A Bargain For A Bride: Clean mail order bride romance (Montana Passion Book 1) (8 page)

Several hours later, they were back in New Hope for the first time since Moira and Gretchen had arrived, and neither could believe that it had only been a few days ago that they’d stepped off the train and into the sullen emptiness. Today, though, was an altogether different day, as wagons rolled through the one wide street and settlers walked among the handful of buildings. At least a third of the town’s claimed population had business to attend to, and it was no small relief to Gretchen to see so many other human faces after going days without anyone but her two companions for company.

“Where have all these people come from?” Moira asked in a hushed voice, suddenly suspicious of so many strange people. “Surely they cannot all live close to New Hope?”

“That they do,” Pryor said with a nod. “A good number more. But you’re just scratching the surface of how big this whole region is. When you think that most of these people each have a claim the size of yours, and the size of mine, it really makes you think just how huge the frontier is. It’s certainly something to think about.”

Moira and Gretchen watched from the wagon as it rolled through the thoroughfare, looking from person to person and trying not to stare.

“Gretchen, what do you notice about these people?” Moira asked in a whisper, leaning close so no one would see them talking together.

“I can naw say, miss. They seem… I dunno, I haven’t put my finger on it just yet.” Gretchen turned around to watch a cluster of men emerge from one of the businesses, and followed them with her eyes as they entered an adjacent store to finish gathering the things they needed. “They don’t look… happy?”

“That’s it,” Moira agreed with a curt nod of her head. “They all look weary and downtrodden! Is this what the life of a homesteader looks like? Where is the pleasure of owning your own property and increasing your farm? That feeling I myself had but a few hours ago?”

“I could naw say, my lady. Perhaps it’s from knowing that their farms aren’t in the clear yet?”

“I hope you’re right. Because if not, I’m in way over my head! I don’t want to look like these people! They look bone tired and sad, even the women.”

“Especially the women, you mean,” Gretchen said with a wry look, nodding almost imperceptibly at a family of a husband and a wife and eight children climbing down from a wagon. Moira’s eyes went wide.

“And here Ronan was angry that that old goat Macomby lets his wives die in their child beds for want of a doctor. Where on earth would a doctor even come from out here, do you wonder?” Gretchen turned a deep shade of pink at what her lady was referring to, but just shook her head in agreement.

“But Mr. MacAteer doesn’t look this way. How is it that he’s so much livelier than some of this bunch? Some of these people are more skeleton than man, with naught any meat on their bones.”

“I dare not ask him for fear he’d tell me I could expect to be unhappy like this lot,” Moira answered. “Perhaps it’s the success of his harvest? Maybe all of these people drew claims with poor soil, like that Mr. Russell?”

“That’s quite ominous, my lady.”

“How do you mean?”

“Don’t you think there’d be fighting over the land? Mr. MacAteer already said there was no lawman in New Hope, perhaps ‘twas because he had too much work to do keeping the homesteaders in line!”

They were prevented from any more speculation when Pryor pulled back on the reins, bringing the horses’ slow walk to a stop in front of the largest of the wooden buildings in the town, if town was even the right word. He climbed down and secured their line to a horizontal post that ran in front of the store, then turned and offered his hand to Gretchen and then to Moira. He gestured for them to follow him as he ducked his head and entered the low door of the building, designed intentionally small to let in light but keep out the snow and winds of the cold Montana winters.

They stepped down into the store, a surprise considering its low height. Once they reached the dirt floor, they could see that the walls actually extended well above their heads and that dry goods and other implements lined every inch of space, even reaching into and across the rafters. The structure put the windows high up on the walls so that light drifted down to the ground below, illuminating the shelves and their wares.

“Hallo, Mac!” an older gentleman called out in an accent that was strange to the women’s ears. They turned to find a man with the whitest hair they’d ever seen climbing down from a ladder secured to the wall on rails. He dusted his hands off on his thick apron and shook hands with Pryor before turning his attention to the ladies. “Ah, yes! I forgot all about how we’d mailed off that letter for a bride! Is this the wife, then?”

Pryor bristled at the reminder, but shrugged it off and turned to Moira, who stood ramrod straight and blushed. He shook his head sadly.

“Alas, no!” he said dramatically. “She’s fresh off the boat from Ireland, and that temper would take years off my life, I tell ya. I’d be a dead man before this time next year if I crossed her! I’m thinking about sending her back and getting a nice Scandinavian girl, someone like your wife!”

