The Convenient Mail Order Bride (3 page)

“You of all people know Abe Thomas needs a
wife,” Carl told him. “It’ll be good for him to mind his own
affairs.”

“That’s not for you to decide. Run along.
I’ll clean up the mess you made.”

Shoulders slumped, Carl gave her one last
pathetically apologetic look then scurried off like the rat he
was.

She would have enjoyed the defeated
expression on his face had the situation not been so grim. She
looked at her mother, wondering if she trusted this new man who was
going to supposedly help them. Her mother gave a slight shake of
her head, and Phoebe sighed in disappointment. So her mother wasn’t
sure if they could trust this stranger any more than they could’ve
trusted Carl.

“I’m a lady,” Phoebe told him, deciding it
was just as well they get this over with as soon as possible in
case he planned to haul her off to the saloon. “I came here to be a
wife, not a prostitute.”

Taking off his hat, the man said, “I didn’t
mistake you for a prostitute.”

Sensing the sincerity in his tone, she
relaxed. “Alright.” She took a deep breath then said, “Do you know
Abe Thomas?”

“It’s a small town,” he said. “Everyone
knows everyone around here. I’m Eric Johnson. I’m the sheriff.”

“Sheriff? But I thought you owned the…” Her
voice drifted off in embarrassment as she considered another reason
why he might be in the saloon. Perhaps he’d been with a prostitute,
though it surprised her he’d do such a thing while it was still
daylight. Didn’t men like him usually wait until it was dark? She
cleared her throat. “Well, it doesn’t matter. What’s important is
what to do about Abe Thomas. Do you think he’ll want a wife?”

“It’d be hard to say no to someone as pretty
as you.”

She frowned, not sure how to respond to
that.

“I can see you don’t know if you can trust
me or not,” he said. “I was in the saloon because I needed to talk
to the owner. There was a brawl last night. Believe me, you don’t
want to know the details.”

“We thank you for not giving them,” her
mother replied.

He grinned. “You two got spirit. I think
you’d do well with Abe Thomas. He doesn’t care much for weak
women…I mean, ladies. I’ll take you on out to his place, but I want
to talk to him before he meets you. It’ll give me a chance to
soften him up.”

Soften him up? Phoebe didn’t like the sound
of that, but what choice did she or her mother have? They had to at
least try. If Abe said no, they would figure out what to do
then.

“I’ll come back with a wagon to load your
trunks,” he said, “then we’ll head on out. He’s a good thirty
minutes away, so you’ll want to take care of any personal needs
now.”

As he turned to leave, her mother spoke up.
“You’ll be bringing along a preacher, won’t you? In case he says
it’s alright, I want to make sure my daughter’s reputation is
protected.”

“Ma’am, this isn’t like the East,” he said.
“We’re far removed from civilization out there. No one cares about
reputations.”

“I care.” Then after a moment, her mother
added, “Don’t you got a preacher in this town?”

“A traveling one, and he won’t be due out
here until two or three weeks. If you’re concerned about your
daughter’s reputation, make sure you stay in the same room with
her. Believe me. No man wants to touch a lady who’s sharing a room
with her ma.”

Phoebe didn’t like this new turn of events.
She turned to her mother as he went across the street. “Maybe we
should stay at an inn until the preacher gets here. I have a little
money left over.”

They searched through the small town, and to
their despair the only place that also served as an inn was the
saloon. Phoebe didn’t know if she could bring herself to spend a
single night in a place where men would be getting drunk and
finding a room with a prostitute. Just the thought made her sick to
her stomach.

Eyes filling with tears, she asked her
mother, “What did we get ourselves into?”

“Now, now, you can’t blame yourself,” her
mother replied, putting her arm around her shoulders. “Neither one
of us knew Carl was deceiving us. If it’d really been Abe who
posted the ad and wrote the missive, we’d be just fine.”

Shaking her head, Phoebe dug out a
handkerchief from her purse and dabbed her eyes. “This is terrible.
We can’t even get on a train. We’d have to wait for the stagecoach
to come get us, and the driver said he won’t return for a
month.”

“We’ll do as Eric Johnson said and make sure
to spend the night in the same room at Abe Thomas’ house.”

“If Abe Thomas is even willing to let us
stay there.”

At this point, she didn’t know if their luck
would even get them that far. Things were quickly going from bad to
worse, and she was afraid of how much worse things were going to
get before the day was done.

“We’ll think of something,” her mother
promised. “It’s a thirty minute ride out to Abe Thomas’ place. That
will give us time to think.”

Her mother was right. Everything was
happening so fast. They needed to take a moment to calm down and
consider all of their options. But first, they had to find out what
Abe was like and see if he’d be willing to marry her. They mustn’t
get ahead of themselves. One thing at a time. She took a deep
breath and released it. They just had to take it one thing at a
time.

Chapter Three

A
be
Thomas pushed back his long black hair over his shoulder. Had he
known he was going to end up fixing a hole in the roof when he came
into the barn, he would have pulled his hair back.

He struck the hammer into a good part of the
barn roof and groaned. Why was he letting his morning run-in with
Carl Richie ruin his day? All he’d needed was a few items from the
general store, and Carl started telling him other items he should
buy.

“You should get more staple items like
flour, sugar, and coffee,” Carl had said as he followed him.

“If I want your opinion on what to buy, I’ll
ask,” he’d told Carl. “Or better yet, you give me the land and
stream that’s rightfully mine.”

Carl, in turn, had denied Abe had any rights
to them and left.

Abe shook his head and sat back on the roof,
his gaze going down to the section of land at the bottom of the
gentle slope that bordered the row of trees. The trees were young,
having been newly planted. But they included that stream and land,
and those belonged to him. Carl put those trees there as a sign,
but nothing could change the truth.

