The Mail Order Bride's Deception Read online

  She rubbed the sleeping boy’s back and smiled. “It’s a nice place. Ideal, even.”

  He wondered what she meant by that, but then they reached the wagon and he helped her up, placing one hand on her waist as he held her hand. A slight heat crept up his cheeks at the physical contact. Granted, she was now his wife, but they didn’t really know each other.

  Once she was settled on the wooden seat, he went to the other side and hopped up beside her. He glanced at Gilbert. The poor boy needed a mother in the worst way. Aunt Betty was a wonderful woman, very nurturing and always willing to help out at a moment’s notice. But she wasn’t his mother.

  “I didn’t realize you were so good with babies,” he told her as he released the wagon’s brake.

  “You didn’t?” she asked.

  “You didn’t mention anything about taking care of children in your letters.”

  “Oh.” She rubbed the boy’s back then she chuckled. “You’ll think it’s silly, but I don’t remember much of what I wrote. What with all the things I had to do to get ready for the trip…” She cleared her throat. “It’s been overwhelming but good.”

  “I understand.” He urged the horses forward and proceeded down the dusty road. “I had the easy part. All I had to do was wait for you.”

  She nodded and turned her attention to the hills around them.

  They spent the next couple of minutes in silence. Now that they’d taken care of getting her the things she needed and going to the preacher, she was probably as uncertain of what to say as he was.

  They traveled along the bend that took them out of town, and he ventured to joke, “You’ll get sick of trees before the year ends.”

  As he hoped, she laughed. “I love them.”

  “Yes, but they’re all over the place. If you want to see the sun, you have to look up.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that. I think it’s a cozy kind of feeling out here.”

  “What was Atlanta like? Did you have trees like this?”

  Her smile faltered a bit and he wondered about it, but then Gilbert squirmed in her arms and she turned her gaze to him. “I think he’s waking up.”

  “He usually takes a nap earlier in the day, but I think with all the excitement he made himself stay up longer. He probably wanted to see his new ma.”

  “I can’t blame him for being curious.” She bit her lower lip in the most adorable way then asked, “Will he be hungry?”

  Nodding, he slowed the horses to a stop and turned to the bag he placed under the wooden seat. “I keep a bottle under here.” He pulled it out and handed it to her. “Before we came into town, I had him in the bassinet, but I put it back there,” he gestured to the back of the wagon, “so that you had a place to put your feet.”

  She looked over her shoulder. “I didn’t notice it before. You certainly are prepared.”

  “I learned pretty quick that I had to be. Thankfully, Aunt Betty raised some children so she had everything I needed.”

  Her eyebrows furrowed and he thought she was going to ask him a question but then she smiled. “That’s good.” She held the bottle up. “Um, as you guessed, I don’t have experience with babies. Do I just put it up to his mouth?”

  “He knows what to do. This is the easy part. Just wait until I teach you how to change his diaper.”

  She placed the nipple to the boy’s mouth, and he started to drink the goat’s milk. “A diaper?”

  “The bad news is, sometimes it smells worse than a skunk that got scared and sprayed all over the place, but he no longer pees on people when they change his diaper so that’s good.”

  Her jaw dropped. “You’re jesting?”

  “No. When he was younger, he’d pee every time I had to change his diaper. Aunt Betty suggested I open the diaper then quickly put it back in place and wait for him to pee. It was a good tip.”

  She shifted Gilbert so he could more easily drink from the bottle. “It sounds like Aunt Betty is a smart woman.”

  “She is. She’s got a good heart, too. You don’t find many like her anywhere you go.”

  “No, I reckon not.”

  He ventured another look her way, afraid she’d wonder why he couldn’t seem to stop staring at her. She hadn’t told him much about her life in Atlanta. He wanted to find out everything about her, especially why she willingly gave up all the comforts back home to spend the rest of her life with him. She had given up everything, and he was gaining everything. It didn’t seem like a fair trade. Yet even after warning her, she insisted she wanted to come.

  “I don’t know what I did to deserve the good fortune of you coming all the way here to marry me,” he began as he led the horses down a path that led directly to his home. “You’re so beautiful. I can’t help but think of all the disappointed suitors you left behind. I mean, you didn’t mention any, but surely, you had men lined up in hopes of courting you.”

  “Oh,” she replied, a slight hint of pink in her cheeks, “if I had any suitors, none of them were worth marrying.”

  “I know you took a big gamble in coming here. It couldn’t have been an easy decision, even if the suitors weren’t worth your time.” Heat rose to his face as he contemplated saying more, but she was his wife now, and if he couldn’t say it to her, then he couldn’t say it to anyone. Clearing his throat, he added, “I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

  Her gaze went to Gilbert who was halfway through finishing his bottle.

  He probably startled her with his words, but he hoped he did it in a good way. He didn’t consider himself graceful with women when it came to romance but hopefully she wouldn’t mind his meager attempts at wooing her.

