The Widowed Rancher’s Wanted Bride (Preview)

Prologue

Vicinity of St. Louis, Missouri

May 1882

No one in the small community of Reacher’s Gap knew that Thomas and the gang he led were criminals. No one knew they led a secret life, committing theft and fraud and sometimes worse. Not even her best friend Anna – if one could truly have a best friend living the life Olivia did – knew the truth.

Her heart pounding in trepidation, Olivia quickly finished packing her valise. She glanced around her room one more time, looking for anything that might inadvertently divulge her intended destination to Thomas. Heart racing and hands trembling with nerves, she stopped, took a deep breath, and clenched her hands into fists.

Give me strength, Lord! Give me courage!

She opened her eyes and, kneeling beside her bed, lifted the mattress and reached inside, fingers groping until she found the small packet of letters there. Letters from Sam. Letters that offered her a new life. A surge of relief briefly calmed her anxiety as she quickly stuffed the letters into the valise, hiding them amidst the few items she had managed to pack inside. She looked around her room for the last time, no pangs of regret tugging at her heart, only a sense of resolve. She heard the soft chime of the clock on the fireplace mantle in the front room: 3 AM.

Time to go.

Fastening her valise, she lifted the woefully light bag from the bed. She wasn’t able to take much; a skirt, two blouses, a charcoal gray dress, and a dark woolen, waist-length cloak. A spare set of undergarments was stuffed next to an extra pair of black stockings and shoes. She tucked her black ladies’ boots with stockings stuffed inside under her left arm and grabbed the valise handle with the same hand.

She reached for the brass doorknob of her bedroom with the other, her heart beating even faster now. Go! Go before you lose your nerve! She held her breath and quietly turned the knob, wincing at the expectation of the usual squeak. Thank goodness it didn’t come this time. Heart thundering in her chest, she heard Thomas’s familiar snores coming from the bedroom across the hall. She opened the door only far enough to slip through and stealthily made her way down the hall on her bare feet, avoiding the creaky areas of the wood plank flooring as she hurried toward the front door that beckoned freedom.

By the time she left the house and closed the front door quietly behind her, her gaze sweeping through the darkness, her hand gripped the valise handle so tightly the muscles in her forearm threatened to cramp. Behind the house, she heard the low murmur of voices and froze, her eyes wide and a grimace twisting her mouth. Oh no …Thomas’s men had returned earlier than expected. She froze in the dark shadows next to the house, searching for any movement. She saw nothing. A mere thirty yards away stood a thicket of trees. Beyond that lay the road that led to town. There, the road forked, one branch heading southeast, the other west.

If she lingered a moment longer, her courage might crumble, or she would be discovered. She dashed for the tree line, her bare feet flying through ankle-high grass still damp from the gentle rain that had fallen earlier that night. Her heart pounded so loudly in her ears she barely heard the hoot of the owl she’d disturbed, perched high in the pines overhead. Seeking the deepest, darkest cover of the trees, she paused and looked back only once. The small, slightly dilapidated clapboard house was the only standing dwelling that Olivia had ever lived in.

Growing up, caves, sod houses, and sometimes even abandoned mines had been Olivia’s home. Even so, they’d lived here only six months, but it was the longest she could remember staying in one place. Behind the house stood the stable. This old, abandoned farmhouse and its dilapidated barn were the gang’s current hideout, tucked into one of the many crevices of the hills surrounding the outskirts of western St. Louis.

The people around here thought Thomas Blackwell was an investor of sorts, though they never did learn exactly what he invested in. They only knew he traveled a lot. No one questioned or even seemed to care that once in a while, a handful of men would ride through town heading to his place, many of them never to be seen again.

Most of her youth had been spent on the road with Thomas and his outlaw gang. They’d never stayed in any one place very long. Thomas led the gang of thieves and pickpockets, but occasionally, they had robbed banks. After her mother died when she was a child, Thomas told her he needed to bring her along to help with camp chores, cooking, cleaning, or mending their clothes and otherwise taking care of him as they rode through one county after another, stealing, thieving, and hiding from the law.

