His Perfect Bride (The Brides of Paradise Ranch - Spicy Version Book 1) (2 page)

Franklin paused, his frown shifting to consideration. “Sounds like a grand idea to me.”

“Good, we hoped you’d think so.” Josephine smiled and sat straighter.

“Because we’d like to start by finding a bride for you,” Virginia finished her friend’s thought.

Charlie cringed inwardly. That wasn’t how he would have proceeded. Franklin looked as stunned as Charlie imagined he would be if he were in that position.

“You want to send away for a woman to be my wife,” he said, shifting his baffled look from Josephine to Virginia and back.

The two women exchanged knowing grins, then said in unison, “Yes.”

Silence. Charlie debated stepping in and calling the whole experiment off.

At last, Franklin drew in a long breath and shook his head. “I don’t know. What woman in her right mind would want to be saddled with a…” He closed his mouth and swallowed, back going stiff. “With me?”

More awkward silence, then Virginia said, “You’re looking at this all wrong, Franklin, I can tell.”

Franklin set his jaw and fixed his aunt with a challenging look. “How am I looking at it?”

“I know you, my boy. I’ve known you my whole life,” Virginia went on. “You’re thinking that it would be a curse to trap a nice girl with a man who can’t walk or run or gad about, like other men.”

Franklin blinked. “Well, it would.”

Virginia shook her head and brushed his protest aside with a wave. “First of all, that’s bull—that’s nonsense.” Charlie grinned at Virginia’s typical, unladylike speech. “Second of all, it’s selfish.”

“Selfish?” Franklin tensed further, the muscles of his broad shoulders rippling as if Virginia had hit a nerve.

“Selfish,” Virginia repeated. “Look at things from the poor girls in that home’s point of view. Their lives have been hard, horrible, even. They’ve been in far more danger than you or I ever have, endured more than, yes, even you.”

Franklin let out a breath and scratched his thigh under the edge of the brace he wore. “Maybe.”

“More than maybe, my boy.” Virginia scooted to the edge of her seat and changed tactics, softening her voice. “Think about how wonderful it would be, how much it would change some poor woman’s life, to come out to a peaceful, quiet,
safe
place like this. Think what a blessing it would be for her to marry a good, kind man who would never raise a hand or his voice to her when that may be all she’s ever known.”

Her words were so powerful that Charlie caught himself rubbing the sore spot of his heart under his vest.

“This may be the chance that makes all the difference to a woman,” Virginia went on. “You could be exactly what some poor girl needs to feel whole again.”

Franklin met her gaze, emotion making his eyes bright. In that moment, Charlie knew that Virginia had convinced him.

“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” he said, solemn and serious. He took a deep breath and sat straighter.

For several long moments he was silent, his far-away expression revealing thoughts that were busy sorting themselves out. They waited for those thoughts to come around, for Franklin to make his decision.

At last, with a soft sigh, Franklin nodded, the picture of resolve. “All right. I’ll do it. You can send for a girl to come here and marry me. But I don’t know how happy I’ll be able to make her.”

“Oh, I think you’ll make her very happy.” Virginia stood. She gestured for Charlie and Josephine to stand as well, though Charlie was inclined to stay and talk things out with Franklin a little more. “I think you’ll make a lot of people happy with this decision,” she went on, “yourself among them.”

“If you say so.” Franklin leaned back in his chair, looking as though he needed to sit there and ponder what he’d done a little longer.

“I’ll drop by with the address for Hurst Home later so you can write to the girl,” Charlie said.

He, Virginia, and Josephine headed back to the wagon.

“He’s the sort who needs to be alone with his thoughts,” Virginia explained as soon as they were driving out of earshot. “I know my nephew. This is a good decision for him, and the less we beat him over the head with it, the quicker he’ll come to realize that.”

“Now all we have to do is figure out which young woman at Hurst Home would be right for him,” Charlie said.

“Yes.” Josephine took up the challenge right away. “She will have to be someone with enormous stores of patience.”

“Right,” Virginia agreed. “Someone with a head on her shoulders too.”

“She’ll have to be all right with a man who faces physical challenges,” Charlie added uncertainly.

“Obviously.” Virginia nodded. “And she’ll have to be able to spend stretches of time by herself.”

