The Miner’s Bride (Mail-Order Bride Book 10) Read online

  The Miner’s Bride

  ©2019 by Stella Clark

  All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, events or locales is completely coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

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  Chapter One

  She peeked out the window into the street, clutching the curtain with all her strength. He was late. Where could he be? Nausea rose in her throat, but Sarah tried her hardest to ignore it. She didn’t have the time to be ill, not now.

  Chewing on her bottom lip, the young lady’s eyes darted about. The cobblestone street before her was busy with people passing and horses driving carriages in every direction. Living in the middle of the slums in Philadelphia could be handy to see everyone passing through, even if it was a drab little place that was falling apart.

  But the streets didn’t reveal Curtis anywhere.

  Where could he be? Sarah tried to think if she had forgotten something. Surely he would have told her if he was going to be late. Or if they had to leave tomorrow.

  Maybe she had gotten the days wrong.

  The back door banged open and Sarah jumped, whirling around to find Karen in the doorway. Karen’s family had taken Sarah in when her mother passed away four years ago, murdered on the streets on her way home from the factory.

  Hurriedly Sarah tried to smile, but she was too anxious. She had gone to work that morning, taking over her mother’s job at the factory, but had left shortly after her single break to come home and wait for Curtis.

  He had to be close.

  “I was wondering where you’d gone,” Karen called to her as she closed the door and set her bag of potatoes on the table. “Have you been home all this time? Everyone thought you were fired. I told them no. I’m not wrong, am I?”

  Waving a hand at her, Sarah shook her head and focused on the street again to see what she had missed. Who she had missed. “No, no. Well, I might be if I don’t go back tomorrow. I’ll beg for it back, if I am fired.”

  “If you only came back home instead of back to your machines, what are you doing here?” Karen trailed over curiously.

  They were best of friends and had been for most of their lives. There were hardly any secrets between the two of them. That’s what made their relationship so strong.

  Except Sarah was keeping secrets now and didn’t know what to do about them. She hadn’t meant to. But one moment had led to another, and now she didn’t know where to start. So, she had been hoping Curtis would help her out.

  “Where is he?” she muttered, rubbing her hands together anxiously. Pressing her nose against the glass window, she peered outside and tried to think of an excuse for her friend.

  Karen made her way to the window beside her. She glanced outside and then down to Sarah. “Who are you looking for? Oh, not Curtis, is it?”

  At the mention of his name, Sarah’s stomach flip-flopped. She instinctively put a hand to it, and then hurriedly dropped her hand down to her side. Clearing her throat, she glanced up at her friend warily. “Why would it matter if I was?”

  The dark-haired girl opened her mouth and then closed it. Then she made a face and showed it to Sarah with a show of reluctance. “I know how much you like him, but … I’m afraid I saw him headed to Hyde Park with Patrice Shelly on my way back here.”

  Sarah blinked, trying to understand what her friend had just said. “What … Patrice? No, that’s not possible. He said he was coming here … Hyde Park?”

  Everyone knew Hyde Park. It was a beautiful place in the city with plenty of trees and flowers and shrubbery that made for enough space for couples to have a moment alone together. She knew it better than she wanted to.

  Her heart dropped as Karen nodded, a sympathetic look on her face. “I’m sorry. And I already told you, you can do better than Curtis. He’s handsome enough, but he’s not nice.”

  It was too much to take in. Sarah straightened up off the chair, away from the window, and shook her head. “No, it’s just—you must be mistaken. Curtis is supposed to be coming here. He needs to be coming here. He said he would—he was going to help me. He said we would—” She fought to get the words out as tears began to spill. It was impossible to keep the panic out any longer. “He can’t be, he can’t!”

  Karen took a step back in surprise before leaning forward to grab Sarah’s arm. “Sarah, what’s wrong? I didn’t think you were so attached—”

  “But we are!” Frantically, Sarah tried to breathe. “He has to be here!” But there was no air in the room. She was growing dizzy. The world was crashing down all around her. Everything was wrong now. If Curtis wasn’t coming for her, then what? What would she do?

  Her friend stepped in her path. “Sarah?”

  She stepped back, shaking her head before burying her face in her hands. A sob escaped her lips as she lost feeling in her legs, stumbling down to the ground. Everything ached lately and she had never felt so ill before this point. Trying to comprehend the idea of a suddenly lonely life before her terrified Sarah.

  “Oh dear.” Karen knelt and wrapped her arms around her friend. “It’s all right.”

  But Sarah shook her head, grasping the girl for strength. “It’s not. Nothing’s right, Karen. I need Curtis to marry me. Are you certain he was with Patrice?”

  The girl froze. “What? Yes, he was, of course. Why would you want to wed Curtis?”

  Tears streamed down her face as she tried to speak up. For a minute, the panic overwhelmed her and she couldn’t speak. After all, the moment she confessed, she could lose the temporary home and her dearest friend.

  But she was ill and tired of lying. “He said he would marry me and give me a home, Karen.”