She knew better. The truth was that Thomas had always feared – though she had never given him a reason to think such – that she, as outspoken as she could often be, would inadvertently, or on purpose, betray him by some careless or not so careless word. So he kept her close. Always.

She carefully made her way into the deepest part of the thicket just as heavy drops of rain began to spatter once more around her. She crawled beneath the tree, reaching lower branches of the pine, the aroma somewhat soothing as she crawled toward the trunk. She settled with her back to it, knees pulled to her chest, the valise by her side. The rain came harder and faster, another spring rainfall that under normal circumstances she relished. Hopefully, the rain would be heavy enough to erase her passage through that small meadow before Thomas woke and realized she was gone.

There she waited, snuggling deeper under the branches, hugging her knees tighter to her chest, waiting for the barest hint of light that would beckon dawn, rain or not. She didn’t have long to wait. The rain stopped, raindrops slowly falling from high above to plop onto oak, hickory, or elm leaves just now erupting into their spring glory.

A single shout alerted her to the fact that someone – likely Thomas – had woken to find her missing. She tightened her arms around her legs and dropped her chin to the top of her knees, her eyes wide with fear.

“Protect me, Lord,” she whispered. “Hide me under the shelter of Your wings. Give me enough time to get to Texas to marry Sam …”

A roar of anger followed the shout. She heard the front door banging open so hard it bounced against the wall behind it. Voices erupted from behind the house where other members of the gang slept in the old stable.

“Find her!” Thomas shouted, his voice filled with such fury that it cracked.

Questions flew all at once.

“Where is she?”

“When did she leave?”

“Where do you think she went?”

Thomas didn’t answer any of them. Instead, he yelled again, his voice deep and guttural. “Saddle the horses! She can’t have gotten far!”

One of the members of the gang worked up enough courage to state the obvious. “Thomas, there’s no tracks! The rain—”

“Find her!” he bellowed.

Within fifteen minutes, six horses had been saddled, and the men rode out of the yard at a trot, horses huffing, saddle leather squeaking, and most of the men grumbling. She waited what seemed a long time, long after the sound of hooves faded into the distance. Ever so slowly, the darkness gave way to a dusky light. Warily, she peeked through the pine boughs, the aroma of wet pine needles, bark, and earth wafting into her nostrils.

She pulled her pocket watch from the small pocket in her skirt and glanced at the face, barely visible in the early morning light. She would wait here ten more minutes before heading north until she came to the small town of Baxter, nearly five miles distant. On the outskirts of that town lived her sole friend in the world, Anna. Anna had helped her plan her escape.

She was determined to escape, to get as far away from here as she could, to a place where Thomas would never find her. Someone was waiting for her in the faraway land of Texas; a man she hoped and prayed would provide the security, the shelter, and if she were truly blessed, the love for which she had always yearned.

Chapter One: Olivia

A day after escaping from Thomas and the gang, Olivia sat on the end of a wooden bench in the small stagecoach office, her valise at her feet. Just an hour ago, she had emerged from Anna’s former and now abandoned cottage nestled deep in the woods outside of town. When she entered, a cloak of sadness weighed on her shoulders. Oh, how she missed dear Anna! It was in Anna’s now silent home that she had changed into her somber, charcoal gray dress that would hopefully convey to the curious and nosy that she was in mourning. That might curtail conversation from others. Along with her black, waist-length cloak, she had also hidden her light brown hair with a scarf that matched the color of her dress.

She had made it this far, but the thought of Thomas finding her kept her senses alert. Ticket in hand, she waited for the stagecoach to arrive. The coach was headed to Mineral Point to the south. From there, she would board the Missouri Pacific Railway and head even further south into Little Rock, and from there to Dallas and further west toward a new life with Sam.

She and Samuel Caldwell had been exchanging letters for the past few months, after she had responded to a mail-order bride ad that he’d placed from a small town to the west of Fort Worth but not as far west as Abilene. She’d failed to find a map to determine exactly where Sam lived, but anywhere away from here was welcome.

