The Hardened Cowboy's Mail-Order Bride

Prologue

Turner Ranch — Devil’s Hollow, Texas

The garden, which had once stretched neat and green behind the Turner house, now looked more like a graveyard.

Ruth knelt on the cracked earth, brushing dirt from a stunted potato no bigger than the middle of her palm. Around her, rows that should have been bursting with summer vegetables lay wilted and brown beneath the relentless Texas sun. Weeks without proper rain had turned the soil hard as stone.

Folks in Devil’s Hollow liked to say the town had earned its name from the weather long before any of its residents arrived.

Nestled in a shallow basin between rocky hills, the little settlement seemed to trap heat like a cast-iron oven.

Summers were brutal even in good years. In bad years, the land baked beneath a merciless sun until the grass turned brittle and the creeks shrank to muddy trickles.

This year had been particularly cruel. The spring rains had come late and ended early. Day after day, cloudless skies stretched overhead. Every morning, Ruth awoke hoping to see dark clouds gathering on the horizon, only to find another day of blistering heat waiting for her.

She dropped the potato into her basket and moved further down the row.

A few cabbage heads had survived, though only barely. Their outer leaves were yellowed and shriveled, curled inward as if trying to protect themselves from the heat. She selected the best of them and cut it free.

The wicker basket still remained disappointingly light. Straightening, Ruth wiped a sleeve across her brow and surveyed the property. The sight never failed to make her heart ache.

The white paint on the small farmhouse had long since peeled away. Several shingles were missing from the roof. One section of fencing leaned so badly it looked ready to collapse altogether. Weeds crowded the yard where flowers had once grown.

Once, her father had told Ruth that her mother had loved flowers. He’d kept the gardens nice for her, even after she died. Ruth could still remember patches of bluebonnets and yellow daisies blooming beside the porch when she was little. Now, even those were gone.

A hot wind stirred her thick chestnut-brown braid as she stood looking at the place. It seemed everything around her was slowly dying.

Pushing the thought away, she turned toward the house. There was supper to make.

The kitchen was small and dim, but it remained Ruth’s favorite room.

A black cast-iron stove occupied one corner, its iron surface warm from the fire she’d coaxed to life earlier. Copper pots hung from pegs on the wall, polished from years of use despite their age. The scent of woodsmoke lingered in the air.

She set her basket on the table and examined its contents. Three potatoes and one small cabbage. Not much for a meal, but Ruth had grown used to working with what God provided. Setting a pot on the stove, she filled it with water and began peeling the potatoes.

The knife moved quickly in her practiced hands, and once the potatoes were in the pot and simmering, she crossed to the pantry.

The shelves were nearly bare. A small sack of flour sat in one corner. There was a jar containing the last spoonfuls of molasses and another holding a little salt. That was all.

Her gaze settled on the precious gifts Mrs. Harper had brought over that morning. Six eggs and a small pitcher of milk.

The elderly widow attended church with Ruth and seemed to possess an uncanny ability to know when help was needed. “God sees, child,” she had said while pressing the basket into Ruth’s hands. “Never forget that.”

Ruth smiled faintly at the memory. Without those gifts, supper would have consisted of little more than boiled vegetables.

She carefully cracked two eggs into a bowl, added a splash of milk and some flour.

She reached for the jar of salt and added a small pinch to the mixture.

She returned to the kitchen carrying the bowl in her hands and placed it to the side.

She would make the biscuits later, so that they were still warm when it came time for dinner.

Ruth turned her attention back to the stove where the potatoes were softened in the pot. She added some cabbage and stirred. It was simple food—plain, but food nonetheless. For that, she was grateful.

When everything was ready, she covered the dishes and moved her chair closer to the fireplace. The evening shadows had begun to lengthen.

Drawing her mending basket onto her lap, she selected a worn shirt belonging to one of the church families. The elbow had torn almost completely through. She threaded her needle and began stitching and the familiar rhythm steadied her thoughts. In, out, pull. In, out, pull.

Each repaired garment earned a few precious coins. Not many, but enough to keep them from complete starvation, at least for now.

