Forgotten Mail-Order Bride Read online

  FORGOTTEN MAIL-ORDER BRIDE

  BY

  MARGARET TANNER

  Copyright © 2020 Margaret Tanner

  Thank you for purchasing this book. It remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed for any commercial or non-commercial use without permission from the author and publisher. Quotes used in reviews are the exception. No alteration of content is allowed. If you enjoy this book, then please encourage your friends to purchase their own copy.

  This story is a work of fiction, and to enhance the story, some literary license has been taken regarding setting. All characters are a figment of the author’s imagination.

  Acknowledgements: Many thanks to my family, and my author friend, Cheryl Wright, for her help and support.

  A huge thank you to all my lovely readers.

  Cover Artist: Lisa Miller

  Chapter One

  Dry Springs, Colorado 1880

  Rowan Carstairs stood next to his cousin, Sheriff Bob Tait, as the coffin was lowered into the ground. At ninety-six years of age, Great Aunt Gertie had lived a long and interesting life. Memories of the childhood holidays they had spent with her in the tumbledown old house on the edge of town resurfaced. He and Bob had seen past the peeling paint work and broken boards to something exciting and ripe for exploration.

  “I’m sorry to see the old gal go,” Bob said.

  “Yeah, me too. I always thought she was invincible.”

  Except for the preacher and the undertaker, they were the only mourners as she had outlived all her friends and relatives. “Have you got time to have a bite to eat at the diner?”

  “Well, okay.” Rowan was anxious to return to the ranch, which was a two-day ride away, but he had not seen his cousin for about twelve months. They were both busy with their lives and the almost fifty miles separating them proved to be a barrier, although they did correspond now and again.

  As boys they had been closer than most brothers, even though they had lived miles apart. The meeting place was always Aunt Gertie’s where they spent a lot of their boyhood. She might have been an old maid and crazy in the head like some of locals used to say, but he preferred to think of her as eccentric.

  “I’ll have to be off as soon as we’ve eaten. It’s busy at the ranch. George, my boss, hasn’t been too good, his lungs are acting up. The son, Edward, is not much use. He’s lived in the city for too long, I reckon. I’ve been trying to show him how the ranch works for weeks, but he’s as thick as molasses in winter, and he’s married to some useless hot-house flower from Boston.”

  Bob laughed. “You always did have a way with words, Rowan.”

  They sauntered over to their horses and rode to the diner in Dry Springs.

  “The town hasn’t changed much,” Bob mused as he picked up a menu and glanced at it.

  “Give it another couple of years and I reckon it will be a ghost town. How’s the job going? Locking up many bad varmints?”

  “A few. I’m going to order a nice juicy beef steak. What about you?”

  Rowan put the menu to one side. “The same.” He beckoned the waitress over. “Two beef steaks with gravy, potato mash and greens, and two black coffees, please.”

  “It won’t be long,” she said.

  “Thank you.” Bob grinned. “Got yourself a gal to occupy that cabin you built on the ranch?”

  “Not yet. It’s hard to meet a suitable gal, especially when I’m so busy, but I’m thirty-three now, so I’d like to settle down and raise a family.”

  “You did get George to put something in writing about the cabin being yours?”

  “No. We shook hands on the deal. For a man like George his word is his bond.”

  “Yeah well, maybe. My job makes me overly suspicious, but I think you should have something in writing is all I’m saying. Anyway, have you ever thought about writing away for a mail-order bride?”

  “What!” Rowan spluttered. “I don’t want some hag who has been left on the shelf.”

  “They aren’t all hags. Some of them are women in the same situation as you, living where there are no suitable men around. Maybe they’re widowed.”

  “Come on. You don’t believe that, unless…” Rowan snapped his fingers and was surprised to see red creep into Bob’s cheeks. “You’re writing to some gal?”

  “I am as a matter of fact.”

  Rowan laughed. “I never would have believed it. The great Bob Tait having to stoop to such a thing. The gals used to just about fight over you a few years ago.”

