Romance: Western Mail Order Bride "Bethany's Love"-Clean Christian Historical Romance (Western Mail Order Bride Short Shorties Series) (151 page)

Chapter 5

Henry pulled back but never left her eyes. Nora bit down on her lip and started to weep into the pillows when he reached back for her hand and tried to lace his fingers around hers.

“No!” Nora said as she moved to the other side of the bed and brought her knees to her chin. She tried to keep her body from shaking as Henry lowered his head to her stockinged feet and softly kissed her ankles.

“Give me a chance to tell you,” he pleaded. “To explain.”

Her hands were nearly at his head when she drew her fingers back and kept her touch as far away from him as she could as she waited for his words.

“Then talk,” Nora managed. “I want to know.”

Henry’s eyes filled with hope as he left the bed and opened another drawer. Nora waited with watery eyes as he laid a lengthy ream of paper before her knees and swallowed hard.

“I… these are hard times,” he confessed. “And I did a stupid thing.”

She tried to examine the document through her tears when the words became too much to bear. Terms like
final notice
and
foreclosure
swirled around her brain, and Nora nearly tore the paper to shreds before Henry reached for her face.

“It’s all there in black and white,” he kept confessing. “My crops die as soon as I lay the seeds in the ground. I needed the more money to keep the cows fed. So I danced with the devil, Nora.”

As she touched her hand to her cheek and felt the spot that Turner had nearly sliced, Nora nodded her understanding.

“You’re in hock,” she said. “Up to your ears.”

“You already know me so well.”

Henry craned closer, and she almost accepted his kiss when she moved away and looked at her face, her body in the mirror. The ring was gone. But the dress was still intact even if it was marked by unwanted hands. Her shoulders slumped as Henry left the bed, and she let him touch her as she met his eyes in the space of the glass.

“So why, Henry?” Nora asked. “Why would you bring me out here with a song and know that it was a lost cause.”

His eyebrows lifted, and Henry pressed his hands deeper into her shoulders as he dropped his head to her neck.

“It’s just been so lonely,” he muttered. “And maybe I thought… maybe I hoped that you just being here could make it right.”

Henry’s kiss trailed up her cheeks and nearly made its way to her mouth when Nora shifted her head to the side and focused on her reflection again.

“So what was the plan?” she asked. “I was going to be, what? An act of magic? We’d fall in love and all of your problems would be solved?”

Her hand coiled into a fist, and she was ready to strike his jaw hard when he suddenly stepped back and pulled another slip of paper from the pile that signaled his doom.

“Don’t stand there and tell me that you didn’t hope for the exact same thing.”

Nora’s breath came to a halt as she recognized her handwriting across the page rubbed raw by his fingers reading the same lines over and over again. The memory of taking pen to paper struck her to the core, and she waited for him to read her words, to throw them back in her face, when he suddenly recited them without looking.

“
But even though we have yet to meet, I feel sure that I can find a new meaning for happiness if I am just given the chance to stand by your side
.”

Slipping back to the bed, Nora hung her head and tapped her fingers on her legs. She heard his sigh as he paced before the bed, and she felt his hands just brush against her face when she pulled back and moved away. Peering up through her fallen hair, Nora watched him at the window as he surveyed the land that was only his on borrowed time.

“Henry, I… please look at me.”

He obeyed her order, and his face seemed to have taken on ten years.

“Maybe we… yes,” he started. “We promised our hopes to one another and thought that they would come to pass.”

“And now it’s a brand new day,” Nora said. “We are seeing things so much more clearly now.”

Struggling to leave the bed, she stepped back into her boots and saw her suitcase lingering in the corner. Not knowing how she would make her way back to the train, let alone purchase a ticket, she still started to pack her meager belongings when he rushed towards her and pried her hands away from the bag.

“What does it really matter?” he demanded. “You’re here. And with a little bit of luck I’ll pay back the debt and make things right.”

Wanting to believe him as she softly touched his face, Nora let their noses touch and felt the small puffs of air from his expectant sighs mingle with her own.

“I wish that could be true,” she muttered. “But I saw those men. They won’t take no for an answer. And I… Henry, I’m sorry but I just can’t be a part of this.”

She started to reach for her case when his hand was on hers even as he avoided her eyes.

“Don’t leave me,” he pleaded. “Can’t you give me another chance?”

Had he written as much down in a letter for her unsuspecting eyes, Nora might have excused his shortcomings and still left her life to see him up close. But the truth was too much to bear.

