The Convenient Mail Order Bride
Read The Convenient Mail Order Bride Online
Authors: Ruth Ann Nordin
Tags: #sex, #mail order bride, #historical western romance, #virgin hero, #convenient marriage, #loner hero, #outcast hero, #unexpected wife
Chance at Love Series: Book 1
The
Convenient
Mail Order Bride
Ruth Ann Nordin
Wedded Bliss Romances, LLC
The Convenient Mail Order
Bride
- Smashwords Edition
Published by Ruth Ann Nordin at
Smashwords
Copyright © 2016 by Ruth Ann Nordin
All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
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writing from the copyright owner.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and incidents are either the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any
actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.
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Cover Photo images Period images.
http://www.periodimages.com/welcome-to-periodimagescom. All rights
reserved – used with permission.
Cover Photo images Dreamstime.
www.dreamstime.com. All rights reserved – used with permission.
Cover made by Stephannie Beman.
More Books in the Chance at Love
Series
Chronological Order of all of Ruth Ann
Nordin’s Books
Dedication: Joanie Watson Dixon who has a very
kind heart. It’s always a joy to talk to you.
Chapter One
March 1878
Cincinnati, Ohio
P
hoebe Durbin turned the page of the mail-order bride ads in
the catalogue. She wasn’t sure what she expected when she purchased
it from the merchant of the general store, but she didn’t have any
other option.
Money. I should be concentrating on the men
who have money.
Or at least a property and good home they
actually owned. She shifted on the bench outside the store,
ignoring the slight sting of conscience that told her money wasn’t
everything.
No, it’s not, but you can’t eat good
intentions. You can only eat food, and the only way to do that is
to have money to purchase it.
She wasn’t afraid of work. A woman’s labor
in the house was never done. Men came home from the factory and
enjoyed the rest of the evening in comfort. Mothers and wives
fussed around them and gave them whatever they wanted. And as long
as the man wasn’t gambling or carousing with women, Phoebe saw no
harm in it.
Most of the advertisements were brief—so
much so that she couldn’t get a good idea of what the man was like.
Granted, there was limited space for them to write, but she had
hoped there might be something—anything—that would tell her who
would be the right man to marry.
“Any luck yet?” a woman asked, approaching
the bench.
Phoebe shook her head. “Not yet, Ma. What
did Phillip say?”
Her mother sat beside her. “He can’t afford
a bigger place. I’m afraid we can’t stay with him once the baby is
born.”
Phoebe did her best to hide her
disappointment. Her brother did well at the factory, but with a
wife, two children and one due in two months, his apartment was
cramped as it was. She and her mother couldn’t keep living with
them. It was enough he’d let them stay with them for the past
year.
She had to find a husband, and since there
weren’t any suitors vying for her hand, she had to pick one out of
a catalogue full of ads.
“How does this sound, Ma?” She cleared her
throat and summarized the ad. “This one is from a widower who has
three children who need a mother. He owns a hundred and fifty acres
and has a nice cabin by a stream.”
“He sounds like a nice man, but it’ll be
easier if you don’t marry someone who already has children. Your
aunt married a man with two children, and they never did come
around to thinking of her as their mother. Up to her death, they
resented her for taking their mother’s place even though their
mother passed away when they were young.”
That was true. She didn’t want to end up
like Aunt Eunice who’d died last year. Sadly, neither child would
attend the funeral to pay their respects.
“You’re right,” Phoebe said. “I’m going to
ignore all the ads with men who have children.”
“I’m sure some of those men and children
would be nice, but you just can’t tell who they are from an ad, and
we don’t have time to waste on a lot of letters to sort them all
out.”
Phoebe smiled. “I already agreed with you,
Ma. You don’t need to keep trying to convince me.”
Her mother chuckled and squeezed her hand.
“I thought I should explain myself better.”
“You explained yourself fine the first time.
Now, let’s see who else is looking for a wife.” She scanned through
the ads until one caught her eye. “This one doesn’t sound so bad.
Here’s a man who owns his own land, has a cabin, animals, and his
own well. He is also a good hunter. He’s twenty-three and has never
been married. He’s looking to settle down with an honest, good
woman he can start a family with. His name is Abe Thomas.” She
lowered the catalogue. “What do you think, Ma?”