  The waitress placed their meals before them and Rowan near drooled. He was going to enjoy this.

  “Yeah, well things have changed. I saw this gal’s advertisement in the Matrimonial Gazette.”

  “Matrimonial Gazette?” Rowan roared with laughter.

  “You can sneer all you like, but I’ve met her, and we’ve got feelings for each other. Her name is Lotte and she lives in Wyoming. Her parents came from Holland, if you’re wondering about the name.”

  “Sorry, Bob, I shouldn’t sneer. I’m really pleased for you. It’s not for me, though. I don’t think I’d be brave enough to take on a gal I hadn’t met. There was a rancher I heard about who married this woman he wrote to, and she murdered him for his money.” He shuddered. “No thanks.”

  “Lotte isn’t like that. She’s a fine, respectable gal, and in a few months when my contract is up in Twisted Creek, I’m moving to Wyoming and we’re getting married.”

  The statement shocked him for a moment. Bob sounded so happy, he suddenly wondered whether a mail-order bride would work for him. It was the height of hypocrisy after the sneering comments he had just made. He didn’t own the ranch, although his job as foreman of the Crossbow ranch was for life. George Baker, who owned the ranch, had promised him this and had even let him erect a cabin on a nice patch of ground, of his choosing, on the ranch. He was now building up his own herd of beef cattle with George’s approval.

  Now he had moved out of the bunkhouse, it was lonely living in the cabin on his own. He did crave a woman’s softness and warmth in his bed. He was no different to any other man in that respect. He’d had nothing to offer a wife before, now he did.

  They stopped speaking while they ate. The steak was so tender it melted in Rowan’s mouth. Bob stared at him with a quizzical expression in his eyes. “Having second thoughts, cousin?”

  “Maybe. Now I’ve got a nice cabin and a job for life at the Crossbow ranch, I wouldn’t mind marrying a nice gal if I could find one. The thing is, I’ve only ever heard bad reports about the dire consequences which can follow getting hitched to a woman you’ve never met.”

  Bob finished a mouthful of food and took a sip of his coffee. “In my job as sheriff, I get around quite a lot, and I know several men who married mail-order brides and are happy. You just have to be careful and make sure they have decent, checkable references, all that type of thing.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes, and Lotte was exactly what she said she was. A widow living on a small farm, whose husband had died.”

  “Any children?”

  “No, they were only married a short time. She was heartbroken for years, but I guess as time passes, the pain eases. Once she turned thirty, she realized if she wanted to have a family, she had to get herself a husband before it was too late, so she placed the advertisement and I saw it.”

  He took a long slow sip of coffee. “We started writing to each other, then we met halfway between our two towns, discovered we had feelings for each other, and…” He shrugged. “That was it.”

  “I’m happy for you, Bob. You deserve it.”

  “Yeah, thanks. We both had bad childhoods, my father dragg
ed me all over the countryside selling his snake oil cures, and yours was a drunk. If not for Aunt Gertie, life would have been intolerable.”

  “I know.” Rowan shuddered. Not only had his father been a drunk, but he turned nasty when he got liquored up, which was often.

  “We were lucky we came out of our childhood unscathed.”

  He stared at Bob, who might have been unscathed, at least he did have a mother who cared for him. Whereas his own father’s drunken violence had driven his mother away, to he knew not where. It hurt to think his mother had escaped the clutches of a drunken brute by leaving her son behind. It had left him with deep scars, which he always tried to hide. This was one of the reasons he was so fond of his boss. “You are like a second son to me, Rowen,” George always said.

  “You know, I’ve just been thinking,” Bob mused out loud.

  “Of what?”

  “I know a gal who might be interested in marrying a rancher like you.”

  “No, you don’t.” Rowan laughed. “You aren’t palming your would-be wife’s ugly sister off on me.”

  “Lotte doesn’t have a sister.”