The sound of a horse’s neigh took Abe’s
attention from the row of trees to a wagon coming onto his
property. He narrowed his eyes. Between the trees, it was hard to
tell who it was. All he knew was that there were three people in
that wagon.

To be on the safe side, he climbed down the
ladder and grabbed his rifle. Then he checked to make sure it was
loaded. Going to the small window, he slid the end of the gun
through the lower left corner, careful not to be obvious. He held
his breath and focused through the sights. The wagon was winding
its way along the path leading to the barn. That was good. He’d get
the intruders exactly where he wanted them.

His finger caressed the trigger of his gun.
If it was Gene Carter, he’d pull the trigger without hesitation.
Gene was worse than Carl, and that was saying something considering
both weren’t worth a pound of dirt.

After what seemed like some very long few
minutes, he finally saw the driver of the wagon. Eric Johnson. He
relaxed and lowered the gun. He put the gun back on the rack and
headed out of the barn. As soon as he realized Eric had two women
with him, his steps slowed. What was Eric doing bringing them all
the way out here?

Though the question was on the tip of his
tongue, he patiently waited for Eric to pull the wagon to a stop a
few feet from him. Eric instructed the women to wait in the wagon,
set the brake, and then jumped down.

“How are you doing, Abe?” Eric greeted.

“I don’t know. What are they doing
here?”

Eric glanced at the two women who quietly
sat close together, one considerably older than the other. The
bonnets on their heads blew in the breeze, and Abe detected a few
blonde strands that had come loose from the younger one’s bun. The
older one whispered to the younger woman who nodded and squeezed
the older one’s hand. It was a tender gesture, one his mother used
to give him. They must be mother and daughter.

“Can we talk in the barn?” Eric asked, his
gaze going to the open doorway.

“Alright.” Abe led the way into the barn,
choosing to stand in the area that allowed him to see out the
window without the women seeing him. “What’s this about? You never
brought any women out here before.”

“I don’t know how to best explain the
situation, so I’m just going to come out and say it. Carl posted a
mail-order bride ad on your behalf.”

It took a moment for Eric’s meaning to sink
in. Eyes wide, he gestured in the direction of the wagon. “Are you
telling me that young woman out there thinks she’s going to be my
wife?”

“Well, not really.”

“What do you mean, ‘not really’?”

“She believed she was going to marry you,
but she thought you posted the ad and wrote her a missive telling
her to come out here. Look,” Eric took his hat off and wiped the
sweat from his brow, “I wouldn’t have brought her out here under
other circumstances, but as it turns out, she and her mother don’t
have anywhere else to go. They were both deceived in making the
trip to this territory. I didn’t promise her you’d marry her, and
she knows you might say no. But I thought it wouldn’t hurt to talk
to you.”

Abe shook his head and glanced out the
window. The young lady’s head was bowed toward her mother’s, and
the two were quietly talking, probably lamenting the possibility
their fate was in the hands of a half-breed. They were as white as
white women could get. There was definitely no mix of Indian blood
anywhere in their lineage.

“Why don’t you marry her?” Abe asked,
finally turning his gaze back to Eric. “You’re white. Her life will
be easier if she marries you.”

“I already posted a mail-order bride
ad.”

“That’s an even better reason for you to
marry her.”

“It would be except I already started a nice
correspondence with one. She’s as down on her luck as that woman
out there is.” He put the hat back on his head. “I got a chance to
talk to the woman on my way out here, and I think she’d make you a
good wife. Her name is Phoebe Durbin, and she came from Ohio. Her
brother can no longer support her and her mother because he has a
wife, two children, and one on the way. Phoebe had no suitors back
there, so she answered a few ads. Whatever Carl wrote about you, it
must have been good because she said you sounded like the most
sincere and nicest man from the missives she received.”

Abe couldn’t help but laugh at the irony.
Sincere and nice? How did Carl manage such a feat? “Did she bring
the missive he wrote?” he asked.

“She did, but I didn’t read it. I didn’t
feel it was my place to get that personal.”

“Alright. Stay here.” Abe left the barn and
went straight to the wagon.

The two women stopped talking and watched
him as he approached them. He had to admit the young one was
pretty. Maybe even beautiful despite the fact that she was so pale.
But that was to be expected since she likely wore hats and bonnets
to protect her face from the sun, as he’d seen other white women
do.

His interest at the moment, however, was in
the missive Carl wrote, so he wasted no time in asking about it.
“Eric said you got a missive that was supposedly from me?”

“Yes,” she softly replied then pulled the
strings of her purse open.

He noticed her hands trembling and wondered
if she was afraid of him because he had some Cheyenne blood in him
or if she was afraid he’d tell her and her mother to get off his
land.

She finally dug the neatly folded paper out
of the purse and handed it to him. “I-I didn’t know Mr. Richie
wrote it.”

He snorted. “I wouldn’t exactly call him
‘mister’. He doesn’t deserve the respect.”

He took it from her and turned back to the
barn. He wasn’t willing to tell her he didn’t know how to read.
Yes, he knew a few words, but the script was more like scribbles to
him. Once in the barn, he handed it to Eric.

“I want to know exactly what the sincere and
nice Carl wrote,” Abe said. “Don’t leave anything out.”

“I won’t,” Eric replied. As he opened it, a
picture fell out. He stooped down to get it.

Curious, Abe leaned forward and saw an old
picture of him. He frowned. Where did Carl get that from? He
thought his mother had been the only person who had a picture of
him. Unless she’d given one to his father. He gritted his
teeth.