Now waiting for the stage, she cast her gaze surreptitiously about, spying only an older couple that had been here when she’d arrived. She carefully unfolded his last letter to her. He would never know how much trouble she’d gone to in ensuring that his letters to her or hers to him would never be discovered by Thomas. Thank you, Anna, for your help. I will miss you dearly! To say it had taken ingenuity, a great deal of caution, and not a little fear, would be an understatement. She heaved a sigh and read.

‘Olivia,

I’m greatly heartened by your last letter accepting my proposal of marriage. I anxiously await your arrival. I realize that we have agreed upon a marriage of convenience, but I hope that we may also find companionship that will stand us in good stead over the years and with my daughter Emma. I know that we may face many challenges in the upcoming months, but I can assure you that I will provide you with shelter and the comforts of my home to the best of my ability.

I realize that you are taking on a lot of responsibility, not only as a wife, but as a mother for my seven-year-old daughter. As I mentioned before, her mother and I also married out of convenience, and it worked out quite well for both of us. When you get to town, send word, and I will come get you.

I wish you safe travels and look forward to meeting you.

Best regards, Samuel Caldwell’

She heaved a sigh. Not very romantic, but what could she expect from a complete stranger? In desperation to escape her nomadic and clandestine life with Thomas Blackwell, she’d been compelled to respond to Sam’s ad for a wife placed in a mail-order bride catalog. She tried not to care that, from his very first letter to her, Sam had emphasized that their marriage would be only one of convenience. As long as it got her away from Thomas and the gang, she should be grateful.

She had been as honest as she dared with Sam. She’d told him the truth about her mother’s passing away several years after she was born. Thomas had raised her, but he was not really her uncle. She had lied about that. Of course, she hadn’t told him that Thomas was a criminal either, nor had she disclosed the kind of life she’d been forced to live all these years. Doing so might endanger Sam and her own hopes for the future as well.

She remembered the last time she’d confessed her liking of a young man when she’d been sixteen as if it had happened yesterday …

“You can’t do that, Thomas!” she cried.

“I can and I will!” he scowled. “I warned you about gettin’ involved, didn’t I?”

“But Thomas, I didn’t tell Griffin anything about how… about how you make a living!”

“Don’t matter,” he said. “He found out, didn’t he? And now he’s goin’ to pay.”

Olivia protested. “You framed him for something you and the gang did! And you made sure that he’d go to jail for it! Why?” She’d been so angry and hurt. “Why?”

At that point, he’d jabbed a finger into the bone at the base of her throat. “Because I warned you! No one’s goin’ to take you away from me, you hear me? No one!”

That had been that. She had tried to tell the sheriff that Griffin was nowhere near that bank the day it had been robbed. She’d tried to give Griffin an alibi, even though she’d risked her own reputation to do so, not that she had much of one. She’d lived on the outskirts of society with gruff and unfriendly Thomas for so many years it seemed normal that she and he both were avoided. They rarely went to town, never to church, and even during the years when she was allowed to attend school, she was ordered not to make friends.

Yet again, she had disobeyed. Now in her early twenties, she and Anna had spent years finding places where they could meet and spend time together with Thomas none the wiser. It was through Anna that Olivia had found out about the mail-order bride catalog. Together, they’d worked out a plan to have any mail from Sam sent to Anna’s home. Her letter to Sam left the same way. She knew her friend would keep their secret, and she did up until Anna’s buggy accident just two weeks prior had led to her friend’s sudden demise. Olivia couldn’t help wondering if Thomas had somehow found out about Anna. Regardless, Olivia deeply grieved the loss and had set her plan in motion.

She heaved a sigh, slowly shaking her head. Lord, am I ever going to find anyone to love me, to care about me, to cherish me? Must I go through life watching every word I speak or everything I do?

“Here it comes!”

She glanced up as she heard the sound of pounding hooves and the metallic rattle of trace chains, the snort of horses, and the shouts of a stagecoach driver pulling the horses to a halt. The older couple on the other side of the room rose, exchanging smiles between themselves, while Olivia rose more slowly, reaching down for her valise.

She was almost safe. Almost. If she could make it as far as the train station in Mineral Point, she could breathe easier. Thomas would have no idea where she had gone, simply thinking that even at twenty-three years of age, she had run away. Would he come after her? Would he care?

