Mail-Order Bride Ink: Dear Mr. Turner (7 page)

“She’ll have to. We don’t have the time to see to all of it.”

Pleasant was confused. What on Earth were they talking about?

“All right – tomorrow’s as good a day as any to start,” Belle said. “The boys will want to help too.”

“That might not be such a good idea,” Sadie said.

Never mind what they were talking about – Pleasant knew she wanted no part of it.

“Hmm, perhaps you’re right,” Belle said. “They might play too rough.”

“Then again, it might be good for them to learn more responsibility,” said Sadie.

Belle sighed. “Well, if you say so – but if they get too rough, then no more. I’d hate to find poor Miss Comfort hanging by her ankles from a tree.”

Pleasant’s eyes popped open. “Tree?”

Both women looked at her. “Never mind,” Sadie said, then pulled her to her feet. “Best you get into your bedclothes and call it a day.”

“You’ll need your rest, with your lessons starting tomorrow,” Belle said.

“Lessons? What lessons?”

Sadie smiled. “How to be a Clear Creek woman. Now off to bed.”

“
O
hhhh
,” Pleasant groaned, “what a horrible nightmare.” She opened her eyes, but didn’t see her flowered bed canopy above her. “Merciful heavens, where am I?”

She sat upright and glanced around. The room was nothing fancy, the furniture well-made and sturdy but hardly intricate – nothing like those back home at Comfort Fields …

She fell back upon the bed and groaned again. “Oh, that’s right.” It was no dream – she had become a mail-order bride and was now out West … somewhere. She rolled over and buried her face in her pillow as everything came flooding back, including the two times she’d fainted. How was she ever to survive this barbaric country?

“Oh good, you’re up,” Belle declared as she came into the room. “I thought I heard you talking. Do you always talk to yourself in the morning? It’s all right if you do – my Colin does.”

Pleasant raised her head and looked at her. The least she could do was be civil to the woman. “No, I am not in the habit. Except when I’ve had a shock, perhaps.”

Belle set a water pitcher on the dresser. “Have you?”

Pleasant managed a half-smile. “Oh yes. I even forgot where I was for a moment.”

Belle tried not to laugh, and failed. “Then you have had a shock. No wonder you were talking to yourself.”

Pleasant rolled over and stared at the ceiling. “I remember dreaming something about jumping out of a stagecoach and being shot at.”

“That’s probably from what Sadie and I talked about last night before you went to bed. Those things actually happened to Madeleine Van Zuyen.”

“Who is Madeleine Van Zuyen, and why in Heaven’s name would she jump from a moving stagecoach?”

“It’s a long story,” Belle said with a sigh. “One of these days we’ll have to tell you about it, but right now it’s almost time for breakfast. Best you get up and dressed.”

Pleasant groaned and sat up again. “What time is it?”

“Just after six. We let you sleep in, as it’s your first day here.”

“Six o’clock? In the morning?” Pleasant shook her head. “Merciful heavens, one would think I’m a servant!”

“You’re on a working cattle ranch now – we all serve here. Normally we get up at five, if not earlier.”

Pleasant groaned and fell back onto her pillow again. “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten up before nine,” she muttered, throwing an arm over her eyes.

“Really?” Belle asked in bemused surprise.

Pleasant frowned. Obviously expecting sympathy at this point would be foolish. “I’m getting up. Please leave the room.”

“Very well. I’ll see you downstairs in the kitchen.”

Pleasant waited for the click of the door latch before she removed her arm. She glanced around the room again as the reality of her situation hit hard and fast. She was in a strange place with a bunch of strange people, about to marry a stranger. “How utterly strange,” she said with a laugh.

But there was nothing strange about running from a marriage to Rupert Jerney. She’d have been miserable with the man, and she knew it. She’d made this bed for herself out West, and now she would have to lie in it – even if there was a stranger in the bed also.

She got up, washed, dressed and fixed her hair as she’d learned to do so on the journey West. There were no servants to help her in her travels, nor were there any here at the Triple-C. And there certainly wouldn’t be in Eli’s – she shuddered – one-room cabin. Self-sufficiency was the order of the day here – and she’d have to adjust to it.

Downstairs she found Sadie, Belle and Honoria cooking breakfast. A group of children were already seated at the kitchen table. “Do you eat all your meals here?” Pleasant asked.

