Mail Order Moose (Alaskan Brides | Brides of Beckham #74)

Chapter One

By the time Ella and her friends arrived in Yeti, Alaska, every bone in her body seemed to ache. She stood in a small mercantile beside her closest friend, Lula, who typically spoke for them both. It was easier that way.

Ella never thought to give her opinion or speak when there was something to observe. She studied the world around her, feeling more comfortable when she understood what was happening.

She and Lula were waiting for the men they’d promised—by mail—to marry.

They were to be mail-order brides. It didn’t seem to be as nerve-wracking for Lula as it was for Ella.

Lula had been married before, but Ella never had.

She wasn’t certain she’d ever been completely alone with a man.

Her father had left when she was a baby, and her mother had raised her alone, running the butcher shop her husband had left behind to go seek his fortune in the west.

Beside her, Lula drew in a sharp breath and clutched Ella’s sleeve. “Well,” she whispered, though Lula’s whisper was never truly quiet, “it is certainly not Beckham.”

Ella did not know what to say to that, so she said nothing.

Beckham had been noisy and crowded and full of streets that knew where they were going.

Yeti seemed to have been placed at the edge of the world and then forgotten by everyone except the wind.

Men passed by with fur collars turned up and axes over their shoulders as if such things were as ordinary as hats.

The journey to the District of Alaska had taken more from her than she had expected.

There had been trains and boats, and too many strangers pressed close together, too much noise, too much motion, too many questions she had not known how to answer.

Even now, standing still, she felt as though the floor tilted beneath her feet.

She kept her hand against the seam of her skirt and counted what she could see.

Three barrels of flour. Two lanterns hanging from a beam.

A stack of folded wool blankets near the stove.

Three women from Beckham, all trying not to look afraid.

Lula leaned closer. “Do you suppose that is them?”

Ella followed Lula’s gaze to the door as two men stepped inside together.

The first came in with the easy certainty of someone who knew how to take up space without asking permission.

He was dark-haired and smiling before he had finished brushing snow from his shoulders, his eyes finding Lula with such open recognition that Ella knew, without being told, that he must be Sebastian.

The second man removed his hat at once, holding it against his chest. He was tall, but not in the way Ella had feared.

Not looming. Not sharp. His shoulders were broad beneath a plain wool coat, his beard neatly trimmed, his eyes the sort of brown that did not demand to be met.

The two men paused just inside the mercantile, as if taking care not to startle the women who had crossed a continent to meet them. Then Sebastian said something low to David, and together they approached Lula and Ella rather than making the women step forward to them.

“Lula?” the first man asked, and when Lula nodded, his smile widened. “Sebastian Thorson.” He turned then, not forgetting Ella, but making room for the quieter man beside him. “And this is David Sanders.”

Lula nudged her. Ella knew she ought to answer. Everyone else knew it too. That was the trouble. Every face seemed to turn toward her, every breath in the mercantile waiting for her to speak. Her mouth went dry. She nodded instead.

David’s expression did not alter with impatience. “Miss Ella Mae Whitcomb?” he asked gently. “I’m pleased you made it safely.”

That was all. David did not ask why she would not speak.

He did not smile as though her silence amused him.

He simply waited long enough for her to decide whether she had anything to add, and when she did not, Sebastian filled the space with a cheerful remark to Lula that drew everyone’s attention safely away.

The wedding took place before Ella had fully convinced herself she was in Alaska at all.

The minister had been sent for, the women arranged themselves as best they could after days of travel, and the men stood awkwardly in their good coats.

There were no flowers. No music. Only a Bible, a few witnesses, and the crackle of the stove doing its best against the cold.

When the minister asked if she would take David Sanders as her husband, Ella felt the word lodge somewhere behind her ribs.

She looked at David because she had nowhere else to look.

He was watching her, but not sternly. His hands were folded in front of him, his hat held between them, and there was a patient stillness about him.

“I do,” she managed.

It was scarcely more than a breath, but David heard it. His eyes softened, and that seemed to be answer enough.

Ella remembered where each person stood.

Sebastian kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other beside Lula, as if happiness made it difficult for him to be still.

One of the men had a scar across the back of his left hand.

The mercantile owner put the ink bottle on the wrong side of the ledger after they signed, then corrected it without noticing anyone had seen.

David noticed her noticing. She saw the moment he understood it, the brief lift of his brow when her gaze moved from the door latch to the stack of crates to the window that would not close quite straight. He did not comment on it. That was another mark in his favor.

“My cabin isn’t far,” he told her once the papers were. “The only way to get around our little town is to walk, so I hope you feel like you can still move after that journey.”

Ella looked toward the window. The road was unfamiliar, but so was everything else. Walking would let her learn it. She gave a small nod.

He took her carpetbag without reaching for it too quickly. “I’ll carry this, then.”

David walked beside her rather than ahead, shortening his stride without saying he had done so.

Ella counted turns. Left from the mercantile, past the house with the broken shutter, across a narrow bridge where the boards dipped in the middle, then up a path edged with spruce.

His boots left deep prints in the soft mud, and she placed her feet where his had been because the ground there had already been tested.

His cabin stood beyond the last cluster of buildings, not hidden, but set apart.

Smoke curled from the chimney. A neat stack of firewood leaned beneath the eaves.

There was a barrel near the door, an axe in a chopping block, and a line strung between two posts with no wash hanging from it.

Ella saw all of it before she stepped across the threshold.

She was pleased there was already a clothesline as it would make her job easier.

Everything she owned needed to be washed immediately.

She felt as if she was covered in filth, and she knew the truth of the matter was that she really was covered in dirt.

Inside, the room was warmer than she expected and smaller than she feared.

One bed stood against the far wall, covered with a wool blanket folded square at the foot.

A table with two chairs sat near the window.

Shelves held tins, jars, a sack of flour, coffee, salt, and a small stack of plates.

The stove was to the left, the washstand to the right, and beneath it a bucket had been set exactly in the corner where it would not be kicked.

Knowing where things belonged made the tightness in Ella’s chest loosen a bit.

Disorder was not danger, her mother had once told her, but Ella had never found that to be entirely true.

Disorder meant not knowing what might happen next.

It meant searching when there was no time to search.

It meant being asked for an answer while still trying to understand the question.

David set her carpetbag on the chair nearest the bed. “I cleared that shelf for you,” he said, pointing without crowding her. “There’s water in the bucket, and coffee if you want it. I put beans on earlier, but they may be more stubborn than tender by now.”

It was almost a joke, but he did not press her to laugh.

Ella wanted to thank him. She wanted to explain that she was listening, that she had heard every word, that silence did not mean emptiness. But the words arranged themselves poorly whenever she tried to speak.

David moved to the stove and busied himself with the kettle, giving her the mercy of his turned back.

Ella stood in the center of the room and breathed in woodsmoke, coffee, wool, and cold air slipping under the door.

She was married. She was far from everything she knew.

Yet for the first time since leaving Beckham, she wondered if perhaps she had not come to a place where she would be required to become louder.

Perhaps she had married a man who would let her be quiet without making her feel small.

Once her coat was on the hook beside his, she moved to the stove to take over the cooking.

He didn’t seem to mind doing it, but it was her duty as a wife.

At least, her mother had always said that it was a man’s duty to bring home money, and a woman’s duty to care for the meals, the shopping, and the house. She would do all those things.

She wondered what tomorrow would bring. She was meant to meet up with the others from Beckham to make a plan going forward.

She had no special skills that would help.

She could cook and clean, but they all could.

As far as business ventures went, Ella was afraid she would be useless.

When the other ladies found out, she hoped they would be understanding and not expect her to explain herself. She hated to explain herself.