She fervently hoped not.

Chapter Two: Sam

Parker County, Texas

“Are you sure you want to go through this again, Sam?”

Twenty-nine-year-old Samuel Caldwell eyed his longtime friend with a lifted eyebrow. “You know how many times you’ve asked me that question since I told you about it, George?”

“And I’ll keep asking until I get an honest answer.”

Sam leaned forward, resting his forearm on the saddle horn, the saddle leather creaking softly beneath him. His horse shifted to the side a little as Sam looked over a part of his herd. “I’m giving you an honest answer. Things worked out with Lillian until she passed away, didn’t they?”

“It was a marriage of convenience.”

“So?” Sam shrugged. “Look, I’m not saying I didn’t care for Lillian, because I did. We built a good life together, but we both knew all along that it wasn’t a love match. But we did all right. Emma is almost seven years old. We both loved her.” He paused and looked off into the distance before turning back to his friend. “But Lillian’s been gone for nearly four years now. Emma’s getting older and needs a woman’s influence and instruction.”

“But what about Mabel—”

“Mabel Meriwether is hired help, George, and she’s getting up there in years—”

“She’s not that old,” George interrupted.

“She might be for Emma. You know how stubborn and rambunctious my daughter can be. I need someone a little … younger.”

“I understand that, George, but still …”

Sam knew his friend didn’t care for his decision. “I wish I had more time to spend with Emma, really I do, but you know how many responsibilities a ranch and growing cattle herd entail. You’re fortunate that you have Mary to help you with things, including the care of your son. But I don’t have anyone to help me with Emma, not in the way she needs it. It’s not just a matter of time either. She needs a woman in her life, a woman to teach her … womanly things.”

“But another marriage of convenience?”

Sam heaved a weary sigh. “You know as well as I do there’s not that many eligible young women in the town of Parker, let alone the county. When am I supposed to have time to meet any of them anyway?”

“You could go to church with us,” George said. “I can think of three or four young women who would be more than happy to meet you and your daughter.”

How many times had George tried to convince him to go to church with them on Sundays? It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in God because he did. The problem was that God had abandoned him. Sam winced and continued, “And courting takes time. When do I have time to court a woman?”

“But marriage is more than a business arrangement—”

“For some people, maybe so,” Sam said, gathering the reins in his hand, prepared to nudge his boot heels into the gelding’s side. “But placing an ad in a mail-order bride catalog is the option I chose, and she’ll be arriving any day now.”

George heaved a put-upon sigh. Sam had been through this with his friend before. George was lucky enough to have met a woman at a county fair nearly eight years ago. Happily married at twenty-eight years old, George and Mary were two of the hardest-working and upstanding Christians in the area, and they’d been lucky enough to make a love match.

Sam had never fallen in love before. He’d been betrothed to Lillian Summers by an arrangement made by his uncle, who, along with his aunt, had raised him after Sam’s parents died in a carriage accident shortly after he was born. He owed them more than just his life. He owed them everything. So when they had suggested that he marry his third cousin, Lillian, he had felt obligated to agree and did so out of a sense of duty.

Seeking his own future, he and Lillian had left western New York and come to Texas, where land was cheap. He’d worked hard for the life the pair had built together. Both young, they worked dawn to dusk. They’d been married just over a year when Emma was born. They’d done all right for themselves, Lillian taking care of their home and watching after Emma while Sam spent every day out on the range taking care of what started off as a small herd of cattle that had grown year by year.

Emma was just three years old when Lillian passed away. She did need a mother’s care. Growing up surrounded by men, Emma had become a strong-willed child, and though she was obedient, mostly, and a good student at school, when he could take her, he had failed to teach her perhaps more important things. As it was, her boy’s garb – which she wore more often than not – shocked the residents of Parker every time they visited town. While it didn’t particularly matter to him whether she bathed every Saturday evening, unless of course she had managed to roll in the mud with one of the dogs or had chased after one of the pigs in the sty, others seemed to mind and weren’t hesitant in expressing their opinions.