Belle turned from the stove. “Not always, but since you’re here, we thought it might be fun.”

“Fun? What’s fun about a kitchen?”

“Cookies!” a little girl exclaimed happily. What was her name again – Tina? Theena? Parmeena? Oh heavens, she was never going to keep everyone’s names sorted!

“I prefer cake,” said the oldest boy. His name, she remembered – Jefferson. He’d obviously been named after Colin’s stepfather.

Belle poured Pleasant a cup of coffee and handed it to her. “We’ll bake today, Jeff, with Miss Comfort’s help. You do bake, don’t you?”

“Back home … we had a cook,” she explained reluctantly.

Jefferson glanced nervously between his mother and aunt. “Don’t ask me to be a guinea pig later. I don’t like burnt cake.”

“You eat everything,” his mother quipped. “Don’t worry, we’ll have Miss Comfort cooking up a storm in no time.”

“Eli will appreciate that,” Jefferson commented as he got up from the table and grabbed a few pieces of bacon off a plate. “I’m heading out, Mother.”

“Fine.” She handed him a small bag. “Take these biscuits to your father. They already have butter and jam on them.”

The boy nodded, grabbed his hat off the back of the chair, put it on and left the kitchen through the back door.

“Is he going to school?” Pleasant asked.

“No, he’s going out to help his father work today,” Belle said. “Max and Clinton, Sadie’s oldest, are already out there.”

“They don’t go to school?” Pleasant asked.

“Not today – it’s Saturday. There’s no school around here on Saturdays and Sundays.” A couple of the other children giggled.

Pleasant shook her head – how had she lost track of the days? “Forgive my confusion.” She glanced at the table, where five kids remained. “What will the other children do all day?”

Sadie set a plate of food on the table and motioned for Pleasant to sit. “Savannah and Parthena will help with the mending. Thackary and Samuel will be chopping wood.” One of the boys made a disgruntled sound.

Pleasant met the eyes of the oldest girl – she looked to be about fourteen. “And the young lady?” It must have been the right thing to say – the girl smiled and blushed.

“Adele will be helping us with the baking,” Belle informed her.

Pleasant sat as the smell of food wafted up from the plate in front of her, making her stomach growl. “What about the others?”

“Others?” Sadie asked.

Pleasant lay a napkin on her lap. “I … I was sure there were more children here last night …”

“Oh, you’re referring to Logan and Susara’s,” Sadie said. “Logan probably has them out working the stock today.”

Children, working with cattle?! “But they’re so young!”

“Owen is fourteen, and Martin twelve,” Belle said. “Ferris will be left behind – not because he’s ten, but because he has other chores to do. Logan’s boys like working with their father. Besides, it gets them out of chores like chopping wood.”

“I don’t mind chopping wood,” said one of the boys at the table. But was it Thackary or Samuel?

“I do,” the other one said. “It makes my hands hurt.”

Pleasant smiled to herself. For the first time she noticed the Cooke children had a very light British accent. Come to think of it, Honoria did as well.

“Oh, toughen up, Sam,” the first one – presumably Thackary – told him, punctuating his statement with a gentle elbow to Sam’s bicep.

“I don’t know how you keep track of all these children,” Pleasant admitted. “I have six grown brothers and I can’t keep track of them half the time.”

Sadie laughed. “Perhaps that’s because they’re men, and they run off and do what they want. Around here, our children have to do what
we
want. There’s the difference.”

Samuel sighed unhappily, getting a dirty look from Thackary but no elbow.

Pleasant smiled in understanding. Would she ever have children? And if she did, how many? Could she handle having a child – or more to the point, could she handle doing it out here in the back of the beyond? Heavens, she wasn’t even sure she could handle being married under these circumstances! And speaking of which … “Will Mr. Turner be coming out to the ranch today?”

“Of course,” Sadie said. “We’ve invited him to supper.”

Pleasant took a bite of her fried potatoes. Oh my – they were wonderful! “Have you known Mr. Turner a long time?”

“Since he was just a little shaver,” Sadie said. “Belle and I watched him grow up. Tom too, though he was older when we came here.”

“Tom was probably thirteen or fourteen when I came to Clear Creek,” Belle agreed. “Emeline was maybe nine, which means Eli couldn’t have been more than seven.”

Pleasant smiled. At least she could ask them questions about her future husband. “Is he a … a good man?”