“I think I’ll miss you,” she said. “And I’ll hope that you can find your way.”

Expecting him to cut her off again with his words or his lips, Henry went stiff and kicked into the floor as he denied Nora the feel of his hands.

“Fine!” he said. “I never wanted your pity. So we will forget.”

Nora considered rushing back to ask after his next plan of action. But she no longer had the ring on her finger, and his last words burned their way into her soul as she looked around the ranch house one last time and started back, her head heavy with defeat as she wished that he could have been someone else.

Or that she truly could have found a way to solve his problems and stay at his side.

Chapter 6

The vastness of the land seemed almost insurmountable without the benefit of his horse to carry her across the grass or his arm in hers. Nora trudged forward as she glanced down at her dress. Making off with the gift seemed wrong, but when the wind picked up she knew that she needed the cover. She spied a stray oak tree and ducked behind the bark, looking every which way before she reached behind her back for the buttons and started to undress. The dress would stay with the land that wasn’t his, and she was nearly back in her traveling outfit when the sounds of harsh snickers hit her ears.

“Hold up.”

“We’re enjoying the show.”

Nora clutched her blouse closer to her chest at the sight of Davis and Turner coming around the bend, and she looked over their shoulders in the hope of seeing Henry. He was nowhere to be found, and she was ready to run when the men were on her.

“Go away!” Nora screamed. “Haven’t you done enough?”

A hard hand made its way across her mouth, and Nora whimpered and wished for a way out when a silver haired man on a dark stallion rushed onto the scene and cracked his whip into the earth.

“Have you men no shame?” he demanded. “This young girl could be my daughter.”

Nora almost recognized the welcome intruder as she buried her head in the ground and started to cry.

“Last I heard this wasn’t your spread,” Davis challenged.

“And I could say the same for you. Now make tracks. Touch her again at the risk of your lives.”

She heard the click of a cocked gun and waited until she was sure that the danger had passed until she dared to glance up and cocked her head to the side at the sight of the man abandoning his horse to help her up.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Yes, I think I know you.”

“Zachary Welsh,” he continued. “From the train. Forgive me but I don’t--”

“Where is Beatrice?”

The man smiled and wiped the dirt from her simple skirt and blouse as he helped her onto his horse.

“Come along, he said. “She will be happy to see you again.”

Nora wanted the same thing, and she clung to the man’s back as his dark horse carried her across the plains to a grand house. If she was being honest,
this
was the sort of place that she had imagined when she read Henry’s letters over and over again, and even though the picture was lonely without him, she still smiled when she saw Beatrice hurrying forward with her baby in her arms.

“My friend!” she cried out. “Did something happen to--?”

“Nothing that we can’t handle,” Welsh said. “Let’s help our guest inside and see to it that she gets a real rest.”

Nora went limp as two pairs of arms guided her to a waiting bed and covered her with a patchwork quilt. She snuggled into the warmth and wanted to fall asleep when she suddenly shot up and gripped Beatrice’s arm.

“Henry. If he finds the dress…”

She couldn’t form even one more word as Beatrice sat and smoothed the fallen hair from her face.

Just the way that Henry liked it best.

“Can I tell you?” Nora begged. “I listened to you.”

Beatrice nodded her head in understanding, and Nora let the story fall from her lips.

“You should have told me, Beatrice said. “My husband had dreams, too. And they weren’t always such a bad thing.”

Nora sank into the sheets and longed for Emily when Beatrice held her close and kissed her hair.

“A man that dreams looks ahead,” Beatrice whispered. “I would have stuck by Andrew’s side through anything.”

Her voice cut off, and Nora shot off as she gripped her face.

“Finish it,” Nora pleaded. “What do you wish?”

“That I had brought him back home before he lost his life,” Beatrice confessed. “His father is a kind man”

“Nora!”

She startled at the sound of her name to see Henry covered in sweat, his eyes frantic, and as soon as he looked to the bed, he reached for her.

“I thought they hurt you,” he said. “Your dress was--”

Wanting to comfort his soul, Nora leapt off the bed and gathered Henry into her arms. She hadn’t fallen in love so fast only to forget it as soon as someone else was kind, and they nearly kissed when Welsh hovered over them.

“You really thought that you were going to give this fine lady a real life without a dime to your name?”

Henry made no move as Welsh looked to Beatrice and let her take his hand as Mary’s cries crossed their ears from the other room.

