Destined for the Mail-Order Groom (Preview)

Chapter One

Door County, Wisconsin, Early Spring 1875

“Ouch!” Libby snatched her hand back from the hot pan of biscuits she had just attempted to pull from the box of the cast iron stove. “Oh!” She quickly rushed toward the sink and awkwardly pushed the handle of the pump until water flowed through. Wincing, she stuck her injured fingers under the cold water. 

“You forgot the rag, Libby,” ten-year-old Ivy calmly reminded her.

Libby frowned over her shoulder at her little sister, watching her with those big, blue eyes of hers that reminded her so much of her mother’s. She sighed. “Yes, I forgot the rag.”

“Again.”

That from eight-year-old Jason. Libby shook her head. She’d been so absent-minded lately. Was it any wonder? For the six months, she’d been working nearly every day, picking up small jobs where she could, struggling to keep food on the table since the death of her aunt and uncle in a boating accident on Lake Michigan. Would it never end? The losses? The grief and fear that followed?

Responsibility for her young siblings was a great burden, but one she accepted no matter how menial the jobs she managed to find. Sometimes she worked in exchange for food. No doubt about it, most of the people in the small town of Hastings were kindhearted and did what they could to help, but times were hard and many had little to spare. So she took whatever jobs she could find, from doing laundry for the widow Desmond, which left her hands red, raw, and tender for days afterward, to sweeping the floors and organizing the shelves at the general store in exchange for flour, small packets of sugar, baking soda, and occasionally, a pound of butter.

“What are we going to do today, Libby?”

“Today, you and Jason are going to help me clean the rooms upstairs.” She turned to her little brother. He needed a haircut, his wavy hair hanging down into his eyes and almost touching the collar of his shirt in the back. “Jason, you’re going to wash the windows, and Ivy, you’re going to sweep every room to the best of your ability before I scrub the floors.”

Jason started to open his mouth to complain until his sister jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow and gave him a fierce look. Libby turned away, studiously eyeing the biscuits, relieved they hadn’t burned while at the same time struggling to contain a wave of hot tears.

Since the night of the tragic fire, that terrible night they’d lost their parents, the three of them had lived in the small home owned by her aunt and uncle in Door County, along the shores of Sturgeon Bay. For almost two years, she and the children had known some semblance of security as they worked through their grief, until yet another tragedy had struck the previous fall when her aunt and uncle had been killed in a boating accident in the bay.

No matter how hard she tried, no matter how helpful her younger siblings, Libby had been unable to maintain the upkeep of the house. Coupled with three years’ worth of overdue property taxes hanging over her head, she had been advised by her uncle’s lawyer to sell the property at a loss. The tiny profits of the sale would go toward paying her uncle’s long outstanding business debts at the logging company that he had co-owned with Mister Moyer. The man had been as patient as he could possibly be, thank the good Lord for that, but he had a business to run too.

“Hurry along now, children, and after we finish the top floor, you can go outside and play while I visit with Mister Borgmann.”

“Aw, do you have to, Libby?” Jason grumbled. “I don’t like him very much.”

“Me neither,” Ivy said, shaking her head.

Libby frowned at them while she placed a biscuit on each of their plates before moving back to the stove. This time, she carefully wrapped the rag around the handle of the pot before ladling the buttermilk gravy with bits of sausages on top of the biscuits. “Why not?” she asked in surprise. “He always brings you a bit of candy or a peppermint stick when he comes to visit.”

“He only does that to keep us quiet and he tells us to go away so that he can try to kiss you without us watching.” Ivy glanced at her brother. “But we do anyway.”

Jason snickered. 

Libby felt her face grow hot and quickly turned away to place the pot back on the hot stove plate. Spencer Borgmann was five years older than Libby and had a very good job at a local bank, working in the position of assistant manager. It was a very important job and he earned a decent living at it. He had asked her permission to court her six months ago and she had given it. He knew of her dire circumstances, due to his position at the bank. Although he had offered on several occasions to loan her money so that she didn’t have to ‘work like a servant’ she had always declined, not wanting to feel beholden to him. Not to mention that her pride wouldn’t allow her to.

