Once Upon a Mail Order Bride: Mail Order Brides: Book One (6 page)

Emmy grinned. “He went to visit his sister a few months back and she had her baby. He took one look at the kid and after he held her he decided it was time he had one or four of his own.
In truth his sister is a lot younger, our age, and he didn’t want to be out done.”

“He can’t stand to lose then?” Carrow laughed. He sounded like a good man.

“You were right, you know,” Emmy said after a moment.

“About what,’ Carrow asked, scrubbing some more.

“About man giving a woman a good time between the sheets.”

Carrow’s eyes snapped to her sister
. Emmy was scrubbing furiously at a spot on the floor, face flushed. Carrow laughed out loud and long.

“Oh Emmy, I adore y
our innocence, don’t ever lose it.” She wiped tears from her eyes.

“Well it’s true and if you had half the good time I did then that husband of yours is a fool of a man!” Emmy proclaimed.

Carrow smiled. “I guess so. I was amazed  but then again maybe it is different for men.” She shrugged then sighed. “I’ll go talk to him tomorrow. I wouldn’t mind if that’s how he wanted to make up.”

“
Carrow!” Emmy gasped and gave her a playful shove.

“I guess if h
e doesn’t want to talk I can make him anyway. I don’t think it could get any better,” she gave her sister a wide grin.

Emmy turned an adorable shade of pink. “Well if it works let me know. Now
it’s time to get some supper cooking. Eric will be back around five I guess so that gives us a few hours.”

Getting up off the floor and taking to bucket of dirty water with her Carrow followed her sister.
While Emmy pulled out a jar of salted pork and started skinning potatoes Carrow dumped the bucket and set to making a pitcher of sun tea on the porch to go with supper.

Soon Emmy shooed her from the kitchen and Carrow smiled at the picture of her sister, refined young lady of New York, be a common house wife, even if she was in great fashion.

Humming to herself she went to go lay down on the bed in her borrowed room for a nap. Hopefully when she talked to Clayton tomorrow they could settle up and make up in bed.

Shocked at how wanton her thoughts were she grinned, she was married so it wasn’t a sin after all.

Chapter Eight

Clayton was in a panic. He had gone downstairs that morning to try and get her to come out and talk but when he knocked on the door, it opened gently under his hand.

             
Peeking in he saw something and sent a chill down his spine. Her room was empty and her suit lay open on the bed. A quick search of the room turned up no note or explanation

She had left him, but left her stuff behind so she must be in or around town somewhere. But it was growing dark outside and promised rain. The forest was thick on the edges of town, but town
was big enough to get lost in with just over ten thousand people in it.

Without a glance back at the house he left in search of his wife.

A long search of shops and cafes turned up nothing and he was at the end of his line. Heading for Baxter’s mercantile he ran head long into Sheriff Eric.

“Steady there, friend. What’s the hurry,” Eric asked in greeting.

“I lost my wife,” Clayton said quickly.

“Lost your wife?” a confused Eric asked.

Clayton nodded. “She left me, but didn’t take anything with her. I have no idea of where she could be.”

Eric frowned. “Well there isn’t much we can do if she only been missing a day. Does she have anywhere in town to go?”

“I don’t think so. Just the station and maybe some shops but no one has seen her. She has her sister, your wife, but she doesn’t know where you live so she couldn’t have gone there,” Clayton said through grit worried teeth and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Well in any case I’ll help ya look. I was just doing my rounds anyhow.”

“Thanks, Sheriff. I am half outta my mind looking for her. We had a fight and I wanted to talk to her about it.”

Eric crossed his arms with a frown. “And what was this fight about?”

Clayton colored a dark pink. “Um, well you see…it was more like a fight about us being together like,” he finished lamely.

“You just got hitched and you are fighting about that?”

“Well she took my silence as meaning it didn’t want to be married to her and then happened after we were,
together
together, if you catch my meaning.”

“So you so how made her misunderstand that you didn’t wanna be married anymore and that you wish you hadn’t slept with her?”

Clayton nodded slowly.

“Just how in the world did you do that!” Eric exploded.

Clayton shook his head. “Well I think she was using me to get money from her family. That she used me as a way to get away from her uncle.”

Eric shook his head sadly. “You don’t get it do you? The only reason a woman becomes a mail order bride is to run away from something in her old life. Abuse, a life of
poverty, and many others. What she did before she got here doesn’t matter. What matters is that she’s here!”

“She also lied about her age,” he mumbled.

Eric looked at him weirdly. “You didn’t know she was eighteen?”

Clayton shook his head.

“Did she tell you her age in her letters? Did you ask before you married her?”

Thinking about it she never had told him her age in her letters or before she had said something in bed.

“No, I didn’t and she never  said anything. But in my letter I asked for a woman who was at least twenty-one! The age difference between us is a huge gap, almost fourteen years!”

“Well look at your grandma, she was half your Pa’s age when they married each other. If I remember right she was sixteen and he was almost fifty!”

“Well, I guess you’re right.”

“Has she been a bad wife to you? Hurt Sadie?” Eric asked as they stepped back onto
Main Street.

“No. Sadie loves her, she will be heart broken when she finds out Carrow left like she did.” He sighed deeply.

Eric looked at him with a knowing eye. “You’re hurt that she left too. It’s not just about Sadie. You liked the girl. I think that all women when their feelings are hurt they go off trying to find the answers they need. If we don’t find her I’m sure she’ll be back soon. But until then let’s go look.”

