Adventure For A Bride: A clean historical mail order bride romance (Montana Passion Book 3)
Authors: Amelia Rose
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A
MELIA
R
OSE
Adventure For A Bride
Montana Passion: Book Three
Dedication
To YOU, The reader.
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Thank you for reading and joining me on this road.
Contents
“Papa? Mama home?” the dark-haired little boy asked, his bright blue eyes looking questioningly at his father. Pryor MacAteer reached over and tousled his son’s curls, smiling through his worried expression. He felt weary to the bone from a long day’s work bringing in his wheat, and having Matthew by his side to look after had left him mentally tired as well.
“No, son. She’s still sitting with Mrs. Flynn. She should be home before it’s your bedtime, though. Finish your porridge, and we’ll have another study at learning our letters before it’s time to do the evening milking. We want everything in place by the time your ma gets home.”
The toddler smiled adoringly at his devoted father and dug into the porridge. It was the third time in as many days that he’d eaten the lumpy gruel for both his breakfast and his lunch. Pryor added a little salt, pork and some cooked carrots to it for dinner, but knew it was no meal fit for a growing boy. His wife, Moira, would never have served it to her “boys” as she called them, but she was otherwise occupied and Pryor still had a farm to run. It was hard enough bringing in the harvest without having an unattended little one underfoot, and Moira’s friend, Gretchen, had already sent word through someone passing the farm that she would fetch young Matthew tomorrow if Moira still wasn’t back home by nightfall.
After finishing the chores for the night and locking up the barn securely against anything that could smell the warm flesh within, Pryor hoisted his son onto his shoulders and carried him into the house, toting the pail of milk in the other hand. He set the milk to settle in a cupboard he’d built on the porch, then carried Matthew inside to ready him for bed.
He’d just placed his son in his own little bed and pulled the door nearly shut behind him when he heard someone fumbling with the latch. His wife, Moira, a bereft and tired air about her, stepped through and shut the door quietly behind her. She pointed to the spare room where Matthew slept, silently asking her husband if the boy was awake.
“Go on in,” Pryor said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve just put him to bed, he’s surely still awake.” He pried her hands away from his waist where she held him. “No, we’ll catch up in a bit. Right now, he’s pining for his ma. Go let him know you’re home and then we can talk by the fire.”
Moira smiled gratefully, wondering for the hundredth time that week how she’d come to be so blessed in all things: in her marriage, her children, and after caring for Mrs. Flynn, her health.
By the time she’d tucked her son in the bed and nestled him down among the quilts with a kiss, Pryor had fixed Moira some tea in the kettle that hung from its iron hook over the fire. She let him lead her to her rocking chair and settled in, smoothing her bodice over the growing roundness of her second pregnancy.
“Thank you, dearest, ‘tis exactly what I needed,” she said with a sorrowful sigh, taking the cup and blowing on it for a moment before drinking.
“Well? How’s Mrs. Flynn getting along?” Pryor asked, as though he was talking about a new foal born in the barn. Moira looked away and held her delicate teacup in her lap.
“We lost her early this evening, God rest her soul. I’ve been seeing to those motherless little ones. I wanted to fix up their supper before heading home.” Moira stared at the fire without speaking for a moment, her mind with what was left of one of their neighbor families.
Pryor looked up in alarm. “Oh, my wife! I’m so sorry, I had no idea she was so ill! And here I thought you were just running yourself ragged caring for her young’uns while your own son cried for his mother!” He held out his hands to her and bid her come to him, which Moira accepted gratefully. The last three days had taken a toll on her strength and her spirit.
“Oh, ‘tis not bad enough losing dear Anna Mae, I just can naw help but think of those three poor children, and the youngest one but a brand-new baby,” Moira mourned as she settled in Pryor’s lap, leaning her head against his shoulder. His around went around her comfortingly. “And poor Mr. Flynn, you’d have thought someone had pierced him through the heart when Katya went racing to fetch him from the barn. He wanted to ride for the doctor in Barrett, but there was no use. I’ve seen it before, this cancer, in members of my brother’s household. In Mrs. Flynn’s case, it came up fast and took her before she could suffer for too long.”
Pryor shut his eyes against the sudden image of Wyatt Flynn standing over his dead wife’s bedside, looking down at her as his heart broke. He willed away the very thought that something similar could happen within his own family, in his house, and held Moira tighter. The first tears began to fall down her cheeks and a quiet sob shook her shoulders.
“I can still see those poor wee ones’ faces,” she said breathlessly. “And them without a ma now. What’s to happen to those children?”
“They still have their father,” Pryor reminded her, grasping for the right words to ease the sorrow.
“Naw, he must work his farm. Micah and Luke are barely old enough to sit at table for mealtimes, and little Rose can naw even hold up her own head yet. How’s the man supposed to finish his chores with little ones running about, always needing to be fed and have their nappies changed? And needing to be loved more than anything?”