She immediately recalled a verse from Proverbs, one that she had to remind herself of time and time again. Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him. Yes, she often allowed her sense of pride to overcome common sense, but the idea of accepting money or anything but the smallest of gifts from Spencer left her oddly unsettled. She didn’t want to be beholden to anyone, least of all her suitor.

“That isn’t true and you know it,” Libby she finally murmured.

“Yes it is,” Ivy declared. “And I think he’s jealous, too.”

Libby turned to her little sister, eyes wide. “Jealous? Of what?”

“Of us,” she replied, her lower lip thrust out stubbornly. “He wants you all to himself. He doesn’t like us.”

Libby gaped. “Whatever gave you that idea?” Yet the comment had her thinking of the times Spencer had frowned any time he asked her to go on a picnic or to take a stroll around the town pond and the children tagged along. Did he expect her to leave them unattended at their age? It wasn’t like they bothered him, she thought. They played within her sight while she and Spencer had some time alone, if not privacy.

She plucked the biscuits from the pan and piled them into a small wicker basket. She didn’t want to believe what Ivy said, but as she thought about it, she suddenly realized that every time he did come calling, he encouraged her to send the children off to play or up into their room. Maybe he did want to spend his time with her alone, but a man could hardly be blamed for that, could he? They had been getting along so well. She believed him to be a kind man, one who, if he decided to ask for her hand in marriage one of these days, she believed would provide a good home for her and her siblings. He offered a sense of stability and protection that none of them had truly felt since that awful night four years ago.

Unbidden images flashed in her mind. Massive flames, acrid smoke as black as night, choking her, her eyes burning and watering as she grabbed the children, six and four at the time, and racing as fast as her feet could carry her toward the banks of the Peshtigo river, where only a few miles away downstream it would drain into Green Bay. She recalled how her heart pounded in her chest, her panic nearly overwhelming her, believing that her parents were right behind her, as were the screams of her neighbors, the snapping and roaring of the flames. 

She had reached the river bank and then turned around, horrified to see nothing but red and orange cinders flying through the air, huge mountains of black smoke rising into the sky, barely able to make out the smokestack at the edge of town that rose high into the air, barely visible now though only a short distance away. The wind gusted from the south, tugging at her hair while she tightly clasped the hands of her little brother and sister as she waited for her parents to emerge from the smoke… but they never did.

“Did you hear me, Libby?”

She turned to the children, gazing somberly at her. She cleared her throat. “I’m sure that Spencer likes you just fine. It’s just that he’s never been around children.” She pointed at each of them, a grin curving her lips. “And let me tell you that you two take quite a bit of getting used to!”

Jason’s giggle broke the tension, and Libby forced a smile. Everything would be okay. God had plans for her, for them, she felt sure that. Why else would they have survived the fire? Besides, Spencer had been hinting more and more of late that he wanted to spend more time with her, that he was tired of seeing her with her laundry-reddened hands and working her fingers to the bone for other people, and why should she when he could offer her so much more than that?

She couldn’t deny that she had permitted her hopes to rise, that she had allowed herself to develop strong feelings for him. Of course, at the back of her mind, came a sense of relief that maybe, just maybe, she and her siblings could once again feel a sense of security in their lives.

She sighed. “Hurry up and finish your breakfast, you two. The sooner we get started the sooner we’ll be finished—”

“And the sooner that Spencer can come over and you can hold hands while you go for a walk and then Spencer will try to sneak a kiss.”

“Ivy!” Libby gasped. “He will do no such thing! Finish your breakfast and stop that kind of talk. We don’t have all day to be lollygagging around.”

Her face hot again, she saw the glance exchanged between Ivy and Jason. Of course, Spencer had hinted once or twice that he would like to kiss her, but she had demurred. After all, they weren’t even engaged and she would not allow anyone to take advantage of her like that. She had her reputation to protect and her faith would never allow to take such liberties. 

Someday maybe. It would be nice to feel so cared about, and as she considered her relationship with Spencer growing deeper, she realized just how desperate she was to be swept off her feet the way that she had read in novels of Jane Austen.

