The Mistaken Mail Order Bride (22 page)

“Very well,” Eric said. “I’ll tell you. He
has scars on his face.” Before they could take that as proof he was
a monster, he quickly continued, “I don’t know how the scars got to
be there. He didn’t tell me, and it’s not my place to ask. But he
hides his face so no one will see them. As for parents, why would
you see them? He came here when he was seventeen. He was old enough
to be on his own by then.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Did
any of you even think to ask him about his parents?”

The group murmured to themselves before old
lady Wilma said, “Why would we talk to him? He’s frightening.”

“That’s right,” Hank agreed. “We want to
protect ourselves.”

The others nodded their agreement.

“Oh for heaven’s sakes,” Eric replied. “He’s
not the least bit frightening. Why, my wife went out there with our
boy, and she was fine. If she wasn’t scared of him, then why should
you be?” He turned to Hank. “Are you telling me a woman in her
early twenties has more courage than you?”

Hank look offended. “Just so you know, I’m
an old man. I can’t run as fast as she can.”

“Besides, she and the child were on a
horse,” Thomas pointed out. “A horse can outrun anything.”

“Do I need to put all of you into the
jailhouse for a night to stop this nonsense?” Eric asked.

It wasn’t something Eric wanted to do, but
he was beginning to feel desperate. This was getting absurd. It was
bad enough they were trying to scare Caroline and Caleb, but it was
worse since they did this around him.

Eric glared at them. “I’ve had enough of
this! I thought Ida Conner was bad, but you all have her beat. I
will have no more talk about Travis being a monster. Whoever keeps
this up will spend some time in jail.”

“You can’t do that,” Hank argued.

“I did it to Ida for badmouthing my wife,”
Eric pointed out. “And I can do it to any of you who persist in
badmouthing Travis. From now on, we are going to treat everyone in
this town with respect. Before you speak, ask yourselves if you’d
want other people saying the same thing about you.”

Eric waited for someone to protest, but
since no one did, he considered the matter closed. With a shake of
his head, he stomped out of the town hall. How did people come up
with such superstitious nonsense? Did they sit around the table and
talk about what kind of things they could do to scare others? Thank
goodness Caroline wasn’t the same way, or else he didn’t know how
he’d cope in this town.

***

Eric hadn’t meant for the simple kiss he
gave Caroline a couple days later to turn into something more. It
was bound to be another long and tiring day as he continued his
rounds of asking questions about Lydia’s death. But when he woke up
early that morning, he felt the pressing need to hold Caroline. No
matter what the day brought, he knew he could handle it because he
got to be with her first thing in the morning.

Caroline had a silent strength about her.
She hadn’t let the rumors swirling about her in town dissuade her
from treating people with kindness. She simply went about the town
as if nothing was happening. He didn’t know if this was a byproduct
of how she’d been raised or if it was just her personality, but it
made her all the more attractive to him.

And it was this kind of thinking that
compelled him to take her in his arms and give her a kiss. He’d
meant for it to be a simple kiss. Just one. But that one kiss soon
turned into two. Then three. From there, his hands started roaming
her body, and before he knew it, they were entwined in each other’s
arms, giving themselves to the demands of their bodies. This time,
he wanted to watch her as she made love to him, so he rolled on his
back and encouraged her to get on top of him.

She did, and she took him inside her. He
groaned. There was always that initial wave of pleasure that swept
over him every time the warmth of her flesh surrounded him. Judging
by the look on her face, she experienced it, too. She began moving
and let out a moan, further letting him know she really did enjoy
this. Yes, she’d told him she got pleasure out of their times
together. She’d even initiated lovemaking on occasion, but it was
always nice to be reassured.

The morning sunlight coming through the
window gave him a wonderful view of her. Her hair was down, and it
covered part of her breasts. He brushed the hair back, so he could
enjoy the full view of them, finding the way they bounced as she
continued making love to him that much more arousing.

He lowered his hand, found her sensitive
nub, and rubbed it, suspecting it would increase her pleasure. And
sure enough, she gasped then moved faster. How he loved the way she
responded to him in bed.

In public, she was always a lady, weighing
her words before speaking and careful to be graceful in her
actions. But in bed, she didn’t hold back. She was completely
uninhibited, and that only served to excite him all the more.

So he continued rubbing her sensitive nub
until she grew still and cried out. Her core clenched around him,
and he shifted so he was deeper inside her. Letting out a groan, he
closed his eyes and moved his hips under her.

She, in turn, grasped his shoulders and
murmured his name, an encouragement for him to keep going. So he
did, and before long, his seed filled her core and his body
shuddered as waves of pleasure crashed into him.

After he relaxed, she got off of him and
snuggled up to him. He wrapped his arms around her, kissing her as
he did so, but these kisses weren’t the kind that would lead to
more. These were simply the kind that let her know he loved her and
couldn’t imagine his life with anyone else. In fact, he didn’t know
how he’d managed all of his life without her.

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to
me,” he whispered.

She smiled, her eyes sparkling. “I love
being with you, Eric. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

“Good.”

He kissed her again. She returned the kiss,
and soon, he was deepening it, well aware this kind of kissing did
have the potential to lead to something more. But he figured it was
still early enough where he had some time to spare. And that being
the case, he proceeded to make love to her again.

***

A week later, Eric was no closer to figuring
out who had killed Lydia than he was the day he found her body. The
doctor confirmed she’d been pushed off a wagon, but beyond that,
the doctor couldn’t offer anything useful.