“We’ll help him, of course. He might not care to think of losing his children at a time like this, but we’ll offer to take Rose until she’s bigger, especially since we’re coming up on the time when you can’t be going too far out of doors either, not with winter coming. I’ll offer to share the harvest work, too. We’ll bring in his crop, then the rest of mine, and you can tend the children during the harvest. It won’t seem so much like charity then.”
Moira nodded silently, knowing it was the only way. She didn’t relish the idea of suddenly having four children to look after—five, if her new baby came before planting season in the spring—but knew that she could only hope for such a thing herself if she had been the one to perish instead of Mrs. Flynn. She at least had Gretchen to care for her son like he was her own if something ever happened to her, God forbid.
“Come, let’s get you to bed,” Moira said, noticing for the first time the exhaustion on her husband’s face. “I’m sorry I left you and Matthew alone to care for each other, and right here at the start of harvest time when there’s so much to be done.”
“Nonsense, it was the neighborly thing to do. I know it doesn’t help the hurting much right now, but you’ll see. You and Wyatt both will be glad that there was someone to care for Mrs. Flynn and look after the children these last few days. It’s just such a terrible, terrible thing.”
“He’ll be needing a grave dug in the morning,” Moira managed in a strained whisper, her voice catching in her throat. A grave made it so permanent, but it had to be done.
“Of course. I’ll head over there at first light. I’ll pick up Nathaniel on the way, we’ll take care of it. No man should ever have to… to put his own wife in the ground.”
“I’ll fetch Gretchen in the morning and have her look after Matthew so I can prepare Anna Mae for burial. I’ve just finished the sewing on a dress for after the baby comes, but I’d be honored to put her in it if you think ‘tis fitting to do so.” Moira wiped at her eyes with a handkerchief she pulled from her sleeve, taking deep breaths to try to still her crying. Pryor nodded, then pulled Moira close and kissed the top of her head.
“You’re a good woman, Moira, the best. I hope you know that. I want you to know that it doesn’t take a thing like this to make me realize it.”
She smiled through her tears and kissed her husband on the lips, resting her hands against his chest for a moment before reaching for the lamp and heading to bed.
Life has a cruel way of moving on. Wyatt Flynn buried his beloved wife, Anna Mae, the woman who’d left her home, her parents, all her family and her church, packing up her meager belongings to live in the wilds of Montana, surviving on wishes and what bounty God may choose to provide. She’d believed in Wyatt’s hope of owning land, a farm of his own, but more importantly, she’d believed in him. She always had.
Anna Mae first met Wyatt when he signed on to work as a day laborer, bringing in the harvest on one of the largest corn farms in Missouri. She and several other ladies in town were tasked with setting out a table of fine foods each afternoon at the midday meal—on days that her ma could spare her, that is. As the oldest of six children, Anna Mae had been at her mother’s elbow from the time she could pull herself up at the table, and cherished every moment she spent watching her mother tend her house and family.
The daughter of a sharecropper, Anna Mae was a common sight where the men were working as most often, she was sent to bring something for her father, and as often as not, he sent her on a more important errand at that arduous time. Wyatt had the opportunity to sneak glances in her direction, and once or twice—he couldn’t really be sure she’d even seen him, but he’d told himself it was true—he’d thought she’d returned his smile with a shy one of her own.
By the end of the community’s harvest, Wyatt had spoken to her father and asked permission to court her. By spring, they were married and set up in a small cabin of their own, adjacent to her father’s farm. With the land already claimed by some of the more established families in the area, though, the likelihood of him owning land of his own was small. As much as it hurt to leave their families behind, homesteading in the new territory was the only way to secure a property of his own.
But now, Wyatt stood in the middle of his cold cabin, staring at the floor. The wind howled outside and the cold air blasted down the chimney, sending a fresh wave of chill throughout the house. The children would be awake soon and wanting something to eat, but once again, Wyatt could barely muster the energy to care. He knew he needed to go outside and get some firewood from the pile that Pryor had stacked for him the last time he came over, but he couldn’t will his feet to move or his mind to think about anything other than Anna Mae.
A knock on his door startled him. His feet carried him unthinkingly toward the door, which he opened without looking up. It was a long, silent moment before he registered who had come to call.
“Mr. Flynn?” Moira asked hesitantly, her heart breaking at the sight of this shattered man. He slowly looked up and met her gaze, but his eyes looked straight through her. She hated to think ill of him, but Wyatt had all the signs of a man who’d taken to drinking. She tried to avert her eyes from his state of dress, finding him in only his threadbare long underwear and a pair of work pants pulled over it, held in place by a pair of twisted suspenders. “Mr. Flynn, are you all right?”
“Yes, Mrs. MacAteer. I’m fine. Thank you for stopping by,” he replied without thinking, and moved to close the door. She put a hand against the pine slab to stop him.
“Mr. Flynn, I thought I’d come over to look after the children for a while. ‘Tis a burden to care for little ones all on your own, I know, especially with your farm to manage. Can I help some? Mr. MacAteer will be along, he’s gone on ahead to the creek to water the horses and will be here presently,” she explained, being careful of the propriety of an unmarried man letting another man’s wife into his home.