Even so, she struggled with the secret she kept, the dream she had of someday writing a romantic novel of her own. Of course, such an idea was scandalous. In fact, any ambitious or assertive woman was considered unnatural, perhaps even mentally sick. She shook her head and wondered what Spencer with think if she told him the truth, that she often sent in articles and a few short stories to the Sturgeon Bay Gazette that had been published under her nom de plume John Parker. 

Ever since her younger siblings were babies, she had made up stories of her own to tell them at night before bed. She loved nothing more at the end of a long, hard day than to sit in bed by lantern light and read whatever she could get her hands on. Even more, she loved to write. Surely Spencer wouldn’t criticize her desire and ability to write, to earn a couple of extra dollars a month when a story or a couple of articles were accepted by the paper’s publisher.

One of these days, she would—

A knock on the door pulled her from her thoughts. She glanced at the children, who also stared back at her in surprise. No one came to the house in the morning lately, not unless it was someone to whom she owed money. Maybe it was the dairyman on an early delivery, even though she admittedly still owed him money from last week’s delivery. She nibbled on her lower lip and winced. She knew without a doubt that he would give her a pail of milk for the children, but then she would owe him another eight cents for the quart. She already owed the storekeeper forty cents for that pound of butter last week and nearly thirty cents for the dozen eggs he had also put on her tab.

She quickly glanced at the small, porcelain coffee mug tucked into the corner of the kitchen counter, hidden behind a tin canister of flour, of which she had just used up to make the biscuits for breakfast. She quickly moved to the counter, shoved the tin aside, and reached for the mug, disheartened to find six pennies sitting in the bottom. Oh dear.

The firm knock came again. With a sigh, the children quiet behind her, she left the kitchen and strode to the front door and opened it, her eyes widening with surprise when she found Spencer standing on the front porch. “Spencer? What are you doing here so early? I didn’t think I would be seeing you until later this afternoon. Is everything all right?”

Spencer Borgmann was a classically handsome man with brownish-blond hair and hazel eyes, standing just under six feet tall with a very lean build. His skin was pale because he spent most of his days inside the bank and didn’t have to help out on a farm like many Wisconsinites, though his cheeks did look a bit ruddy this morning in the chilly morning air.

He gave her a nervous smile. “Would you come outside with me for a moment, Libby? I have something private I’d like to discuss with you.”

She glanced over her shoulder, where she could just see through the kitchen doorway, the children still sitting at the table, both of them leaning slightly sideways so that they could peek at her through the same doorway. She smiled. “You two finish your breakfast.”

She reached for her crocheted shawl hanging from a coat rack standing by the door and wrapped it around her shoulders as she stepped outside. Spencer reached for her hand and tugged her away from the house, toward the small carriage house and then just inside. She knew the children’s noses would already be pressed against the kitchen window that looked in this direction.  

She searched his eyes, worried. “Is everything all right? Your parents, they’re all right?”

“Yes, yes, everything’s fine with my parents,” he said. 

When she saw worry or uncertainty on anyone’s face these days, her mind automatically assumed that something bad had happened. She couldn’t help it. He reached for her hands and held them between his. 

“I just heard something that alarmed me a bit, and I needed to come out here to speak with you about it.”

“You heard something? About who?”

“Why, about you, my dear.”

“Me?”

He nodded. “Please don’t take any offense at what I’m about to say, but I thought that you should know about it.”

Worried now, she stood in front of him, her head coming to about the bottom of his chin so she had to lift it to look into his eyes. A frown tugged at his eyebrows and his lips were pressed together as if in irritation. “What is it, Spencer?”

He opened his mouth and then closed it again, slightly shaking his head as if he didn’t know how to say what he had come to say. Her heart began to thud. Was he going to propose? She felt a sudden surge of panic.

 “I heard it from Matthew, who heard it from Jeremy, who as you know, works for the town newspaper.”

Her heart sank. She’d been so careful and yet, her secret had been found out. A hard knot grew in the pit of her stomach as she simply waited. His hands clutched hers even more tightly.