“So who is the young woman and when is she arriving?”

Sam absently touched the folded letter in his shirt pocket he’d received just a few days ago. “Her name’s Olivia Harper—”

“What’s—”

“She’s twenty-three years old, with brown hair and blue eyes, or so she told me in her first letter. She said she was raised by a long-time family friend, and she’s taken care of him all her life until he died recently. Now she wants to leave Missouri and start over.” Without turning to him, Sam knew George was staring at him.

“What, they don’t have any men of marriageable age in Missouri?”

Sam heaved a sigh and glanced at his friend. “I didn’t ask.”

“So basically, you’re telling me that she’s running away from the only life she’s ever known after resorting to answering an ad from a perfect stranger to get married.”

Sam frowned. “You make that sound so horrible. We’ve exchanged several letters over the past months.”

George lifted an eyebrow. “A number? How many?”

Sam moaned. He had known this was going to happen, but he also knew that George was just trying to look after him, not that he needed watching after. Yet he also knew that if he didn’t answer George’s questions, he would just keep asking. “Five, I guess, or thereabouts.”

“So how much do you know about her? Do you know what she’s expecting from a marriage to you?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. I told her that our marriage was to be one simply of convenience. She agreed. She wants a new life, and I need a mother for my daughter. It’s as simple as that.”

George chuckled. “You know as well as I do that marriage is no simple matter.”

“Like I said, it worked out well enough the last time.”

“I hope this one works out for the best as well, Sam,” George said softly. “But I also wish that this one is at least based on some affection before the vows are said.”

With that, George nudged his horse forward, lifting a hand in farewell. He was headed home. It was time that Sam headed home as well. It would soon be dusk, and Mabel would be finished with her day soon. She lived in a small, converted shed behind his house. Though he could hardly afford her, he felt she was a necessary expenditure. Not only was there barely enough time in the day to properly spend time with and care for his daughter, but he had even less time to keep the house, do the cooking, the laundry, and everything else that Lillian had made look so easy.

The first time that he’d done the laundry, he’d scraped his knuckles on the rough ridges of the metal washboard so many times he couldn’t bend his fingers for nearly a week. His first attempts at baking biscuits had produced nuggets that looked like coal. Though he no longer had to chase his daughter through the house in an attempt to change her from her day clothes and into her nightgown, there were other things that he didn’t understand or know about raising a young child, let alone a female one.

It was just about sundown when he rode his horse into the yard, as always admiring what he had built out of nothing. The ranch house was small, though well built, painted white with black shutters. Last summer, he and friends from town had raised a barn. Beyond that stood the stables he’d built to house his small but growing herd of quarter horses, which he eventually intended to breed and sell to military outposts throughout western Texas.

Next to the barn stood the corral. A larger fenced pasture loomed beyond the barn. In the front yard stood a stone-walled well, and off to the east of the house stood a chicken coop, a pigsty, and a smokehouse. He did his best to keep the root cellar stocked with meat, and he bought vegetables from a neighbor’s gardens. While he guessed that he would be perfectly knowledgeable enough to grow his own vegetable garden, he didn’t have the time to tend it.

He pulled his horse up to the corral and dismounted. Before his boot touched the ground, the front door slammed open so hard that it crashed into the wall before it bounced back again and banged shut.

“Papa!”

From inside, he heard Mabel calling after the child.

“Emma! I asked you to set the table for supper! Your papa will be home soon!”

“Papa!” Emma giggled gleefully, racing across the yard and literally flinging herself against her father with such force she nearly knocked both of them down.

Sam grunted as he was propelled back into the corral fencing, quickly wrapping his arms around his daughter and chuckling at her exuberance. That was just one of the things he loved about Emma. She was almost always happy. She was independent, and yes, she could be ornery, but she also had a sweet side. She especially loved baby animals and other children, George’s among them.

“Well, that was some greeting,” he said and laughed, reaching for her hand and grasping his gelding’s reins with the other. “How about you help me unsaddle my horse, and then we’ll go inside for supper?”

She looked up at him, her blonde hair halfway worked out of a braid, clover green eyes just like her mother’s, shining bright. “How come you don’t call him Brisket like I asked you to, Papa?”