Clayton nodded again with a small smile. Eric was right
. He had hurt to realize she would run away from him. And it had been dumb of him to think her problems from before she got here as her using him. Hell with them she never would have been here!

Chapter Nine

“Carrow can you watch the pot on the stove with the stew in it? I need to run to the store real quick before Eric gets home for dinner,” Emmy said as she rushed by her sister.

Not giving her much choice Carrow smiled and nodded as her sister ran for the door with a little wave and left.

Her sister, no matter how well her feet were stuck to the ground, she was a complete and utter space case.

Carrow hummed and she stirred the pot and thought about what she was gonna do about Clayton. She was seduce him and then make him understand why she did what she did, and then tell him what he would get in return every night for the rest of his life! But even at the moment he probably didn’t even know she was gone.

Voices sounded from outside and the front door open and shut as whoever it was said goodbye to the other. Shrugging and thinking it was just her sister coming back she went back to stirring.

Sudden a strong pair of arms wrapped around her and lips crushed hers in a passionate kiss.

Shocked to her core Carrow started to struggle and the man held her tight and laughed against her ear.

“You aren’t trying to get away are you?” a deep voice whispered in her ear.

“Let me go!” Carrow shouted and tried to break free.

The front door slammed and Emmy walked into the kitchen. What she saw turned her face bright red and she came forward, fist raised and plowed it into the nose of the man holding Carrow.

He fell to the floor and Carrow turned to see Emmy’s husband holding a bleeding nose looking up at the two of us with wide eyes. Carrow smiled a little as he looked back and forth between her and his wife.

“Have a care with what you say next,” Emmy warned him.

He blinked.

“What were you doing to my sister, Mister?”

“I thought she was you,” he said dumbly.

“Oh, you are such a man, Eric! Thought she was me? I don’t even own a dress like her!” Emmy threw him a glare.

He nodded slowly and got to his feet. “I’m sorry, Em. I didn’t know she would be here, we’ve been out looking for her all day!” He turned a frown to Carrow. “Just what are you doing here?”

“I bought her here because her husband is a brute and a-and a …ass!” Emmy blazed.

Chuckling Eric pulled Emmy into a tight hug. Kissing the top of her head he said, “So I heard. Clayton’s been looking for you all day Carrow. You two need to sit down and have a heart to heart chat.”

Carrow fidgeted. “We are. Tomorrow. When I want to go back. I just need, you know, some space.”

Eric gave her serious look. “
He’s worried sick, you better head home. I’ll take you back.”

“No,” Carrow blurted out, then winced. “I haven’t forgiven him just yet. He kicked me out of his bed you know, and his room.”

Eric frowned, but Emmy went to stand by her sister, taking her hand. “I send she could stay the night. It’s only one night and it won’t hurt anything.”

Eric stared at them long and hard, but finally sighed with a look of defeat. “Fine, but I am going to tell him where she is.”

He put his hat back on. “I’ll be back for supper in a short while. Keep it warm.”

When he was gone Carrow looked to her sister a grinned. “I see why you like your husband. Good kisser.”

Emmy slapped her on the arm. “That’s not funny!”

“Maybe not to you. But thank you, I’m just not quite ready to see him
, I think.

…

Twenty minutes later the door came crashing in as an angry blonde Clayton stormed into Emmy’s and Eric’s house. Upon spotting her on the settee next to Emmy he pulled Carrow up and to her feet dragging her to the door.

Not knowing him for being mean, Carrow panic and tried to slip free.

“Let me go! Hurt hurting my wrist,” Carrow snapped.

Eric came running in the door. “Clayton, Stop this! Let the girl go.”

“Stay out it,” he snarled at the other man, then turned flinty eyes to Carrow. “I’ve been worried sick about you all day and this is where you have been?” His voice rising.

Yanking her arm from his hand Carrow shouted back, “What I do is none of your business! Or where I go. The moment you kicked me from your bed I think that allows me my freedom from a pig like you!”

“Woman, you are crazy!” Clayton shouted back. “You left me!”

“You kicked me out! What was I supposed to do, beg at your feet for more heartbreak?” Tears pricked Carrow’s eyes.

“You left and I couldn’t find you! What were you thinking, something could have happened to you!”

“Well it didn’t and even if it did, you wouldn’t care!” she shot back.

His face flushed red. “Not care? Not care! You are my wife, I have to care if something happened to you.”

“Well something did. You hurt me, you broke my trust in you,” Carrow said quietly.

But it hit home louder than any shout could have.

“You used me and tossed me at the smallest thing. My past life wasn’t supposed to matter here. You promised me that in your letter, but you hold it against me. I forgave you about the railway and Sadie, but you can’t forgive me.”

Carrow looked at him as tears spilled over the edge.

The anger and shock of finding her died the moment her tears fell. Guilt filled him with each one and he knew she was right. He had promised
and he did hold it to her. She had done nothing but give and he had nothing but take it.

Slowly, hesitantly he reached for her. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, his eyes burning.

She tugged away from him.

“You’re right. I did nothing, but take from you and you did nothing but give to me. I am sorry for hurting you, I just felt as if you were using me, that you didn’t truly care if you had a husband or not.”

“I took vows and I meant them,” she sniffed.

“I see that now. Can you forgive
me, Carrow? For being a fool?” Clayton pleaded softly.

Carrow bit her lip and thought
about it. Giving in she nodded. “But you better promise that it won’t happen again and I want you to make up for it.”