Historical Cowboy Romance Two Book Box Set - Mail Order Brides (19 page)

“Well, someone has to take charge of the
place,” Iris exclaimed. “If I didn’t go out and tell them what to
do, Pete and Wade would have left us long since. You order Rita
around in the house, Violet. This is no different.”

“Except you’re a woman telling two men what
to do,” Violet shot back. “And both of those men are old enough to
be your father. And it’s cattle ranching, too! That’s men’s
business.”

“Anything having to do with my inheritance is
my business,” Iris declared. “And when there are no men around to
run the ranch the way it should be run, I have no choice but to
step in and run it.” She glanced sidelong at Mick. “Once you men
take over and we’re married, if you don’t want me getting mixed up
in ranch business anymore, I won’t.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Mick replied. “As
long as there’s work to do, I’m sure we’ll be happy for another
pair of willing hands to do it. But just wait a little while. Once
we’re married, you might decide you don’t want to run the ranch
anymore. You might decide you like it better in the house doing
women’s things.”

“Not likely!” Violet scoffed.

But when she saw Iris’s embarrassment, Violet
regretted joking at her expense. Iris bore the sole credit for
keeping the ranch alive this long. She should apologize for her
tactless remarks, especially in front of Iris’s future husband, but
she never got the chance. The buggy rolled under the sign at the
front gate and purred up the road toward the house.

“There’s the house.” Iris pointed out the
main house. “We’ll drive you over to the Fort House and drop you
off. What time is it, Violet?”

Violet fished around in her hand bag for a
watch, but before she found it, Jake Hamilton’s smooth voice
answered from the back seat. “It’s quarter to five.”

Violet jumped in her seat and looked over her
shoulder just in time to see Jake tucking a gold pocket watch into
the breast pocket of his waist coat. He didn’t acknowledge her, but
went back to looking at Rose.

“Then we have a little time left,” Iris
replied. “Once you get settled in, why don’t the three of you come
on down to the main house for a little supper. We can have a meal
together and get a little bit better acquainted.”

“Sounds like a great idea,” Chuck answered.
“I’m starving.”

“Me, too,” Mick agreed. “And will Cornell be
joining us?”

“I doubt it,” Iris replied. “He usually has
supper with us, but I think he’ll make himself scarce tonight.”

“Good for him,” Mick muttered.

Iris drove the buggy past the main house,
around the barn, and up a small hill on the other side. She pulled
to a halt in front of a log cabin perched on top of the hill. “This
is the Fort House,” she told them.

Mick surveyed the house. “Why do you call it
that?”

“I really don’t know, to tell you the truth.”
She studied the plain little house. “My uncle named it that when he
built it, and we’ve called it that ever since. I like to think he
named it that because it looks like the old log stockades the Army
built for their forts when the first settlers moved into the
country. But that’s just a guess. I really don’t know.”

Mick and Chuck dismounted in front of the
high porch that ran along the front of the house. Mick grabbed the
three trunks from the rack on the back of the buggy and threw them,
one after the other, onto the porch with no more difficulty than if
he were tossing feather pillows. He also unloaded several longer
cases. Violet assumed they contained long guns—rifles and shotguns.
Pete and Wade kept their guns in cases like that.

Mick tied the two saddle horses to the back
of the buggy.

“Would you like us to show you around
inside?” Violet asked.

Chuck leaned against the porch. “You don’t
have to do that. I’m sure you have better things to do. We can sort
ourselves out. I’m just glad to find a place to stop and take a
breath for a while. I’m in no hurry to get indoors just now.”

Jake made no move to get out of the buggy. He
and Rose continued their silent communion in the back seat,
oblivious to everything around them. But as if by some silent cue,
he shifted his weight and stepped down from the seat. “I guess I’ll
have a look around inside.”

Rose jumped down after him. She didn’t say
anything, but Jake took her by the hand and the two mounted the
steps to the porch. The next minute, they disappeared through the
door into the cabin.

“I’ll take the buggy and the horses down to
the barn,” Iris announced. “There’s not much daylight left.”

“I’ll come with you,” Mick swung himself up
into the front seat next to her, and the buggy trundled away, down
the hill to the barn.

