Chapter Two
“You’d best throw in another bag of flour,” Gerald said. His woman’d be doing a spell more cooking than he did. He’d stopped by the mercantile to purchase more supplies. What else would a woman need? “A bar of that lavender soap, as well.”
Mrs. Barnett, who, along with her husband, ran the mercantile near the train depot, watched him with wide eyes. “Lavender soap? I’ve never known a bachelor to ask for lavender soap.”
He picked up a small jar of dried herbs.
“Might send some to m’ aunt. It’ll be her birthday soon.
” Lies seemed a safer course of action than the truth.
If he let spill he’d sent for a woman, every female within miles’d be knocking down his door wanting to socialize with the new arrival.
He’d really rather spend their earliest days together getting to know one another rather than hosting the entire valley.
Mrs. Barnett placed the paper-wrapped soap on the counter beside the tin snips he was purchasing. “Anything else?”
It’d be a bit late by the time he and Miss Hill—Mrs. Smith she’d be by then—reached home. He ought not expect her to make dinner. “Have you any of your meat pies?”
“I do, indeed.” Mrs. Barnett smiled proudly. She was quite famous in these parts for her meat pies. “One? Perhaps two, if you’re particularly hungry.”
“Three.”
Mrs. Barnett’s surprise only slowed her down for the briefest of moments. “Three? You must be quite hungry today.”
“I am.” Actually, he hadn’t had much of an appetite all day. Few things made him nervous, but this day’s business did.
He paid for his purchases and tucked his newly acquired items under his arm. He dipped his head in Mrs. Barnett’s direction before moving to the door.
He knew nothing of his coming bride other than her name, that she was coming from Nebraska, and that she was a woman. While he wanted to insist he wasn’t bothered by all the empty spaces in his mental picture, it did weigh on him more than a bit.
So long as this Miss Hill was an improvement over the Miss Hill he’d known in Ohio in the years before he and his brother had left for the West, he would be satisfied.
She had been only a year or two younger than Gerald and had fancied herself the third member of their little band, despite both Gerald and Tommy telling her otherwise any number of times.
She’d been a pebble in his shoe for two years. A wife ought not to be a pest.
He tossed his smaller items into a basket tied to the bed of the wagon, then checked to make certain the Barnetts had loaded the correct amount of flour, sugar, and lard.
Satisfied that all was well, he hopped up and onto the front bench.
He set the horses in motion and tooled his way down the street to the depot.
This one wasn’t a busy stop on the rail line. Very few people ever came to Greenborough. Gerald preferred it that way. He knew he shouldn’t’ve followed Tommy, but if he was to make his home here, he’d prefer it be a peaceful one.
He found a shaded spot not far from the depot and tied his horses up there. The sun was nearly at the midway point in the sky. Miss Hill’s train was due a little before noon. Soon, then. Gerald leaned against the side of the wagon and waited.
Though he knew it was pointless, he spent some time wondering about his coming bride.
Was she short or tall? Pretty or plain? Soft-spoken or outspoken?
He’d told the matchmaking company that he needed a woman who could cook and work hard.
Other than that, he hadn’t the slightest idea what to expect.
The sound of an approaching train whistle pulled him from his distraction. This was the moment of truth. She was here.
He stood up straighter as the sleek, black steam engine ground its way to a halt in front of the depot.
The screech of metal on metal never had been a pleasant sound, but he found it almost welcome in that moment.
Fetching himself a bride hadn’t exactly been a dream of his, but now that the time had come, he felt a pulse of anticipation pounding in his neck.
Things were going to change now; he hoped for the better.
The train stood utterly still. Passengers looked out of the soot-stained windows, eyeing the tiny place with equal parts confusion and dismissiveness.
The man who ran the depot didn’t step outside to greet the train. He likely wasn’t even in today. There was little point being there unless a large delivery was scheduled. Only Gerald met the train. And only one train door opened.
A porter hopped out of the second passenger compartment, a trunk in hand. He set down his armful, then turned around and held a hand out in anticipation of a passenger.
Gerald stepped closer, eyeing the empty doorway. Tall? Short? Pretty? Plain? How would the woman turn out?
The quickest flutter of yellow skirts skimmed the edges of the doorway before disappearing once more. Yellow? That was not a very practical color.
He moved closer still, wanting a better view when Miss Hill finally made her full appearance.
“I almost forgot my bonnet.” A woman’s voice emerged in the exact moment the yellow dress reappeared. In the next instant, she stepped out into the light.
“You’re Miss Hill?” he asked.
“I am.” She looked back at the train as she answered him, then down at her traveling bag. “I don’t suppose you have brought a wagon. Even if the porter were to allow me to carry my trunk, I don’t imagine I could get very far with—”
Her words stopped the moment she looked directly at him. Her blue eyes pulled wide. Her dark eyebrows shot upward. “Gerald? Gerald Smith?”
He narrowed his gaze. She did look familiar, though he couldn’t identify her.
“No.” She shook her head and stepped back. “You can’t be my Mr. Smith.”
“If you’re Miss Hill, I’m your Mr. Smith.” He studied her even as he spoke. Heavens, but he was certain he knew her.
