The Preacher’s Bride (Mail-Order Bride Book 4) Read online

  The Preacher’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

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

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  Chapter One

  The violinist switched to Beethoven, and Molly bit back another groan. If her mother heard another one of those, she’d be in trouble. At least, more trouble than she was in by being stuck at the dinner party. Four dancers attempted to follow the music, but three of them were too awkward. Most of the couples were sitting in the corners, talking quietly over their tea.

  They did have good tea. Molly granted their hosts that. But everything else at the Grady homestead made her so bored that she couldn’t decide if she wanted to daydream or just stare at the ceiling. She’d already indulged in both activities since their arrival three hours ago.

  Someone cleared their voice behind her and she jumped, worried it might be her mother. Turning in the large chair, Molly was relieved to find it was not Mrs. Karen Hathaway. But the relief quickly dissipated at the sight of Leon Grady.

  He was skinny and pockmarked with heavily lidded-eyes that only served as a physical reminder of his dullness. Even the smile he offered her was limp. “Molly. Shall we dance?”

  “To this?” Molly blinked, then glanced at the stumbling figures. She remembered at the last minute to be polite. “Thank you kindly, but I’m afraid I don’t feel well enough to be so daring as to … dance. I’ll just sit here peaceably.”

  “Oh.” He rocked on his heels, cradling a glass with both hands. “Should I join you?”

  The only order she wanted to give him was to go away. But she’d been raised better than that. Molly opened her mouth and was looking for some dramatic excuse to provide when she felt an irritating itch on the back of her neck. Her mother was watching. “You don’t need to do that,” she stammered, losing her cool. Oh, she’d be in trouble tonight. “Although I suppose you could fetch me a drink? Something with a lot of ice. Summer is so hot, isn’t it?”

  He nodded, took two steps toward the table, and then turned back. “Yes. Yes, summer is hot, indeed.” Then, once he’d answered her question, Leon walked to the food and punch table. However, Miss Geraldine Faulks had just scooped up the last of the goblets, so he’d have to find a drink for her elsewhere. If Molly was lucky, she supposed, it would take him all night.

  Except this meant she was on his radar now, as well as her mother’s. And if her mother was watching her now, that meant her father, Saul, would be. And if he was, that meant Mr. and Mrs. Grady made a party of four, prepared to stare her down. The assumed marriage the two men had been planning since her and Leon’s infancy was, if she had anything to say about it, nothing more than a whim destined for the garbage bin. Molly felt a queasy sensation in her stomach and she looked around for something that could make her look busy.

  If only she had taken up violin as a child like her mother had suggested. But no, it had to be the pianoforte for her. Sighing, she leaned back into the large chair. Her heeled boots scooted forward and a soft crinkling sound reached her ears. As always, her curiosity bested her. Trying to look as much of a lady as she possibly could, Molly pursed her lips and looked down.

  “A newspaper,” she grinned. Her father read it every morning, but her mother deigned it unnecessary for a proper woman to busy her brain with such political thoughts and ideas. But what else was she to use her brain for?

  As she opened the wrinkled pages, she knew her mother couldn’t stomp over now and tell her not to read. That would be much too impolite, after all. Molly hid a snicker behind the large pages. She skimmed the black ink, drinking in the fascinating stories of horror and amusement. It was then, in the bottom right corner, that she found a section that changed her life.

  Mail Order Bride. Peter Bain in want of wife in South Dakota. Banker with large home, looking to settle down. Will send for if proposal is acceptable. Prairie Sage post office to accept all letters.

  It was in that very moment that a cozy warmth drenched itself upon Molly like an egg yolk, trickling down through her limbs to the ends of her extremities. The feeling settled in her chest, light as a feather. She didn’t know what it meant, but she liked it.

  “Surely this man deserves a response,” she told herself decidedly. Though she pretended to peruse the rest of the pages, Molly focused on memorizing that section. After all, her mother would be certain to throw a fit if she attempted to leave that evening’s festivities with the paper in hand. And though that would be a funny scene, she wasn’t interested in the after-effects.

  So, during the Grady house party, Molly escaped the clutches of Leon Grady, the son of her father’s business partner who everyone was attempting to set her up with, and prepared her own escape. The doomed future her parents had prepared for her years ago simply would never have the opportunity to exist. Not anymore; not if she answered the ad.

  Of course, being raised to host parties and attend social engagements had always sounded lovely. Having the latest fashions was a tender perk. But once Molly had been to one party, she had been to them all. The same conversations about the never-changing sky, the same dry biscuits everyone pretended didn’t leave crumbs in their clothes, and the same faces that only grew more wrinkled with time. She understood that, in theory, she had been raised to have a good life.

  It just happened to be an extremely dull life.

  Boston had its amusements, certainly, but she’d always seen herself as a heroine of another tale. Her mother wanted her to be a lady when she wanted to be wild. It was her dream to have an adventure, and surely this would be it.