“I heard that… it’s quite shocking, Libby… but Matthew told me that some short stories and articles in the newspaper were written by you, under the name of John Parker, a pen name.” He shook his head, tsking. “Of course I said it was ridiculous, that no decent woman would dare do such a thing, but Matthew insisted that it was the truth.” He inhaled deeply and then huffed it out in one harsh breath. “So I had to come out and tell you about it, to forewarn you in case gossip started making its rounds through town, and of course, I will defend your honor against these baseless accusations—”

“It’s true, Spencer,” she said quietly. She tried to hide her disappointment in him when she watched his eyes widen in shock. He stilled as he stared down at her.

“What?”

“It’s true. I love to write, Spencer, and I earn a dollar or two extra every month for my articles or stories, which helps me take care of the children—”

“Libby!” he gasped. He shook his head. “Women are not capable of producing superior newspaper articles or even—”

She yanked her hands out of his and stomped her foot, anger thrusting her chin upward. “Spencer Borgmann, I am a perfectly capable writer! Who do you think wrote that article about the first steam powered ferry to cross Sturgeon Bay last year?” She watched his eyebrows rise and pressed on. “Who do you think that article about the canal that’s used now by vessels to go through the peninsula instead of through Death’s Door Passage? And just who did you think wrote that story about the Cana Island lighthouse, whose light was lit for the first time only five years ago?”

Her chest heaving with annoyance, she watched Spencer’s cheeks pale even more as he kept shaking his head, his mouth opening and closing. 

“What?” she demanded. “What’s so horrible about me trying to earn a few extra dollars to support me and my family?”

Suddenly, the anger seemed to leave him and he reached for her hands again. “Do you mean to tell me that you only write the stories under a pen name so that you can earn extra money?”

She eyed him for a moment and then offered a small shrug. She didn’t think that now was the time to tell him that she loved writing and that she planned to pursue it, even if she had to publish under a pen name for the rest of her life. Of course, she wanted to write more than articles and short stories. Someday, she wanted to write a novel like Jane Austen, or even more recently, the Brontë sisters. What was so wrong about that?

“Libby,” he said, his voice softer now. “I wasn’t going to ask you just yet, but now that I see that your circumstances are so much direr than I had thought, I will.”

Her heart still pounding with ire, she looked up at him, an eyebrow lifted. 

“Elizabeth Margaret Parker, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

She gasped.  He was asking her to marry him? She loved him, didn’t she? She thought so. After all, she was quite fond of him, and wasn’t that how many marriages started out? Just the thought of not having to work so hard, to be able to stop working herself to the bone for every penny, was enticing.

“I can take care of you, Libby, and provide you with a good home.” 

He glanced down at her hands, his thumbs rubbing over her calloused palms. She felt embarrassed by those calluses, and her reddened knuckles and chafed skin. A surge of affection for him swept through her. For so long, she had struggled with the burden of taking responsibility not only for herself but for her younger siblings. Was it possible that her struggles had finally come to an end? In regard to his shock about her writing, well, she shouldn’t be surprised by his attitude. It was fairly typical, what with men thinking they were the only ones who had a brain in their heads. She could help him overcome that attitude in time, wouldn’t he?

“You don’t have to embarrass yourself by writing anymore, Libby, not when I have the means to provide you with everything you need. Besides, you won’t have to work so hard anymore, as I don’t think you’ll have much trouble finding someone who is better suited to raise your siblings—”

“What?” For the second time, she tried to tug her hands from his, dismayed at the suggestion. “What did you just say?”

“I said that I doubted you would have trouble finding guardians for Ivy and Jason. They’re young enough to—”

Her heart started pounding again as she stared up at him in shock once more. “I can’t abandon my siblings,” she gasped. “Spencer, where I go, they go, at least until they’re old enough to make their own way in the world. It’s my responsibility, one that I have shouldered since the night my… since the night my parents died.”