  His cabin came into view just beyond the final bend in the dusty path. He gestured to the small wooden structure nestled next to the side of the hill. In front was the well he’d dug when he first came out here. Not too far was his barn with a fenced-in area for the animals. He had only heard of the elegant houses on the plantations from people who had traveled by his parents’ homestead in Minnesota. This was nothing like that.

  Chancing another glance in her direction, he gauged her reaction to the place. She didn’t seem as disheartened as he feared she’d be. Sure, he’d warned her in his first letter, but there was no way he could have adequately prepared her for it.

  “I only have two bedrooms,” he told her, though he’d already mentioned it. “I have some space for a loft, and I figure when we have more children, our bedroom will go up there. For the time being, we should be comfortable.”

  “The place suits me just fine, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she assured him with that heartwarming smile of hers.

  He loved her already. He barely knew a thing about her and everything happened so fast but he knew he loved her as much as he knew his own name. There were just some things that automatically happened to a person, and he assumed love was one of them.

  He led the horses up to the front of the cabin and set the brake. “I’ll get you and Gilbert down.” Though it was probably unnecessary to tell her, he didn’t want her to assume people this far removed from society didn’t have manners. He jumped down from the wagon and hurried to her side. He waited for her to set the empty bottle on the floor of the wagon before he held his hand out to her. “Welcome home, Mrs. Grover.”

  “Thank you,” she replied, her voice soft as she scooted to the edge of the seat.

  One arm securely holding Gilbert, she accepted his hand and descended from the wagon. He took the opportunity to hold her for a moment, appreciating the way her curves pressed against him. He imagined it’d be wonderful to hold a woman in his arms, but this was much better than he expected.

  Noting the way her cheeks grew pink, he released her. In his eagerness, he forgot to remember she wasn’t accustomed to being near men in such a familiar fashion. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

  As he walked to the back of the wagon so he could start unloading it, she followed him, rubbing Gil
bert’s back. “You’re my husband. You of all people have the right to be close to me.”

  He glanced at her, sensing the sincerity in her words. Relaxing, he said, “Living out here can get lonesome. I mean, I have Gilbert, and I know the people around here. But it’s not the same as having a woman around. Not that I only wanted to get married for that reason. It’s definitely to my benefit you are a woman. You’re much better to look at than men are.”

  He cleared his throat. Somehow, what he wanted to say and what was coming out of his mouth were two different things, and for the life of him, he wasn’t sure how to get the matter resolved.

  “I’m glad that I am here,” she said, saving him from inadvertently making more of a fool of himself. “I did come from a place with many people, but I never felt like I belonged there. With you, I have the chance to have a home.”

  Surprised, he turned from the large crate closest to him and faced her. “You weren’t happy in Atlanta?”

  She hesitated for a moment. “Did I sound like I was happy in my letter?”

  “It’s hard to tell whether or not someone is happy from a letter. I assumed you looked forward to something new since you assured me that you had nothing worth staying for. When I think about it, I suppose you didn’t sound happy.” He shrugged. “I guess money can’t buy everything.”

  “No, it can’t,” she softly replied.

  “I might not have money, but I promise I’ll do everything I can to make you happy. This place might lack the finery you’re used to,” he gestured to his simple land and cabin, “but what it doesn’t have in things, it makes up for in other ways. I’ll be a good husband.”

  “I have no doubt about that. I just hope I can be a good wife.”

  “Oh, I know you will.”

  “You do?” she asked, her eyebrows furrowed.

  “Of course. Just look at Gilbert. Aunt Betty says a baby has a sense about people. You can tell the heart of a person by the way a baby reacts to someone. I told you before, it’s fate. We were meant to be together.”

  “Well, I’ll do my best.”

  “I know you will.” He gathered the crate and pulled it off the wagon. “Make yourself at home. I’ll bring in the things we bought from the mercantile.”

  She nodded then turned to the house.

  He couldn’t help but notice the way she gently swung her hips from side to side as she walked. She had a lovely figure. And to boot, she was a beauty. He didn’t know what he did to get so lucky, but he wouldn’t question it. He’d just be glad that she happened to stumble upon his ad. There were some things he learned long ago not to question and fate was one of them. Whistling, he followed her into the house.

  Chapter Three

  Sadie stepped into the cabin and took a good look at the bare furnishings. A dining table with a couple chairs next to a worktable and cookstove, and a couple rocking chairs. Gilbert stirred in her arms but didn’t wake up. Rubbing his back, she proceeded to one of the other two rooms.

  The first was Gilbert’s room since it had a crib and a small table with a wash basin and some cloth diapers with a pail nearby. A small box stove was against the wall. In the other room, she saw a bed, a dresser, a trunk, and a wash basin on a small nightstand. A box stove wasn’t too far from the foot of the bed. She figured this far up north, it wasn’t a bad idea to have as much heat in the rooms as possible.

  Turning from what was going to be her bedroom, she looked up and saw the small loft that Al had mentioned. A ladder went up to it. She took a few steps back and tried to figure out what was up there, but it was too dark to tell.

  Al came into the room and set the crate on the worktable. “I know this place needs a woman’s touch. You can do whatever you want to it.”

