Historical Cowboy Romance Two Book Box Set - Mail Order Brides (16 page)

“So what
do
you know about him?”
Violet asked. “What do you know, besides that he can work the
ranch?”

Iris blushed. “I’m not going to read our
private letters to you, if that’s what you’re after.”

“What?” Violet exclaimed. “I just read you
one of mine.”

“I don’t care what you did,” Iris snapped. “I
never asked you to read the letter. You did that off your own bat.
My letters with Mick McAllister are my private business. I’m not
sharing them with you or anyone else. So there!”

“Well, at least tell us something about him,”
Violet told her. “We have to know something about who we’re meeting
at the station.”

“He’s a cowboy,” Iris replied. “What more do
you want to know? He’s from Yuma, Arizona. He has a twin brother
somewhere in Georgia, and he’s a bronc buster in the rodeo. He’s
worked on cattle ranches and cattle drives since he was fourteen
years old, and he’s twenty-three years old. What more do you want
to know? No, wait. Don’t ask that, because I don’t know
anymore.”

“Well, there isn’t much there to let us know
how he’ll react to you running the ranch,” Violet observed. “He
could be a real redneck, for all you know.”

“I’ll be married to him, one way or the
other,” Iris shot back. “It’s a little bit late to question him
about his attitude toward women.”

“Didn’t you ask him anything about it in your
letter?” Violet asked.

“Of course not!” Iris exclaimed. “I didn’t
want to frighten him off marrying me. Anyway, if he objects to me
working the ranch, I’ll just have to stop. The only reason I began
punching cattle in the first place is because we had no cowboys to
do the job. Once we marry these men, there will be no reason for me
to do it anymore.”

“But didn’t you tell me before,” Violet
pointed out. “That they’ll need you on the cattle drive at the end
of the season?”

“They’ll need someone,” Iris corrected her.
“If they don’t want to take me, they might decide to hire some
other men instead. By that time, we’ll be able to afford them,
because when the cattle drive ends, we’ll have the money from the
sales to pay them. Once we have a decent cattle drive, the ranch
will be making a profit again, and we won’t have to worry about the
odd expense here and there.”

“I sure hope you’re right about all this,”
Violet exclaimed. “All our futures are riding on your opinion of
what’s best for the ranch.”

“I
am
right about this,” Iris
declared. “I’ll just be glad when these men get here and take over.
Everything will be all right once that happens.”

“What about you, Rose?” Violet asked. “What
do you know about your groom?”

“His name is Jacob Hamilton,” Rose replied.
“I know he’s been working on ranches down in Texas. He traveled up
here from San Antonio. But I don’t know much else about him.”

“Don’t you know how old he is?” Violet
asked.

“No, I don’t,” Rose admitted.

“But he could be old,” Violet pointed out.
“He could be forty or fifty. Didn’t you at least ask him?”

“No, I didn’t,” Rose replied.

Something in Rose’s tone struck Violet as
odd, and she glanced over her shoulder at her youngest sister.
Instead of facing forward, listening to their conversation with
keen attention, Rose stared off at the countryside outside the
buggy. The same dreamy expression haunted her eyes.

Violet shuddered. She expected Rose to
eavesdrop on their conversation and inform Cornell about their
complaints. That would be just like Rose to play both sides of the
fence. Instead, Rose gazed at the scenery with her head in the
clouds, seeing nothing in front of her. Didn’t she care enough to
listen to her sisters’ conversation? Didn’t she care enough about
the future of the ranch to form an opinion about its
management?

Violet barely discussed the merits of
mail-order husbands with Rose to win her consent to the plan. Rose
barely listened to her arguments at all. She flatly agreed to
everything Violet suggested, right down to the methods they should
employ to deal with Cornell. Her compliance irked Violet more than
anything. She preferred Iris’s rebelliousness to Rose’s bland,
empty submission.