Sadie sat at the table with a cup of coffee. “If you’re worried about marrying Eli Turner, don’t. Eli is as good as they come, and always has been. What I’d worry about if I were you, is being a good wife to him. From what we learned about you last night … well, you have a lot to learn, and a lot of toughening up to do.”

Pleasant’s mouth fell open in shock. “I beg your pardon?”

Belle joined them at the table and sat, a plate of food in her hand. “It’s nothing personal, Miss Comfort. Your fainting twice – that told us a lot.”

“I never!” Pleasant said as her back went rigid.

“Now, now, don’t get on your high horse about it,” Sadie said. “We had to learn how to be wives to our men and ours are from England!”

“Yes, but the only difference between our husbands and the other men around here are their accents and a few mannerisms,” Belle explained. “Other than that, they’re just like anyone else in Clear Creek.”

“What … what are you saying?” Pleasant asked nervously. She was beginning to wonder where this was going.

Sadie sighed. “Let’s get down to brass tacks. How good a cook are you?”

“Um … I wouldn’t really know. As I said, we had a cook …”

“How about cleaning? Sewing? Mending? Gathering firewood? Have you ever kept chickens? Milked a cow? Mopped floors?”

Sadie spoke gently, but every question was like an arrow in Pleasant’s chest. “I see I’m not quite as prepared as I thought,” she mumbled at her plate.

“Neither were we when we arrived here,” Sadie assured her. “But those are all things you’ll have to learn, just like we did.”

“And that’s not all,” Belle said. “Out here, things can get rough at times. There are storms, sometimes droughts, cattle rustlers, outlaws, sickness – and none of the luxuries of a big city like Boston or Savannah. Bluntly put, fainting is not an option here.”

Pleasant needed a few seconds to absorb it all. “Oh dear. I apologize for being so quick to take offense. Why, I’ve never traveled more than ten miles out of Savannah – this is all very new to me.”

“We understand,” Sadie said, “We only want to help you. The sooner you learn how to get along out here, the better off you’ll be. Eli’s place is a couple of miles outside of town, and even though two of our cousins will be your neighbors, you’ll still have to learn to get along by yourself much of the time.”

“By myself? You mean, all alone in the wilderness?”

“Well …” Sadie paused to consider. “… well, yes. Our cousins Fina and Lena have houses on either side of Eli’s place, maybe only a quarter-mile in either direction. Still, if something were to happen, they’re too far away to hear you scream inside your house.”

Pleasant paled. “
Scream
? Are you talking about outlaws?”

“Yes, I am.” Sadie exchanged a quick look with Belle. “Among other things. But we’re going to teach you how to defend yourself against them.”

“Oh my word!” Pleasant said, and felt a sudden nausea creep into her stomach.

“NO!”

Pleasant pulled herself up straight at Honoria’s bark. “What?”

Honoria pointed a finger at her. “No, I said. You will
not
faint!”

Sadie opened her mouth as if to scold her daughter, then stopped and turned back to Pleasant. “She could have been more … diplomatic, but Honoria’s right. That fainting business needs to stop.”

“Of course.” Pleasant took a shuddering breath and did her best to steel herself. The upside to having six older brothers was that she’d always had plenty of protection – and if they weren’t around, her father or the servants certainly were. She realized she had never been alone before, had never had to be self-reliant. But now she did, and that left no room for swooning spells.

She had to stand – and stay standing – on her own two feet here. And the thought scared her to death.

* * *

“
S
o
how’s yer place look?” Tom asked Eli as he came into the sheriff’s office later that day.

“Looks fine. The women did a wonderful job cleanin’ it up. I dunno how I’m gonna thank ‘em.”

“I think what we got locked up in them cells in the back is thanks enough, li’l brother. We’re gonna have to transport ‘em to Oregon City, though.”

Eli’s eyes widened. “But Tom, my bride just got here. I ain’t even had a chance to court her yet!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll have Henry ask Anson if he can help transport ‘em.”

“Ain’t the judge comin’?” Eli asked.

“‘Course he is, but we got these varmints dead to rights, so they’ll still hafta go to Oregon City jail eventually. And there’s a good chance we’ll be the ones to take ‘em.”

“That’ll be an awful long time for Anson to be away. Besides, he ain’t no deputy, Tom. Not officially, anyways.”