Chapter Three #3
She hadn’t planned for the complication of being a mail-order bride.
Hence plan number two: deceive their would-be husbands about their identities until they’d stolen enough to buy tickets. But judging from Ada and Etta’s giddy chatter, they didn’t seem particularly bothered about being brides.
June scowled. They didn’t have time for little schoolgirl crushes.
This was all fake. They only had to pose as brides until they’d stolen enough to get them out of town and satisfy Trey.
If they outstayed their welcome, or if they gave away their real identities—which seemed more likely by the minute, given how foolish Etta and Ada were being—then the three men would surely find out their real identities.
After that, they’ll kick us out of town, or worse… throw us in jail. Plan three to placate Trey wouldn’t matter at all if they wound up in a cell.
June rubbed her hands across her face, groaning. She couldn’t let herself get caught up in the elaborate hoax. She could lie and manipulate with the best of the cons, but she had to be cautious. She knew better than to think this false marriage situation wouldn’t turn sour.
No matter how green anyone’s eyes are.
The fact remained that they all needed to get to another town, pick up some loot, and get back to Trey. Playing house for now was all well and good, but eventually the jig would be up.
June knew it in her gut, but as she watched the other two girls, she felt a sudden twinge of guilt. She would have to talk sense into them, of course, but… this was the first time she had seen them giddy over anything in ages.
“I mean, just look at this room!” Ada squealed. “They must really want to impress their brides.”
“What do these brides have that we don’t?” Etta asked. “We’re as good as any other women, aren’t we?”
No… we aren’t. We’re not brides. We’re thieves. June crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Don’t get too comfortable with this,” she warned the other two.
“I think we do it,” Ada said suddenly. “I mean, they don’t know these women.
Like Etta said, what don’t they have? I think we can do this!
Get away from Trey, get some protection.
Once we’re married, he can’t touch us, right?
Besides,” she added, looking a little redder than before, “the men aren’t nearly that awful to look at—and the town isn’t bad, either!
It seems like a decent place to start a family. ”
“A family?” June scoffed, her brow twisted. “You, Ada Birch, the fiercest of independent women, are planning to just run off into the sunset with some random man and put down roots here in Fort Davis?”
“It’s a lot better than the alternative!” Ada huffed.
“We’re not here to get attached to a bunch of men!” June shot to her feet, fists balled so tightly that her fingernails dug into her palms. “We have to get back to Trey before he comes looking!”
“Why?” Ada barked angrily. “These men might be able to protect us! And Henry Landry is the sheriff!”
June glowered at her. They didn’t understand. Etta, especially, seemed so eager to believe that this could be a way out.
But June knew better. “When has a man ever done anything good for any of us?” she demanded.
They had all seen the dark side of men. Men like Trey.
Getting too familiar with men from this town was just as dangerous as getting involved with Trey in the first place.
If they didn’t get back soon, eventually he would come to find them.
And even if he didn’t… Who’s to say that these men are any better?
More important than that, who could promise that they weren’t far worse?
“Look,” June said sharply. “We need to stay focused. This whole mail-order bride situation is a great cover for us. But only for now. We can’t let anyone know what we really are or where we came from, and we cannot afford to get attached,” she added, giving hard looks to the other two.
“Remember, the sheriff said that the real girls were originally supposed to be here in a few weeks’ time.
That means we have a little less than that long to figure out our next move. ”
Etta looked at her, eyes glistening with what looked like tears. “But, June,” she pleaded, “this could be our chance to get away from Trey—for good. We could start over.”
“I’m not saying we can’t make the most of it,” June replied begrudgingly, already tired of the conversation. “But we have to be careful. We can’t afford to make mistakes and get thrown in jail.”
Ada sighed, almost reluctantly. “You’re right. Running from Trey is nearly impossible,” she added softly. “He’s dangerous. He could find us easily.”
Etta sighed, clearly disappointed, but she nodded. “I know. I just… I want something better than… this.”
“I know,” June replied. “But we have a plan. We stick to it, and eventually, we’ll get there.”
“We don’t have any money left,” Ada pointed out.
June nodded. “We need to work, like we did in Galveston. Save a little. Steal a little, if we can. Pretend to be the brides so we can get a free place to stay—”
“We’re going to steal from the men we’re marrying?” Ada interrupted, looking alarmed.
June’s eyes widened in surprise. “That might work!” June exclaimed, only to be immediately hushed by Ada. “Sorry…” she added hastily.
She hadn’t even thought about stealing from the men—after all, their marks were normally women. But in this case, especially considering the Landry brothers’ positions in town, it made sense to steal from them, too.
Of course Ada would’ve thought of that first. She was always the most opportunistic one, and this might have been the smartest idea she’d ever had.
June began pacing quickly. “We can do this. We need to act like real mail-order brides. We can’t be caught stealing. We have to be careful. There can’t be any indication that we can fight or shoot, and we cannot mention Trey.”
“If we’re going to act like brides, can’t we just send letters out to the real ones and ask them not to come?” Etta asked, almost hopefully.
“Where would we send them?” Ada asked. “We have no addresses. Are we gonna scam the sheriff into giving them to us?” It wasn’t sarcastic at all. In fact, she seemed almost as hopeful as Etta about the chance at building their lives here.
“You can’t be serious!” June said in disbelief, pacing over to Etta’s bed to look her hard in the eye. It was madness. There was no way they could seriously consider that an option.
“We can easily get that information,” Ada said matter-of-factly.
“June, you’re the master at that. We can just get the men talking; it’ll be easy to know where they ‘ordered’ us from.
We can tell the brides that the wedding is cancelled, and dodge Trey for as long as we can.
Once we’re married, can he really do anything to us? We won’t belong to him.”
June sighed. “We can try, but the plan stays the same. We do what we can as far as being brides goes, but we steal from the men and whoever else we need to so we can get out of here and bring back some loot for Trey. And we don’t get attached.”
But she only half-believed that those were really her words. It sounded like just the kind of thing Trey would say.
It was… wrong.
These men had done nothing bad to them. So why...?
June cut off the thought. So what if they didn’t do anything to hurt us? Neither did anyone else we stole from. How is this any different?
This was about survival. It always was, in the end.
But when they smothered the candles, June found herself lying awake for hours, staring at the ceiling.
She couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt for what she had gotten herself and the other two girls into…
and all the things that could go wrong with what they were planning now.
But I’m still right. We don’t have a choice. Trey wouldn’t stay away for long.