The Jilted Bride (Mail-Order Bride Book 5)

  The Jilted 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

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  Chapter One

  Her fingers wouldn’t stop dancing. The bundle of flowers she had bought out on the street was growing limp, folding over as the time grew late. Ruby Gebhart didn’t blame them, seeing as she had spent all afternoon at the courthouse waiting. The room was warm and the air was stale. Her eyes darted around the large windows, and she prayed he was still coming.

  Where was he?

  Patting her hair in the warm room, Ruby tried to tell herself for the hundredth time that everything was going to be just fine. Was it getting hotter in there? Or was it just her? She scrabbled in search of her handkerchief but couldn’t find it and sat back down in dismay. She was hot and still alone.

  Nathaniel Vertz had not shown up to marry her like he had promised. She swallowed the little lump in the back of her throat, trying to tell herself it was just a cold. Just yesterday she’d spent the afternoon with her neighbor’s seven children. New York in the summer made everyone sick. All she needed was some rest and she would be fine. After all, it couldn’t be nerves.

  “Excuse me?”

  Ruby jumped up from her bench. Three flower petals fell from the sudden movement, but she ignored them. “Hello. I—” As she opened her mouth to explain her tardy fiancé to the justice of the peace, the older man raised a hand.

  “I’m sorry,” he offered in a kindly tone. “But it’s time. City hall is closing. I need to be getting home to my wife and my supper. I’m … I’m certain your gentleman was held up by some unforeseen circumstances. Perhaps we’ll see you two wed tomorrow?”

  That lump in her throat was getting bigger. She tried to smile as she wiped a droplet of sweat off her forehead. It really was warm in there. The man could not at all be blamed for wanting to leave. “Certainly. Yes, I … thank you for your patience. I’m terribly sorry for inconveniencing you.” It took all her strength to force the words out.

  Grudgingly, Ruby trailed after the man, staring at the tragic bouquet of flowers in her hands. When he locked the doors behind them in the warm evening air, she went and sat on the closest bench.

  Where was he?

  They had been so close for the last ten years. When his family came down from Vermont, she’d immediately been drawn to them and they’d been ever friends since. They’d been so close. While they hadn’t grown very romantic, he had agreed to marry her to help her leave home. She didn’t have any other options, and he knew how seriously she needed to get away.

  Everything had been planned. Her bag was packed, and he was going to use his savings from his newspaper job to set them up somewhere up north. They were just going to buy a train ticket out and go from there. But they couldn’t do anything without getting married first. Her eyes dropped to the flowers, trying to ignore the bruises on her wrists.

  When her stomach growled, Ruby realized she hadn’t eaten anything all day. After all, she had gone straight there the moment city hall opened, waiting for Nate to arrive. Everything had been set up, and the only thing she had missed was her groom.

  Her heart stopped. What if her father had found out? What if he had stopped Nate? And here she was, thinking about food. Ruby’s stomach knotted as she hurried into the street, frantic. Keeping an eye and ear out, she headed towards his family’s house, praying for his safety.

  It was on his street when she heard a groan. From a familiar voice. Ruby swallowed hard, looking around. “Nate?” she hissed, squinting in the dim light. “Nate!” Eventually, there was another groan, and she followed the sound to an unlit street lamp. There was a tall, gangly lump of a figure sitting against it. “Nate!” Ruby ran to him, falling on her knees to search his body for wounds. “What happened? Nate!”

  But as her hands searched for bruises and blood, there were none. Rather, she found a rather familiar bottle clutched in his hand. Ruby froze. Picking it up, she glanced back at him. It was him without a doubt. But she hadn’t known him to take to drink.

  “That’s mine,” he slurred. “Can I—I wanna—I’m no’ done.”

  But she didn’t give up the bottle. “Nate,” Ruby asked urgently, grabbing his cheek. “What happened? Where have you been? We—we were supposed to get married.”

  He kept grabbing for the bottle. “No, I … that’s silly. I’m not ready. Not getting married. Ruby, she … she’ll be fine. Now gimme that beer, would ya, doll?”

  The bottle fell from her fingers and shattered at their feet. Nate fell over on his side in a groan. That lump in her throat left, only to drop into her stomach, pounding her heart on the way down. How could he say that?

  So she left him. A torrent of frustrated emotions welled up within her, but she forced them at bay. Reaching the shabby home, Ruby stepped inside, quietly locking the door behind her. She paused and listened. Her heart hammered as she searched for excuses if he was around. After all, she had been gone all day, so he might have noticed. But what if he hadn’t?

  An empty beer bottle slammed against the wall next to her. Ruby ducked, though it was too late. A stabbing pain in her cheek meant the cut glass had found her. “I’m sorry,” she started, feeling something warm slide down her neck.

  “You filth! Where’s my supper! How dare you! What were you doing, whoring yourself around?”

  Ruby glanced at her father in the hall, leaning heavily against the wall, which meant he’d had more than enough to drink. And it meant he was slow. She watched as he threw the other item in his hand, the newspaper. But since she was looking, she caught it.

