Mail Order Prairie Bride: (A Western Historical Romance) (Dodge City Brides Book 1) (7 page)

Feeling encouraged, she stepped out of the water and reached for the soap, bringing it to a cool lather between her palms. She washed her hair, her face, and her body, then dove into the water and swam beneath the surface to rinse herself clean. When she emerged, she took one look at her dung-covered dress, and groaned.

* * *

Briggs carried the bucket of milk around the back of the barn and into the house. When he walked through the door and descended the five steps, he saw, perhaps for the first time, the primitive conditions he’d been living in for the past year. A fly buzzed around his ear, and he swatted it away with his free hand, then set the bucket on the table.

What was Sarah going to say when she walked in here with her white gloves and her fancy hat? Briggs took one look at the narrow bed, felt his insides spin, then turned and walked toward the door.

She’d have to accept it. That was all. She didn’t have much choice. He’d advertised for a farm wife, not some giddy, vain city girl who didn’t know a harness from a grasshopper plow. If she didn’t like his way of life, it was her own fault for answering his ad—under somewhat false pretenses—in the first place. Isabelle had been the same way, all desperate to get married no matter what, not thinking for a second about what she was getting herself into. When it finally hit her, off she went, first chance she got, with that no-good, smooth-talking, randy gambler who had promised her the fine life.

And Briggs had let her go without a fight.

Not this time, he thought, climbing back up the steps and remembering Sarah out on the prairie, in the middle of nowhere, suggesting a divorce. A divorce! First sign of trouble and just like Isabelle, she wanted out. Well, he’d already bedded Sarah. ‘Out’ wouldn’t come so easily this time.

Briggs stopped just outside the door. How would Sarah stand up to the challenges that faced her? He rubbed the back of his neck, stiff after the long drive from town. Would she see his home as a damp, dark hole in the ground and want to leave? How would he stop her if she
demanded
that he take her back to Dodge to get out of this marriage?

That was just what he didn’t need—another scandal setting more tongues flapping in the wind. The whole town would probably think he was cursed.

He was beginning to think that himself.

Sweeping that notion away, he decided it was time to show Sarah the house. For every moment he stood stalling, he was wasting daylight hours that should be spent preparing for the harvester.

He walked to the creek and strolled down the bank, then spotted her and froze. She stood with her back to him, fastening the back button on her pale blue floral skirt. Her shiny wet hair flowed down her back in a torrent of midnight waves, the tips of the dripping curls grazing her tiny waist. He stood in bewildered awe of this woman he had brought to this remote, uncivilized place.
She simply did not fit
. She stood out like a red rose in a field of snow.

Just then, Sarah turned around. When her gaze lifted, her eyes narrowed. She folded her arms in front of her. “You have the most inconvenient habit of sneaking up on me when I’m half dressed, Mr. Brigman.”

Briggs shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “I just came down to remind you that there’s work to be done. And you’re more than half-dressed,
Mrs. Brigman.
You look fully dressed to me.”

Sarah unfolded her arms. “What kind of work?”

“Chores. All day, every day. You didn’t expect to bathe and primp and brush that hair for hours on end while I do everything around here, did you?”

“Why would you assume I’d want to do that?”

Briggs paused a moment, realizing he was being unreasonable, but knowing it was too late to take it back. All he could do was stand there and stumble over a dozen possible retorts.

Sarah raised her chin. “I did read your advertisement. I know what hard work is about, even though for some reason you think I don’t.”

Feeling a little guilty for being so hard on her—which probably had a lot to do with their rather disastrous wedding night—Briggs closed the distance between them. “When you’re done cleaning your dress, I’ll show you the house.”

“Thank you.”

Briggs cringed when he imagined what she would think when she saw it, then he chastised himself for caring, for being ashamed of his home. He’d been more than proud the past few months. In fact, he’d never felt so proud as the day he finished the roof.

Briggs started up the bank, but stopped. “By the way.” He turned to point at her clothes. “Those are more practical out here.”

She glanced down at her simple calico bodice and skirt.

“If I were you, I’d pack up that purple thing with the big bustle and save it for Sundays.”

Sarah gathered her hair in her hands and wrung it out like a wet towel. “Fine. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some laundry to do.”

Feeling as if he’d just been dismissed, Briggs resisted the petty urge to have the last word. When he saw Sarah pick up her dress and scrub hard enough to wear a hole in it, he knew she didn’t want to hear anything he had to say anyway.

Chapter Six

Gathering her skirt in one hand, her heavy wet gown draped over the other arm, Sarah climbed the steep bank toward the yard. Finally she would see her new home. The place she would whip into shape. She had every intention of proving herself, and as soon as she got to work, Mr. Briggs Brigman would see that he had nothing more to complain about.

And what a pity for him. Complaining seemed to be his favorite activity.

On her way back, however, she lost some time, unable to find her valise. She hadn’t thought to mark the spot. Mentally kicking herself, she wandered in circles until she found an imprint in the grass about the size of her bag. Confused, she glanced toward the homestead and reasoned that Briggs must have picked it up and carried it back. At least, that was what she hoped. Otherwise, she’d have to return for it later, giving him one more excuse to criticize her.

Crossing the yard toward the barn where Briggs was leaning one shoulder against the door frame, his arms folded in front of him, Sarah felt her insides flutter with nervousness. She glanced down to see her valise on the ground at his feet, then resolved not to let this man intimidate her. She was ready to take on her role as prairie wife with all its challenges and hardships. He wasn’t going to break her.

“It’s about time,” Briggs said, stepping out of the shady doorway and picking up her bag. “I thought you were waiting for your dress to dry, too.”

Sarah smiled coolly. “Of course I wasn’t. Let’s not forget it was your rambunctious dog who did this.”