“She was so good to me,” Beatrice said. “Isn’t there some way to help them?”

Welsh’s face was unreadable, but when Beatrice returned with Mary in her arms, he flattened his palm against the back of the baby’s head.

“My son thought that he had to run away,” Welsh started. “But you, Henry Russell!”

Henry looked up, and Nora stayed in his hold as Welsh spoke fast.

“I’ll take on your debts. You will work my land and yours. It’s not an easy fix. But if you want it enough, you will grow up and get your head in the game.”

Welsh led Beatrice away as the door closed.

“Henry? I’m sorry. I…”

“You came all this way to show me out,” he said. “It’s not what I wanted you to do.”

“But it’s chance, Henry,” she pleaded. “Can’t you see that much?”

Henry said nothing, and Nora wept into her hands as she crawled back to the bed and tried to fall asleep.

“Don’t do that. Don’t dream without me, Nora.”

Chapter 7

“Can you see to Mary?”

Beatrice was trying hard to baste a roast and make a perfect dinner for the men as soon as they returned from the fields. Nora kept clicking off the days. The land was safe from the likes of Davis and Turner. Life was tense for a time. But once Henry grew to like the man and saw the reward, Henry kissed her goodnight and thanked her for being in his corner. Soon the nights alone seemed too long without him, and Nora asked him to stay. Henry kissed her under the sheets and reminded her that he had loved her at first sight when they broke apart and sat at opposite ends of the bed, their finger just touched over the sheets.

I no longer have the ring. But we have to take vows if we’re going to---

And she clung to his neck as she nodded her assent and peppered his chin with tiny kisses and found his ear.

Then just marry me already. What more do I need to do to show you that I want to be your wife?

“Nora?”

Beatrice’s voice roused her from the memory that was their wedding. A simple affair in Welsh’s dining room. The room had been flooded with flowers, and Nora had to marvel at the fact that they matched and bested Emily’s spread as she linked her hand in his and uttered her vows.

With everything that I am and have, Henry. From this moment until the end of my days.

It suddenly felt like that as she gripped Beatrice’s hand and clutched her stomach.

“It’s…. it’s happening,” Nora started. “I need… I want Henry to be--”

“Take it from someone who knows,” she said. “You have no say when it comes to the timing.”

With those words, Beatrice gathered Mary close and helped Nora into the nearest bedroom under her free arm. As soon as she hit the sheets, Nora looked to the window and parted her lips with a sob.

“I still… please, Beatrice.”

Screaming through the feeling that her body was about to give out, Nora fell back to the bed and kept asking for her husband as Beatrice laid her baby in the basinet and kissed Nora’s suddenly crimson cheek.

“I’ll call him home,” Beatrice promised. “He can’t be far away.”

Beatrice stayed in the room as she lifted up one window and screamed into the fields. Nora’s mind followed the sound of Beatrice’s voice, and her body wished for the pain to go away when she felt the unseen baby starting to push away.

“I’m not ready!” Nora cried out. “I can’t do this.”

“Nora?”

She turned her head to see Henry covered in the dust of the land as he fell to the side of the bed. He seized her hand and wrapped his free arm around her neck so he could gently cradle the back of her head.

“I’m right here,” he assured her with a quick kiss to her brow. “You didn’t think you were going to do this without me, did you?”

Nora tried to answer when she was wracked with an unspeakable pain. Henry’s hands stayed sure, but she saw his eyes turn frantic and could do nothing to ease the tension from his body or his mind as Beatrice pulled him from her side and started to strip off her clothes.

“What in God’s name to you think you’re--?”

“I’ve been through this,” Beatrice reminded him. “She needs to be kept comfortable. And you should wait outside.”

“I will not leave my wife to face this alone.”

Nora’s eyelids started to flutter as she weakly nodded her head. Her hand was almost back in his as Beatrice grumbled and took charge.

“Fine,” she relented. “Stay and help. But leave the birth to me.”

Nora heard him consent as her dress was replaced by a soft cotton nightgown. Settling back into the sheets, Nora took comfort at the feel of his arm around her shoulder, and the pain ceased as he returned to the bed and lay at his side. Beatrice left the room with the promise to bring back warm water as Nora settled her head against his shoulder.

“Are you scared?” she asked.

“Terrified,” he said. “But no more than when I first read your letter.”

Henry quickly kissed her, and Nora bathed in the light stemming from his eyes as she fondled his face.