He frowned. “Libby, I want to marry you. Someday, I want to have a child with you. I… I don’t want to be burdened with two young children the moment we marry, and I’m sure that we can find a good family that will take both of them—”

Crushed, Libby managed to finally tug her hands from his grasp once more, fighting back hot tears that burned her eyes and the hard lump of disappointment that had grown in her throat. Her hopes plummeted and it took everything she had to maintain a sense of dignity as she looked up at him and slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry, Spencer, but I can’t marry you under those conditions.”

He eyed her for several moments, and then his expression changed, so slowly that she barely noticed until she found herself looking at his scowl and what looked awfully close to a look of disdain.

“Well then,” he sighed. “I guess that’s all I needed to hear.”

With that, she watched in stunned dismay as Spencer turned abruptly away and strode back to the house. He released his horse’s reins from the small hitching post in front of it, and without a backward glance, mounted and then rode away. She tried to tell herself that she wasn’t disappointed, that she wasn’t heartbroken, that she hadn’t loved Spencer Borgmann one little bit, but she knew she was lying to herself. She had fancied herself in love with him, she really had, until his true feelings about her siblings and her dreams had seen the light of day.

She glanced at the house, where Ivy and Jason now stood in the open doorway at the front door, watching Spencer’s horse trot away from the yard. Her heart heavy and her mind stunned by his dismissal of her, she couldn’t help but wonder. Now what was she going to do?

Chapter Two

Burnett, Texas, Spring 1875

“Get out!

Luke stared at his father, his whisker-stubbled chin and red, watery eyes as he slouched in his chair in front of the fireplace of the Double-T ranch. Luke himself had lived here with his family for six years, until he’d had enough and bought a small place of his own a few miles away.

“Pa, you need to—”

“I told you to get out!”

Luke squared his shoulders and faced his father. “You’re going to lose the ranch if you don’t get things turned around, Pa—”

“I don’t care!”

Luke shook his head. Why was he still dealing with this? At twenty-six years old, he had his own ranch to take care of and his little brother along with it. For the past year, his father had become nearly impossible, drinking, gambling, and neglecting the ranch that they had all worked so hard to build. The decline had started very soon after his mother’s passing. Wasn’t it bad enough that he’d lost his mother? Did he have to watch his father destroy himself with grief and angry bitterness too? 

“It’s only thanks to your foreman that you’ve got a decent herd to drive down to the stockyards in Dallas come summer, but I’m warning you Pa, that if you don’t climb out of this hole you’ve dug for yourself, it’ll be the last one.” His father glared at him, his eyes bloodshot and the veins in his nose and the splotches on his cheekbones evidence of his drinking. He could smell his father from six feet away. “Your property taxes are going to be due in another couple of months, Pa. You didn’t pay them last year after ma passed away—”

“Don’t you go talking about your ma!”

Luke took a deep breath and tried to ignore the vein throbbing in his neck, the fury and disappointment that he felt toward his father. Did his father think he was the only one that had suffered when his mother passed away? They all had, his father, himself, and his little brother Gabriel. It was Gabriel that he was most concerned about. He tried once more. “Let me make you some breakfast, and you can take a bath and shave—”

An empty whiskey bottle sailed through the air, shattering against the wall a couple of feet away from Luke’s head. 

“I told you to get out and leave me alone,” sixty-year-old Timothy Thompson growled. 

Luke stared at his father, his gray hair sticking up in all directions, his blue eyes dulled with alcohol, his lips turned down in a sneer and his teeth yellowing from lack of care. Why was he putting himself through this? Why did he come over here at least two or three times a week to make sure that his father was all right and that he hadn’t quite yet decimated the ranch’s finances with his vices? He knew he did it for Gabriel, for his little brother, whom he had taken to live with him on his own property six months ago after sadly realizing that the youngster was being neglected.

“Fine, I’ll leave you alone then to wallow in whatever it is you’re wallowing in.” He turned toward the door, reaching for his hat hanging on a nail beside it. “Oh, and Gabriel’s doing just fine over at my place, not that you care.”