  “What then?” Rowan wondered why he was even talking like this, instead of concentrating on eating his meal and getting back to the ranch. Bob could be a cunning varmint sometimes.

  “There’s a gal in Twisted Creek called Miranda Kingston. She’s a bit of a tomboy, but pretty.”

  “Well, why didn’t you grab her up?”

  “I might have done before I met Lotte. By the time I found out Miranda might be interested in getting a husband, it was too late.”

  “And why would this gal want a husband now, if she didn’t want one before?”

  “Her situation has changed.” Bob pushed his empty plate to one side. “She helped her father and brother run their ranch. It’s not a bad little spread. Anyway, the father died a while back and the brother, Jacob, took charge. That didn’t go down well as half the place is hers. She detests the woman he wants to marry, not that I really blame her, she’s a grasping, money-hungry shrew, but Jacob is besotted.”

  Rowan stared at his empty plate as he drained his coffee cup.

  “Miranda and his bride-to be clash something fierce. There’s only one ranch house, and no way will those two women be able to share it.”

  “I’m not interested, Bob. It was great seeing you, but I really do have to go.”

  “Okay, nice seeing you, too. I’ll send you an invite to my wedding.”

  “Thanks. I’ll try and get there if I can.”

  “What about Miranda?”

  “What about her?” Bob was as tenacious as a blood hound once he caught a scent. Why hadn’t he kept his mouth shut about wanting a wife?

  “Look, Rowan, what if I asked her to write to you and see how it goes? She’s a nice gal, not real feminine, and I blame her father for that. He brought her up the same way as Jacob after their mother died. Of course, she might not be interested in you.”

  “Why wouldn’t she be interested in me?” The moment he asked the question he knew he had fallen into Bob’s trap. His cousin was sneaky, always had been when he thought about it.

  “Okay, you get her to write and I’ll answer, but I’m promising nothing.”

  “You might be pleasantly surprised.”

  He very much doubted it. “We’ll see. It was good catching up, Bob, even if it was at a funeral. We’ll have to keep in touch and not let our busy lives get in the way.”

  “Yeah, take care, Rowan. And try to get your boss to put something in writing about the cabin.”

  They mounted their horses and rode in opposite directions. Bob would never understand the closeness he shared with George Baker. He was everything in a man that his own father had never been, and it pained Rowan to know his elderly friend was plagued with lung problems.

  Chapter Two

  Sheriff Bob Tait sat at his desk with his feet up, reading the latest letter from Lotte. In another few months she would be his bride. He could hardly wait. He had already put in his resignation and was training his deputy to take over his duties in Twisted Creek. Holding the letter up to his nose he inhaled the rose perfume, the essence of his sweet gal.

  The door was suddenly shoved open with such force, it banged against the wall causing the Wanted posters on his desk to fly off. His hand automatically went to his gun. “What on earth are you up to?”

  Dressed in men’s pants and shirt, and with her dark hair scraped back from her face and tied with a leather thong, Miranda Kingston marched in just about spitting fire. “I want that woman stopped.”

  “Calm down, what woman?”

  “Helen, Jacob’s woman.”

  “Why? What has she done?”

  “She’s set a date for the wedding.”

  Bob stared at her, his jaw dropping in shock. “What do you expect me to do about it? Getting married isn’t against the law.”

  “She’s going to talk him into building a new ranch house, and he’s going to borrow money from the bank using his share of the ranch as collateral.”

  “Jacob wouldn’t do such a thing; he knows how your pa hated debt.”

  Miranda stomped up and down. “He would if she asked him to. He is so besotted he’d do anything for that woman.”

  “There’s nothing I can do about it. When is the wedding?”

  “In a couple of months, I think. I won’t live there with her. I can’t bear to be near the witch. What am I going to do? This town won’t be big enough for the two of us, I’ll have leave.”

  “You could always get married,” he said, trying to hide a grin. He could scarcely believe the state she had got herself in.

  “Married! Me! Who to?”