Except it wasn’t submission, was it? Rose
might say ‘yes’ to everything, but she kept her true feelings and
opinions secret. The comforting thing about Iris was, no matter how
forcefully she disagreed with you, you always knew exactly where
she stood and what she thought. She never minced her words keeping
anything to herself. When you dealt with Iris, you got one hundred
percent Iris or nothing at all. Violet never doubted Iris for a
minute.

No matter what Rose said, even when she
agreed with you, you always doubted her. You never knew what she
thought or felt or heard or believed because regardless of what she
said, she always kept something back. She smiled sweetly, and
agreed to everything anyone asked of her gently and easily, so you
hated yourself for doubting her. You couldn’t question her. She
only smiled more sweetly than ever and filled your head full of
butterflies and bunny rabbits.

Like now, for instance. Rose said she didn’t
ask Jacob Hamilton his age, but Violet couldn’t question her about
anything else she knew about her prospective groom. Rose would only
find a polite way of making Violet feel guilty for prying into her
personal business.

Violet went back to her solid, reassuring
conversation with Iris. “Anyway, we’ll put all three of them in the
Fort House. That will keep them out of Cornell’s hair until Friday.
The less the three of them have to do with him, the better.”

“And what comes after Friday?” Iris
asked.

Violet started. “What do you mean?”

“Where will all of us live after the wedding
on Friday?” Iris asked. “Don’t tell me all three of our couples
will live in the main house. I, for one, won’t think of it. Once
I’m married, I’m going to live somewhere else.”

“Where will you go?” Violet asked.

“I don’t know,” Iris replied. “But I won’t
live with the rest of you in the main house, that’s for certain.
I’ve lived with you and Rose all my life, and once I get married,
I’m living somewhere else.”

“But where?” Violet asked.

“I don’t know,” Iris repeated. “Maybe Mick
and I can go live in the Fort House. If you and Chuck and Rose and
Jacob stay in the main house together, the Fort House will be
free.”

Violet nearly jumped out of her skin when
Rose chimed in from the back seat. “I don’t want to live with
anyone else in the main house, either.” So she
was
listening. A chill raced down Violet’s back. What else had Rose
heard that she never let on about?

“Well, that isn’t going to work, is it?”
Violet complained. “There aren’t three separate houses. We can’t
all just go off and live alone with our new husbands.”

“I am,” Iris declared. “I don’t care what
anyone says. We’re living alone. Cornell is around the main house
all day, every day. And whichever of you stays there will be there,
too. I need somewhere I can go to get away from the main house, and
once we’re married, Mick and I will want privacy. We’ll take the
Fort House. You and Rose can fight over the main house.”

“There’s the Bird House,” Rose put in. “But
Cornell lives there.”

“But once we get married,” Iris pointed out,
“Cornell won’t be our guardian and our executor anymore. Our
fortunes will pass to our husbands. Maybe Cornell won’t live at the
Bird House anymore.”

“I can’t believe this!” Violet gasped. “You
can’t be thinking of turning Cornell out, not after he’s lived at
the Bird House and shared our lives all these years.”

“Everything has to come to an end,” Rose
pointed out. “If he isn’t our guardian and our executor anymore, he
has no business at the ranch or in the Bird House. His duty is
discharged.”

“Discharged!” Violet repeated. “You can’t be
serious! He’s like a parent to us.”

“He might be like a parent to you,” Iris shot
back. “But to me, he’s an obstacle. We’re getting rid of that
obstacle by getting married. Once all three of us are married and
our husbands are running the ranch, Cornell is better off somewhere
else. He can only cause trouble around the ranch.”

“I can’t believe you would be so heartless,
Iris,” Violet exclaimed.

“And I can’t believe,” Iris replied. “That
Cornell would let the ranch—which, by the way, is our inheritance,
and not his property at all, although he certainly acts like it is
his—that he would let it fall into ruin through his own stubborn
idiocy. If we have to get mail-order husbands to save the ranch
from his mismanagement, then he should be sent packing with extreme
prejudice.”

Violet was just about to protest again when
Rose piped up. “And then Jacob and I could live at the Bird House.
Violet, you and Chuck can live in the main house.”