“True,” Josephine said. “Franklin isn’t a ranch hand and doesn’t go on the drives with the others, but he still has quite a bit of work managing the ranch.”

Charlie let out a laugh, tension easing from his shoulders. “Why, now that I think of it, Franklin Haskell is quite a catch for any girl. He’s wealthy, sober, and respected. Why haven’t any of the local girls set their cap for him yet?”

Josephine and Virginia exchanged another of those looks that only women could manage. “It’s not that none of them have set their cap for him,” Josephine began.

“It’s that he hasn’t been interested in any of them,” Virginia finished.

Charlie frowned and sent the two a sideways look as he drove. “We’re not bringing some sweet young girl into a situation where she’ll have a rival, are we?”

Neither women answered right away.

“Not really,” Josephine said at last. “Franklin hasn’t shown a lick of interest.”

“But there is a girl in town who is interested in him?” Charlie asked.

Virginia and Josephine remained silent.

As the train whistle blew, its shrill sound competing with the squeal of brakes that signaled their final approach to the station in Haskell, Wyoming, Corva Collier clutched her paint box to her chest. This was it. Her heart raced at a thousand beats per minute as she took one final look out the window.

For days, she’d seen nothing but vast, empty space out the train window—first endless stretches of grassland and then wide plains with towering mountains all around. The expansive vistas filled with greens and browns, greys and purples that she’d only ever imagined when she mixed her paints, had captivated her. Every bend in the tracks had shown her a new picture, begged her to open her paints, lay out a canvas and translate the beauty into a captured moment. Of course, it was impossible to paint on a moving train packed with passengers, but it was not impossible to dream.

At last, after darkness and terror that she thought would never end, it was possible to dream.

Another sharp whistle shook her out of her thoughts. The open landscape—dotted here and there with herds of cattle or smaller groups of horses—gave way to a sudden and cheery town. The train lurched to a stop in front of a wooden platform. The wood was still a verdant light brown, suggesting the platform was new.

Corva smiled, telling her shoulders to unbunch. The West was new, Wyoming was new, and Haskell was newer still. Mrs. Breashears had explained this quaint town that had popped up on the whim of rancher Howard Haskell and his family, explained the dire need they had for women to marry the ranch hands and businessmen who had rushed to claim their corner of the booming enterprise. The prospect of settling somewhere far away from Nashville, far away from the nightmare of Atlanta as well, was all the incentive Corva needed. The sweet letter she’d received from Mr. Franklin Haskell, personally inviting her to come to Paradise Ranch to be his bride, was merely icing on the cake of her escape from a life that had felt like death itself.

As soon as the man who sat across the aisle from her stood and walked to the front of the car, Corva dipped into the pocket of her coat and took out a small, round mirror. She checked her hair, turned this way and that to study her face. The bruises that had constantly marred her complexion for most of her life had been gone for a year, but in her heart she expected to see them pop up again at any moment. That didn’t mean she liked what she saw, though. She was nothing but a short, ugly, useless—

No. Those were Uncle Stanley’s words, not hers. She closed her eyes, took a breath, and reminded herself that her uncle was in the past, and his temper was nothing but a few faded scars to her now. As those scars healed, her work—the work of believing in herself—had begun. Believing in herself was so much harder than she’d thought it would be.

“Miss, are you getting off here?” the conductor asked from the front of the car.

Corva cleared her throat. “Yes.” Her voice was no more than a wisp. She stood, slipping the mirror back into her pocket and tightening her grip around the handle of her paint box. She moved to the aisle and twisted and reached for her carpetbag in the rack above the seat.

“I can help you with that.” The conductor strode forward to fetch her bag. It was new and possibly the prettiest thing she owned, aside from the potential in her paints. Mrs. Breashears had purchased it especially for this journey.

“Thank you.” All Corva could offer the kind conductor was a smile, but that seemed to be payment enough. He smiled in return—the way Corva imagined her long-departed father would have smiled at her—and preceded her up the aisle to the door, bag in hand.