“My… my mother said that I read too many romance novels.”

“We’re not fiction, Nora.”

She longed to embrace him when a sharp pain in her middle caused her world to blur, but she still felt his hands rubbing her down as Beatrice reentered the room.

“It’s coming so fast,” she said as she dropped the steaming basin at the edge of the bed and knelt between Nora’s knees.

“Now I know that it hurts,” Beatrice continued. “But just a few quick pushes and it will all be worth it.”

“I am going to hold both of you to that,” Nora said through gritted teeth as she felt the swell in her stomach struggling to make its way towards the light. The pressure threatened to tear her apart from within, and she breathed though the anguish when she saw Henry’s face contort and felt his fingers running through her hair.

“You like… you love it when I look like this,” she reminded him.

“But not the look of you in pain,” he said. “I never would have sent for you if I had known that this--”

Nora’s fresh cry cracked the air, and Henry pressed her to his chest, whispering over and over again for her to be alright when Beatrice leaned forward for her face.

“One more,” Beatrice said. “Someone wants this to be a birthday. You wouldn’t want to let the little one down.”

“I just want it to stop!” Nora screamed. But she allowed her body to follow the sound of Beatrice’s voice, and a warm gush slid down her thighs. The pain was more than she could contemplate, and Nora felt sure that she would die under the weight of the agony when a tiny cry filled the room.

And the pain faded away like a nightmare from which she had escaped. Her head hit the pillows, and she felt Henry’s soft kisses dotting her damp face when the small cries grew so loud that they might have been rain pounding on the roof. Nora sat up with Henry’s help and saw the miracle resting in Beatrice’s arms.

“Let me… let me clean him up,” her friend offered.

“Him?” Henry asked.

Beatrice just nodded her head as she dabbed a cloth into the water and washed the baby’s… washed the boy’s body. Taking a piece of twine from her apron, she tied off the cord that had linked them together and snapped if off. Nora sighed sadly at the thought that she would never hold the child inside her again.

But the swaddled bundle that Beatrice placed her arms more than made up for the loss.

“You have a son,” she said. “A perfect little boy.”

Perfect
did not do the baby justice, and Nora started to weep when Henry kissed her tears away.

“You
are
magic, Nora,” he said. “The both of you.”

Beatrice wiped the afterbirth from her hands and gazed down at the bed.

“I’ll give you a few moments.”

Once they were alone, Nora forgot the meaning of time and focused on the baby gurgling as Henry dabbed the tiny lips with the back of sleeve.

“What are you thinking right now?” he asked. “Tell me everything.”

Sighing as the back of her head hit his neck, Nora combed her fingers through the tiny boy’s fine hair.

“That I almost ran away,” Nora said. “Do you remember that?”

“Because I turned my back.”

Henry shuddered as he started to turn away, but Nora reached for his hands and kept him close.

“You don’t get to do that again,” she said. “Neither do I. Now there’s so much more.”

Nora cuddled into his hold as the baby sighed and seemed to find peace in the space of their arms.

“Why would we ever want to leave this?”

They exchanged a soft kiss before Nora rested her head in the crook of his neck.

“And we will get back to your spread,” she promised. “We have friends now. Family.”

“Do you want your people to know him?”

Nora considered the question and played with his fingers before she answered.

“Emily,” she started. “My sister. But no one else from the old days.”

“Fair enough,” Henry said.

The minutes turned into hours, and Nora suddenly started up as she kept the baby close.

“What is--?”

“We need a name,” Nora said. “I hadn’t even thought.”

“But I did,” he said.

“Oh?” Nora asked as she pushed up from the pillows. “Are you going to let me in on the secret?”

Henry guided them back to the bed and kissed the crowns of their heads before parting his lips to speak.

“Andrew,” he said. “It means strong and---”

“Oh, Henry,” she said. “It’s perfect. In so many ways.”

He didn’t know how much until they present the baby to Mr. Welsh, and in that moment, the older man nodded his head and pulled them into a hug.

“It’s a fine tribute,” he said. “And you will have your land back to make a home for your new family.”

Henry cocked his head in confusion, and Nora whispered the whole story into his ear. She felt him tense and smoothed her hand down his back as Welsh told Beatrice that he was grateful to have so many heirs simply because she’d made a friend on the train.

And Henry shared in the joy as he kissed her deeply and broke away with grateful tears shimmering in his eyes.

“You are magic, Nora. My ideal bride.”

THE END

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