He didn’t hear what his father mumbled as he opened the door, stepped outside, and barely resisted the urge to slam it shut behind him. Good Lord, what had happened to his father? He knew that people dealt with grief in different ways, but his father was destroying himself. He had loved Elodie so deeply, so thoroughly, that he still couldn’t grasp that his wife of nearly forty years was truly gone.

Didn’t the man understand that Luke himself grieved the loss of his mother, and that Gabriel, only ten years old, was also grieving? His mother had been very young when she married Timothy Thompson, he almost ten years older. They had enjoyed a good and happy marriage. Luke had been born a couple of years later, but it seemed he was destined to be their only child until fourteen years later, Elodie had brought his little brother, Gabriel, into the world. Luke didn’t about the huge difference in ages between them. He adored Gabriel and the feeling was mutual.

They had been a happy family—

“Want me to go in and talk to him?”

Luke looked up to find the Double-T foreman, Harley McCrae, standing a few yards away, hat in his hand and eyes filled sympathy. Luke shook his head. “Might not want to go in there just yet, Harley.” He looked down at the ground, then off into the distance, embarrassed to meet Harley’s gaze. “I was hoping he’d be getting better, but he’s not. He’s getting worse.”

“That he is,” Harley agreed. “Look, Luke, I don’t want to add to your troubles, but I gotta let you know that I lost another couple of cow hands last month, and I’m set to lose at least one or two  more this month if they don’t get paid.” 

The foreman avoided Luke’s eyes. He eyed Harley now, thinking that he couldn’t be more surprised after everything that happened over the past year. He frowned. “I’ll go inside and take a look at the ledgers, Harley.” Disappointment and shock surged through him again as he just stood there, shaking his head. “Which two cow hands left last month?”

“Clovis and Thaddeus.”

“You know where they went?”

Harley nodded, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “Went down south to work the Bar S down in Fort Worth.”

Luke nodded. “I’ll handle it.” He glanced over his shoulder, eyeing the door and the front of the ranch house that used to be the pride and joy of the Thompson family. It could use a new coat of whitewash, the windows were dirty, and a couple of shingles were missing from the roof.

He would have to go back inside and once more bear the brunt of his father’s anguish, and that’s the only way he could think of it. Grief and loss had turned his father into a person that Luke didn’t even recognize anymore. Yet he also knew that if his father didn’t do right by the ranch or the cow hands and that responsibility passed down onto his own shoulders. Whether he lived on the ranch or not, he was still a Thompson.

“Well, good luck with that,” Harley said. He paused. “Luke, I gotta tell you, upfront and honest, that if things don’t change soon, I’m considering leaving too.”

Luke tried to hide his reaction to yet another blow, and simply nodded. He understood. After all, hadn’t he himself left his home six months ago, unable to deal with his father’s spiral into the depths of despair? The more the older man had turned to drinking and gambling to ease his pain, the more he pushed his two sons away. Luke, finally growing tired of it and not particularly wanting to watch his father destroy himself, had built himself a small house on the north side of their property line.

“I’d hate to see you go, Harley,” he said, meaning it. “Would you consider waiting until after the cattle drive early this summer and then see how you feel about it? I’ll see that you get paid.”

Harley hesitated and then nodded. “Sure thing, Luke.”

With that, Harley turned and mounted his horse, then rode at a trot out of the yard, leaving a thin trail of dust wafting gently in the ever present breeze that swept across the Texas plains every single day.

Didn’t his father realize that he and Gabriel were also hurting after the loss of their mother? He supposed not. Heaving a sigh, he strode back into the house, shoulders hunched to deal with another verbal barrage and maybe even another empty bottle thrown in his direction, but his father sat in his chair, chin resting on his chest, snoring in the aftermath of another drunken binge.

He stepped to the right of the front door and moved past the base of stairs that rose to a second floor. He opened the door of his father’s study and less than a minute later, left the room, closing the door softly behind him, two ledgers clutched in his hand. He reached for the brass doorknob at the front door and glanced back over his shoulder, feeling nothing but pity now for the old man. Shaking his head, he left the house, closing the door softly behind him.

*

“Don’t you think it would be a good idea, Luke? It would be good for both of you, you and Gabriel.”