“There aren’t any signs of abuse,” the
doctor had told him. “Whoever she went with, she went willingly.
She didn’t fight him.”

And that put Eric in a more difficult
position because this fact alone convinced him Carl was innocent of
the murder. Given her intense dislike for her husband, Eric
couldn’t imagine she’d willingly go anywhere with him, especially
after she made it a point to let him know she wanted him arrested
for trying to take her to his bed.

So that left one pressing question: who
would she go with?

That particular question was weighing on his
mind as Eric went to the jailhouse. Not surprising, there was a
group of ten people waiting for him. It seemed that ever since her
body was discovered, he had to contend with someone who wanted to
know the progress on the investigation.

“Just how long is it going to take for you
to find the person who killed Lydia Richie?” Hank asked without
even bothering to say hello.

“I’m going to take as long as I need to,”
Eric replied.

“It’s been almost two weeks, and you’ve
asked everyone in town where they were the night she was murdered,”
Mike said.

“Mike’s right,” Jerry added. “It’s been long
enough. Find the person who did it and get it over with
already.”

The other people murmured their agreement,
so Eric held his hands up to silence them. “Look, I’m not going to
rush this. It’s important we get the right person.”

“It’s obvious who did it,” Liz called out
from the back. “Carl Richie hated her. We all heard him tell her on
numerous occasions he wished she’d just go away.”

The people nodded and started conversing
amongst themselves about the times they’d seen the couple
fight.

“I saw him post a mail-order bride ad
yesterday,” Ida said, successfully quieting the group. Eric turned
his gaze to her, and she must have sensed a challenge in his eyes
for she added, “You can’t get me on this one, Sheriff. It’s the
truth. Why, you can ask Daniel. He sent it off to the catalogue
company that posts those ads.”

“It’s true,” Daniel replied. “I handled the
ad myself.”

“Well, there you go,” Hank said, turning
back to Eric. “That was his plan all along. With Lydia out of the
way, he’d be free to marry someone who might give him that child he
needs to keep that property his father left him.”

“It makes sense,” another man called out.
“He hasn’t had a single child with Lydia. It’s obvious she couldn’t
conceive. Now he’s looking for a wife who can.”

This created a much bigger stir among the
people than the comment Liz had made about Carl and Lydia fighting
all the time.

Eric had to yell at them to get them to
quiet down. “Listen up,” he said. “Everyone is innocent until
proven guilty, and there’s not enough proof to convict Carl.”

“Well, someone did it,” Mike argued. “You
said so yourself that she didn’t commit suicide.”

“Yes, but we have to be careful we don’t go
after the wrong person,” Eric said, hoping they were paying close
attention to his warning. “I’ve seen an innocent man get shot for
something he didn’t do.”

“Who else could it be?” Maude asked.

“I don’t know, but I will find out,” Eric
replied. “It’s not going to happen right away. You need to be
patient. In the meantime, if anyone steps foot on Carl’s land to
give him any trouble, you’ll be dealing with me. Understand?”

After a long, tense moment, the people
murmured their agreement and slowly dispersed. Eric released his
breath. He had a nagging suspicion one of the people in the group
was the murderer he was looking for. He, or she, was probably
checking on his progress, to see how close he was in narrowing down
the guilty party. But, of course, pinpointing the rightful party
was the challenge.

He made a mental note of everyone in the
group then went in to the jailhouse to write their names on a
list.

Chapter Nineteen

A
couple days later, Caroline decided to play jackstraws with
Caleb, thinking it’d be nice to take a break from teaching him how
to write the letter
M
.

“Did you and your mother often play games?”
she asked as she picked up a jackstraw without disturbing the
others on the pile.

“Not much,” he replied. “But she liked
them.” He removed one of the jackstraws from the pile and
smiled.

She chuckled. “That was a hard stick to pick
up without disturbing the rest of the pile. I’m surprised you
didn’t take the one from the top.”

He shrugged, but she detected the spark of
amusement in his eye. “It’s fun to do it the hard way.”

“You like a challenge?”

He nodded.

“There’s a sense of accomplishment in doing
something the hard way,” she replied. “I think it makes winning
that much more rewarding.”

After a moment, he looked up at her and
said, “Mama would have liked you.”

Pleased by the compliment, Caroline smiled.
“I would have liked her, too. She did a wonderful job in raising
you. She would be proud of you.”

“I know she loved me.” His gaze went back to
the jackstraws, and a tear slid down his cheek.

She retrieved the handkerchief from her
pocket and wiped the tear away. “It’s good you’re old enough to
remember her.” She paused then asked, “Would you like to record
your memories of her?”

His gaze went back to her. “How do we do
that?”

“We could write down what you remember about
her. It’ll be something tangible you can hold onto.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “Tangible?”

“It means something you can touch. Something
real. Like a book. We could get paper and write down everything you
can remember.”

“Things like what?”

“Things like how she looked, what games you
played with her, the stories she told you… Things like that. It’ll
be something of hers you’ll have forever.”

“I’d like that.”

“Then let’s go to the general store and see
if we can get some.”

She stood up and checked on the money in her
drawstring purse. Eric had given her a few coins in case she needed
to get anything from the store, and she figured she had enough left
for some paper and a pencil or pen, should the items be at the
general store.

She’d used the only paper she’d brought with
her to write the missives to Bee and Charles. She hadn’t bothered
to check the general store for more yet. It might be that she’d
have to order them by mail. For Caleb’s sake, she hoped they had it
here so they could get started on recording his memories right
away.