Mail-Order Brides Of Oak Grove: Surprise Bride for the Cowboy. Kathryn Albright
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her. She traveled past another car holding animals of some sorts, and then to the one carrying their baggage. It wasn’t as if they’d brought a lot with them from Ohio—the sheriff had limited them to a bag and trunk each.
“Pampering,” she muttered. “Fairy dust.” Mary slid the door open and easily spotted her and Maggie’s things. The ruckus on the other side of the train made it so she didn’t need to be too quiet, therefore she wasn’t. “She’s been pampered most of her life, that’s what the problem is,” Mary muttered as she climbed into the car. Tossing aside various bags and bundles, she collected her tapestry bag and tossed it out the open doorway and then pushed aside other trunks until she could grasp both of the handles on the sides of hers.
They had packed carefully back in Ohio, choosing what they would bring, and she regretted that now. Her tapestry bag only held an additional change of clothing and a few other basic necessities. Everything else was in Maggie’s trunk—the one she’d leave behind after she slipped a note inside it for her sister. Her trunk held what she needed to make some money. Fast money that would get her out of town. It held several full bottles, but more important, a brewing batch of McCary’s Finest Recipe Tonic. All she required now was a place it could brew for a bit longer and then she could bottle it up.
The trunk was heavy, and the only way to maneuver it to the opening of the rail car was to walk backwards, pulling it across the rough floor. As she gave the trunk a solid tug with each step, Mary’s irritation at Maggie continued. Talking about finding a job had been useless. Maggie hadn’t worked a day in her life. She’d always had something more important to do than washing or cooking or—
Her step had found nothing but air.
Startled, she let go of the trunk handle and grabbed for it again, but it was too late.
Her fall ended almost as quickly as it started, but her moment of gratitude disappeared almost as soon as it started. She had fallen out of the train car, but hadn’t landed on the ground. It had been years since she’d sat on Da’s lap, but would never forget what it felt like.
Scrambling and with her heart racing, she tried to get off whoever’s lap she was on.
“Hold still.”
The unfamiliar male voice had her struggling harder. “Let go of me!”
“I will. Just let me back my horse up otherwise you’ll break the neck I just saved you from breaking.”
His actions were as quick as her fall had been. Almost before she could blink, he’d backed the horse up, lowered her to the ground, and jumped off himself. Leaving her to look up into a set of eyes so dark brown they could have been black if not for the specks of gold. Horse feathers. If all the men in Kansas looked like this one, she could almost understand why the girls on the train had been so giddy.
“What were you doing?” he asked. “The depot agent will see the baggage car is unloaded.”
Snapped out of her stupor, Mary said, “I—I don’t want anyone touching my things.” Or her person. Sitting on his lap had caused nerve endings to tingle in places she didn’t know she had nerve endings.
“You one of the brides?”
“Me? Not on your life.” Praying for some kind of believable reason to be unloading her belongings, she glanced at the baggage car. “I—I’m heading west as soon as the train is unloaded. To Denver, and I don’t want my belongings mixed up with the ones that will be unloaded here.”
His expression—a dark scowl—didn’t change. Flustered by the way her heart wouldn’t stop trying to beat its way out of her chest, she said, “I’m meeting my husband in Denver and don’t want my china broken before I get there.” Pointing toward her trunk, she asked, “Would you mind?”
His gaze wandered left and right and then over her from head to toe before he swung around and lifted her trunk out of the car.
“Right there is fine,” she said. “I’ll wait with it until everything else is unloaded. Thank you for your assistance.”
Her heart was still pounding, perhaps because of her lies, but more likely because of him. He was tall and muscular, and could very easily thwart her plan before she ever put it in place. “Good day, sir.”
His dark glare once again went from her head to her toes, leaving her quivering, but then he grasped the saddle horn, swung onto his big gray horse with one easy movement, and touched the brim of his black hat with one hand as he turned the horse about.
Relief oozed out of every pore of her body as she watched him ride away. She sighed. Heavily. She’d just seen a true-to-life cowboy. Maggie said this country was full of them. That was what the other girls had said. Mary didn’t believe a cowboy was any better than any other man and was glad to see this one riding further and further away from her. A man had never made her entire being tremble before, and she certainly didn’t want that to happen again.
As he became little more than a speck on the horizon, she frowned. She had no idea what she’d hoped to see, but this wasn’t it.
Town was on the other side of the tracks, but other than a couple houses, this side was barren. “Good Lord, the harder I look, the less I see.” Twisting her neck, she scanned the area from her left shoulder to her right. “There’s nothing. Not a tree or bush. Nothing.”
Well, there was a building. A feed store by the name on the front. There was also a closed sign hanging on the door.
Fearing someone else may round the train at any moment, she picked up her bag and grabbed one trunk handle. Careful to not jostle the trunk too much and fighting the wind the entire way, she dragged the trunk around the backside of the feed store. Spying a lean-to on the side, she dragged the trunk inside it and then sat down on top of it to catch her breath.
Oak Grove sure didn’t have any groves. Could there be a more barren land in all of the world? The grass wasn’t even real grass. It was barely summer and it was already brown and had crunched beneath her feet as she’d walked. Good thing she had made a batch of tonic mixture before leaving Ohio. Finding a way to burp the crock along the way hadn’t been easy, but she’d managed, and soon could bottle it up.
The music had stopped, but she could still hear people talking. Mainly one person. The conductor had said the mayor would provide a welcoming speech, and from how he went on and on, it appeared the mayor liked hearing himself talk.
Oh, well, the mayor wasn’t any of her concern—neither was the image of that dark-haired cowboy that kept flashing in the back of her mind. Finding a place for her tonic to finish brewing was what she needed to focus on. She’d been hoping to find a grove of trees on the edge of town to hide it in, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen.
A loud cheer echoed against the building behind her, as did the whistle of the train, and a couple of loud blasts that made her nearly jump out of her skin. Gun shots! Good heavens, what kind of place was this?
The cheering that sounded again gave her a touch of relief. She’d heard men did that, fired guns for just the heck of it. Cowboys. Uncouth beings!
The idea of Maggie encountering a man much like the one who’d ridden away on his big gray horse rattled Mary slightly. She couldn’t remember being this upset with her sister, at least not for a long time, but she wasn’t going to give in. Being the older sister, if only by a few minutes, she was always the one to give in. Not this time.
Perhaps by the time she’d bottled up the tonic and sold it, Maggie would come to her senses and be ready to head out with her. She’d tried to tell herself she couldn’t care less if Maggie stayed here and married some uncouth man or not, but that wasn’t true. She did care, but Maggie had to learn sometime. And this appeared to be the time. Until that happened—when Maggie discovered the older and wiser sister was always right, Mary figured she’d stay well-hidden. Teach Maggie a lesson she’d never forget.
No longer winded, Mary stood and then crouched down beside the trunk to carefully lift the lid. Happy to see everything still safely