His Substitute Mail-Order Bride. Sherri Shackelford

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СКАЧАТЬ But something don’t feel right today.”

      “How can you tell?” Anna Linford anchored her bonnet with one gloved hand and squinted against the sun. A narrow creek snaked beside the road with scrub brush lining the steep banks. “We haven’t seen another soul for miles.”

      Everything in Kansas was exaggerated and larger than life. The sky was painfully blue, the clouds a preposterous shade of white and the horizon seemingly endless. Even the fluttering prairie grasses were an overblown hue of emerald.

      “That’s why I’m worried,” said the driver, Mr. Ward. “There should be more folks traveling this time of day.”

      Mr. Ward’s skeletal hands trembled on the reins. Anna’s reluctant companion was somewhere past seventy and as gnarled and bent as the old oak tree outside the window of her childhood home. Layers of wrinkles corrugated his face, rendering his expressions indecipherable. Though he’d politely refrained from smoking in her presence, the sooty odor lingered on his coat, and her stomach churned.

      As they rounded the corner, the railroad tracks and what looked to be the site of a previous accident came into view. Anna sucked in a breath. Two railcars lay overturned in the ditch, their metal axels twisted. Fresh weeds growing through the blackened prairie grasses and long, muddy gashes in the hillside indicated the accident had occurred sometime in the past month. The loamy scent of freshly turned earth competed with the stench of machine oil and scorched wood.

      A sudden breeze whipped her bonnet ribbons over her shoulder. “What happened here?”

      “Some fool engineer took the curve too fast a month or so past.” The driver grunted. “Those last two cars have to be separated afore they can drag ’em out of the ditch. Good thing you didn’t arrive with the last bride train, or you’d have been in the ditch too. Timing is everything in life. Take this morning. Bad timing.” He chuckled at his joke. “Too bad the train left without you.”

      After founding Cowboy Creek, the council realized the area needed families to flourish and grow. Since women were scarce, they sent back east for brides. Some of the women corresponded with local men before traveling west on a bride train. Others accepted a ticket paid for by the town, rather than a prospective groom, and hoped for the best. Anna’s unique circumstances had left her somewhere in the middle—there’d been a correspondence, and she was hoping for the best.

      Missing the train in Morgan’s Creek had been another stumbling block in a long list of disasters for Anna. Thankfully the distance between towns wasn’t far, and the driver from the poultry farm had taken pity on her. She’d learned through the older man’s reluctant conversation that Cowboy Creek had grown too quickly for the local suppliers to keep up with demand, encouraging cottage industries in the neighboring communities.

      A crack of gunfire sounded, and a bullet struck the ground before the wagon. A plume of dust and a spray of dirt pellets exploded into the air. Anna’s heart jerked in her chest. The mule brayed and reared. The cart lurched, and she clutched the seat.

      His gun drawn, a man in a long, shapeless duster coat with a hat set back on his head appeared from behind one of the overturned railcars. A second man wearing a similar coat followed close behind. One wore a blue bandanna tied over the lower half of his face, the other wore red.

      A chill shivered down Anna’s spine.

      Beside her, the driver guffawed. “Get along, you two. I’m hauling eggs. We got nothing of value.”

      “We’ll just see about that,” the man in the red bandanna said gruffly.

      He gestured with his tarnished pistol and approached the wagon. Judging by the way he spoke, Anna marked him as the leader of the pair. He braced his scuffed boot on the wagon wheel, and the bench seat dipped. With careless brutality, he tossed the elderly driver from his seat. The older man yelped.

      “Don’t hurt him!” Anna gasped. “He’s no threat to you.”

      “You ought to worry about yourself,” the outlaw declared ominously. “Tie him up!”

      Anna fumed as Mr. Ward was dragged into the ditch and quickly bound and gagged. To her immense relief, the elderly driver put up little fight and appeared no worse for wear considering his rough treatment.

      The lead outlaw leaned closer. He flipped back her bonnet with the barrel of his gun, and her pulse jerked.

      “You’re one of them brides traveling to Cowboy Creek, ain’t ya?” he asked. “I heard all about you women at the last train depot.” He gestured toward his companion. “The men of Cowboy Creek are hauling in brides by the trainload. It’s no wonder the town is growing like stinkweed in a wet spring.”

      Anna swallowed. “I’m traveling to Cowboy Creek, yes.”

      She didn’t bother correcting the outlaw about being a prospective bride. No man wanted a woman who couldn’t bear children. Her late husband had made that fact abundantly clear.

      “Must be really desperate to send for a skinny gal like you,” the outlaw said, his mocking laughter muffled through his bandanna.

      The insult barely registered. The past two years had rendered her immune to even the most vicious slurs. “I suppose.”

      “How come you ain’t on the train with the rest of ’em?”

      Her cheeks burned. “I was indisposed when the train departed.”

      Exhaustion and stress had exacerbated a recent bout of influenza, and she’d been forced to depart the train at the last minute to visit the washroom. The two brides she’d been traveling with had remained on board since the stop was only long enough to load a freight car with supplies. Though Anna had made the trip as quickly as possible, when she’d rushed outside once more, the caboose was receding into the distance.

      “Indisposed, eh? Listen to her talk.” The outlaw glanced at his companion. “We got ourselves a real fancy piece.”

      Not hardly. She couldn’t even afford a hotel room for the night. Her late husband’s mountain of debts had exhausted every penny of their meager savings and devoured the profits she’d made from selling the house and furnishings. She’d only managed to set aside a few dollars, which had to last indefinitely. Aside from that, she had nothing. No money. No close family. Even her train ticket was a gift from an acquaintance who’d planned on becoming a mail-order bride before falling in love back in Philadelphia.

      The bride’s change of mind had been Anna’s unexpected salvation.

      The sound of hoofbeats and a flash of movement in the distance drew her attention.

      “Don’t move.” The outlaw pressed his gun barrel hard against her temple. “We got some unexpected company.”

      Shimmering through the heat, a rider appeared. The air grew still, and an unnatural silence descended over the outlaws. The rider gradually came into focus, a lone man on a jet-black horse.

      As he ambled toward them, a bead of sweat trickled down Anna’s spine.

      The rider was lean and fit, wearing a dark suit and boots that gleamed in the sun. His hat brim cast a harsh shadow across his features. He held the reins clasped in one hand, the other loosely fisted on his thigh. The unrelenting black of the sleek horse and the man’s crisp suit was broken only by a glimpse of the stark СКАЧАТЬ