The girls exchanged a horrified look at the brutish but joking exchange, but smiled when Pryor turned his attention back to them. “Miss Brennan, Miss… Gretchen,” he began, frowning when he realized he didn’t know the maid’s full name. “This is Mr. Jorgenson, who owns the mercantile. This will be where you come for any supplies you need.” He turned back to the shopkeeper. “Miss Brennan has just come out here, and has a claim about twenty miles past my place.”

“Is that right?” the old man asked, a look mixed with disbelief and pride on his face. “You’re going to make it out here? The two of you?”

“Yes, sir, we are,” Moira began, but Pryor cut her off before she could divulge too much more about herself.

“And that’s why the first thing on the lady’s list is a good sturdy gun. Let me know if you’ll have to order one, and I can loan her something lightweight until it comes by train.”

“No, no, we have quite a few right now, let me go see what I can find in the back. Something effective, but that won’t send her sprawling on her backside!” The old man tottered off to one of the storerooms in the back of the building, leaving Moira to cock an eyebrow at Pryor.

“Irish temper?
Miss
Brennan? My…
backside
?!” she hissed, staring up at him with an angry fire in her eyes. “I’ve never been so insulted by a man who was allowed to remain standing after speaking like that!”

“What do you mean?” Pryor asked, blinking in surprise.

“My name is Lady Moira Brennan, first of all, a fact that I would happily overlook if you hadn’t introduced me as the woman you were sending back because I was a cranky, ill-tempered husband murdering wench!”

“Hey! Keep your voice down! You don’t to go throwing around that ‘Lady Brennan’ stuff out here!”

“And why is that? ‘Tis my name, is it not?” She struggled to lower her voice, chagrined to realize that her “Irish temper” was in full force and made for a well-deserved generalization.

“It might have been back where you came from, but I’ve already told you, that’s not the way of things here. Half these men are here because their governments in their own countries weren’t the nicest of people. You go letting everyone know you’re royalty, and you’ll find you have a lot of trouble conducting business and making acquaintances. Even worse, any of these fine folks could get it in their heads that you have money, and trust me, that’s a dangerous rumor to let out.”

Moira opened her mouth to retort but quickly clamped it shut. She looked around furtively, seeing the same bedraggled homesteaders as before, but now seeing them in a menacing light. Beside her, Gretchen turned sickly looking and trembled slightly before her mistress linked her arm through her own protectively.

Moira closed her eyes for only a moment, then spoke. “I’m very sorry, Pryor, I had no idea you were acting to protect us. I apologize sincerely.”

“Don’t worry yourself about it, Moira,” he said with a mischievous look. “I know you can’t help it, what with that Irish temper.” He chuckled and walked away to look at some store goods before she could say anything else.

The wagon finally rolled up to Pryor’s cabin sometime close to midnight. It had been a long, adventurous day filled with wonder, but filled with confusion as well. Moira still didn’t know what to make of her experience in New Hope, choosing to focus most of her thoughts on her land instead. Her elation had been diminished a little, not just by the town and her understanding of her precarious position, but in her land, too.

Seeing the wares in Jorgenson’s store gave Moira a long overdue dose of reality. She had a cabin to build, a fence to erect around her property, livestock to acquire and breed—after building a barn, of course—and crops to plant. At that very moment, Moira had not so much as a carrot to put in a root cellar against the following winter, nor the root cellar to put it in. She would have to make it through the coming harsh months before she could do any of those things, and would have to live on her own funds until such time as she could begin investing in her property.

It was only then that she realized she’d acted out of desperation rather than foresight. A smarter individual would have held off until the spring, waiting for the worst of the weather to pass before trying to build a home site. But time wasn’t a luxury she’d had, and in her hurry to take herself far away from Brennan, from Macomby’s madness and from Ronan’s demise, she hadn’t thought any farther ahead than the following month.

Now, the reality of her situation was upon her, worming its way into her conscience for the hundredth time and making her feel doubt and fear. Was this the same feeling that made all those other girls accept the advertisements and marry a stranger on the frontier? A feeling of loneliness coupled with knowing they had no way to survive on their own?

No. Moira vowed to herself right then that she would never marry because she simply needed to be taken care of. If she ever chose to marry, and the chances of the situation ever presenting itself were not high, it would be because she felt in her heart that it was what she wanted, not something that she needed to do to make sure there was food in her belly and a warm fire beside her bed.

But what would she do to survive the winter, and to ensure that Gretchen was well cared for as well?

“Hey, you back there, we’re home,” Pryor called back quietly, before realizing the implication of what he’d said. This wasn’t their home, and thanks to his supposed bride and her newfound sense of independence, it never would be a home. He’d been so happy today that he’d forgotten for a moment that he was still going to end up alone in the vast frontier.