Ignoring her, Briggs walked past. “The house is this way.”

Sarah turned. That way? There was nothing
that way
but more prairie. Withholding her skepticism, Sarah followed her husband away from the barn.

“It’s right here,” Briggs said, climbing a knoll. He disappeared over the other side, and when Sarah reached the top, she realized with horror that she was standing on a roof.

But this wasn’t a house. It was a mound of dirt.

She stood dumbfounded, looking down at her husband.

“It’s called a dugout,” he explained, “because it’s—”

“Because it’s dug out of a hill,” Sarah finished for him. Gulping back her astonishment, she ambled across the roof and down the side. “Do many people live in dugouts?” She struggled to appear unruffled.

“At first. Until they earn enough to buy timber for a real place. As you can see, there’s nothing out here for building material except sod.”

“Yes,” she replied, gazing across the obstinate ocean of grass. “I see that.”

“The door is here.” He wrapped his hand around her elbow and hurried her along.

Sarah looked more closely at the outside walls. She was amazed by the construction and the resourcefulness of a man determined to build a house in a land without wood. They reached the door and had to walk down five steps carved out of dirt. The inside, about four feet below ground level, seemed dark at first until Sarah’s eyes adjusted. Coolness swept over her skin as she breathed in the damp scent of the earth. Still doing her best to appear calm and composed, she smiled at Briggs, who walked into the one room house, dropped her valise by the table, and spread his arms wide.

“This is it,” he said proudly, but it was a pride Sarah suspected was less than genuine. He expected her disapproval. In fact, he seemed to want it!

“It’s very….solid,” she commented, determined to prove his infuriating expectations wrong. She tapped her foot three times on the dirt floor.

“The dirt was like putty when I dug the hole,” he explained. “It dried nicely though, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yes. Very nicely, indeed.”

They stood in silence a moment while Sarah glanced around at the furniture. A nail keg and soap box stood against the wall, and two mismatched chairs accompanied a weathered plank table. A rude bed with shaved tree trunks as bed posts stood in the corner.

She walked to the table and set her dress down next to the bucket of milk. At least there was an iron stove. Her gaze followed the steel chimney to the ceiling. She scanned the back wall, carved out of the side of the hill, then the front and side walls which were made of chunks of sod, each block laid with the grass side down, staggered like brickwork.

Briggs stepped into her line of vision, as if he had been watching her reactions, waiting expectantly for the first teardrop to fall. “The constant wind may rattle the window and door,” he said, “but not the walls. They’re about thirty-six inches thick.”

“Thirty-six inches,” Sarah repeated. “My, my.” She looked up at the roof, wondering if she should worry about it caving in. “What’s that made of?”

“A lattice of willow poles. Then there’s brush, long grass, a layer of clay from the creek bank, and a final dressing of sod. Strong enough for you to stand on.”

“How reassuring,” she said, fearing her composure was reaching its last limit.

But she would not let him know.

She turned and looked at the bed. “Is that, uh…?”

“The bed. It’s too small, I know. I was planning to build another one before you got here, but things got behind in the haying and I just didn’t get the chance.”

Sarah swallowed the throbbing lump in her throat, wondering with concern when he intended to find the time, and what they were going to do in the meantime.

“Don’t worry. The bedbugs are minimal.”

“Bedbugs?” she echoed, feeling her skin prickle all over.

Briggs walked toward the door. “Now that you’re settled in, I gotta get to work. You’ll find all the food I got in that box over there and in the garden. You can expect me back around dusk.” He walked up the dirt steps without looking back, then disappeared into the daylight.

Sarah stood wearily, wondering if he realized his house was a dark, depressing dungeon. She felt a sudden tickling at her neck and slapped at it, inspecting her palm for some frightening little creature with lots of legs. Finding nothing, she assured herself that she had imagined the sensation. It was probably just a loose sprig of hair.

Sarah looked around with uncertainty. Briggs had given her no direction as to her duties, but had said there was plenty to do. The obvious chore at the moment was to unpack her bag, then prepare dinner before he returned from the field. That couldn’t be too difficult, could it?

She carried her bag to the bed, but when she found nothing that resembled a chest of drawers, she had little choice but to leave everything packed for the time being.

Next, she went to the cupboard—an open wooden box by the stove—and knelt down to see what it contained. She found a sack of cornmeal, a small jar of sorghum molasses, some fat in another jar, coffee, flour, and some salt pork. A bag of potatoes sat next to the box, and beside that was a whole barrel of salt, half-full.

How had Briggs survived before she’d arrived? No wonder he’d advertised for a wife.

From this moment on, she decided, meals would improve around here. Tonight, he would bite into the best biscuits he’d ever tasted in his life. Sarah would find a way to make that salt pork into something mouth-watering, and her surly, stubborn husband wouldn’t be able to deny it.

All she had to do now was light a fire and start working on the biscuits. She went to the stove and pulled open the door. Ashes. She sighed. Wondering when Briggs had last cleaned them out, she looked around for a shovel. Unable to find one, she scooped the residue out with a soup ladle and filled a bucket. When the stove was empty, she proudly swiped her palms together and looked around for some kindling.

A careful inventory of the so-called kitchen left her with nothing flammable to speak of, so she went outside and searched the yard and the barn for firewood. Still nothing. What did he use to light fires? Grass, perhaps? It seemed he used it for everything else, but how could anyone keep a fire going with only grass?

All of a sudden, she didn’t feel so clever. The simple task of cooking supper was now a daunting assignment. Her insides reeled with frustration. Briggs was probably crouching out in his field, spying on her and waiting for her to fail, even if it meant coming home hungrier than a lion to a wife in tears, hunched over an empty table.