nothing. You do want to get married, don’t you?”

Penelope’s two younger sisters looked at one another with trepidation. “Yes,” they said in unison.

“Very well, then,” Penelope said, then gave her attention back to Wilfred. “You may proceed, sir.”

Wilfred continued to star at her, his mouth half-open again. “Pro ... proceed with what, ma’am?”

“Helping us disembark, of course.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Now, if you please?”

Wilfred jumped at her words. “Right away, ma’am,” he said and held his hand out to her.

Penelope gathered her skirts and stepped delicately from the stagecoach. A chorus of hoots and hollers erupted from the men encircling them, and she covered her ears against the racket. Wilfred helped Constance and Eloise out and quickly ushered them to the mercantile doors. “Get on with ya, now!” he yelled at the men. “These three ain’t being served up for supper!”

“I say!” Penelope huffed. “Is this country so devoid of ladies that your men feel compelled to
salivate
the moment they see one?”

Wilfred ignored the remark and, with the help of Sheriff Hughes, escorted the women inside and closed the door behind them. “Woo-whee, you’d think none of them fellas had seen a new woman in town for months!”

“Wilfred,” Sheriff Hughes said. “They haven’t.”

Wilfred came away from the door. “Oh, yeah. Forgot.” He crossed to the mercantile’s front counter and went behind it. “Any of you ladies care for a licorice whip while we wait for Harrison and Colin to get here?”

“Oh, I’d love one!” Constance said excited.

“Constance!” Penelope snapped. “A lady does not accept candy from strangers.”

“But Penelope, we haven’t eaten for hours!” her sister lamented.

“We’ll eat when we get to our cousin’s ...
farm.
” Her last word came out as if it pained her.

“Ranch,” Eloise corrected.

“Yes,” Penelope agreed. “One with ... cows.”

Before anyone could comment, the mercantile doors flew open. “Cousins?” Harrison asked.

“Harrison!” Constance blurted as she ran to him and threw her arms around his neck.

“Constance!” Penelope snapped. “Control yourself!”

“Oh my!” Eloise stood alongside their eldest sister and gasped at Constance’s ill-mannered behavior. Was it any wonder she was still unwed, even given their circumstances?

Harrison ignored them and hugged his cousin as Colin burst into the room. “Sorry we’re late – had a problem with the herd. Good Lord! Is that you, Penelope?” He stared open-mouthed at her, eyes wide, as he took in the sight of the them. “Eloise? Constance?”

Constance pulled away from Harrison to join her sisters. The three of them curtsied. Harrison and Colin glanced at each other, shrugged, and gave a slight bow.

“Ain’t they fun to watch?” Wilfred asked the sheriff.

“Yep. Though I’m surely glad I’m not the one that’s gonna have to live with them. Not after what I’ve seen so far,” he added under his breath.

“Oh, come on, they can’t be that uppity all the time. Well, maybe that Penelope is ...”

“Colin, Harrison,” Penelope said. “You’re late.”

The brothers glanced at one another again. “We do so apologize, dear cousin,” Colin said. “Forgive us for rescuing our stray calves from being stolen.”

Her eyes widened. “Stolen?”

“By
outlaws
?” Constance squeaked in excitement.

Penelope rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Constance ...”

“Sorry,” she said, her head low. Eloise took her hand and pulled her against her side.

“Willie is putting your things in the back of the wagon,” Harrison told them. “I’m afraid there’s only room for two on the wagon’s seat. One of you will have to ride in the back with your trunks.”

“I will!” Constance volunteered with eagerness.

Penelope rolled her eyes again. “I do so apologize for Constance. I dare not think of what living here will do to her. This wild country has turned her into someone I scarce recognize.”

“She’ll fit right in, cousin,” Colin said with a wink. “Now let’s get you back to the Triple-C where you can rest awhile.” With that he held out his arm, and Constance was quick to take it. Harrison followed suit, holding his arms out to both Penelope and Eloise. Together they left the mercantile.