******

Violet couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
Iris and Rose weren’t conspiring to get rid of Cornell, were they?
They couldn’t! They wouldn’t! They daren’t! Or was it only Violet
who daren’t make a move against Cornell?

And what would their new husbands say about
Cornell? They certainly wouldn’t want Cornell around, not after
they got their hands on the fabulous Kilburn family fortune. How
much did the three men know about their future wives’ wealth?
Violet dared not ask her sisters how much they revealed to their
fiancés in their letters. Nor did she tell them what she wrote to
Chuck Ahern about their family fortunes.

One thing was sure, once the three men
married the sisters, they couldn’t control the estate as completely
as Cornell did. A single man could do as he pleased with the funds
and property at his disposal, and his wards could do nothing to
stop him. Three men, joined for life to the three heiresses, would
at least have to work together to make the ranch into a thriving,
profitable enterprise again. None of them would possess a
controlling share over any of the others.

Violet put the idea of Cornell’s future as
far out of her mind as she could. Was that the reason Cornell
protested so loudly against these mail-order marriages? Then again,
he suggested other potential grooms for the sisters all the time.
He wanted them to get married—only to men of his own choosing.
Their fortunes would pass out of his hands, regardless of who they
married.

Maybe Cornell just tried to hide his
uncertainty under a bluster of wounded propriety. Maybe he used his
position as their guardian to protest their marriages to hide the
fact that he didn’t want to be turned out of house and home. No one
would want that.

Violet rode the rest of the journey to Butte
in silence, and her sisters obliged her. The last thing in the
world she wanted to hear was her sisters plotting to dump Cornell.
Anyway, she had other things to think about to take her mind off
it.

The wedding celebration on Friday, for
instance. Violet told Rita, the ranch cook, what foods to prepare
and what cake to bake for the luncheon to follow the wedding
service. She went to great pains to match her sisters’ wedding
dresses with the decorations she planned for the house. She would
talk to Iris about giving Pete and Wade the day off work.

Before she knew it, Violet saw the town of
Butte in the distance. It wasn’t much to look at. Most Montana
towns barely distinguished themselves from the scrubby rangeland
from whence they sprang. You could barely see them until you
practically ran into the wall of the first building. The weathered
boards took on the same desolate grayish-tan color as everything
else in this territory.

Only the mountains struck a breath-taking
contrast. You couldn’t turn around without catching your breath at
their imposing grandeur. They thrust their magnetic presence into
your awareness at every hour of the day. You couldn’t get away from
them. You kept seeing them even when you closed your eyes.

If Butte wasn’t much to look at, it was even
less to experience. As much as Violet looked forward to getting off
the ranch and into town, Butte disappointed. The haberdashers’ shop
carried barely enough thread and other sewing notions to make a
complete dress, and the dry goods store often ran out of essential
staples like flour and salt.

No amount of complaints to any shopkeeper in
town improved the service. They just didn’t care. They knew very
well they provided the only service of their kind anywhere in the
territory. You could shop with them or go without, and they knew
it.

The only businesses in town with enough
competition to provide decent variety were the saloons. Butte had
four—one in the hotel, one in the whorehouse, one at the billiard
hall, and one at the distillery on the road out of town. All four
stayed busy day and night, what with cowboys and railroad men and
drifters and rich cattlemen coming into town for a bit of
diversion. The saloons did a roaring trade in mayhem, gun fights,
broken glass, and replacement tables and chairs from the local
carpenters.

Violet knew all about the saloons from
driving past them on trips to town. You couldn’t set foot in Butte
without seeing or hearing some brawl or drunken sing-a-long coming
from one of them. The Kilburn sisters drove past them without
looking right or left.

This time, Iris had a different idea. Because
they were going to the train station and not into the town itself,
Iris turned off around the barn and stables behind the hotel. She
circumvented the town completely and drove right up to the station
without passing a single saloon. Iris reined the horses in front of
the station, but the train wasn’t there anymore.

Violet patted Iris on the arm. “Well done.
We’ll have to remember that when we come into town next time.” She
glanced at the station. “It looks like we missed the train.”