  Besides, Molly told herself six months later, when her correspondence with Mr. Peter Bain, the banker, had led to a train ticket for her trip to South Dakota, anything would be better than marrying dull Leon Grady.

  Chapter Two

  The lingering notes of the final hymn came to a close. Silence filled the church and he looked out upon his congregation. They were a small group of believers, faithful Christians committed to the Lord and their community. He nodded his gratitude to them in consideration of this sobering occasion.

  Adam McKey had seen the hardships and the cruelty of the world. In response, he had dedicated his life to God and become a preacher. Life had brought several challenges along the way. Each of them had been more difficult than the previous one as he worked to become more humble, stronger, and better prepared.

  Yet who could prepare for something so tragic?

  His heart tightened as the men rose up. Eighteen of them walked down the aisle towards the three resting coffins. The rest of the people stood in respectful silence as the boxes were delicately picked up and, one by one, were guided out of the room. The men walked out the side door and past the garden, to where the cemetery sat.

  As their preacher, Adam led the way outside. The sun was bright for they were in the bare beginnings of spring. Snow was finally melting and, at long last, they could dig
the necessary holes in the ground. Everyone gathered around the three new graves and waited. He swallowed, wishing again for some relief. Prairie Sage had only been his home for the past five years, but he’d recently buried more people than he wanted to consider.

  He remembered every one of them. As he opened his Bible, he attempted to swallow the lump in his throat. It was difficult to get through his chosen passages without his voice cracking. There were these three poor souls. Five before them, and seven during the first round. An epidemic had ravaged the surrounding areas over the past harvest, sickening most of the people and killing more than expected. They were finally beginning to recover, but he knew others were still lying ill in their beds.

  “Preacher, sir?”

  The people began to mill around once the verses were read. Men began to set the coffins into the ground, readying their shovels. Women held their children back, and others returned to the church. Adam felt too drained to do anything else. But still, he offered a polite smile to Mrs. Lyle, the town’s midwife, and sister to Mrs. O’Henry, who cleaned his church every week.

  “Mrs. Lyle, I’m glad to see you looking so well,” he offered. “And you know you don’t need to call me ‘sir.’ What can I do for you?”

  Her eyes skittered off and she gestured towards her sister who had her arms wrapped around three little figures. They hadn’t been noticeable before with so many other children gathered nearby. But he saw them now and wondered why she had wound up with three that were not her own. “It’s the miller’s children, y’see. Johnny Miller? His wife passed in childbirth when the last was born. They’re all right, but they’re in need of a new home.”

  “Oh.” Adam gripped his Bible tightly. Miller was the one being laid down at the moment. His heart bottomed out, surprising him. He hadn’t known it could drop any further. Swallowing, he tried to think. “Ah, I see. Of course, we cannot ask more from you or your sister. You’ve both done so much—”

  The woman shrugged. “We’ve done what we can, and we’ll do more of that. But she’s already dealing with five of her own, and I’ve got my own ill husband to worry about without thinking of three more mouths. Surely there’s someone able and willing?”

  His body betrayed him as he began to nod. But who could take in one more mouth, let alone three? Everyone was struggling to recover from the harsh winter and the sickness. “Indeed. Please, allow me. I’ll take the children into my care for now until we find them a new home.”

  “You?”

  Him? That statement had come out of nowhere. Her response made Adam realize what he had just said. A flush crept up his neck that he tried to ignore. He hadn’t meant the words, but there was something that felt right about them now. It was a feeling he had experienced in his heart before, a soft thumping that reminded him he was simply one of God’s tools.

  So he nodded. This must be what the Lord wanted. “Of course. I helped raise five siblings after all, and they fared well. My home is more than big enough to fit a few more souls. Do they have any belongings with them?”

  Mrs. Lyle was soon convinced that Adam was more than capable. He’d had years, after all, to prove that he was patient, generous, and kind. He took his work seriously in the town and had been given the opportunity to rent out the original town’s church as his home. That in itself was large for a family, let alone a bachelor. Townsfolk had donated old furniture and he’d built a few pieces himself. Children, he supposed, might make it feel more like a home.

  Johnny Miller had a few debts left unpaid, so his mill and house were sold to pay for them. The belongings within, along with the horse, were turned over to the children. Thad was the eldest and only boy at the age of nine, a beanpole with a constant flow of questions Rose was tall for her seven years, and promised to be a challenge with her furrowed brow. Vera, at three years old, appeared instead to be the easiest, always cheerful just to be included.

  Soon the children had their own room in the back corner of his home. Additionally, they had a large chest of their clothes and toys with anything else they had wanted from their home. Adam didn’t want to take much at first, feeling intrusive. But then, realizing the children might want something familiar to cling to, he took as much as seemed reasonable.

  Everything seemed reasonable until that evening as the expectant children stared at him as if they were waiting for something. He just didn’t know what.

