Romance: Western Mail Order Bride "Bethany's Love"-Clean Christian Historical Romance (Western Mail Order Bride Short Shorties Series) (140 page)

Chapter 10

We stayed at the trading post for several days, wanting time to recover from the ordeal. We were given the reward money for capturing the fugitives and Adam bought an engagement ring with it. He managed to keep it a secret from me until the last day, when he proposed. It was during a lightning storm and it felt like the heavens were putting on a show just for us.

I returned to Madison an engaged woman, but I also returned a stronger woman. Any and all doubts I’d had about myself were completely gone. If I could take down two dangerous criminals, I could take on the world and nothing was going to stop me.

Our wedding was going to be a town affair and soon everyone was insisting on doing something for it. After a long, hard road of praying, I even decided to invite my parents.

They arrived just in time for the ceremony and my mother wrapped her arms around me, her eyes wet with tears. She apologized and begged my forgiveness and I just held her close, promising her I already had. I didn’t hold anymore resentment for my mother. Without the bullying I never would have come to Madison. I accepted that the Lord worked in mysterious ways.

Soon we were man and wife. It didn’t take long for me to become pregnant with our first child. As brave and strong as Adam was, he was a mess when I became pregnant. I never teased him or got onto him about it, though. I knew he was afraid for good reason. He didn’t want to lose me the same way he’d lost his first wife.

Even though there was always an undertone of fear, he was excited to welcome our child into the world. He had a crib built for the child, making sure to have a prayer carved into it. It was a sweet gesture and made my heart flutter. Somehow he was managing to make me fall even deeper in love with him, which I wasn’t even aware was possible.

We welcomed Abigail into our lives at the end of winter. The midwife said that her birth was one of the easiest she’d ever attended. When the midwife put Abigail in my arms and I stared into her warm face and blue eyes, I couldn’t help but feel that Louise was smiling down on our family that day.

That was three years ago and I was pregnant again. I smiled and patted my round belly, watching Adam snatch Abigail up out of the river. The bottom of her dress was soaking wet, but I wasn’t about to scold her for exploring the world. My own mother had always been extremely critical about girls who played outside. I wasn’t going to do that to my children. I wanted them to start out strong and confident. I never wanted them to face the insecurities I’d faced growing up.

Adam carried Abigail up the bank of the river, holding her under one arm as he walked through the grass and up to our porch where I sat, rocking. Once they reached the steps he set her down and Abigail ran over to me, her hands outstretched. She was holding an apple that she’d most likely plucked from the tree in our yard.

“Here you go, Mama! For baby!”

I smiled and took the apple, pulling her into my arms and kissing her on the cheek. “Thank you, child. That’s very sweet of you.”

Adam smiled and pressed a kiss to my lips, ignoring the disgusted sound little Abigail made. “How’s my baby?”

“Which one?” I teased.

“Both.”

“Well, my feet are sore but the baby is having a grand old time kicking around in there,” I said, patting my belly.

He put his hand over mine and cupped my cheek. “I’ve said it a million times, but I’ll say it again: you’re amazing.”

My heart fluttered and I smiled, offering him another kiss. “I love you too,” I teased.

He chuckled and pulled away, lifting Abigail into his arms and running off down to the river again. I watched them go and sighed happily. This was my paradise.

THE END

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Chapter 1

“Charles!  Charles, what have you got there?  You aren’t getting up to any trouble now, are you?  I know you couldn’t be doing a thing like that, not after all we’ve talked about.  Do you remember what we’ve talked about?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And what was it, Charles?”

“What do you mean, ma’am?”

Caroline McCormack laughed, a musical little sound that always made anyone within earshot laugh along with her, or at the very least smile.  She stood from the bench where she had been reading while watching the children, straightened her thick woolen skirts, and walked quickly towards Charles.  Little Charlie Wells was the smallest boy in his class and somehow still the one with the most fire inside of him.  She knew that many of his other teachers had little patience for him or for his antics, but Caroline didn’t feel that way about him at all.  Quite the contrary, truth be told.  She had a soft spot in her heart for the little children the others saw as troublemakers.  The idea that there were any children anywhere that people could just give up on or cast off as being somehow lesser than was simply awful. 