“He sounds better than any of the others you
told me about.”
“He does, doesn’t he? Why don’t I send him a
letter and see what he writes back?”
Her mother nodded. “I think that’s a good
idea. But before you do that, read through the rest of the ads and
see if there’s anyone else who sounds as promising.”
Phoebe didn’t think there would be, not by a
long shot, but she turned her attention back to the ads and
continued scanning through them.
***
Three weeks had passed when Phillip came
through the door with a missive in his hand. Phoebe, who’d been
telling her three-year-old niece and six-year-old nephew a story,
looked up from where she was sitting on the couch as he held it out
to her.
“I got a missive already?” Phoebe asked, not
believing her eyes when she saw the envelope stamped all the way
from the Colorado Territory.
“The man you sent the ad to must’ve been
happy to read your letter,” her brother said. “He knows a good
woman when he comes across one.”
She smiled at her brother’s compliment and
took the letter. She stared at the handwriting on the envelope. The
man wrote clearly. She had no trouble reading her name. Her thumb
ran across his name in the upper corner. Abe Thomas. What was he
like? She wondered if he sent a picture. She’d had one made and
included it in her letter to him. She thought it only fair he know
what she looked like, and she’d asked him to send a picture in
return so she’d know what he looked like as well. Perhaps he’d
thought it a strange request, but she hoped he’d obliged her all
the same.
Beatrice came in from the kitchen, rubbing
her pregnant belly. “What is it?” she asked, approaching them.
“Abe sent me a missive,” Phoebe told her.
Then, with an uneasy chuckle, she added, “I’m afraid to open
it.”
“He wouldn’t have written if he wasn’t
interested,” Beatrice teased.
“Open it, Auntie,” her nephew, Ben,
insisted. “Open it!”
“Oh, um, I will.” Phoebe glanced at the
letter again. “But maybe I’ll do it after dinner.”
“Nonsense, do it now,” her brother
encouraged. “You can read it in my bedroom if you’d like some
privacy.”
After a moment, she nodded. “Alright.” She’d
never be able to focus on dinner if she didn’t. Wondering what was
in the missive was likely to drive her to distraction. “I will.
Thank you.”
She went to her brother and sister-in-law’s
bedroom and shut the door. On the other side, she could hear Ben
asking what was in the letter and Beatrice laughing as she told him
he was too young to worry about it.
Phoebe closed her eyes and waited until her
heart wasn’t hammering quite so fiercely in her chest to open them.
It was just a missive, and as Beatrice said, Abe wouldn’t have sent
a reply if he wasn’t interested.
Gathering courage from the thought, she went
over to the small rocker by the bed and sat down. She’d taken the
time to respond to two more ads after she’d answered Abe’s, but his
had been the first. As silly as it was, it made his reply that much
more important.
She turned the envelope over and opened it,
careful not to tear it lest she rip the letter or, if he’d sent it,
a picture. When she was done, she pulled the neatly folded paper
out and inside was a picture, as she’d hoped. Excited, she turned
it over in her hand and inspected it.
He had dark hair and a nice face, but it
wasn’t at all what she’d expected. He looked awfully young. He was
probably fourteen when it was taken. Frowning, she turned it over
and nearly fainted with relief. In script was the date the
photograph was taken, and it’d been taken nine years ago, which put
him at twenty-three now.
Good. He’d sounded so nice in the
advertisement. Really, he’d sounded much more promising than the
others she’d replied to, so she was hoping he’d be the one. But
before she could get her hopes up, she needed to read the missive
and see what he’d written.
Right away she could see he had nice
handwriting. That in itself was a promising sign. So far, so good.
She held her breath and read through the letter.
Salutations, Miss Durbin,
I found your response to my ad most
promising. I have no trouble taking on the responsibility of caring
for your mother. There’s plenty of room in my cabin. One thing I
considered when building it was starting a family some day. I
always knew the bachelor life wasn’t for me, even back then. My
mother, God bless her soul, instilled the value of a good lady. One
who honors her own mother, the way you do, is just the kind I’m
looking for.