  “You have a home here,” the girl reminded her. “Mother said just for another year, but certainly they wouldn’t kick you out now. We’ll find a new home together, remember? Closer to the factory. We’ll plant flowers and—and have picnics every day.”

  It had been such a nice dream. Sarah had thought of it every day since the girls had left school and started working in the iron factory together. Just the thought of a garden of her own with a sweet little home had given her the strength to carry on.

  But now none of that could happen. She’d made a terrible mistake and now she would spend the rest of her life paying for it. A scream rose in her throat, but Sarah didn’t know how to let it out. Grabbing tight to Karen, she shook her head.

  “We can’t,” she choked out. “I’m with child.”

  Life had been hard enough the day she’d discovered her mother’s body left alone in a ditch. Sarah had been homeless for a month until Karen convinced her fiercely religious and strict parents to take in the girl, who could share her wages with the family. They’d both started at the factory and worked through the gray smoke, dreaming of blue skies.

  She thought she had found them. Curtis Handel was a charming young man who didn’t have much, but he had enough. He’d been to school and was preparing to leave for university. Stealing moments together in the evenings, the young man had promised to marry her and take her away. He would free her from the poor and grimy neighborhood. The
y would have their own little home in New York City, and raise a family there. Blue skies and all the flowers she wanted, he had assured her.

  And now, suddenly, they weren’t going. Now, she was unwed and with child.

  “Oh bother,” Karen managed before wrapping Sarah up into a tight hug. “Oh, Sarah! What were you thinking? You haven’t told my parents, have you?”

  Sarah shook her head. “They’ll kill me, Karen, I know it.”

  The girl grimaced and pushed Sarah’s hair out of her face. It stuck to her cheeks because of the tears, but she managed to move them out of the way. “No, no, of course not. We’ll just … not tell them while we can, all right? It’s okay, Sarah. We’ll work something out.”

  Leaning into her friend for support, Sarah let out the rest of the tears. They had been building up for weeks and after her special evening in Hyde Park with Curtis, Sarah had realized she’d made a decision she couldn’t take back.

  Her life had been hard enough before this. But how was she supposed to take care of a child now?

  Chapter Two

  Rubbing a handkerchief across the back of his sweaty neck, Watt squinted up at the sun. It was hot as all get out. But at least it wasn’t muggy. He thought of the Louisiana summers and tried to remind himself he was lucky.

  Besides, it was a beautiful day. His eyes paused on the Rocky Mountains before him. Sure, he didn’t work on them, but he worked inside them, and that had to count for something. Wrinkling his nose, he took a seat on a boulder and tried to relax.

  He only had a few minutes to enjoy for his break, but he would take whatever he could get. Watt glanced around the yard, seeing the other miners settling down or talking to one another.

  When he had heard about Colorado, he hadn’t known about the heat. A lot of the folks who came back to his part of North Carolina had promised big skies and lots of gold. They’d told stories of it tumbling into the rivers, of people swimming in it.

  While Watt knew that couldn’t be true, he still hadn’t thought he’d have to work this hard. It had been a year and he wasn’t halfway to his intended money marker for how much he wanted to mine. Checking his pockets again for the small amount he had on him, he could see there still wasn’t much.

  It only made him more restless.

  He climbed up to his feet and decided to take a walk. His body was aching, but he could rest after he finished his mining for the day. This was supposed to be a good region for gold, and he’d joined on to the Reacher’s Cave. Timothy Reacher owned it and let any man who wanted to mine in there for a small fee of fifteen percent of anything taken out.

  They were only half a mile deep and he wondered how much further in they would have to dig to find anything good. Not that the dark made him queasy. But he liked the fresh air, and there was always the threat of the mines crumbling.

  Watt shuddered and kept walking. He made his way into town. His eyes wandered over the couple of buildings restlessly. Though he didn’t know what he was looking for, he would know when he saw it. The town was a rough one, but some of the folks were honest and he enjoyed it for what it was. At least, sometimes, he did.

  Stepping inside the post office, he nodded to the postmaster and wondered if he would ever have anything to mail to someone. There was an aunt somewhere on his father’s side. He glanced around the open room before his eyes fell on a row of newspapers and magazines.

  His eyes fell upon the Matrimonial Times magazines.

  Curious, Watt picked it up. He thumbed through, wondering if he understood the idea correctly. There were women willing to travel for a husband they’d never met? His heart thumped loudly.

  This was what he had been looking for.

  Watt paid for the magazine and read it on his way back to the mine. As he went back to work, he thought about what he would put in an ad himself. There wasn’t much to say about him besides that he was a hardworking, God-fearing kind of man. Not too old, not too rich, not too much of anything. If there were more available women in town, he might have considered them. But this mining town was lacking in marriageable prospects.

  ***

  The next morning, he sent out his ad. It left him anxious for a couple of weeks until he gathered the courage to return to the postmaster to discover he had received mail.