Luke glanced at Travis Lee, his best friend and owner of a ranch whose southern property lines butted up against that of the Double-T ranch’s northern boundaries. They sat at the kitchen table of his house, two mugs of coffee between them. The two were about the same age and had been friends ever since Luke and his family had arrived in the area.

Luke shook his head. “I don’t need a wife.”

Travis grinned. “Sure you do. You’ve got too much on your shoulders, Luke, trying to keep the Double-T in operation, dealing with your father, taking care of him and Gabriel, not to mention all the other chores that have to be done around here.”

Luke sighed. “I’m getting by. In fact—”

The front door banged open and ten-year-old Gabriel burst inside, eyes sparkling with amusement and face flushed with color, holding a squirming, squealing piglet under his arms. Luke gaped, but before he could say anything, the piglet managed to squirm out of Gabriel’s arms just as he passed the small sofa by the front door. The piglet landed on it, then jumped to the floor, making a mad dash into the kitchen as Gabriel took one look at his older brother and then went after the pig.

“I’ll get ‘im Luke, I’ll get ‘em!”

A cacophony of chaos shortly ensued, the pig squealing and darting this way and that, Gabriel laughing, his footsteps pounding on the wood floors as he tried to catch the piglet. He’d managed to get a hold of him once, and then tripped over his feet as the piglet once again squirmed out of his arms one more time and raced down the short hallway toward the bedrooms. The sound of Gabriel’s boots thudding this way and that, furniture banging against the wall, and another heavy thump prompted Luke to simply glance at Travis, who didn’t bother trying to hide his smile as he shook his head.

“You need a wife, Luke, and a mail-order bride is just the ticket.”

“Absolutely not,” Luke protested, trying not to wince at the high-pitched squealing of the piglet and Gabriel’s laughter. “I can take care of things around here just fine.”

Travis laughed. “I can see that.”

Just then, Gabriel emerged from the hallway, clutching the piglet in his arms and breathing heavily. His little brother’s eyes were lit with pride and happiness. Luke couldn’t deny that he liked seeing that on the boy’s face, especially after what he had gone through at his father’s house.

“I told you I’d catch them, Luke, didn’t I? Didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did,” Luke said, gesturing toward the still open front door. “Now go put him back in the pen with his mama before she and the other piglets break out and come looking for him.”

Soon the house was quiet again, although the squealing of the piglets and the outraged grunting of the mama pig outside in the pen floated in the air and the still open front door. He turned to his friend. “Look, I’ve got everything under control.”

This time, Travis laughed outright. “But that’s just it, Luke, you don’t. You need someone to help you take care of not only you but the ranch and to help with Gabriel.”

Luke frowned. He was doing the best he could with the boy.

“Look, Luke, I know you’re busy enough as it is, but why don’t you want to even hire someone to help with the house and the yard and the cooking and laundry? Speaking of which, you cook the same thing for Gabriel’s meals every day.”

“There’s nothing wrong with what I’m feeding my brother.”

“The only things you know how to cook are scrambled eggs, bacon and beef stew, Luke, and you know it. When’s the last time you and your brother had a nice roasted chicken or some biscuits and gravy for breakfast, or—”

“I’m feeding him, all right?” Luke tried to tamp down a niggling of annoyance, coupled with guilt. His friend meant well and was concerned. Frankly, he was too. He knew his shortcomings, and sometimes he felt like he had taken on more than he could chew when he had snatched Gabriel from the ranch house and brought them here to live under his roof.

“I know you’re doing the best you can, Luke, but just take a look, all right? What would it hurt?” He shoved the folded newspaper toward his friend. “Just take a look.”

Knowing that Travis wouldn’t relent until he agreed to do at least that, Luke sighed, snatched the paper with his fingers, and pulled it closer. “Fine. I’ll look.”

“I’m thinking of doing the same, you know.”

Luke’s eyebrows rose as he stared at his friend. “You are?”

“Sure. There’s nobody eligible… or at least anybody that I’m interested in around here, and I sure don’t have time to go courtin’ down in Fort Worth or Dallas and neither do you.” He gestured to the paper. “I’ve already picked one lady to write to. I put a circle around it, so you can’t pick her.”