As she stepped down onto the platform in Haskell, Corva held her breath. Behind the scent of coal smoke and metal that was the train, she caught a whiff of freshly sawed wood, animal, and beyond that, something cleaner, purer. Men and women in every kind of dress from tailored suits to worn aprons, bustled against the backdrop of a town burgeoning with new life and the fresh colors of whitewash and painted shutters. Her gaze drifted to the mountains in the distance, their caps still snowy, even though it was late spring.

“Now, who’s here to meet you, Miss Collier?” the conductor asked. “It would be irresponsible for me to turn a sweet thing like you off on your own.”

Corva blushed and lowered her head, blinking rapidly. Sweet? Her? No one had ever called her sweet or taken any sort of interest in her at all. She opened her mouth to answer.

“Corva Collier? Miss Corva Collier?”

Corva and the conductor both turned to find a pair of grey-haired ladies in fine dresses with astounding bustles marching toward them.

“Yes, you must be Corva,” the one on the right—slightly older than the other but as vibrant as a young girl—said. “Margaret Breashears said you were a painter.” She nodded to the box Corva carried.

“Is that what that is?” the younger of the two said. She looked as full of life as a woman half her age. The word “trouble” popped to Corva’s mind as she studied the two of them together.

“Yes,” the first one said. “It’s a paint box.”

“Oh, how lovely.”

“I’m Virginia Piedmont.” The first woman thrust out her hand for Corva to shake.

“And I’m Josephine Evans.” The second one followed suit.

It was then that Corva realized her mouth still hung open from the comment she’d been about to make to the conductor. She snapped it shut, blushing furiously, shifted her paint box to her left hand, then shook hands with both women, adding a quiet, “How do you do?” in her soft, Georgia accent.

“Well, now that you’re here,” Virginia said, beaming with satisfaction. She nodded to the carpetbag that the amused conductor still carried. “Is that all you brought with you?”

“Oh, no.” Corva’s heart leapt back to her throat as she glanced from the women to the train, and then pleadingly at the conductor.

The good man sensed her thoughts enough to say, “I’ll fetch your crates, Miss Collier. Don’t you worry.”

“Crates?” Josephine asked as she reached to take the carpetbag from the conductor. “What crates?”

“You’ll see.” The conductor gave her a saucy wink, then hurried along to the last train car.

“I brought a few paintings with me,” Corva explained. “I…I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind?” Josephine laughed. “Why would I mind? That sounds delightful.”

“It’s really up to Franklin to mind,” Virginia said.

“You’re…you’re his aunt, aren’t you?” Corva asked. “At least, he mentioned an Aunt Virginia who was helping bring me here in his letter.”

“Yes, dear.” Virginia beamed. “That’s me. It was nice of Franklin to remember me.”

Josephine sucked in a breath and nodded, as if remembering something herself. Then the two women turned in unison to look behind them.

Corva looked as well, and pressed a hand to her stomach. There, standing just beyond the edge of the platform on the board sidewalk that stretched away down the town’s main street, stood a man in a suit. Corva felt her cheeks go pink and her skin tingle with excitement and apprehension. The man was startlingly handsome, with dark hair and eyes so blue she could see them across the distance. He was clean-shaven and well-groomed, and the suit he wore was finely made and tailored to fit him perfectly. But what drew her attention were the iron braces on his legs—like twin cages—and the ivory-topped cane that he leaned against.

Franklin Haskell. Her groom.

The explosion of butterflies in her stomach made her head swim for a moment. Mrs. Franklin Haskell. How many times in the last few days had she repeated those words to see how they felt? Now, seeing the man himself, seeing those braces and…and yes, the sadness in his eyes, her heart thrummed with an intensity she hadn’t expected. At first sight, her heart broke for the man.

“Mr. Haskell?” She pushed her nerves aside and crossed the platform, going to him since it was clear he wouldn’t be able to rush to her.

“Yes.” He nodded, unsmiling. His expression was kind in spite of that lack of smile. “Miss Collier?”

“Yes.” She couldn’t help the smile that came to her at the resonant sound of his voice. She held out her hand. He took it in a firm shake that filled her with confidence. “Thank you so much.” The burst of emotion that tumbled out from her left her eyes stinging with tears and her cheeks hot with embarrassment. “You have no idea how much this means to me.”