A large group of men was still gathered. They hooted and whistled as the brothers escorted the women to the wagon and helped them up. Penelope, Constance and Eloise stared at them, and it was their guess that every man in town must be present. Unfortunately, the three men the women were most interested in seeing were not among them. Namely, their grooms.

* * *

A
ugust Bennett was a hard-working man. He was punctual, forthright, and could be counted upon to get a job done. One thing he was trying to get done, at the risk of missing the arrival of his future bride, was to put the finishing touches on the little house he’d been building ever since Sadie Cooke approached him about the idea of a mail-order bride almost two years ago. He’d put in for one, along with quite a few other men in town.

Colin’s wife Belle had connections in Boston, and made arrangements with a friend who worked on a major newspaper to publish the men’s ads. But none of the women in Boston wanted to come to a nothing of a town like Clear Creek. Belle’s friend explained they were looking for husbands in places like San Francisco, Sacramento, even Oregon City. With no takers, the disappointed men eventually gave up the idea. Some left for Oregon City at that point, hoping to send again for a mail-order bride once they got established in a larger community. But not August - he liked Clear Creek with all its quirky residents, and wasn’t about to leave. Not if he could help it, anyway.

He’d gotten along fine as Mr. Van Cleet’s foreman while the Van Cleet Hotel was being built, but now that it was completed he hadn’t much to do. He didn’t like working inside the hotel – he’d had enough of being cooped up inside during the long winters growing up in western New York state – and thought he’d try his hand at farming. So he took what money he earned as foreman, bought a nice little piece of land outside of town, and went to work building a house, a barn, and a few outbuildings.

So here he was, his farm nearly complete. Now all he needed was the one thing he’d hankered after ever since he came to Clear Creek. A wife.

“You sure them women ain’t gonna be upset none of us was there to meet ‘em?” Ryder Jones asked.

August almost missed the nail he was pounding into the wall. The hammer hit it at an odd angle, bending it. “Dagnabbit,” he mumbled to himself. “I don’t think so, they’ll be too tuckered out to do anything, let alone be mad at us for not meeting them there. Besides, none of us knows which one we’re gonna get anyway.”

“I thought when you sent away for a mail-order bride, you got to write letters back and forth,” said Ryder. “How come we had to write up a bunch of letters and Sadie sent them all at once?”

“I was wondering that myself,” added Ryder’s older brother Seth. “How come we didn’t get to hear nothin’ from the women? Seems kinda odd, don’t it? And why’d it take so long for them to get here, anyways?”

“Yeah,” continued Ryder. “Don’t take more than two or three months. We sent those letters off over a year ago.”

“Sadie said it would take longer for these letters to get to where they’re going,” August said. “We’ve been over this a hundred times. It doesn’t matter the timing – they’re here now.” He tapped at the nail until it was straight, set the hammer down, and picked up a framed painting.

“That picture sure is purty,” Ryder commented. “Who are they?”

“My folks. They had this painted in Buffalo when I was a boy. My father had money then.”

The three men stared at the picture. A well-dressed man was standing behind an equally well-dressed woman sitting in a chair. A young boy stood next to her. “Is that you?” Seth asked.

August chuckled. “In the flesh.” He sighed. “Seems so long ago ...”

Ryder grinned. “You were a cute little thing.”

“I dunno,” Seth mused. “He looks kinda sissy in that sailor outfi–OW!” He rubbed his arm where August had just punched him. “What did you do that for?”

August smiled. “I wouldn’t make fun of that painting. You’re going to have one like it of your own soon.”

Ryder and Seth looked at each other and smiled. The three men were best friends, and all wanted the same thing – a wife, home, children, a family. “I guess this is it then, huh?” Seth asked. “We’re all gonna be married men soon.”

August also smiled. “Thank you for helping me with this. Finishing the house, I mean.”

“Think nothin’ of it, you helped us with ours,” Ryder told him. “I still got some roof work to do on the cabin, but other than that, it’s done. Oh, and I gotta fix them holes in the floor ... and I ain’t got a bed yet ... oh, and the well ain’t so good ...”