Violet watched the buggy roll to a stop in
front of the barn, where Mick hopped back down and slid back the
barn door. He stood aside as Iris drove the buggy inside with the
three horses trotting after it on their lead ropes.

Violet sighed and glanced at Chuck, who still
leaned against the porch. He smiled and lowered his eyes when he
saw her looking at him. Violet couldn’t wipe the smile off her
face. She turned her shoulder to him and followed his gaze down the
hill. “You can see the whole ranch from up here. You can see right
through the back door of the main house, and you can see everything
going on in front of the yard.”

“Where’s your guardian’s house?” he
asked.

“Over there.” Violet pointed out an even
smaller cottage on a distant hill to the north. Only the glint of
the sun on its windows showed it was there. “It’s very private, the
Bird House. You can’t hardly see anything of the ranch from there,
and no one can see you. And you definitely can’t hear
anything.”

“It sounds ideal,” Chuck remarked.

“Rose mentioned on the way to town this
morning that she would like to live there with Jake,” Violet told
him. “That is, if Cornell wasn’t there.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Chuck replied.

“I still don’t like the idea of sending him
away,” Violet remarked. “It just doesn’t seem right.”

“I understand, “Chuck replied. “He’s family,
and family means a lot. But you never know. We’re all going to be
married—when did you say it was? Friday? Something could happen
between now and then that will clear the way for all of us to get
what we want, even Cornell. It often works out that way.”

“Do you think so?” Violet asked.

Chuck nodded. “Don’t worry about Cornell.
Everything will work out in the end. You’ll see.”

Violet surveyed the ranch below her. Then she
peeked sideways at Chuck again and caught him looking at her and
grinning from ear to ear. Violet laughed in spite of herself.

“What’s so funny?” Chuck asked, but before
the words got completely out of his mouth, he burst out laughing
himself. “Aren’t we a pair, giggling like schoolgirls.”

Violet wiped the corner of her eye. “We’re
going to be married. Can you believe that?”

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Chuck dabbed his
own eyes with the cuff of his sleeve.

Violet composed herself enough to look him in
the face without laughing out loud. “I’m….I’m glad you’re
here.”

Chuck went serious. “Me, too. I’m….Oh, heck.
I sound like an idiot for saying it, but I think you’re awful nice.
I’m glad of that.”

“I know just what you mean,” Violet
exclaimed. “I’ve wondered so many times what you would be like, and
now that you’re here and I’m seeing you in the flesh—well, I’m just
so relieved and happy! I can’t put it into words.”

Chuck reached out toward her, and the next
thing she knew, she found his hand holding hers. “You don’t have to
put it into words. Just so you know I feel the same way. I just
can’t wait ‘til Friday.”

Violet tried to answer, but she laughed for
joy at the same time her eyes smarted with tears. This moment
fulfilled all her deepest hopes for her mail-order marriage. She
came up with the idea of getting mail-order husbands as a way to
save the ranch. She never considered until this moment that she
might marry a man she actually cared for.

Yet here he was, standing in front of her.
She could care for him—she could do so much more than care for him!
She could dedicate her life to him, she could join forces with him
and become so much stronger than they ever were alone. So this was
what marriage was all about! And she never realized it before.

The daylight lengthened into twilight, a
pleasant breeze washed over the range, and the last birds twittered
from somewhere out of sight. Chuck’s fingers slipped over Violet’s,
and a surge of goose bumps shot up her spine and up the back of her
neck. Would Rose and Jake come out of the house right now and find
them holding hands? Wasn’t she supposed to be the proper older
sister and set an example for her younger sisters? Somehow it never
worked out that way.

Violet tore her eyes away from Chuck’s face
and took refuge in the view of the ranch. “Somehow, they’ve all
managed to run off and leave us alone.”

Chuck pretended to look around for the
others. “I don’t think they’re thinking about us at all. I think
they all wanted to get off alone, and I don’t blame them. Is there
anywhere we can go to spend some time, just you and me?”

Violet started back in surprise. “I hadn’t
thought about that.”

