Mail Order Annie - A Historical Mail Order Bride Romance Novel (Mail Order Romance - Book 1 - Benjamin and Annie) (12 page)

             
She nodded toward the figure on the floor, and the puddle of blood on her cleanly swept floor. “Do you think we should bury him?”

             
“No,” he shook his head. “Don’t touch him or anything else. Just finish getting ready to leave. We’ll have to tell the sheriff in Patterson everything that happened.”

             
“What about the murder weapon?” she halted, the words falling heavily from her lips.

             
Moran watched her struggling to form the words. “It wasn’t murder. It was self-defense. He came out here knowing he wasn’t welcome. He attacked me, and he pulled a knife and then a gun when I was totally unarmed. He almost killed me, and he would have killed you, when he had finished with you. You can testify to that. He’s done as much, and worse, in the past. See, look here.” He led her over to the stone where the knife glinted malevolently on the ground. Moran picked it up and turned it over, showing her the handle. “See this?” He pointed to two initials inlaid in bone in the polished wooden handle.
T. I.,
Anne read. “What does it mean?” she asked.

             
“Tom Iverson,” Moran intoned. “This is Tom Iverson’s hunting knife. Forsythe took it when he killed Tom and Maureen. Maybe he even used it to kill them. That would be just like him. The sheriff and everyone else will understand perfectly why we took the rifle with us when we left. If he wants to come up here and investigate, he will, but I don’t think that will happen. He’ll take a report on both our stories, and he’ll send a message to his parents” pointing toward the eastern cliffs, indicating the Forsythe ranch in the next valley. “They’ll send one of their ranch hands over in a wagon to collect the body. We’ll just leave it where it is until they come and get it. If it’s still here when we get back, we’ll camp out in the barn, in my old bed, until it’s gone. Or if the weather is still good, we can go camp out down by the creek. No one will ask any questions. Webster Forsythe has been on a collision course with disaster for years now. Everyone knows that. Now go inside and get ready to go. Stay as far away from the body and the blood as you can. Change your clothes and then come outside again and we’ll go.”

             
Anne untied her apron on the door step. She put away the firewood crate and then made a wide circuit of the cabin’s interior to get to the bed. She studiously avoided looking in the direction of the table. She pulled off her everyday work dress, changed her stockings and her underlinens, and got into her good dress. She smoothed out the creases, pinned on her broach, and took up her bonnet, her handbag, and her gloves. She just started to straighten the quilt on the bed and put the pillow back in its place when she remembered Moran’s admonishment not to touch or rearrange anything. She put the last, unfinished chores out of her mind. She could attend to everything when she got back, and the knowledge that she could throw herself into these tasks with the fresh enthusiasm of being a fully married wife enshrined them with an exquisite anticipation of pleasure. She hurried outside just as Moran led the horse and wagon out of the barn.

             
He stopped the wagon at the door. Anne watched closely as he briefly cleaned the rifle and reloaded it before stowing it under the driver’s seat. The horse stood quietly while Moran ducked into the cabin and changed his own clothes. When he came out, he pulled the cabin door shut with a determined thud of the latch in its place, enclosing the dead body of Webster Forsythe and everything he represented out of sight and out of mind. Moran met her next to the driver’s seat. As he had done outside the Eckville Hotel, he circled her waist with his giant hands, swept her off her feet with no word of warning, and set her in the seat box. This time, she felt the grip of his hands around her abdomen with joy, and the excitement of flying through the air, in his power, elated her and reignited the thrill of going off to her own wedding.

             
Moran settled himself in the seat next to her, gathered the reins, and clucked his tongue to the horse. The wagon rolled away up the valley to the pass between the hills. She raised her face into the sunshine, letting the breeze slip over her face, and the memory of the morning’s events slipping away into the past behind her. The great expanse of sky and mountains around her mirrored the euphoria in her heart, and the peace and serenity of the landscape descended over her. By the time they reached the pass, she felt the song of praise and ecstasy welling up inside her, and she cast her mind into her future.

             
                                                      
THE END

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Mail Order Mayhem (Mail Order Romance Book 2)

Three years after their marriage, Benjamin and Annie Moran come home soaked and exhausted after a near-fatal encounter with a flash flood. After narrowly saving their cattle and sheep herd from certain death, they collapse into their bed under their bear-skin, only to be abruptly awaked in the pre-dawn hours of the next morning by loud pounding on their door. A man’s voice alternatively demands and pleads for aid for himself and his son after being stranded in the storm. Though Annie senses a trap, Benjamin accedes to the stranger’s request and opens the cabin door, only to be overrun by bandits, who sack the farm and carry off Annie, leaving Benjamin beaten unconscious on the cabin floor. In a hair-raising series of attempted rescues and attempted escapes, Annie and Benjamin struggle separately to rejoin each other at the same time that they both endeavor to keep their hopes and faith alive against insurmountable odds.
 

Christmas Mail Order Bride (Western Mail Order Brides: Book 1)
Penelope Mathers arrives in a remote Western town, contracted to married Anders West, the son of a wealthy local cattle baron. Her prospective parents-in-law pick her up at the coach stop in their buggy and drive her directly to the church, where she meets her groom for the first time at the altar. After the wedding service, Anders drives Penelope to his home, where she quickly realizes all is not as it seems, and she finds herself torn between the increasing hostility of her husband and a growing attachment to Caleb Alexander, a young stable hand working at the West Ranch.
 

Silver Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #1, Mail Order Bride)
The scene is set in Virginia City and Gold Hill, Nevada, in the 1880s.

“Silver Heart” presents the romance of the old west – and the people in it.

Customer Review.

“ A good story with everything in it, happy sad, romance, everything. Characters were easy to envisage and they kept you rolling along with them sharing their experiences. Recommended. “ K Masters

When Maggie Lucas (mail order bride) leaves Boston for Virginia City, Nevada, she's anticipating a marriage of convenience and life in a new home with a man she's never met. That's more than enough change, in her view. What she doesn't expect, is to find that home threatened as both the market for silver and the Comstock Lode mines themselves dry up and her new husband faces foreclosure. She also doesn't expect to fall in love with the new state, the people in it – and her new husband.

©
2013 by
Kate Whitsby

All Rights Reserved.   No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.

First Printing, 2013