As far as she was concerned, she had never met a child she didn’t like.  It was why she had been so drawn to teaching.  It hadn’t been that she needed the money.  She didn’t really.  Her family was wealthy and well established. They had come to New York from Ireland and were one of the families that had really and truly succeeded.  She had grown up in a large, sprawling brownstone with deep, rich wood and wrought iron as far as the eye could see.  She had two younger sisters by the names of Adeline and Bethany whom she had always been devoted to, one four years older and one six.  From the moment of Adeline’s birth, Caroline had known that she wanted to be a mother.  She spent as much time as her mother would allow tending to first one and then two sisters, pretending that instead of siblings they were her very own babies.  It was by far her favorite game to play and any time she was forced out of the fantasy, to attend to her schooling for instance, she was singularly devastated.  As she grew older, her fondness for children grew as well, and although her education had only ever been intended to make her well-rounded and therefore more desirable, she decided long before she ever said it out loud that she would be putting said education to a good use.  She was going to teach.  It was an idea she felt overwhelmingly passionate about, held close to her heart and pulled out to examine late at night when she was meant to be asleep.  She couldn’t wait to have children of her own, and once they came she would almost certainly have to leave her job in order to tend to them (something she intended to do herself and would never leave to a governess), but she would miss her children from the school.  She loved them, each and every one of them in their own special way.  She believed it was an essential part of what helped her to reach them, to teach even the students that other teachers had deemed unteachable.  She truly cared for them and they knew it.  Like rambunctious little Charles here, for example, standing in front of her with red cheeks and a lip poked out for good measure.  She knelt before him, not caring a lick if it got her skirts dirty, and looked up at him with kind, patient eyes. 

“Charles, you know I’m not angry, right?”

“I think so, ma’am.”

“And what have we talked about?”

“I must think before I act,” he recited with the confidence of a boy who had received the same lecture many times over. “And if I get myself into trouble I mustn't try to hide it.  It only makes my trouble deeper.”

“Yes, that’s exactly right, Charles.  So would you like to tell me what you’ve got in your hand?  The one you’ve got clutched so tightly behind your back?”

It was still very clear that he did
not
want to, that he was very seriously considering not showing her a thing, but then his eyes dropped down to his feet and he opened his chubby hand for her to see what it had secreted away.

“Ah, I see.  The clock.  Is that right?  Do you have a piece of the clock there in your hand?”

“Might be.”

“Might be?”

“Might be so.”

“Charles?”

His little face, the one he had been trying so desperately to keep stoic, crumpled into a million pieces and he threw his sweet arms around her neck.  The contraband bit of clock fell to the ground, forgotten, and she used her free hand to scoop it up out of the dirt and slip it into her skirt pocket.  She could mend it easily later.  Either that or just purchase the classroom a new clock.  It was no great task.

“I didn’t mean it, ma’am,” he blubbered, his wet tears saturating the crisp collar of her dress shirt. “I didn’t mean to break it all to pieces!”

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“I just wanted to see what would happen, is all.  I wanted to see what was inside of it to make it work the way it did.  But I ruined it instead and now it will never work again.  It’s too broken and I’ll be in too much trouble now.  I don’t want to be in trouble, not again.”

He continued to sob as if his heart would break and Caroline stroked his hair briefly, making soothing clucking sounds.  She wouldn’t tell him not to cry.  She never told a child that.  She was of the belief that every person needed to be allowed a good cry, and that included children.  Once he had calmed himself down and the cries had dwindled to a series of hiccups, she stood and held him out at arm's length, looking at him with a little smile.

“There now, do you feel better?”

“Mostly I do.  Am I in trouble?”

“No, Charles, no trouble for you today.  But will you do something for me?”

“Anything!”

“Next time you want to know how something’s insides work, tell me.  That way we can explore it together.  It’ll be our own little adventure.”

The boy nodded happily and then ran off to meet his playmates, as if he had never had a care in the world.  That was the thing about children.  They were so wonderfully resilient.  Not like grownups at all.

*

“Jeremiah?  Jeremiah, are you here?”

