Mail Order Prairie Bride: (A Western Historical Romance) (Dodge City Brides Book 1) (20 page)

“Wasn’t there anyone you could go to? Any other family?”

“No. There was no one, and I wasn’t a child anymore.

“How did they die?”

“Their carriage overturned and went down a sharp incline. They were killed instantly.”

Sarah rose to her feet and walked to the window. She heard Briggs’s chair slide back and felt his strong hands come to rest on her shoulders. “I’m sorry about that.”

She nodded, unable to speak without her voice breaking, but appreciative of his sympathy.

“Garrison was kind to me at first,” she continued, needing to change the subject and explain
something
to her husband, who knew so little. So very little….

“He was handsome and polite,” she went on. “I had taken a number of jobs since my parents died. I worked in a shoe factory, then a clothing factory. It was always a struggle to support myself. When I met Garrison, I was working in a hotel restaurant. He came in every day for supper. He seemed like such a fine gentleman, always charming. When he began bringing me a flower each day, I have to admit, I was flattered.” She faced Briggs. “I enjoyed his attentions. I was alone and missing my parents, and I wanted to be part of a family again. I saw no reason to turn him away. He seemed so genuinely interested in me.”

Briggs took a step back, as if he didn’t want to hear any more of this, but she had to tell him. She had to explain and make him understand that she had not been as shallow-hearted as he thought.

“He took me driving in his fancy carriage every day and was always so attentive. After only a few weeks, he….” She stopped, uncertain she’d be able to confess the rest.

“He
what
, Sarah?”

“He proposed to me.” She moved past Briggs and sat down at the table, resting her chin in her hand.

“He proposed?”

Sarah heard the surprise in Briggs’s tone, the clear note of jealousy. “Yes.”

“Did you accept?”

She forced herself to meet his questioning gaze. “I did. But…”

“You
did
?” Briggs sat down again, his face drawn and pale. Sarah could see how shocked he was at this bit of news, and she couldn’t imagine what he was going to do when he learned the rest of it.

She couldn’t look at him. She was too angry with herself. She had been so fanciful, so trusting and foolish. She had been raised by good, decent parents and she had not known what other sorts of people existed in the world. She had wrongly assumed that Garrison would be decent, too.

If only she had known about his previous marriage, and where his money came from. She would never have become involved with him.

“Sarah.”

She jumped, her gaze flicking through the dim light to settle on her husband. She continued, her voice shaking. “As soon as I accepted, he insisted I never go back to the boarding house where I lived. No wife of his should have to live in a hovel like that, he had said. He booked me into an expensive hotel.” She stumbled around for words, wishing she didn’t have to continue. “That was when….”

“He stayed with you in the hotel?” Briggs leaned forward in his chair, his brow creasing with anger. “Before he married you?” He cracked his neck from side to side, fighting to subdue his obvious rage. “I’d like to get on a train bound for Boston right this minute, so I can wring his neck.”

Sarah froze with panic. Briggs couldn’t go to Boston. He simply could
not
meet Garrison. Not ever. If he found out about the things Garrison had done—that he was a swindler who cheated elderly ladies out of their fortunes, not to mention the unlawful marriage—he would try to turn Garrison in to the authorities, and that would incriminate Sarah as well. There was no telling what Garrison might do. She had left him because she feared for her safety. Why go back there?

But to keep it from Briggs when she wanted so desperately to trust him with this….

What was worse? To lie or to risk both their lives?

“So, why did you leave him?” Briggs asked directly.

“Because…because after we….”

“After you spent the night with him,” he finished for her.

She nodded and chose not to go into any more detail about how unpleasant
that
part of it had been. “Afterward, he showed a side of himself he’d not shown me before. I think because he had taken my virginity, he felt he owned me in some way. He tied me to a chair in the room and gagged me while he went out to take care of some business—”

Briggs shoved his chair back and stood. “He did
what
?”

She couldn’t look up. Tears were threatening, and if they came, she feared they’d never stop. Her hands began to tremble, her heart pounded like a hammer as she relived the experience. “He tied me to a chair.”

“For how long?”

She searched for strength to continue, trying to access the memories she had worked so hard to suppress. “Not long. As soon as he closed the door behind him, he came right back because I was making too much racket, thrashing around, trying to call for help.”

Briggs ran his hand over his face and paced back and forth. “I want to meet this man in person. I want to—” He growled like an animal.

“No, Briggs, please. Just leave it be. I want to forget about it. I just want to stay here with you, and never see him again.”

Briggs’s neck was corded, his hands clenching and unclenching. She knew that if he ever met Garrison, it would not end well, for any of them. She couldn’t let that happen.

He paced around the kitchen like a caged tiger. “He should rot in prison for what he did to you.”

“That would be nice,” she said, “but I have no proof of any of it. No one would believe it. He was charming and well-respected. I just wanted to get away from him.”

He looked at her. “That’s why you answered my advertisement.”

“Yes. He told me that he would never let me go, and I knew if I wanted to be free of him, I would have to go very far away where he wouldn’t find me. I slipped out of the room when he was indisposed, and I was wandering the streets trying to decide what to do when I stumbled upon the newspaper. I managed to stay hidden until all the arrangements were made.”

Briggs paced the dirt floor, shaking his head. His eyes had gone from green to icy gray.

Sarah stood and watched him. “I told you I loved Garrison before because I didn’t want you to think I’d give myself to a man I didn’t love. And I didn’t want to talk about what
really
happened, because every time I thought of it, the panic would return—as if I were back in that chair with the ropes cutting into my wrists. Even now, when I remember it, I feel as if my heart is going to explode out of my chest, and I’m going to die from the anxiety.”