  “Well, I don’t know.” He snapped his fingers. Yes, he did, Rowan. Miranda might be a bit of a firebrand although a ranch gal through and through. “I happen to know a man who lives on a ranch in Mountview who could be looking for a bride.”

  “Who?” She shot the word out and gave him a suspicious stare. “None of these varmints in town are worth a second look.”

  “Do you know what a mail-order bride is?”

  “Yes. A desperate old maid writing away for some ugly brute of a husband, who can’t get a woman any other way.”

  “It isn’t always the case, Miranda. What about me and Lotte? She’s a sweet, beautiful woman.”

  “You were lucky. And I guess she was too. You aren’t such a bad catch, Sheriff Bob. If you were still available, I might be tempted to take you on myself.”

  He laughed. “You’re too late. I am well and truly taken.”

  “I’m so mad I could bite myself.” She slumped in the spare chair and tugged at her hair. “Who is this man? Why can’t he get himself a wife in the usual way.”

  “He’s my cousin.”

  “I didn’t know you had a cousin.”

  “Just shows you don’t know everything about me. He’s foreman on the Crossbow ranch in Mountview.”

  “And.” She stared at him through big emerald green eyes. She was an attractive gal and would make any man a good wife, if she could keep her temper in check and get out of those men’s clothes she favored.

  “He’s got a nice cabin on the ranch and could easily give his wife a comfortable life. There are very few decent, unattached gals out where he lives. His thirty-three and wants to settle down.”

  “I don’t know.” She propped her elbows on her knees and stared him in the face.

  “I’ll give you his address, and a covering letter of introduction. You can write to him, ask him whatever you want to know, and tell him about yourself.”

  “Oh, all right. I could do that I suppose.” She shot up in the chair and clenched her fists. “I’d prefer to live with the devil himself than share a roof with a witch like Helen.”

  Bob laughed. “She’s not so bad,” he said, knowing every word Miranda uttered about the woman was true. He could scarcely believe Jacob would be such a fool. Love is blind, the saying jumped insid
e his head. Very true in this case.

  He took out a pencil and piece of paper and wrote Rowan’s address on it. Now, what could he say about Miranda? She would surely read anything he wrote.

  Rowan,

  Hope all is okay with you. Remember our conversation at Aunt Gertie’s funeral? I have spoken with Miranda who is interested in corresponding with you with a view to marriage if you are compatible. I have known the family for several years and they are decent, God-fearing ranch people. Miranda is hard working, honest and pretty. She would be an asset to any ranch. I think she would be suitable for you. Bob.

  “Let me see what you wrote.”

  He handed the letter over and she skimmed through it. “It sounds okay. Shouldn’t you describe me?”

  “No, that is up to you. I’ve given him enough information. You have to write to him and tell him, whatever you want to tell him, I guess.”

  “All right, thanks.” She shoved the letter in her pocket.

  “Don’t wait too long or he might find someone else.”

  ***

  Miranda stepped out on to the street. How could Jacob do such a thing? Risk the heritage their father had left them because of that woman. If he failed to pay the loan, she might lose her share of the ranch as well. What was he thinking? If Helen was a rancher’s wife, she was a performing circus monkey.

  The temptation to march up to the diner and have a showdown with Helen was so strong she started to cross the road. The way she felt right now she would be tempted to ram Helen’s head against the nearest wall. If love could turn a sensible, solid man like Jacob into a weak, gibbering fool, she wanted no part of it.

  Maybe this Rowan would be okay. Sheriff Bob seemed to think highly of him. And she certainly thought highly of the sheriff. She had once thought she might have asked him to step out with her, once he had met Lotte and been smitten, she had lost her chance.

  Perhaps she ought to ride home and write the letter to this Rowan man. If he was in anyway decent, she didn’t want him to find someone else in the meantime. It would be a wrench leaving Twisted Creek after spending her whole life there. Living anywhere would be better than sharing the same roof as Helen. She would probably end up in prison for assaulting the woman.