Chevonne: Bride of Oklahoma (American Mail-Order Bride 46)

C
hevonne Flannery rubbed
the aching muscles in the back of her neck as she watched the flat, golden prairie from the moving train's window. Her weeklong journey of eighteen hundred miles was almost over. Boston, New York, Columbus, St. Louis, and so many small towns in Missouri were behind her. Ponca City, her first train stop in Oklahoma and Indian Territory was followed by Guthrie. Oklahoma City was the next stop.

Sleeping accommodations on the trains and at the railway hotels had been less than desirable so now she had a kink in her neck
and
a hitch in her heart.

Was she doing the right thing?

Not that she had much choice. Circumstances back in her hometown of Lawrence, Massachusetts, hadn't left her with many options. The Brown Textile Mill where she'd worked as a seamstress for the past year had burned down, and with all the other seamstresses seeking jobs, there were none to be found. She'd hoped to put aside a good-sized sum of money so she could eventually quit and work steadily on her secret project. But the fire had destroyed that plan along with the factory. Chevonne had felt that she had only one choice left so she could fulfill her dreams—head west as a mail-order bride.

She almost laughed out loud at the thought since Chevonne had never really cared much about love or marriage, both of which seemed more suitable for women who had nothing better to do than serve a husband. She was not one of those women. She had ambitions and a goal in life, thanks to her grandmother.

Chevonne reached down and patted the lace strap of the large bag that she'd kept by her side the entire trip. She'd not taken her eyes off it once, and had even slept with it tied to her body. She didn't dare loose it, since her whole future hinged on the contents of that bag. What was inside it was a closely guarded secret, a secret her grandmother had shared only with her, and now it was hers alone.

Thoughts of her grandmother, Victoria Lester, brought a rush of homesickness. Her parents had died when she was a child, and it had been just her and Gram for as long as she could remember. They'd been as close as two people could be, but Gram had passed away a year ago, leaving Chevonne to make her way alone in the world.

A flutter of nerves perched in Chevonne's belly. She'd never lived anywhere but Lawrence and moving this far away was unsettling. But Gram had taught her to face any challenge with her head held high and she wasn't about to let Gram down now.

So, here she was traveling into the newly formed Oklahoma Territory. She knew the western territories were nothing like Massachusetts. She'd seen the change in landscape over the many days of train travel. Most of this area was barely even settled, but that was one of the reasons that had drawn Chevonne to Oklahoma in the first place.

She knew the people in these parts were adventurous, spirited folk. They'd left their comfortable homes in order to settle these wild lands. Less than two years ago, the entire span of Oklahoma Territory had been so-called Unassigned Lands with no cities or towns to speak of. But the Indian Appropriations Act had changed all that, and people had come for the big land runs bringing only what they could carry on their person or in a wagon when the starting cannon fired, for a chance to stake a claim and build their own homes.

Now, almost two years later, towns and cities had sprouted up in place of the initial tent cities. Where once there had been just flat dry dust, there were now restaurants, stores, post offices, saloons and other vestiges of civilized life, like the railroad.

Chevonne was glad she was heading for one of the largest cities, Oklahoma City, as it would at least have some of the niceties she'd enjoyed in Lawrence.

It wasn't so much the land out here that she cared about--it was the people. Their spirit of adventure showed that they were eager to try new things. And that suited her just fine, especially if she was going to be able to do justice to her grandmother's dream.

Of course, realizing that dream didn't come without its sacrifices. The biggest of those was getting married to a near stranger, Trey Garner, a fairly well-to-do rancher. Some letters exchanged didn't make him much less than a stranger, did it?

Chevonne had discovered to her surprise that traveling to marry a stranger wasn't so unusual. It was 1890, and yet most of the girls from the mill, including her good friends Dacey, Josephine, Della and India, had agreed to similar situations, arranged by a service that specialized in such things.

She'd been assured that Trey Garner had been investigated and that he was a proper gentleman. He'd even paid all the rail fares, and accommodation and meal expenses for her journey.

The nervousness spread from her belly to her whole body. Her hands shook. Chevonne hoped he truly was a gentleman. She knew little of the mysteries of marriage but enough to realize there were certain duties that might be expected. She had been assured, however, by the man himself that she needn't worry about that—the marriage would become more intimate only when she was ready.