  “Well?” he bellowed. Ruby decided it was best not to argue and so she ran up the stairwell beside her, disappearing into her bedroom. Her father had a much harder time climbing the stairs if he was more than ten beers drunk.

  It would be foolish not to be careful, however, so Ruby turned all three of her locks and blocked the door handle with her chair. Only then, once she was alone, did Ruby collapse on her bed and allow the tears to fall. The escape hadn’t happened. Nate didn’t want her. She was more alone than she had supposed. Curling up with her pillow, she cried herself to sleep.

  ***

  When she next opened her eyes, it was morning. The sun shone brightly through her dirty window. Ruby stretched and stepped on the crumpled newspaper. Not ready to check on her father, she decided to give it a read. There were few articles that kept her attention, but the Matrimonial Times insert made her stop and think.

  Chapter Two

  The sun was just rising. He glanced out over the valley below and the mountains above, trying to recall the sense of satisfaction he used to feel at such a view. But it was a ghost of a memory, and the feelings were gone. They’d been gone a long time. Two years. How had it only been two years?

  It was a lifetime ago.

  Jenna loved the sunrise. She always rose before dark, ready to start the day. Even when she would start on the morning chores, she would pause to look again and again
. What would she say? That it breathed the life right back into her?

  Owen swallowed hard and turned his head away. There was work to do. He blinked, wiped a mite of dust from his eyes, and headed towards the barn. It was time to get started on the ranch. All the animals needed to be fed, their pens cleaned, and his crops needed watering. And that was just the beginning. Owen tried not to think about the rest. There was a lot to do, after all.

  Of course, it wasn’t always just him. He’d once had a foreman and three ranch hands to help with the load of running the Crazy J Ranch. Things had been easier then. He’d had Ken Green to handle the day-to-day details. Then he’d discovered the man was funneling away funds and slowly tearing the ranch apart.

  “It’s not like you cared,” the man had defended himself when the truth came out. “You would have done the same. The ranch is doomed.” Part of Owen feared the man was right, but he was too stubborn to give in until he’d given it his all.

  Once the early chores were finished, Owen returned to the house and listened for noise. Sometimes it was footsteps, sometimes it was screaming, sometimes it was the soft rustle of a large wool blanket being pulled across the floorboards.

  Just as he started slicing bread, a small voice rose up. “Hungry.”

  She lisped so it sounded like “hungwy.” Lifting his gaze, he found Kate peeking in. Though he offered her a smile, she pulled the blanket up to cover her face. Two years old and still shy of her papa.

  “Come in here,” he instructed. “Sit down. And put that blanket down. You need to stop dragging it around. Come on.”

  It took him three more attempts to get her to budge. Only when he went over and tugged on the blanket did she release it. Then he realized that she was still in her nightgown. “You’ll get four bites,” he shook his head in irritation, “and then you need to get dressed, you hear?”

  She was too busy standing on the chair and reaching for the bread. Her hair was a mess that looked like it hadn’t been brushed in days. Then Owen remembered he hadn’t brushed it in a week. He was supposed to do that.

  For a minute, he watched her. But once she’d eaten half a piece of bread, Owen guided her back to her room. Then, across the hall, Owen worked on getting Kate’s older brother, Parker, up as well. The two children grudgingly obeyed and soon the lot of them were dressed and back at the table, eating in silence.

  The Jarretts hadn’t always been this quiet. But everything had been different then.

  He was wasting time. Clearing his throat, he glanced at the back door. “I had best get back to the cattle. You two stay put, understood? There are apples right there if you get hungry. Parker, work on your words and watch your sister. I’ll be back around dark. Any questions?”

  Two sets of large eyes looked up at him.

  “Good.” He stood up and left.

  The tightness in his throat would eventually go away, just as it always did. Though he worried about the children, there was nothing else he could do. School wasn’t in session and Kate was too young; he couldn’t leave her alone in the house. Parker was a good kid—only five, but clever enough.

  Owen used to take them out with him on the ranch, but it was too much of a distraction now. He left them at the house and checked on them every hour or so. As long as they had their toys and snacks, they were fine being alone for most of the day.

  “Howdy!”

  Owen jerked up, so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t heard the horse. Pushing his hat back, he waved to Martin Henry, his nearest neighbor three miles down south. “Morning, Henry.”

  The man came around the tree. “You haven’t been in town, Jarrett, so I thought I’d just bring your mail to you, seein’ as there’s a piece or two. Hate to keep it at the office for much longer. Here you are.” He showed him three envelopes.

  Mail? He hesitated before accepting the papers. There were few people who would send him mail. The script with his name on each of them was unfamiliar, which only increased the confusion. “Ah. Well, thanks.”

  His neighbor squinted, tugging his hat tighter over a mop of dark hair. “Mhm. Will we be seeing you and the kids in church this Sunday? It’s been a while. Want to make sure y’all are doing well.”