The fire crackled softly. Outside, the sun slipped lower toward the horizon. Ruth bent over her work and her fingers moved automatically while her thoughts wandered.

Life had never been easy. Not that she remembered. Her mother had died bringing her into the world. Her father had never truly forgiven her for it and, as a child, she’d spent years trying to earn his affection. But nothing had ever been enough. Lately, things seemed to be growing worse by the day.

With the drought, the debts, and her father’s drinking, every month another possession disappeared. First the wagon, then the horses. The cow, and last week, her father had sold the chickens. The coop behind the house now stood empty and silent.

From her chair, Ruth’s gaze drifted toward the small structure visible through the kitchen window and the hollow in her stomach ached.

Once, it had been full of life. Every morning she had scattered feed across the yard and watched the hens come running, feathers fluttering and feet kicking up little clouds of dust. She knew each bird by sight.

The bossy red hen that always pecked first, the speckled one that liked to wander farther than the others, the old white hen that had survived more seasons than any of them.

Their clucking had been such an ordinary sound that she’d scarcely noticed it until it was gone.

More than the eggs, she missed the feeling of abundance they had represented. A basket slowly filling throughout the week. Fresh eggs for breakfast. Something to trade with neighbors when times were hard. A small reassurance that tomorrow’s meal was already waiting in the nesting boxes.

Now, the coop sat abandoned beneath the sprawling oak tree, its door hanging slightly crooked. No soft clucking greeted the dawn. No feathers drifted across the yard. The nesting boxes stood empty, and the silence seemed to underline everything they had lost.

Like so many things on the farm, the chickens had been sold to satisfy one of her father’s debts. Their absence was a daily reminder that each month brought less than the one before. That the life her mother had once worked so hard to build was disappearing piece by piece.

A knot tightened in her chest as she laid the shirt aside for a moment.

She reached beneath the collar of her dress and drew out the small silver cross hanging around her neck.

The metal was worn smooth with age. It had belonged to her mother.

It was the only thing Ruth possessed that had once been hers.

She wrapped her fingers around it and closed her eyes. “Father,” she whispered. The fire popped softly. “I don’t know what You’re doing,” her voice trembled. “But I know You’re there.” She swallowed. “I know You haven’t forgotten me.”

The silence that followed felt gentle rather than empty, like a hand resting quietly upon her shoulder. Tears stung briefly behind her eyes. “Please, help us.” Her fingers tightened around the cross. “Please provide what we need.”

A verse drifted into her thoughts, one Pastor Williams often quoted. Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.

The knot inside her loosened a little. God knew. He always knew. Even when she couldn’t see the way forward. Even when everything appeared hopeless. He knew.

A measure of peace settled over her as she lowered the cross and carefully folded the garment she was holding. She placed it into her mending basket alongside the others she had completed that week. She closed the basket and set it beside the door for the morning.

Rising from her chair, she walked over to the bowl in the kitchen and mixed the biscuit ingredients together. The dough came together beneath her hands and she shaped it into small rounds before arranging them in a cast-iron skillet and sliding it carefully into the oven.

Soon, the kitchen filled with the warm, comforting scent of baking bread. Then, a few moments later came the unmistakable sound of stumbling footsteps crossing the porch. Ruth’s shoulders tensed.

She knew those footsteps, knew the uneven rhythm of them.

A wave of whiskey fumes entered before the man himself. Frank Turner stumbled into the house. His shirt hung half untucked and his face was flushed red beneath several days’ worth of beard. One hand caught the doorframe to steady him and the other clutched a nearly empty bottle.

The peace she’d found moments earlier evaporated as her father’s bloodshot eyes swept across the room and, for a brief instant, landed on her. There was no warmth or welcome in his gaze, only irritation, as though her very existence offended him. Then, his eyes shifted toward the stove.

“Well,” he slurred. “What measly offerings have you scraped together for me tonight?”

Ruth’s fingers tightened around the mending in her lap and a strange uneasiness settled over her. “Papa, I am glad you are home.”

Her father grunted in disbelief before he lurched toward the table, the smell of whiskey followed him like a shadow. “Hurry up, you stupid girl,” he snapped. “I am hungry.”