Both Moira and Gretchen had fallen asleep, curled up side by side. It had been a day filled with adventure and new experiences for both of them, so it came as little surprise that they would be fast asleep, especially given the late hour. He hesitated to rouse them but certainly didn’t want them to wake up feeling out of sorts.

Pryor opened the barn doors wide but unhitched the team out of doors, ignoring the confused stomping of their hooves as he pulled them out of their traces. He tended to them first, feeding and watering and brushing them down before putting them in their stalls and tossing a forkful of hay over the low stall doors. Then he turned his attention to the wagon, checking to make sure the passengers were still sound asleep before pushing against it with all his might, rolling it laboriously through the open doors until it was secured under the roof. He lit a fresh wick on the lantern and hung it from its post nail in the barn, then closed the door and locked it, blocking the light of the full moon that had guided his work. Finally, he covered the two ladies with a blanket from the wagon seat, tucking it around them carefully before settling himself down on his usual bed of hay in one of the empty stalls.

Pryor lay awake for far too long, staring at the roof overhead and catching the few slivers of moonlight that showed him where he needed to patch his roof the next time he had reason to work with tar pitch. His short time in the territory had taught him that small problems were best handled while they were still little. If he waited until a small issue became large, he ran the risk of ruin.

I could say the same about Moira
, he thought suddenly, surprising himself at bringing up her name.
She’s not a problem
, he argued in his head, but even he knew that wasn’t true. She was most definitely a problem, a small problem to be sure, but one that was certain to turn into a big problem if he didn’t do something about it soon.

The sound of the animals getting their early breakfast woke Moira the next morning. She sat upright in the wagon, hay sticking out of her hair, and looked around in bewilderment. The last thing she remembered was watching the stars dot the sky over the wagon as it moved along, but suddenly, she found herself in the barn, surrounded by the noise of work already being done. Beside her, an empty dent in the hay told her that Gretchen had been nearby, but was already awake and most likely putting together a meal for them in the house.

She climbed down from the wagon and turned to join her maid, but ran straight into Pryor’s solid chest instead. The fright of it caused her to cry out in disbelief, but she was kept from falling backwards by two warm, firm hands that captured her elbows and held her close. Moira found herself looking almost straight up in order to see Pryor’s face above hers. She gasped quietly, but was left bereft when his hands immediately released her. She put out a hand to steady herself against the wagon, waiting for the right words to come to her.

“Thank you for saving me from falling,” she finally managed when she was able to command her voice to stop betraying her. “And for making us a warm, safe bed for the night. I hope we didn’t disturb your animals by encroaching on their homes.”

Pryor wasn’t to be distracted so easily by talk of manners. He’d not yet let himself imagine holding Moira in his arms, and that brief contact had been enough to render him speechless, not that he had been a man of many words before meeting her. Lately he found himself talking to her throughout the day, explaining things about homesteading that were either vital or trivial, but enjoying the conversation with her all the same. Now, though, he had nothing to say, not even an utterance to cover his embarrassment at having grabbed hold of her.

Moira, though, was stung by a flood of embarrassment of her own. The man had only prevented her from toppling over, but she praised him as though he’d plucked her out of a raging river. She’d only spoken up to have something to say, and instead, she’d gone and made him so uncomfortable, he wouldn’t even answer. She ducked her head and turned to go in the house, muttering about helping Gretchen with their meal, when Pryor put out one and hand and stopped her, clinging gently to her elbow to keep her from leaving.

“Moira, wait.” She stopped and held her breath, unable to keep from looking down at his hand to see if it was actually leaving a mark where the heat of his skin pierced through her cotton shirt. He misinterpreted her look, and immediately pulled his hand back. It was enough to keep him from speaking any further. Instead of begging her to sit, to listen to him plead for their contract, however false or accidental it may have been, he nodded solemnly and turned back to pitching hay to his horses.

Moira took a tentative step toward the door, not wanting to leave with the air so tense between them. Whatever it was that he’d been about to say couldn’t have just disappeared altogether. If she waited long enough, maybe he’d find the nerve to speak again.

Suddenly, Pryor brightened as a new idea came to him. He’d wracked his brain all during the night to come up with a reason for Moira to stay, and not just stay in the territory, but to stay close by him. Whether it was fear of her leaving, or the tiny stab at his heart that he felt each time she walked away from him, as though it could be the last time she walked away from him, a new plan formed in his mind, one that could hopefully keep Moira close.