Pioneer Love: Damaged Hearts Head West: Mail Order Bride 5 Bundle (20 page)

“But why won’t you at least give it a try?” Mercy asked. “This could be your only chance at happiness.”

“I’m not going to be anybody’s mail order bride,” Grace snapped, “not now, not ever. I don’t want to hear another word about it. I would rather take a beating from your mother every day for the rest of my life than to marry a man I don’t even know.”

She turned on her heel and walked away, back to the house.

CHAPTER TWO

Grace's Decision

G
RACE
AND
M
ERCY
sat on their stools by the kitchen fire. Their father, George Oakes, and his wife Cynthia sat in their rocking chairs nearby. Cynthia worked at her embroidery, and Mercy darned a sock. As her father smoked his pipe and stared into the fire, Grace began to read one of her poems from a slip of paper.

And downward from Heaven touched His rare hand

And painted a streak of gold through the hearts of Man.

She put the paper aside and took up her sewing. George sighed. “You look just like your mother when you read your poetry. You don’t know what it does to me to see her in you, and you’re just as beautiful as she ever was.”

Cynthia dropped her embroidery into her lap with a gasp. “You shouldn’t encourage her, George. You know how idle and pointless all this poetry is. Grace should concentrate on the practical aspects of life instead of wasting her time with romantic notions.”

“Grace has enough grasp of the practical aspects of life,” her father returned. “She can cook and clean and mend and sew as well as you and Mercy, if not better. She’s earned the right to a romantic notion now and then.”

“You know as well as I do she’ll never have any use for romantic notions,” Cynthia snapped. “She’ll never be anything but a drudge.”

“Hogwash,” George growled. “She’s the most beautiful woman in the world to me.”

“She can’t hold a candle to Mercy,” Cynthia shot back. “Just look at her, with her flowing dark hair. She looks like an angel.”

“Grace will always be my angel,” George returned. “No one can convince me otherwise.”

Grace gave her father a grateful smile, but Cynthia shook her head over her embroidery. “We have to find a husband for her before it’s too late.”

“Leave her alone,” George told her. “The only men you can find are interested in the dowry my Mary left her. She’s not marrying one of them as long as I can prevent it.”

“Your stubborn ways will cost her the only chance she has to make a good match,” Cynthia told him. “You’ll cost Mercy her chance, too, if we don’t act fast. I’ll have Grace married off by the end of the year if it’s the last thing I do.”

“All you care about is climbing the social ladder,” George argued. “My income is never enough for you. And as for Mercy, you just want her to marry a rich husband who will keep you and buy you fancy dresses and send you to fancy parties. It isn’t going to happen. She’s just as practical and good-hearted as Grace. Neither of them will marry any man for any reason other than love. You wait and see.”

A knock sounded on the door. Cynthia jumped up from her seat. “Just in time!”

George turned around in his chair. “Not another one.”

Cynthia was already opening the door. “Do come in, Jeremiah Peters. You know my husband George and my daughter Mercy. And this is Grace, the one I told you about.”

The man teetered on his feet, and his weather worn hand shook when he extended it to George. He barely opened his eyes to look at the girls. Grace sat bolt upright on her stool.

“Come on, Grace,” Cynthia urged. “Jeremiah says he would love to marry you, and he has enough money to make you very happy.”

Grace rose from her seat and surveyed the room. She met her father’s eyes with cold determination. “I’m not going to marry Jeremiah. I’m going out to Cheyenne, Wyoming, to be a mail order bride.”

Mercy’s eyes flew open, and she cried out in surprise.

George and Cynthia stared at Grace. “When did you decide that?”

Grace squared her shoulders. The more she talked, the more determined she became to carry the plan to its conclusion. “I’ve been corresponding with a man there. You know those advertisements we saw in the paper? I wrote to several men, and I sent them one of Mercy’s pictures of me. One of them wrote back and wants to marry me. He sent me one hundred dollars toward the train fare.”