Either way, she had to make the marriage work. She had nowhere else to go. And besides that, everything, including her own safety and happiness, was all secondary to her real quest in life. She would sacrifice everything to fulfill her grandmother's dream. Her only disappointment was that Gram would not be there to see it herself.

Chevonne settled back in her seat and nibbled on a tart apple, the last piece of the fruit she'd brought with her from Lawrence, while she indulged herself in memories of her grandmother.

Victoria Lester had been an extraordinary woman, a visionary, a woman ahead of her time. Unfortunately, she'd been preyed upon by hucksters and swindlers, stealing the ideas that had blossomed from her fertile mind, for their own financial benefit. That was why Chevonne guarded her grandmother's secrets so closely. She'd learned early on that not everyone was to be trusted.

That was another reason why she was getting as far away from Lawrence, Massachusetts, as possible. She was convinced that certain people there were trying to steal her Gram's ideas. She even suspected Bob Brown, the owner of the Brown Textile Mill she'd worked in, which had suspiciously burned down after a visit by Mr. Brown, to be one of those people.

India had told her that Mr. Brown had been asking strange questions about her recently, and she was almost certain that Bob Brown had known the man who had stolen one of her Gram's garment ideas when Chevonne was a child.

She decided she couldn't trust anyone, not anyone from Lawrence and not anyone from her new home in the Territory. The women of America were depending on her to bring her grandmother's ideas to fruition, whether they knew it or not.

The rhythmic clacking and swaying of the train slowed. Chevonne pressed her face against the window. They would be pulling into the station shortly and she was anxious to catch a glimpse of her new home, Oklahoma City.

When it came into sight she was surprised. It was bigger than she'd thought it would be. The station up ahead was a large clapboard building. The town was arranged out from it in a grid network of streets.

She was surprised to see that some of the sparse buildings lining the unpaved streets were made of brick. She hadn't expected it to be so civilized after such a short time. Clapboard shops and homes were what she'd imagined she'd find, and there were plenty of those.

As the train slowed even more, she could see a crowd of people milling about in the wide main street. There were women in their long dresses, men in their hats, several horse-drawn buggies and wagons. These people were to be her new neighbors.

There was a crowd of people standing on the train station's wooden platform. Somewhere in that crowd stood her new husband. A jolt of uncertainty stabbed Chevonne's heart. There was no turning back now even if she had made the wrong decision in coming out here.

As the train slowed to a crawl, a monarch butterfly floated past the window. Gram had loved butterflies. Was it some sort of sign that she was following the right path?

Yes, Oklahoma Territory was the land of opportunity and a perfect place for her to bring her grandmother's dream to life. Entering into a marriage of convenience was just a minor detail Chevonne would have to deal with on the way to her goal.

She could manage to keep her new husband happy
and
keep her secret from him. After all, she'd only have to do it until she could make her grandmother's dream a reality.

T
rey Garner
impatiently tapped the toe of his size fifteen black cowboy boot on the wooden planks of the Oklahoma City train station platform. He pushed away the nerves that were turning his stomach upside down.

Why should he be nervous? His new bride was merely a formality, a necessity, like the new-fangled ice box he’d had installed in the ranch kitchen. It wasn’t like he was entering into a real marriage that would waste his time with unwanted emotions like love.

Trey didn’t have time for anything as frivolous as love and courtship, but repeated attempts by his mother to marry him off to almost every eligible young lady in town had finally forced him to advertise for a mail-order bride.

Though the last thing he wanted was a wife, he had to admit it would be handy to have someone at the ranch house to do some cooking, if she’d be amenable to that. He hadn’t hired a live-in cook because he didn’t want anyone snooping into his special project. And hadn’t she said in one of her letters that she liked cooking and was good at it?

His mother wasn’t pleased that he’d sent all the way to Massachusetts for a bride. She’d set her sights on having him marry her best friend’s daughter, Sarah Perkins. But Trey didn’t want to marry someone from town. He knew all those young ladies, and every one of them would be too meddlesome, prying into his every move.