Luke frowned and glanced down at the paper, which was folded open to a section on the back page. He found a bolded heading that read ‘Married by letter potential wives seek husbands’. He shook his head. “This doesn’t seem right, picking a wife or a husband this way.”

Travis shrugged. “Makes it a little easier though, don’t you think?”

Luke glanced at one of the ads and read out loud. ‘A bachelor of good moral character, forty years of age, born in Georgia, living in Ohio, seeks correspondence with a southern lady with a goal toward matrimony.’ He looked up. “Doesn’t sound very romantic, does it?”

“Romance?” Travis grinned. “You remember Henry Bascom, from the granary?”

Luke nodded. 

“He courted Maybelle for a year, everything all lovey-dovey between the two, and nearly the minute after they said their ‘I do’s’, she turned into a shrew! He’s miserable, Luke.” He shook his head. “All I’m telling you is that you can know somebody, or think you do, but it’s one thing to be courtin’ and quite another after the ceremony is over. You just never know. That’s all I’m saying.”

Luke frowned and gazed once more the newspaper. He read another ad, this one by a woman. ‘A widow lady, thirty-five years of age, has a small business as a seamstress, wishes to form the acquaintance of a gentleman with a view toward marriage. Must be sober, religious, and have business experience.’

The next one, the one that Travis had circled, he read out loud also, doing his best not to shake his head. “Young, lonely woman with no money but good looks and a warm heart seeks a gentleman who might appreciate such qualities. I will be a devoted and affectionate wife. Will accept best offer. Need travel fare.” He looked at Travis. “Really?”

Travis shrugged. “She’s young, she’s lonely, and she said she has a warm heart. What’s not to like?”

Luke lifted an eyebrow. “What if she’s lying? What if she turns out to be older, less attractive than she makes herself out to be, and brings a couple of young children along with her?” Again he shook his head. “You can’t believe these ads, Travis. I thought you had better sense than that.”

“Maybe, but regardless, having a woman around here would certainly do you some good.” He made a show of sniffing Luke’s clothes.

Luke scowled, the sound of the piglets in the pen battering at his brain. It sounded like Gabriel had climbed inside the pen, playing with the pigs. His head throbbed. “I’ve got enough trouble on my plate, Travis, and I don’t need to borrow any more than that.” He saw the look his friend gave him and heaved a put-upon sigh. “But I’ll look, all right? I’ll look.”

---

“Destined for the Mail-Order Groom” is an Amazon Best-Selling novel, check it out here!

Twenty-three-year-old Libby Parker is at her wit’s end. After her parents died in a tragic accident, Libby took charge of her younger brother and sister, working at any odd job she could find to keep a roof over their heads. Even despite becoming a successful author, the heartbreak of losing the man she loved to another woman left her struggling to write her next book. Desperate for a fresh start, Libby must now place her hope for security and maybe even love in a mail-order bride catalog, agreeing to marry a rancher found by her friend through an agency.

Will Libby overcome her doubts and fears and learn to trust a man again?

Luke Thompson, a young rancher in North Texas, is burdened with the weight of his family’s troubles. With his mother’s passing, his father’s descent into bottle and gambling, and the care of his little brother, his best friend Travis answers an ad, seeing Luke’s need not only for help but for love. When Libby comes along, and with a deep sense of responsibility, Luke proposes they spend a month together, giving themselves time to see if their partnership can blossom into something more.

Can he see beyond his frustration and anger and realize the treasure that Libby offers?

As the days turn into weeks, Libby and Luke find themselves falling for each other, discovering a profound connection and a shared sense of purpose. Yet, amidst the budding affection, challenges arise. Luke’s father’s mounting debts threaten the ranch, and Libby’s unresolved grief hampers her creativity. Will their love be enough to weather the storms that lie ahead, or will their newfound happiness be shattered by forces beyond their control?

“Destined for the Mail-Order Groom” is a historical western romance novel of approximately 90,000 words. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.

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