Cynthia glanced at George, but George could only stare at his daughter. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

Grace nodded toward Jeremiah Peters. “With respect, sir, I think my Mother has made a mistake. I am spoken for already. Jackson Pikes is a young man with his own ranch. We will have children together, and I’ll have a bright future I can look forward to. I don’t want to stay here a moment longer.”

George tapped out his pipe. “My dear, this is quite a surprise. Are you certain that this is the path you want to take?” His eyes flashed with concern for his daughter’s safety.

Grace fell on her knees at her father’s feet and clasped his hands. “Oh, Papa! You know I would never leave you if I had a choice. I only stayed on here for your sake—and Mercy’s. Please forgive me and give me your blessing before I go.”

Tears sprang into George’s old eyes. “I know you haven’t been happy here, and I only ever wanted you to be happy. But what if it doesn’t work out? What if he changes his mind when he sees you?”

“If it doesn’t work out, I can always get a job as a schoolteacher.” Grace stole a glance at her stepmother. “Even if I have to live the rest of my life as a spinster on the Frontier, it will be better than staying here.”

“I don’t like the idea,” George told her. “What ever happened to asking the father of the bride for his daughter’s hand in marriage? What kind of a man skips that?”

Cynthia crossed her arms and glared down at Grace. “This is the best thing that could happen to any of us. All our lives will be better when you go.”

Grace rallied all her courage and faced her father. “I’ve given this a lot of thought, Papa, and this is what I really want to do. It’s not only the mail order marriage I want. I want to see the Frontier. I want to push myself to build something I can call my own. I want to stand under the clear blue sky and know I built my life with my own two hands. Won’t you give me your blessing to do that?”

“If you can be happy with this Pikes fellow,” George replied, “then you have my heartfelt blessing. I only hate to lose you.”

Grace pressed his hand to her cheek. “I don’t want to leave you, either, but I can’t be happy here. This could be my only chance.”

George nodded and sniffed back his tears. “Well, then, you better go pack your things if you’re going. I’ll take you to the train station in the morning.”

A sudden cry brought all their attention to Mercy. She buried her face in her hands and wept. Cynthia rounded on her. “What’s the matter now?”

“I can’t stand losing Grace,” Mercy sobbed. “I don’t know if I can stand it.”

Cynthia turned away. “I just don’t know what this world is coming to. Just when we get everything arranged, you have to fall apart. This is the happiest day of our lives, and you sit there crying.”

“I don’t know if I can live here without Grace,” Mercy moaned.

Grace stared at her sister, but she didn’t dare argue. Whatever was she doing? How could she tell her father and stepmother the mail order bride idea was Mercy’s idea all along? What would they say if they knew Grace never corresponded with Jackson Pikes at all, that it was Mercy who corresponded with him and arranged the marriage?

Mercy ran out of the room, and her sobs echoed through her open bedroom door. Grace looked around at her father. “I better go pack.”

CHAPTER THREE

Westward Bound

T
HE
NEXT
DAY
, the family stood on the railway platform. The whistle screeched through the station, and people rushed from one corner to the other. Grace struggled to keep her excitement under control. “This is my train. I better get going.”

She hugged her father one last time, but she didn’t dare look him in the eye. “Write to me. Maybe you could come and visit me over the summer.”

He nodded and swallowed the lump in his throat, but he didn’t answer. He only pressed her to his heart and let her go. Cynthia shook Grace’s hand with stiff formality. No one could mistake the triumph in her eyes. “Good luck out there, Grace. I hope you have a good life.”

“Thank you.” Grace turned away.

Mercy sobbed into her handkerchief, but when Grace put out her arms to embrace her, Mercy held back and gave Grace a wink. Grace’s heart skipped a beat. What did that mean? Then Mercy enclosed Grace in her arms with another loud sob. The two young women held each other for a long moment until the train whistle startled them apart.

“I better go.” Grace picked up her carpet bag and strode to the passenger car.

George waved to her, but Cynthia didn’t bother, she was already turning on her heel, impatient to get home. Mercy pressed her handkerchief against her face, and her shoulders shook with sobs. Grace waved back. Then she settled herself in her seat. She clenched her hands together in her lap to stop them from shaking, and she kept her eyes fixed directly in front of her. If she looked right or left, if she looked down at her family disappearing from her life, she would lose her nerve.