A terrible suspicion entered his thoughts. He’d known another Miss Hill; he’d been thinking of her only a moment earlier. If this Miss Hill looked familiar, and he’d known only one Miss Hill, then this woman was . . .
“Ah, blasted, doggone—”
Miss Hill—Mary—spun on her heels and stepped back toward the train. It, however, began moving in the very instant she approached, having completed its brief business in Greenborough.
Mary stood with her back to him, watching the train pull away. She didn’t say a word; he suspected he knew exactly what she was thinking and feeling. An arranged marriage to a complete stranger was one thing. An arranged marriage to a person one already disliked was quite another entirely.
“This must be some kind of trick. I’ve been hornswoggled or something,” Gerald said.
Mary snatched the handle of her traveling trunk and dragged it along the train platform toward the small one-room building that served as the depot office.
How had this happened? Of all the women in all the country who might’ve been picked to come West and fill his house, why had he been sent this one?
They’d not cared for each other as young people; they’d certainly not do so now.
It was Bob Attley’s fault. He’d been the one to put the idea in Gerald’s head.
Without that prodding, he’d never have found himself in this mess.
Mary, having tested the door and found it locked, had resorted to knocking on the window. “Hello?” she called out.
She could knock all afternoon for all the good it’d do her. The building was empty and likely would remain so for days, perhaps weeks.
Gerald set his hat on his head once more and stomped back to his waiting horse and wagon. The sooner he returned home and put the entire ordeal behind him the better. He would simply write to the marriage-arranging company and tell them to send someone else. Anyone else.
He climbed onto the wagon bench and took up the reins. No one could expect him to do anything other than return home.
But he made the mistake of looking back at the depot. Mary stood there, a look of worried confusion on her features as she peered up and down the railroad tracks, one hand on her hip, the other brushing a stray bit of brown hair away from her face.
I can’t leave her here. But neither could he take her home with him.
Doing so would require they be married. Nothing else would do.
He might’ve been rough about the edges, living in the uncivilized West, but he was no scoundrel.
But marry her? Mary Hill, of all people.
Mary Hill, who’d driven him mad and pestered him clear out of temper for years.
He rested his elbows on his legs and leaned forward.
He’d once resorted to hiding in an outhouse for more than an hour, waiting for her to give up searching for him just to be free of her for one blessed afternoon.
She’d followed him through their small town, into his family’s fields; anywhere he went, she was there.
The experience might’ve been a flattering one if she hadn’t been so blasted pestery. “What are you doing? Why are you doing that? May I see? May I help? What should we do today? Why won’t you do what I want to do?” Ceaseless questions.
And now she’s meant to be my wife. I’ll never escape. Not ever.
Nope. He wouldn’t go through with it. Mary’d simply have to fend for herself. She was a woman grown; she could manage that.
He looked over at her again, apparently not one to learn from his mistakes. She sat on her traveling trunk, facing the empty track. Hers was a posture of waiting. Did she mean to simply remain until a passenger train stopped in Greenborough? Heavens, she might be sitting there for weeks.
He muttered to himself as he climbed down once more. For four years he’d been free of Mary Hill dogging his heels. Now he was responsible for pulling her out of another scrape. Why was it the fates hated him so much?
His boots hit the planks of the platform with a forceful rhythm borne of frustration and disappointment. He’d let himself imagine pleasant things about the woman he’d been sent. He ought to have imagined the worst outcome possible. Then at least he wouldn’t have felt so misled.
“You can’t sit here forever, Mary,” he said. “You’ll have to be coming along with me.”
She shook her head firmly. “I’ll simply wait for the next train.”
“The last time a train stopped to take on or let off passengers was well over a month ago. You’d be a fool to sit here for weeks on end.”
She folded her arms, lifted her chin, and turned her head in the direction her train had come. “I’d be a fool to marry a man whose poor opinion of me I remember very clearly.”
“Who said anything at all about marrying you, woman?”
“That is why I am here. We both know that.”
She’d be in for quite a surprise if she thought he meant to move forward with that plan. “I ain’t marrying a woman I’d likely throttle in the first week. But I also ain’t leaving you here all by yourself.”
“If you are suggesting I live in your house without—”
He pushed out a frustrated sigh. “I’m taking you to the preacher’s house. He’ll know what to do with you until you can find a train back to Ohio.”
“I haven’t lived in Ohio for years. You aren’t the only one who has had adventures.”
Adventures. He shook his head at the poor fit of that word. His time in Colorado had been a lot of things, but an adventure wasn’t one of them.
“A train back to wherever in the world you’d be heading back to,” he amended. “It don’t matter a lick to me. Come on, then.”
She must have gained some sense over the years since he’d last seen her. With no more argument than her small bit of protest from a moment earlier, she began dragging her trunk toward his waiting wagon.
He took it from her and hefted it into the wagon bed. She climbed up on the wagon bench, hugging the far side, leaving a canyon-sized gap between them. Gerald held a rather neutral position on religion, but in that moment he thanked the heavens for Reverend Carter.