“I’ll be stuck up here with Mick and Jake,”
Chuck went on. “And you’ll be stuck down there with Iris and Rose.
When will we ever spend any time together?”

“I’m sure we’ll all go off alone together
after the service on Friday,” she replied.

“I mean before Friday,” Chuck corrected her.
“I don’t want to come to the altar on Friday without spending some
time with you first. I’d die of loneliness.”

“We aren’t going to the altar,” Violet told
him. “Don’t you remember? The minister is coming out here Friday
morning to marry us at the main house. I told you that in my
letter.”

“I remember,” Chuck replied. “But that
doesn’t change the fact that we have three more days to wait before
that happens. What are you trying to do—torture me?”

“Of course not,” Violet replied. “If you want
to spend time alone, we’ll find a way to do it.”

“Of course I want to spend time alone with
you,” Chuck told her. “Don’t you want to spend time alone with me,
too?”

“Sure, I do,” Violet replied. “I just need to
think of a way to do it. Hey, listen. You’re coming down to the
house for supper in a little while. Maybe afterward we can take a
walk together. And look up there. There’ll be a nice bright moon.
It’ll be a beautiful night for a walk. How does that sound?”

“All right. You win.” His finger slid back
and forth in her hand again. The skin slipped silky and smooth
under his touch. The goosebumps prickled over her body again. If
only she could find a way to be alone with him! So what if they
weren’t married yet? They would be soon enough.

But they weren’t alone now. Here came Iris
and Mick out of the barn together, and the tread of footsteps on
the stairs inside the house jerked Violet out of her reverie. She
pulled her hand away from Chuck and stepped back. “Good, then.
Until tonight.”

The smile fell away from his face. Oh, what
was she doing? He was right. Why couldn’t they just stay like this
forever? Why did they have to put up a façade of propriety between
now and Friday?

Maybe Iris and Rose were right about getting
rid of Cornell. She didn’t really want to share a house with
anyone, not even her own sister, after she married Chuck. How
sensible Iris was! She knew perfectly well that, after the wedding
service, she would want to take Mick back to the Fort
House—alone—and stay there and live there with him—alone. She
didn’t want any interference from any of her sisters or their
husbands, and she definitely didn’t want any interference from
Cornell.

Even though she knew in her heart Iris was
right, Violet still couldn’t resign herself to support their plan
to serve Cornell with his marching orders. She just couldn’t bring
herself to remove the last remaining obstacle to all three of their
couples living alone together in their own houses.

To Violet’s eternal gratitude, the cabin door
swung open and Rose and Jake came out onto the porch. At the same
time, Mick and Iris strode up the hill and stopped right in front
of Chuck and Violet. Thank goodness she’d let go of his hand before
they came!

One passing glance at her sisters showed
Violet they’d each shared a moment of connection with their future
husbands the same way Violet had with Chuck. All six of them wore
the same bewildered smile on their faces and the same smitten blush
on their cheeks. Did she look that way, too? Violet felt the
burning heat in her face and knew she did.

Mick climbed up onto the porch. He selected
one of the long cases from the pile of luggage and laid it out on
the floor. He unclipped the latches and threw back the lid. He took
a polished shotgun out of the case and inspected it. He raised the
butt to his shoulder, pointed the muzzle down toward the ground,
and sighted down the barrel.

Then he set the shot gun aside and took out
first one and then another lever-action rifle. He gave these the
same inspection. When he finished, he stood all three guns against
the wall in the corner of the porch.

The three sisters watched him, Iris in
admiration, Rose detached, and Violet frozen in astonishment. So
this was the man her sister planned to marry? A man who unpacked
his guns before everything else? Jake and Chuck watched him, too,
and his actions gave Jake an idea. He dug out a small square case
from the stack of trunks and bags and opened it on the bent-wood
chair at the back of the porch.

Violet gasped in surprise when he lifted out
a gun belt bristling with bullets and buckled it around his waist.
The hand grips of the two pistols hanging on either hip gleamed
with inlaid ivory and silver enamel. Jake adjusted their position
on his hips and drew them one after the other. He hefted them in
his hands, flexed the hammers of both guns under his thumb, and
then slid them back into their holsters.