She sat stiff and still all the way to Chicago, where she had to change trains. It was a very roundabout journey to get to Chicago. Grace was sure that there must be more direct trains, but Mercy had insisted that this one was the best choice. Eventually she arrived. Her hand ached from clutching her carpet bag, but she hurried out of the car and found the notice board with the connections posted on the station wall. She found her platform and moved toward the passenger car door.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of two young women waiting to board the train. She turned to smile at them and stopped dead in her tracks. She could barely believe her eyes. “Mercy! Emma! What are you doing here?”

Emma laughed, and Mercy laid her hand on Grace’s arm.

“I am sorry to have deceived you. I was never more happy for you than when you decided to become a mail order bride. I only wish I could have said a proper good-bye at the station, but Mother and Papa wouldn’t have understood, and would never have allowed me to accompany you even if I had pleaded with them.”

“Accompany me?” Grace responded, shocked at this new revelation.

Mercy and Emma exchanged glances and smiled. “We convinced our parents that we were so devastated over you leaving that we had to go on vacation for a while. We’re supposed to be visiting Emma’s aunt.”

“What do you mean, you’re supposed to be visiting Emma’s aunt?” Grace protested.

Mercy stood up straight. “We’re going with you, Grace. We’re going to Cheyenne.”

“But....” Grace stammered.

Emma interrupted. “You don’t think we would let you travel across the whole country by yourself to marry a stranger, do you? What if this Jackson Pikes is not being entirely honest in his letters? What if he is like one of the elderly suitors your stepmother picked out? We can’t let that happen. You need a chaperone, and we’re it.”

“I don’t need a chaperone,” Grace shot back. “I’m twenty-four years old, and you two are only nineteen. If anyone needs a chaperone, it’s you.”

“We couldn’t leave on the same train as you,” Mercy went on. “Our parents would never have let us go if they knew the truth.”

“Neither would I,” Grace told them. “I never would have let you leave without your parents’ permission.”

“Grace, Do you honestly think Mother would have allowed us to accompany you to your destination? As much as it pained me to lie, all I could think was to tell them we were going to console ourselves with a short stay with Emma’s aunt Mary,” Mercy told her. “They think we’ll be back home in no more than two weeks. If everything works out between you and Mr. Pikes, we will be. Please, Grace, this is so important to us. We love you, and simply cannot allow you to travel to an unknown future alone. We need to know you are safe, and well taken care of. Mother and Papa will understand once they know how happy you are with your new husband. Besides, the tickets are purchased, and our train will be leaving directly.”

Grace frowned. “This was foolish even for you, Mercy. I ought to send you back to Boston on the next train.”

“You couldn’t send me back,” Mercy replied. “You only have enough money for the fare out to Cheyenne.”

“That’s what you think,” Grace returned. “Papa gave me some extra money when no one was around.”

Mercy and Emma looked at each other again. Then Mercy pressed Grace’s hand. “Don’t send us back, Grace. We went to a lot of trouble to find a good man for you. Let us come with you and see you happily married. Then we’ll go home with no fuss. I promise.”

Grace wagged her finger at her sister. “You better. I’m responsible for both of you now, and I won’t stand any nonsense. Do you hear me?”

Mercy grinned and held Emma’s hand. “I promise we’ll be extra good.”

Mercy had always been impetuous. Such a passionate heart was hard to reign in, and every so often it would burst the seams and run off and do something wild. Grace was used to her sister, and felt like scolding her for her irresponsible ways. Deep down though, she felt relieved that she was not heading West all by herself. With her disfigurement, facing the world was a challenge for her even in familiar surroundings. She had no idea what to expect on arrival in her new home, and doing so with the support of her two best friends would make the fear she was now facing a little more bearable.

The conductor leaned over the rail and yelled, “All aboard!” The three women climbed into the passenger car and rolled away toward Cheyenne.