“Yeah, and I’m still puttin’ up wallpaper in the bedroom,” added Seth.

Seth and Ryder were like night and day. Ryder, like August, thrived in the wild and the outdoors. He’d built a small cabin outside of town across the prairie, near the tree line of the hills. He was a superb hunter and a master with horses – he planned on breeding and training them, and spent most of his money on raising a barn for the few he had to start with. The cabin he’d built wasn’t much to look at, but it was shelter – or would be if he ever got done with it.

Seth, on the other hand, worked in the hotel as the manager and had a set of rooms there to call his home – a parlor, bedroom, water closet, even a small area for a nursery. It was one of the perks of the position. After August turned the job down, Ryder didn’t want it either. Nor did several other men in town who also made good candidates but, like August and Ryder, weren’t ones to be cooped up indoors all day behind a front counter. In the end the position fell to Seth, and he loved it.

The men all sighed at once, glanced at each other, and sighed again. “Is anyone here as nervous about this as I am?” asked Ryder.

“Nothing to be nervous about, boys,” said August. “Now, let’s get cleaned up and go see if we can’t meet our wives.”

P
enelope groaned as Harrison helped her down from the wagon. It had been a long, bumpy ride out to the Triple-C Ranch, or at least it had seemed so. After months of travel, what were a few more miles? But those last miles were torturous, for at the end she knew what was coming, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for it.

Marriage. What was she thinking, letting her mother agree to this arrangement? It was mad at best – who in their right mind would travel thousands of miles to get married?

Penelope shivered despite the warm sunshine beating down upon her.
She
would, that’s who. She had. And to make matters worse, she had talked her sisters into coming as well. Now all three of them were stuck here in this God-forsaken wilderness among naught but filthy savages – and those were the local townspeople!

“I hope you do not mind, but we arranged for the three of you to retire to Duncan’s old room,” Harrison told her. “I’m sure you’ll be comfortable there until ... ah ... your marriages.”

Penelope raised an eyebrow at him. “You say it as if it’s a terrible thing.” Not that she necessarily disagreed.

“Not at all, dear cousin. I’m simply not accustomed to using it much around here.”

Colin laughed. “We’re not accustomed to using it at all! There hasn’t been a wedding in Clear Creek since Bowen Drake married Elsie Waller.”

“That means nothing to us, cousin,” Penelope quipped. “We don’t know who you are talking about.”

Sadie came out onto the front porch, the baby on her hip, and hurried down the steps before Harrison could say anything. He began to wonder about this plan of Sadie’s. So far he hadn’t seen much for the prospective grooms to look forward to – at least not where Penelope was concerned. He leaned against the wagon to watch the upcoming exchange between his cousins and his wife.

“Welcome!” Sadie called. “Welcome to the Triple-C! I’m so glad you’ve finally arrived!”

The three cousins glanced her way and turned. Penelope took one look at Honoria and grimaced. The baby was covered in goo. Harrison had to bite his lip to keep from laughing as Sadie reached them.

“Oh, what a lovely baby!” Constance said with a smile. “Can I hold it?”

“Sure,” Sadie said as she handed over the gooey bundle. Constance took Honoria into her arms without so much as a blink, ignoring the sticky red mess on her face and hands.
Jam
, Harrison thought, and smiled. “I’m Sadie, Harrison’s wife. I’m so happy to finally get to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all ours,” Penelope said with a smile. “If you don’t mind, we are quite tired from our journey. Would it be too much trouble to have three baths drawn?”

Sadie glanced to Harrison, who shrugged and smiled. She glared at him and turned her attention back to Penelope. “We have a bath. I would be happy to get it ready for you.”

“
A
bath?” Penelope echoed. “One?”

Sadie nodded. “It’s no trouble, I’ll go heat the water now.”

Penelope started to fan herself. “Oh, this will never do ...”

Sadie ignored her. “I’ll have Harrison and Colin take up your things while I get the bath ready.”