He needed someone who didn’t know him, someone he could lay down the law with from the get-go to make sure his privacy was respected. She had to be someone who would not put demands on his time, or try to figure out just exactly what he was doing locked in his study for hours on end.

As the train screeched to a stop, he couldn’t help but wonder what his new bride would look like. She’d sent him a photograph, but who knew if that was really her in it, or what she looked like in living color. The image had been a bit blurry and out of focus.

What about her character? Would she be shrewish and prickly like his mother’s second favorite potential wife, Prudence Banes? He wouldn’t want to spend all his time with someone who was like that.

Well, he wasn’t going to spend much time with his bride either, as he had it planned out. It was an arrangement of convenience to appease his mother and have someone to run the household leaving him free time and giving him some peace and quiet to get some work done.

He supposed her looks didn’t really matter since he was not interested in a wife of convenience for her looks. He didn’t need to be attracted to her, didn’t even need to kiss her. In fact, he’d given his word as a gentleman that nothing like that would happen unless the woman wanted it.

Not only did he intend to keep his word, but he also intended to make sure that kissing him was the last thing his new wife wanted, to be sure his plans weren’t disturbed by her falling for him.

It wasn’t that Trey didn’t like the company of women. He liked them same as any other man, and he had known more than a few intimately. He just didn’t want his new wife getting too close. He was much too busy with his project to have time for the distractions that
that
kind of relationship brought.

His eye drifted to the doors of the train where the passengers were exiting. He wished his new bride would hurry up. He’d made an appointment with the Justice of the Peace and wanted to get this farce of a marriage over with so he could get back to the ranch and to matters that really interested him. People filed out of the train, mostly single men or men with women on their arms.

Then a lone woman appeared in the doorway.

Her face was pale, her cheeks flushed and her hair ... it was the most beautiful shade of golden red, reminiscent of the sunsets along the western ridge of his ranch.

She moved gracefully, with her pale, lacy outfit giving her an aura of femininity that was rare in utilitarian Oklahoma. It stirred something deep inside him. She was too far away for him to see the color of her eyes but he had a sudden longing to know exactly what that color was.

His heartbeat quickened when he noticed she was scanning the platform uncertainly, as if meeting someone she had never seen before. Could this radiant creature be Chevonne Flannery, his new bride?

Their eyes locked. Something jarred him as if he’d been struck. He looked around him on the platform. Had someone poked him with something? But no one was near him, just the woman who now stood in front of him.

“Mr. Garner?”

Her eyes, which he now noticed were the most brilliant, sparkling sea-green, looked up at him quizzically.

“Yes,” he croaked, barely able to get the word out. The dry Oklahoma air and dirt from the streets had apparently dried up his throat. He cleared it and tried again. “Miss Flannery?”

A look of relief spread over her face. “Yes. It was a long journey, but here I am.”

“Excellent. I have the Justice of the Peace scheduled right away.”

“Already?”

A look of panic spread across her face and he noticed for the first time that she was clutching a large bag as if her life depended on it. Perhaps those were her only belongings?

He realized how little he knew about her other than she had no family and had been working in a textile mill that had burned down back east.

He realized how unnerving it must be to travel all the way out here and get married the minute you stepped off the train, but there didn’t seem to be any point in waiting.

“Yes. I didn’t see any reason to wait. Did you have something else in mind?”

Trey tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice. Just like a woman, she was already trying to upset his plans and turn things to what she wanted.

Her spine straightened and she lifted her chin. “I had nothing in mind. I’m just surprised, that’s all. But now that you mention it, getting the marriage over with right away makes perfect sense.”

That was more like it. The tension in Trey’s shoulders eased. “Good. Do you have any trunks?”

“I have two.” She glanced back over her shoulder at the baggage car. “They are labeled with my name and yours.”

“Good. The stationmaster will see to it that they’re loaded onto my wagon.” He held his elbow out for her. “In the meantime, I see no reason to delay.” She tucked her dainty hand in the crook of his arm and he felt that annoying tingle again, probably from the lace and frilly things the woman had on her outfit.

They exited the station and he guided her across the street as fast as he could. He wanted to get the marriage formalities over with as soon as possible. Once that was done, his new wife could busy herself at the ranch doing whatever it was women did, leaving him free to work on his project in peace.