Wyatt paused as he considered her words. She tried not to rush him along, but the winter wind still beat at the cabin relentlessly, causing her to shiver before she could stop herself. Still he simply stood there, not moving to let her in, not bothering to send her away.
Finally, he moved back and let her pass. Moira stepped across the threshold and removed her hat and wraps, leaving her woolen mittens on so she could set about some of the tasks. She smiled understandingly at Wyatt as she crossed back to the door to get some firewood, but he didn’t even notice she was there.
Dear Father above, please let the children be alive. There’s no fire, and ‘tis cold enough in that house to freeze a babe
, she thought desperately, anxious to get a fire going so she could check on the children. The crazed expression that was frozen to Wyatt’s face told her it was even possible he’d killed them himself weeks ago in his grief.
Moira got a fire roaring in the fireplace grate just as Pryor and Matthew came through the door, not bothering with the niceties of knocking first. Pryor wore an enraged expression on his face. He gently thrust Matthew toward his mother before striding across the room in one long step and grabbing Wyatt by the collar of his shirt, practically dragging him from the cabin.
She wanted to race to the window and see what had caused her mild-mannered husband to behave like an animal, but as if by sheer premonition, she already knew what had caused him to act thus. There was no smoke coming from the chimney just yet, and her husband—ever the most quietly intuitive person she’d ever met—must have realized that Wyatt had not even bothered to keep a fire going during the night to keep his children warm.
Moira hurried across the cabin and threw back the pinned-up curtain that separated the children’s sleeping quarters from the rest of the one room cabin. She felt each child’s face in turn, her breath catching in her throat when she felt the chill of their almost blue skin, but was relieved to discover that they were actually alive. She pulled the quilts up higher around them then went to put some potatoes in the coals to get hot, intent on warming up their beds as soon as she could. She had half a mind to tuck Matthew beneath the covers just for the added warmth, but decided he’d only move about and wake them and the cabin wasn’t yet warm.
As she got to work preparing a breakfast of corn cakes, smoked fish from the creek, and hot coffee, she looked for the bucket to go see to the milking. Some fresh warm milk heated over the fire would do the children good—if Wyatt hadn’t let his milk cow go dry through sheer neglect, that is. The baby would certainly need it, at the very least, but Moira’s stomach churned at the sight of the filthy bottles stacked in a heap on the sideboard.
“Matthew dearest, can you call out to Mama from the back porch if the children wake?” she asked in a whisper, kissing the top of her son’s head when he nodded solemnly. “That’s a good boy, ever Mama’s helper. Stay quiet and make sure the fire doesn’t go out. I’ll only be a moment, just long enough to fill the pail with milk, all right?”
She replaced her wraps and headed to the barn, but the sound of furious shouting stopped her cold. She didn’t intend to eavesdrop, certainly not on her own husband, but she had never once heard the sounds he was making now as he chastised poor Wyatt.
“What kind of man are you?!” he shouted from the other side of the house. “You haven’t lifted a finger to keep your children from dying in the night, from freezing in their beds? When is the last time you even fed them a decent meal? Were you planning to bury them beside their poor mother, or were you even going to bother digging them a grave?”
Moira hurried on, not wishing to be a party to the tearing down of a man who’d lost so much already. She knew in her heart that Pryor was right and that his words must be said, but it still tore at her heart all the same. Wyatt had become a shell of a man, lost without his loving Anna Mae.
A few minutes later, Moira emerged with the milking deftly done. She carried two pails, grateful that the cow could still even give after the way the house and farm had fallen into disregard. She’d head inside and prepare their breakfast, then set about making a nice thick butter to go on the children’s bread, remembering the way their hollow cheeks and dark-circled eyes had looked in the bed.
Pryor was still chastising his friend, who stood mute through it all. The sound of a fist connecting with flesh caused Moira to set her pails on the back steps and grabbed up the edges of her skirt to run around to the front of the cabin. She reached the front yard to find Wyatt sprawled on the ground, his hand holding the side of his face. The look on his face was the first sign of life they had seen from him in the two months since losing Anna Mae.
“Pryor?” Wyatt asked, as though finally realizing his friend was there. “What is it?”
“You can’t be serious! Here I’ve been calling you out all this time, and it’s as though you haven’t heard a word I said!” Pryor fumed. Moira recognized the look he now wore, and knew that the anger was quickly being replaced by gut-wrenching sadness and sympathy.
“It’s cold…” Wyatt began, looking around as though he couldn’t figure out why he was outdoors in this weather, and practically wearing only his long underwear.
Pryor leaned forward and grabbed Wyatt beneath his arms, hoisting him to his feet. He threw an arm around the man’s shoulders and led him inside, looking imploringly at his wife and begging her to forget what she’d just seen. Moira nodded, and went to retrieve the pails.