  A blanket of impatience swept over Owen. So the man was here to be nosy, too. “We’ll see. But I had best get back to my work. Thanks.” He waved the letters and tucked them away. He’d deal with them later.

  It was half past noon when he realized what the notes had to be about. How had he forgotten? There was so much work on his mind that he made room for little else. And that was part of the problem.

  There was no way to both raise his children and save the remains of his ranch. So he had done the only thing he could think of after they’d spent a day in town picking up supplies. It was in the haberdashery that he had seen a pamphlet of the Matrimonial Times. The idea was unrealistic and unpromising, but he figured it was worth a try. After all, it would be even more unrealistic to expect someone to travel all the way to their little town to act as his housekeeper.

  Owen pulled the letters back out and stared. Could they be what he thought they were? There was no other family, and he had few friends. His eyes glanced over the postmarked dates and realized they had been waiting in the post office for nearly three weeks.

  “Suppose it wouldn’t hurt,” he mumbled to himself. Owen opened the first letter. He read it twice and then he did the same with the other two letters. Perhaps that half-thought-out idea of posting in the Matrimonial Times could turn into something. Perhaps he could save his ranch and find a mother for his children. He hadn’t really thought it would work. But it might.

  Owen just prayed that his wife would forgive him.

  Chapter Three

  The constant motion of the wheels and tracks created an unsteady rhythm that Ruby couldn’t get used to on the train ride out west. From New York to Utah, it only took a few days. But they were long, uncomfortable days that weighed heavily on her heart.

  It made her chuckle, shaking her head in disbelief. She was going to get married. There was a home waiting for her. A family she would be a part of. Surely that was cause for celebration, even with the butterflies in her stomach.

  Ruby turned her gaze back to the window, trying to be more hopeful, as her fingers danced across her knees. She was fortunate to have such a wonderful view. The fact that she had escaped her cruel father had lifted a heavy weight that she had carried for as long as she could remember.

  All she needed to hope for was that this next family would be different. There was a lump in her throat again. What if she was trading something bad for something worse? Could it get worse? Her stomach roiled at the unknown, worried all of this was futile.

  She took a deep breath. The unknown was better than the usual misery. There were enough bruises to last a lifetime; enough scars to last forever. All her life, she had put up with a man who’d yelled and slapped and hurt her. It wasn’t until she was eight years old that she’d learned that it wasn’t normal. And she had sworn then that she wouldn’t let it last forever. If Nate wouldn’t help, she’d find a way to help herself.

  And she had.

  Utah. A husband. Two children. Surely something good had to come from this? She told herself this until they arrived and she stepped onto the platform, searching for her future husband.

  Owen Jarrett. She hadn’t even said his name out loud yet. He had told her he was tall and would be wearing a straw hat. Did he have facial hair? She’d never really liked whiskers on men. Clutching her bag tightly, Ruby looked towards the small crowd of mingling townsfolk.

  There was only one man who stood alone.

  She could feel her stomach fluttering as she took a hesitant step towards his direction. The way he surveyed the crowd was careful and slow. When his head turned towards her, Ruby paused and licked her lips. He confirmed her thoughts as he started in her direction.

  Before she’d gathered her resolve, he had reached her. “Miss Gebhart?”

&nbs
p; It had never felt like her name; not when it came from a man who’d been so hardhearted. “Ruby.” The young woman forced a smile on her lips. “Please. And you must be Mr. Owen Jarrett?”

  He tipped his hat. “Indeed.” As he glanced around, she took the opportunity to look him over. The man was tall and large with a narrow waist, dressed in clean jeans and a dark shirt with the straw hat he had mentioned. He had light-colored hair and stormy eyes. But no smile. “Well, we’d best be moving. Don’t want to waste daylight. The church is right down the street.”

  “The church?” She followed his gesture to see a small chapel just a few buildings down.

  Nodding, he glanced her over one more time, took her bag, and stepped forward. Only then did he seem to recall what was appropriate, for it had been years, and reluctantly put out his arm to her. That’s what couples did, right? It appeared to be, for she looped her arm through his. They barely touched, and he was glad of it. He had never felt more awkward.

  That morning, he had considered not coming to the station. There was work to do on the ranch, after all, and perhaps she had changed her mind. But apparently they were both prepared to keep their commitments.

  They walked in silence and Ruby tried to soak in the view. Everything looked so different from the world she knew. Her own home had been a ramshackle cottage. Though the buildings here had a similar build, they appeared much stronger and warmer. Only a few were painted, and she wondered if that was considered a luxury in Utah.

  Owen considered asking her to stop tugging on his arm, for she was acting like his children, looking around at everything. He saw the way she paused and the way her mouth opened. Was this going to be like having a third child? He hadn’t accepted the other two women who had written to him because one was only fourteen, the other seventeen. Ruby Gebhart was twenty and had told him several stories of taking care of his neighbor’s children that had left him more comfortable about leaving his children with her. But now, he wasn’t certain.