Finally home from another long but always fulfilling day at the school, Caroline stopped to give herself a once-over in the massive hallway mirror.  She was looking a little more frazzled than she would have liked, but it would have to do.  Besides, Jeremiah would understand.  Her love for her work and the children in the school was something he had always said he admired about her.  A few stray hairs weren’t going to bother him any.  Still, she always liked to look her best for him.  That was just something you did for the person you were intended to, wasn’t it?  It was a pity she wasn’t going to have time to freshen up before she greeted him in a proper fashion, but she had received word at the school that he would be waiting for her in the parlor when she returned home and so what little she could do in these quick moments before going in to greet him would have to do.  Her green eyes were bright and lively, something she always had working in her favor, and her red curls (a clear reminder of her Irish heritage) were piled up on top of her head.  Those could use a little help, but there was only so much she could do with her small hands and the bobby pins in her hair.  Rearranging only got her so far, and after a few fruitless moments of rearranging she decided it was as good as it was ever going to be.  She pinched the skin on her cheekbones lightly, just to give herself a little bit of extra color, smoothed her skirts down, and smiled.  She walked into the parlor that way, her pretty smile practically shining like an extra light in the evening dimness.

“Jeremiah!  Here you are.  I was calling for you, but I suppose you didn’t hear me.  You know I’m never loud enough.”

She hurried towards her betrothed feeling giddy and completely content, ready for the somewhat scandalous kiss she usually received on one hot cheek.  But he did not bestow it.  That was new, and most decidedly unsettling.  He always greeted her in the exact same way.  It was part of their ritual and it was a great comfort to her, an indicator of the life the two of them were on the verge of embarking on.  But tonight, instead of leaning in and taking her hands while he gave her that sweet little kiss, he took her hands but held her out at arm's length.  The skin of his hands was cold, dry, and the look on his face was pained and serious.  This was not their standard greeting at all and it made her heart seize up and her stomach jump into her throat.  She was strong, the two of them were strong together, and she was confident that they could weather any storm.  Still, nobody wanted bad news.  She bit her lip and straightened her spine, trying to prepare herself for anything.

“Caroline, you're here.”

“Yes, I’m here.  This is my home.”

“So it is.”

They stood in strange silence, Caroline hoping that her fiancé would unburden himself and tell her what it was that was troubling him and all the while him looking everywhere but at her.  She concentrated as hard as she could, half expecting that she could make him look at her, but it was no use.  Finally, she could stand it no more.

“Jeremiah, please.”

“Yes?”

“Please, whatever it is, whatever’s the matter, just tell me.  The wondering and not knowing makes things feel so much worse.”

“Yes.  Yes, I suppose it does.  It’s just-- have you ever had a thing you needed to say that you just couldn’t find the words for?”

“I don’t know.  Perhaps.  Honestly I don’t think I have.”

Caroline was baffled.  She really couldn’t relate with what he was saying.  She had always been a good natured girl, easy to get along with and unbelievably slow to anger, but also a straightforward girl.  She hadn’t ever had anything she felt the need to hide, and if she thought a thing, she said it.  Maybe that was part of her Irish heritage as well, the way her father liked to tell her it was.  True or not, it was the way she was and she could not fathom what Jeremiah was trying to get at now.

“How wonderful it must be to live in that world.  You truly are too good for me, you know that, don’t you?  I want you to remember that.  You need to remember that, please.”

“Why would I want to remember a thing like that?  Why would I even want to think a thing like that?  It isn’t true.”

“But it is!  It is, Caroline, and keeping that fact in your head and in your heart will help with what’s to come.”

Her heart was thump, thump, thumping inside of her ribcage.  She did not know this man.  She knew Jeremiah, of course, but the man who was looking at her out of these eyes she didn’t know at all.  He looked like a caged animal but he also looked cold, so much colder than she had ever seen him look before.  He was beating around the bush about something and although she knew with one hundred percent certainty that she would not like what he had to say when it came out, she wanted no more of this double talk.  He was making her miserable with the delay.

“And what is it that I’m to face?  What’s to come, Jeremiah?”

“The wedding,” he said through gritted teeth as he ran his hand compulsively, angrily through his hair. “I can’t.  I can’t go through with it.  I’m calling it off.”