  Chapter Three

  Molly Hathaway tried to imagine what it would be like as a banker’s wife in South Dakota. Surely similar to that of a banker’s wife in Boston? Her eyes scoured the countryside on the train ride out west. She could feel her heart beating right out of her chest, having waited nineteen years for an adventure. It was finally happening.

  Well, she resolved, at least it wouldn’t be like the life of a miner’s wife or a rancher’s wife. Those options seemed much too rustic for her taste. No, a banker would do. Even in the middle of nowhere, that had to mean something.

  It made her smile just thinking of the west.

  Her parents, on the other hand, had been far from cheerful about her decision. They’d attempted to bar her from leaving the house twice in the last week, and that said nothing of their other creative solutions to change her mind. Molly rolled her eyes. Those two had simply never understood her tastes and her curiosity for the unknown.

  The further from Boston she went, the more she wanted to sing at the top of her lungs. She’d assumed there would be hesitation or at least a smidgen of trepidation. And yet there was none. It was going to be a glorious adventure, indeed. A handsome banker at her side as they explored the Wild West. Why, if anything could be a dream come true, that just might be it.

  She giggled to herself and giggled all the way to South Dakota.

  However, the merriment came to an end when Peter Bain picked her up at the train station. Although Molly didn’t want to admit to herself what she had expected, it certainly wasn’t him. Certainly he had mentioned he was tall with dark hair, she thought to herself. But this gentleman was balding and likely her height.

  He wouldn’t stop sniffling. “Sorry,” he muttered into a handkerchief, showing her down the street. “It’s all the dust here.”

  Molly didn’t know what to say, so she focused on keeping a smile on her face, her dress clean, and her luggage in hand. He hadn’t offered to carry either of her two carpetbags. And where were they going? Didn’t he have a horse and wagon?

  “If you don’t mind,” she asked bravely, “might you tell me wherever we are going? My bags, you see, they’re—”

  He cut her off. “Just picking something up from work. You want to see the office, don’t you?” But Peter didn’t look back to see her purse her lips. They only grew tighter upon entering the bank of Prairie Sage and finding that he was not a true banker after all. Instead, he was simply a lowly bank clerk.

  It’s nothing, she tried to tell herself. Surely she had misunderstood. Or perhaps he was due for a promotion. Either way, a man did not deserve to be judged so quickly. Not until she had a proper opportunity to learn more. So Molly Hathaway used her Boston charm to greet the other clerks and wait until Mr. Peter Bain decided they should go to his large house.

  “We can see about the wedding afterwards,” he offered flippantly as they turned a corner. “Besides, it’ll be a good opportunity for you to meet Mam. She’s eager to meet you, you know.”

  So many people, so many new places. Perhaps she should have aimed to sleep more on the train, Molly sighed. Hefting her heavier bag up higher, she tried to ignore the way Peter’s belly slipped out of his buttoned shirt as they walked. “Your mother? She lives in town? How lovely. I’d love to meet her as well.”

  He shot her an odd look. They crossed the street after two men riding their horses went by. A dog, a scraggly little thing, had trailed behind but started towards Peter. Molly brightened and opened her mouth to mention the animal, but he spotted it as well. “Mutt! Get out of here!” And he threw a kick, catching the dog’s s
houlder before it could dodge him.

  Molly’s mouth dropped open, stunned at what he had just done. How could he be cruel? And in front of a lady? But he kept walking as though it were nothing. Rather, he glanced back at her as though she were strange. “Of course she lives in town. It’s her boarding house, after all. See? Told you it was large. Beauty, hm?” She opened her mouth in the attempt to say something, but for once, she was speechless. Fortunately, Peter didn’t notice as he stumbled up the steps. “Mam! She’s here. I brought the wife. Come and meet her!”

  Glancing around at the old-fashioned parlor, Molly hesitantly set her bags down and loosened her traveling coat. It was a chilly day, but all that running around had left her forehead rather damp. Her head was a whirlwind, trying to understand what she’d set herself up for. The nerves began to trickle into her brain like ants on a mission. What if this was all a mistake?

  Peter checked his pocket watch and mumbled something about the paper before stepping back outside. Molly still didn’t know what to say and watched him through the open door as he stepped out and bent over to grab his paper. Just as he straightened up, three children dashed by in the mud, running and shouting.

  “You filth!” Peter suddenly screamed. It was so loud that Molly jumped. As he continued shouting, dread filled her body. This man was not who she thought he was. Instead he was a liar, a fraud, and worse that—he was cruel. It was not something she could live with for the rest of her life. Her heart hammered as she tried to understand what to do now.

  This was all a terrible mistake. Even worse than the erroneous marriage her parents had attempted to force upon her. Leon had been dull, not a beast. Still, Molly Hathaway had been raised a proper Bostonian woman and accepted that she had been wrong. She would admit to anything to get out of this marriage.