  Her first thought was to say she couldn’t come right in and change his home. In some ways, the bareness of it was refreshing after the gaudy red and purple furnishings and heavy drapes that had covered the brothel. But then she figured Hazel had come from excessive furnishings in her home and would jump at the chance to make the place more feminine. She, however, didn’t have to be too feminine.

  Perhaps if she chose softer colors like yellow or blue for decorating, Al wouldn’t suspect she wasn’t Hazel. She wondered if Hazel had shared some of her favorite colors with him. Probably not. Of all the things she’d mention to a man she was going to meet, she wouldn’t think of colors.

  Before Al left to get another crate, she asked, “What kind of things do you want me to do to your cabin?”

  He paused on his way to the door and looked over at her and smiled. “I’ll leave that up to you. I figure you know more about what a woman wants than I do. And besides, this is now your cabin, too.”

  Sensing the slight teasing tone in his voice, she chuckled. “I’m not much into flashy or fancy things. I like to keep things simple.”

  “Simple works for me.”

  Relaxing, she returned his smile. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  After he left the cabin, she went over to the shelf and hooks lining the wall and took note of the meager pots, pans and dishes. To the side were some bottles for Gilbert.

  She loved how simple the entire cabin was. It spoke of an honest man who worked hard to provide for his son. And better yet, it didn’t smell of perfume, alcohol, or sex.

  But it did strike her as a bit odd that there was no indication a woman had ever lived here. She expected something feminine to linger around the place. A woman had to have given birth to Gilbert, after all. But then if they hadn’t been married, she might not have lived here.

  Gilbert stirred again in her arms and this time she became aware of a foul odor coming from his diaper. She bit her lower lip. Holding the child was one thing. Changing him was a completely different matter. She had absolutely no experience with babies. She had done good to feed him.

  Al came in with the second crate, and she forced out, “How do you change a diaper?”

  He set the crate on the table. “I’ll show you.”

  Relieved he’d so easily accepted the task, she smiled her thanks as he took Gilbert from her. She followed him to Gilbert’s bedroom and watched as he set him on the small table.

  “It’s easier on a person’s back if he’s on the table instead of the floor, but you can change him on the floor if you wish,” Al said as he retrieved a new cloth diaper. “I fold these ahead of time so they’re ready when I need them.”

  She nodded but concentrated on his movements while he went through the process of removing the boy’s soiled diaper. She caught the smell of the poop and had to put her hand over her mouth so she didn’t gag.

  “Believe it or not, you’ll get used to it,” Al assured her as he wiped the boy’s bottom clean. “I didn’t think I would when I first did this, but now it doesn’t even bother me.”

  She hoped that was true. In the past, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get past the horrible smell of liquor on men’s breaths when they were on top of her. Pushing the reminder away, she focused on the process as Al tossed the soiled diaper and cloth towel into the pail full of ammonia then slipped the new diaper under his son. He slipped the pins in to secure it.

  “You make it look easy,” she commented, wondering how she’d ever be able to change a diaper so efficiently.

  “It is once you get used to it. It’ll take a few times doing it then you’ll be a natural. I’m guessing it’s easier for women to learn this kind of thing than it is for men. Women have a motherly instinct, after all.”

  Though she nodded her agreement, she wondered if that was true. Yes, she was a woman, but taking care of a baby wasn’t something that seemed to come naturally to her. She’d been pregnant twice, but Madame’s male friend beat her until she miscarried both times. It was the way all the prostitutes were treated at the brothel, and until now, it didn’t occur to Sadie that she could have had a baby like Gilbert to care for. Not that a brothel was any place for a baby. And it wasn’t like she had a choice anyway. She was Mad
ame’s property and Madame decided what happened to her.

  “Hazel?”

  A touch on her arm brought her attention back to Al. Her cheeks grew warm. She shouldn’t have let her mind drift off to places where it shouldn’t go. She was safe here. Safe with Al. And better yet, she was free. She never had to live under Madame’s rules again.

  “What do you need me to do?” she asked, knowing she missed whatever he’d said but not willing to tell him why.

  “I asked if you’d take him out to the other room. I’m going to clean my hands.” He gestured to the wash basin.

  “Oh, of course.”

  She gathered Gilbert in her arms and left the small bedroom. Unsure of what to do, she decided to sit in one of the rocking chairs, thinking Gilbert might like to rest against her as he had before but he insisted on sitting up in her lap. He reached out for nothing in particular, and the action made her stop trying to rock him. For a little boy, he sure was strong. She had to wrap her arms around his waist so he didn’t fall forward.

  Al emerged from the bedroom and chuckled. “Now that he’s had his nap, he’ll want to move around.”

  Oh, so that’s what Gilbert wanted. Sadie didn’t know why she assumed the boy would be content to sit with her all day. That only showed how much she needed to learn about babies.

  “It’s a shame,” she admitted as she placed the boy on the floor. “I enjoyed holding him.”

  “You have nothing to worry about. He’ll love being held a couple hours after supper. He enjoys being rocked in that chair before bedtime.”