Mail Order Brides: A Bride for the Banker (Bozeman Brides Book 1) (6 page)

It was just the opportunity he needed. He lightly grasped her arm and pulled her back toward him, easing her down onto the bed so that she was sitting beside him. “You are, my dear. I didn’t propose to you. You proposed to me.” Even as her mouth opened to protest, he held his finger against her lips. “And I accepted. Now, enough talk about that. In fact, enough talk about everything. There are more important things to be done.”

“Like what?” she asked eyes wide with feigned innocence.

Instead of replying, he merely leaned forward and brushed the lightest kiss across her lips. “Like that…for a start. Everything else will fall into place.”

And for the first time in a very long time, she believed that it would.

Thank You Very Much!

Thanks for reading
A Bride for the Banker
. I hope you enjoyed reading the story as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you did, it would be awesome if you left a review for me on Amazon and/or Goodreads.

I have included a preview of another story I think you will like at the end of this book. It’s called
Pearl of the West
and is part of my
Mail Order Brides of Gold Creek
series. Make sure you turn to the end of the book to read the preview. It is available for $0.99 on Amazon.

AuthorEmilyWoods.com/pearl-of-the-west-amazon

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Now, turn the page and check out the preview of
Pearl of the West
.

CHAPTER 1

Pearl adjusted her wide hat and tried her best to ignore the handsome young man who kept throwing suggestive glances her way. She adjusted her deep brown ringlets and shot a scornful look in his direction. Any other time, she'd have flashed him a wink and reveled in the attention, perhaps even adjusting her corseted dress a little so his eyes would be irresistibly drawn and stuck to her, but with a whole heap of letters from her beloved Charles in her lap, she was determined to do as her mother had told her and retain fidelity in every look, feeling and thought.

And now she was to finally meet him.
Charles.
Not only that, she was going to surprise him. She pictured the joy and disbelief that would light up his face as he laid eyes on her, embraced her and spun her around.

As the train sped west, every thought was consumed with him. The man whose black ink cursive, beginning in neat, careful forms and sprawling out with passion as the declarations of his insatiable love for her intensified, had allowed her to step out of her run of the mill life and right into the clouds.

She had always nursed the dream of hopping on a passing train, hiding away all the way to the city and slipping out just before she was caught, ready to create an exciting new life. There had been no more dreams of the city, though, since she had been cajoled by her mother into answering Charles’ newspaper ad and had been unexpectedly swept off her feet by his poetic intensity that spelled out true love in a thousand different romantic ways.

The strapping young men in her town that she used to bat her eyelashes at all morphed into clodding oafs with no class or refinement when she thought of Charles.
Her
soon-to-be husband was clearly well-educated, so much so that his wondrous words sometimes sent her scampering to her friend Ellie in the schoolroom to borrow the dictionary.

I sometimes believe only God Himself could have granted us with this exquisite, inexplicable love,
he had written,
which forces tears to roll down my cheeks in homage to its sheer beauty.

No, she didn’t dream of the city anymore. Her dreams were filled with Gold Creek and ranchers and wedding dresses and their sweet faced children so tiny against the never ending background of the plains Charles described in his beautifully evocative letters. She could picture it all so clearly, just how perfect it was going to be.

“Hello, beautiful,” she heard a rough voice say, and looked up, annoyed at being so rudely plucked from the heavenly bliss where Charles’ letters sent her soaring.

It was the young man who’d been eyeing her, sitting down in the opposite seat to hers. He was dressed well but up close she could see he had bloodshot eyes and his breath reeked of alcohol. She thought he looked like a dandy who was determined to drink away his father’s hard earned money.

“What do you want?” she said, trying to contain her anger and almost managing it.

He giggled foolishly then leaned forward and looked in her eyes. She squirmed away and screwed up her face in disgust.

“You,” he said.

“Yuk!” she said, jumping up and sending her precious letters scattering. “Now look what you’ve done, you stupid idiot!”

She bent down, carefully picking up her letters and placing them on her seat. The young man got on his knees too, though she couldn’t tell if he was just falling over because he was so drunk. He reached out to pick up one of the letters.

“Don’t touch that!” she said loudly. “Leave me alone!”

He looked a little hurt as he got up, holding the side of the seat to steady himself, still unsure on his feet. She was so devastated that her most valuable possessions were strewn all over the floor that she didn’t even notice and if she had, wouldn’t have cared.

As she picked up each diamond of a letter, she saw flashes of
my darling
and
the heroine who has managed to capture my heart
and
together in everlasting love
, and she felt so full of joy that she decided not to let some drunk fool stand in the way of her happiness. He staggered back to his seat and she pretended to fire a shot into his back with her hand as the pistol.

Once the letters were all back, safe in her hands, she returned them to her safekeeping box. The only other thing in the box was her father’s wedding ring that her mother had given her as she’d stepped out of the door toward her new life. Tears in her eyes, her mother had rushed upstairs, come back down again holding the ring and told Pearl that she must guard it with her life. As Pearl took it in her hand, she felt a pain stab through her heart, as it did every time she had thought of him. Every day of her life had been good and happy until the angels had wrestled him out of the family’s desperate hands and carried him, as Pearl imagined it, up through the clouds and past the moon and sun and into Heaven to be with God.