  He took the rest of the day off to explore the responses to his ad. Taking his time, he waited until after church the following Sunday to start writing any responses himself. Five had reached out to him, and two intrigued him.

  A marriage couldn’t be a careless choice, after all. He wanted someone to be his companion in the wilderness, to embrace the beauty while still working hard.

  There was one particular woman whose plight he felt affected by, for she was down on her luck but had not let the trials and tribulations keep her down. Though she had suffered many hardships, she had recovered each time. She was honest, kind, and hopeful. Sarah Jacoby sounded like a beautiful woman. And if she could endure everything she had gone through, then being a miner’s wife wouldn’t send her running.

  As Watt sent out his final letter, he hoped that by bringing her to Colorado, perhaps he could provide her with a better home than her poor one in Philadelphia.

  “I’m sorry,” Terrence, the town blacksmith, chuckled when he heard. “You’re building a what?”

  Taking a deep breath, Watt nodded. Rubbing his hands together, he glanced around at the nails and iron on the nearby counter. “You heard me. A cradle. I’m building a cradle for a—a baby.”

  He hadn’t said those words out loud until then. They had felt like mountains in his mind that he couldn’t overcome, too expansive to understand. But now that he’d forced the word out into the open, it suddenly felt right.

  His bride-to-be was with child. A shiver ran down his spine and he grinned. Before the next summer came, he would be a father. It hardly seemed possible. He hadn’t expected such an occurrence. Certainly, there would be children once there was a marriage. He knew that. But she was already with another man’s child, a man who’d left her, and Watt admired her courage. He wasn’t so prideful as to deny a woman in her condition.

  He was going to be a father. He grinned at Terrence, who glanced at the lumber in the room. The man was a master craftsman, and Watt wanted the best for his child.

  “I’ve never built one before,” Terrence said. “But I can sort it out. What kind were you thinking about? A rocking one?”

  After a moment of hesitation, Watt pulled out a drawing he had been working on. “Yes and no, actually. See this? I don’t want something so small that a baby will grow out of it too quickly. If we build the legs like this, then we could add curved wood to make it a rocker when we want. Then we could take it off. And then, if there’s a wooden latch here, then it could fold over for a little child.”

  Terrence’s eyes widened. “You built this?”

  “I drew it.” Watt shook his head. “I just got to thinking. But I’m no good with wood, I’m afraid. Everyone says you’re the best.”

  The man smirked at him. “That’s because I’m the only one.”

  “Can you build it?” Watt asked him. “I don’t need it for a couple of months, but I’d expect it within three. When you need money for more nails or tools, I’ll bring it along, so I’ll pay as we go. What do you think?”

  The man extended one of his large hands. “We’ve got a deal.”

  Walking down the street, Watt grinned and pressed his hat down further over his head. His heart thumped loudly in his chest, eager for the future. The prospect of gold had always been a fancy idea in his head, one he’d chased down in the hopes of an adventure

  And now, he was getting ready to have a family of his own. It was more exciting than anything he’d ever done. His life was about to change, and he could hardly wait.

  Chapter Three

  At the top of the hill, Sarah had to stop to catch her breath. She used to be able to climb and walk anywhere around the city. Rather, she used to be able to run up a
ny hill.

  Now she had to lean against a light pole. Inhaling deeply, she absently rubbed a hand over her stomach. It hadn’t grown much, or so Karen claimed, but Sarah felt huge. She had always been a thin person and it felt so strange to have something growing inside her.

  Especially since it was so much harder to move now. She was certain she was already waddling, but no one said anything. At least, they hadn’t until that morning at the factory. She closed her eyes as she tried to block out the memory.

  If someone hadn’t known she was with child then, they certainly did now. Mr. Pratchett had caught sight of her pausing for her breath and rubbing her belly. He had noticed. Instantly the man had thrown a fit, yelling at her for her foolish mistake and saying how he wouldn’t have an unwed mother working on his factory floors.

  She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. If they were closed, then she wouldn’t cry.

  What was she supposed to do?

  A lump formed in her throat. She inhaled through her nose, biting her lip. Everything ached and she just wanted to collapse into a puddle and weep. But it wouldn’t make anything better. It wouldn’t solve her problem.

  Karen’s parents had learned about her condition within a month and had kicked her out to the poorhouse. She had been using all her earnings to live in an old crowded church with others who were also trying to avoid the streets. It had hardly left her with enough to eat one meal a day.

  Now she had lost her job at the factory.

  She inhaled again, trying not to think. Something would work out. Something had to. It was the only way. Otherwise, what else would she do?

  But when she let out the breath, it was shaky. A tear slipped down her cheek, and then another. Sarah leaned against the pole, unable to hold onto it any longer. Her hands were shaking too hard.

  “Sorry I’m late!”

  Karen’s voice came from the other side of the hill. She sounded cheerful, so Sarah scrambled to wipe away the tears, not wanting to show her weakness. But they were still falling as her friend arrived.