“I—” Whatever Franklin was about to say, he let it go, choosing to study her with his searching, blue eyes. At last, he swallowed, giving her hand—which he still held—a squeeze. “My pleasure.”

He paused after those words, a masculine flush tinting his cheeks. Corva’s mind raced through the paints she’d brought with her to blend that hue just right.

“Here you go, Miss Collier.”

Corva dropped Franklin’s hand and twisted to see the conductor carrying two tall, thin crates of her paintings forward. Each crate was three feet high with handles on the top, but neither was particularly heavy.

“Oh my,” Josephine exclaimed, pressing a hand to her chest.

Virginia was too busy watching Corva and Franklin, touching a gloved hand to the corner of one eye.

“What are those?” Franklin asked.

A jolt of self-consciousness hit Corva. “A few paintings,” she explained, lowering her gaze.

“I see.”

“We can take those back to the ranch for you.” Virginia launched into action. “Sir, my wagon is right over there, if you wouldn’t mind bringing those over.” She waved for the conductor to follow her to a row of parked wagons next to the platform. “I’ll get these settled, then we’ll meet you at the church.”

“And I’ll take your bag, Miss Collier, and that box, if you don’t mind.” Josephine stepped up to Corva’s side.

“Please call me Corva,” she said, taking in Josephine, Virginia, and Franklin with a look.

“Such a pretty, unusual name.” Josephine took her paint box, then rushed off with Virginia, leaving Corva and Franklin alone.

What did she say to a man she’d just met, a man who she had come to marry? There didn’t seem to be any words. Corva steeled her courage and smiled up at Franklin. He certainly was handsome, in spite of the sadness in his eyes.

Franklin cleared his throat and offered Corva his free arm. “We should probably start over to the church. You may have guessed that I don’t move as fast as most men.”

“Oh.” Corva reached for his arm, tucking her hand into his elbow. Was he joking or was he serious? It was hard to tell when he didn’t smile. But no, there was a light in his eyes that told her he was at least trying to make light of things. The warmth and solidity of him next to her as they took one, slow step at a time away from the train, turning left and heading along a road that ran perpendicular to the street full of shops, gave her confidence.

“Aunt Ginny and Mrs. Evans, and even Mr. Garrett, all agree that it’s best for us to be married right away,” Franklin explained. “So that there’s not any impropriety about you moving into my house.”

“Yes, Mrs. Breashears explained as much,” Corva said. “I don’t mind. Not at all.”

“Good.” Franklin nodded.

Awkward silence fell between them as they passed in front of several buildings that smelled of new wood and fresh paint. They were mostly carpentry and metalwork shops, a leather and saddle store, and other manly occupations that seemed right at home alongside a railroad track. They turned right onto a road that ran parallel to the main street, which contained mostly new houses and, further along, a boarding house. At the end of that stretch, up a slight hill, on the edge of the tiny town, was a whitewashed church with a tall steeple containing a bell.

Corva’s brow rose as they approached the church. “Are those stained glass windows?”

“They are.” Franklin nodded. His lips twitched, although it wasn’t quite a smile. “Some men spend their money on extravagant mansions or whirlwind tours of Europe. My father has spent his building a town, but he has…unusual tastes. He had these windows made back East and shipped out here eight years ago when the church was first built.”

“They’re beautiful.”

Franklin hummed. “Wait until you see them from the inside.”

He was right. It took him a minute or two to struggle up the three stairs that led to the church’s front door, but once that was taken care of, he pushed the door open for her, revealing a world of dancing, colored light.

Corva sucked in a breath, leaving Franklin behind her for a moment to wander into the spacious chapel. Sunlight streamed through the stained glass, splashing bursts of red and green and purple against the white walls. Great care must have been taken with the placement of the church and each window, as the abstract designs of colored sunlight glittered perfectly against each wall. It was like stepping inside of a work of art.

“Funnily enough, we have extremely high church attendance in Haskell,” Franklin spoke behind her.

“I can imagine.” Corva breathed out the words. “This is the perfect place to worship the Lord.”

She twisted to beam at Franklin, more certain than ever that she’d made the right decision in taking Mrs. Breashears up on her suggestion that she marry this man.

“Can I help you?” A voice at the front of the chapel snagged her attention before she could say anything.