He glanced down at her and held back a grin. “Because he’s got more dignity than to be named after a cut of meat.”

“Oh.”

She walked by the side of his huge horse without fear. That was another thing about Emma. She didn’t fear much of anything.

“Well, what about Blackie?”

He frowned and shook his head, knowing the game would continue until he agreed with one of her suggestions, regardless of how long it took.

“What about Shadow?”

He pretended to consider it. “I’ll think about it, Emma. Now let’s get him stabled so we can eat. I’m starved, aren’t you?”

She giggled, a sound that never failed to lighten his heart. “Yes, and Miss Meriwether made rabbit stew and fresh sourdough biscuits and a bunch of green beans.” She made a face. “She told me I had to eat all my beans, or I wouldn’t get a piece of apple pie.”

He paused as he loosened the saddle cinch strap and glanced down at her with a lifted eyebrow. “Miss Meriwether baked an apple pie today?”

Emma beamed. “Fresh out of the oven. You can smell it when you get close to the house.”

Sam grinned. Mabel Meriwether was worth every penny. Even so, it was time. He had to tell Emma about the impending arrival of his new wife but had put it off until the last possible moment. After unsaddling the horse, removing the bridal, and putting the gelding in his stall, he handed a brush to Emma and took one for himself. She brushed out the gelding’s mane as he brushed the horse’s withers.

“There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

She paused and looked up at him with a furrowed brow. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, honey, not that I know of. Yet.” He grinned. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

“Nope.” She brushed for a few moments before looking up at him.

He took a short breath and spat it out. “In a couple of days, you’re going to have a new mother.”

She turned to him once more, this time with eyebrows raised in confusion. “A new mother?”

Maybe he shouldn’t have said it that way. As it was, Emma had been too young to even remember her own mother. “What I mean, Emma, is that a woman is coming to live with us. I’m going to marry her. She’s going to be my wife and your mother.”

Emma remained quiet for several moments but stopped brushing and turned to him. “I don’t want a mother, Papa. I’ve got you.”

“Yes you do,” he agreed. “But you also need to learn women’s things.”

“Like what?”

“Like sewing and cooking and how to keep the house so that when you grow up and get married someday—”

“I don’t need to learn those things, Papa,” she said. “Miss Meriwether does those things for us.”

“We’ve got to learn to take care of ourselves,” he told her. “And I’m not here at the house often enough to teach you those things.” He recalled the laundry debacle. Not to mention I like my knuckles.

“I don’t want a mother,” Emma grumbled.

He could sense a storm coming and tried to head her off at the pass. “You’re going to be a young woman soon, Emma,” he said softly. “Someday you’re going to meet a young man who will want to marry you. Don’t you think there are things you want to be able to do for a husband?”

She frowned. “So why can’t I pay someone like Miss Meriwether to take care of those things for me? Besides, I want to ride with the cattle, help in the barn, and … and take care of the horses. I don’t want to just cook or clean the house. That’s no fun.”

He held back a sigh. This was exactly why he needed a woman around. “Because these are things that women should know.”

“And you too?”

“Yes, I suppose, in a pinch. But I’m out on the range much of the time, and there’s just some things that a young girl, a young woman, needs to know.” He glanced at her, then away, trying to pretend this was just another normal conversation he had with his daughter. “Things that I can’t teach you.”

Emma didn’t say anything, and he risked a glance down at her. He figured he should count his blessings that she hadn’t gotten very upset, but the thought came too soon.

“Will you still love me, Papa?”

“Of course, I will, Emma! What makes you think I won’t?”

She didn’t reply, but when he saw the tears shining in her eyes, his heart sank. “Emma, don’t worry. Just because I’m getting married doesn’t mean that things will change between us.”

Emma stared at him a moment, then dropped the brush into the bucket. Without a word, she ran out of the barn. Moments later, he heard the door to the house slam once more. He heaved a sigh, shaking his head. He could only hope that his new bride was of a stalwart nature, one who would be able to face the challenges that came with ranch life, but most of all with his very independent and often rebellious daughter.