“Your husband will wear the ring now,” her mother had said. “But only if he’s man enough to wear that ring. He’s gotta be just like your father. Kind but strong. Knows how to put food on the table and how to make a little girl feel like she’s the only one in the world. If not, you’d better come right back home, Pearl Westcott. You got that?”

“Yes, Ma.”

CHAPTER 2

He stood on the porch and watched the sunrise bathe the plains around Gold Creek with its deep oranges and purples. It was his favorite time of day, when the world was waking up and everything was still right in the world. He breathed in the morning air and was to glad to be alive.

One of the wealthiest ranchers in Gold Creek, he had once owned everything as far as his eye could see, but he had sold much of it to allow the town to expand. He was too happy and self-assured to need to own more than everyone else.

Leaning against the porch post, he thought about the love of his life and couldn’t help breaking into a smile. What more could a man need than the love of a good woman? He had promised himself long ago that he’d love her forever, never becoming complacent or belligerent. He’d seen enough of his friends start with full hearts and high hopes, only for a slow deterioration to kick in until the woman couldn’t wait for her once beloved husband to leave every morning. Eventually, he’d stay later and later in the saloon until they were satisfied that they saw each other as little as humanly possible.

That was the last thing he wanted.

Maggie came out to the porch holding a steaming mug of coffee and handed it to him with a sleepy smile that wrinkled her eyes and made her look more beautiful to him than ever.

“Here you are Walter,” she said.

She was still in her nightgown and her graying hair fell down in the braids that he’d seen her wear every day for the past forty years.

“Thank you, my dear,” he said, taking the hot mug from her hands and sipping.

It was hot and sweet and creamy, exactly how he liked it. He handed it back to her and she took a sip as they enjoyed the silent dawn.

“I wonder if there’ll be any letters today,” said Maggie.

“I wonder,” said Walter.

“Have you told him yet?” she asked, passing the mug back to him.

“Not yet,” he said. “He’s stubborn as a mule.”

“Don’t you just know it,” said Maggie. “That boy. He’s gotta get out of his own way.”

*****

Charles only heard the faint murmurs of Walter and Maggie’s conversation from the porch below as he sat at the table in his bedroom and cleaned his revolver, his heart feeling like a lead weight in his chest, as it did most days.

He told himself his little brothers were tough enough not to need him. They’d be nine, twelve, thirteen and sixteen now. Almost men. Far from the tiny boys with rounded cheeks and innocent eyes who he’d tried to convince himself were big enough to make it on their own when he’d left six years ago. He wouldn’t even let himself think of his mother.

Whenever he looked back on that day with guilt, he’d mercilessly attacked the feeling that gnawed at his stomach with unassailable logic. They needed the money, he’d gone to get the money. There was nothing wrong with that.

Only he’d since learned that talk was cheap and the stories about gold rushes and overnight fortunes were greatly exaggerated. There was no money. At least, not for most.

He’d fallen for the premise hook, line and sinker, telling his family how they’d soon be wealthier than they could ever dream of and that the little ones would never have to miss a meal again. He packed up everything he had, no more than a couple of spare shirts, and used every penny he could scrape together to buy a train ticket. He packed into an over sold train car with a dozen or so other young men just like himself who’d made the same promises to their own families. He didn’t know what had become of any of them.

He chastised himself for thinking so deeply.
Focus on the revolver,
he told himself. There was no need to get lost in whys and wherefores and yesterdays. He knew he’d only start thinking all kinds of things better left alone. The only thing to do was to concentrate on the task at hand, to get his revolver clean. Once that was done he’d haul himself up on the wide back of his trusty horse and gallop to the far reaches of the ranch where people and their demands couldn’t find him, though he had yet to find a place that allowed him to escape from his thoughts.

He dreaded going downstairs. Walter and Maggie never ceased trying to drag him into conversation he didn’t want to have, however clear he made it that he wanted to be left alone.
Needed
to be left alone. They always had some comments to make about young ladies in town or  questions about his future plans. How was he supposed to give answers he didn’t even know himself?

He always tried to time his dash downstairs for cold cornbread and coffee for when Maggie was upstairs getting dressed and Walter’s face was lost in a cloud of pipe smoke on the porch. This day was no different. He sat down on the floor, his back leaning against the door, until he heard the creak of the stairs under Maggie’s night-clothed bulk and the swish of water as she emptied a bucket into her wash basin.

He opened the door and dashed down the stairs to the kitchen. His cornbread was set out on the side, cold and stodgy, just the way he liked it. So was his coffee, black with just enough sugar to mask its bitterness.

“G’morning,” said a deep voice from the doorway, so unexpectedly that Charles almost spilled his coffee all over himself.

“Mister Murphy,” said Charles, furious with himself for pausing and getting caught.

“How many times do I have to tell you to call me Walter?” he said.

“Walter,” said Charles, taking a huge gulp of lukewarm coffee and a bite out of the cornbread as he headed to the doorway to pass by Walter.

Walter stood in his way. “Won’t you at least do one letter?”

“No,” said Charles, pushing past and walking as quickly as his legs would carry him toward the stables.

I hope you liked the preview of
Pearl of the West
. You can read the rest here:

AuthorEmilyWoods.com/pearl-of-the-west-amazon

You can also get Pearl of the West as part of the 6 book Mail Order Brides of Gold Creek series:

AuthorEmilyWoods.com/gold-creek-complete-series

Be sure to check out all of my books

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