Briggs sat down on the edge of the bed and said nothing for a long time. Sarah hoped this would be the end of it.

His eyes were full of sorrow when he finally looked up. “Sarah, the fact that you weren’t a virgin on our wedding night—that didn’t matter to me. What mattered was that I believed you loved someone else. Even though I never intended to love you or desire you, I was jealous and angry. Why couldn’t you have just told me the truth beforehand? I would have understood.”

“Would you? If I had written about all of it in my letter, you never would have accepted me. You would have taken someone else with a prettier past.”

He raked his fingers through his hair. “You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. After Isabelle, you wanted calm waters. No unexpected difficulties that might cause another bride to walk out on you.”

He didn’t deny it.

“And maybe it didn’t matter to you that I wasn’t a virgin,” she continued, “but it mattered to
me
. I will always regret giving myself to a man I didn’t truly love, when a man like you was just over the horizon.”

He frowned. “Yet you came here and did it again. On our wedding night, you gave yourself to me when we were complete strangers.”

She shook her head at him. “That was different.”

“Why? Because you were no longer innocent? The first one mattered? The second one didn’t?”

“Of course you mattered!” she cried, unable to control her desperation. “Can’t you see? Now I understand that it’s not the first time that matters so much as the last.
The last
! There will never be anyone else for me, Briggs. You’re the only one I will ever want, because I love you. With every inch of my heart and soul. I would do anything for you. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

An unrecognizable emotion flickered across his face. She wished she knew what it was.

At last, he spoke. “Yes, it counts, Sarah—because I love you, too.”

All the breath sailed out of her lungs. She blinked a few times in disbelief.

“But I want you to write to Garrison now, and tell him that you’re married, and that if he ever tries to contact you again, your husband will hunt him down like a dog and make him rue the day he ever met you.”

Sarah saw the anger burning in Briggs’s eyes and realized it was not an idle threat he was making.

“We’ll post it tomorrow,” Briggs added. “We’ll go to town for supplies.” He brushed by her to leave, but stopped and turned. “And if this man knows what’s good for him, he’ll put you out of his mind for good. Because you’re mine now, Sarah, and I swear, by all that is holy, I’ll never let anything bad happen to you again. Not while I live and breathe.”

Briggs stormed out of the house, leaving Sarah standing in the middle of the room, feeling overjoyed that Briggs had admitted to loving her—he loved her! Yet at the same time, she was doubtful and afraid, because unfortunately, Garrison McPhee did
not
know what was good for him.

He only knew what he wanted.

Chapter Twenty

Sarah swayed, rocked, and bounced in the wagon seat, holding her white woolen shawl closed with fingers that were beginning to feel numb with cold. The temperature had barely warmed since she and Briggs had left the dugout at dawn. The sky was pure white, the morning colorless. The prairie grass quivered beneath the relentless wind. Without the sun, the summer heat seemed to be relinquishing itself to autumn far too early.

A chilly breeze blew over her cheeks as she sat quietly with the letter to Garrison in her pocket, feeling its presence like a lead weight. She knew its contents by heart. She’d worked hard to find just the right words.

Dear Garrison,

I received your letter. Please do not write to me again or try to contact me. It is completely over between us. My heart belongs to another man now, and he will do whatever it takes to keep me safe from you. You would be wise to simply let me go and forget we ever knew each other.

Sarah

She’d been torn over the last line, because she didn’t want to incriminate herself, yet she wanted Garrison to understand that she would incriminate
him
if he did not leave her alone.

Briggs cleared his throat beside her. She wished he would say something. Anything. All he did was flick the reins and hurry the horses on. She guessed he wanted this mess over with as much as she did.

All of a sudden, the wagon rose and fell, then jerked to a halt. “Tarnation,” Briggs cursed quietly beside her. “Yah! Yah!”

The horses labored, but the wagon would not budge. “We’re stuck,” he said, throwing down the reins and hopping over the side.

Sarah felt like this was all her fault.

Briggs leaned into the left front wheel. “Take the reins and get the horses to pull.”

Sarah slid across the seat. The horses strained to walk, their large hooves thumping against the ground. Briggs grunted and groaned.

“Okay! Stop, stop!” he yelled, breathing hard. He went around to the front and tried to lead the horses backward, but the wheel was wedged in a deep hole.

“Maybe I should get off,” Sarah suggested. “Maybe the wagon’s too heavy.”

Briggs glanced up at her, his expression clouded with frustration. He nodded.

Sarah hopped down into the grass, seeing for herself the depth of the hole. From the ground, the wagon looked tilted at an impossible angle.

Briggs moved to the wedged wheel again. “Go in front and lead them forward.”

Sarah did as she was told, and for ten long minutes, she and Briggs pushed and prodded and grunted, but to no avail. Sarah walked back to examine the situation. “How long have we been traveling?”

“It’s almost noon. Four hours at least.”

She felt uncomfortable making a suggestion, but at the moment, things didn’t look very promising, and she couldn’t bear any more of her husband’s angry looks.

“Why don’t we have lunch?” she suggested. “You’re tired, the horses need a rest, and maybe if we just take our minds off it for a bit, we’ll come up with a way out.”

He ignored her suggestion and pushed the wheel again. After a worthy effort, he cursed and backed away. “We’re going to be late. The post office will be closed.”

Sarah wet her lips, understanding why he was so irritable. They’d have to stay over and wait until tomorrow which would mean another day of plowing lost. All because of that wretched letter.

Well, they were stuck and they were hungry. It wouldn’t hurt to eat something and then start fresh. She went to the wagon and withdrew the box she’d filled with corn bread and a jug of coffee. “Let’s sit down and eat and think about how we’re going to get the wagon out.”