Pioneer Love: Damaged Hearts Head West: Mail Order Bride 5 Bundle (32 page)

Just ahead lay the woman. It looked as if one of the branches had come down across her body but as Nao approached her eyes opened. As their eyes met, Nao immediately flashed back to her own accident.
It was just like this
, her mind tried to say. No, she shook her head. This was not the time for reminiscing. But the feeling of utter terror was back, as she felt her own carriage tumble over, smashing her against the side and then landing her on the ceiling. Battered, bruised and with a piece of wood through her stomach. Nao’s hand went to her stomach and for a second she felt blood. Then she realized she was wet from the snow and she shook herself to clear her mind. This was a time for helping and she must be strong. “I’m almost there,” she said and dropped to her knees to get through the branches.

As she crawled over and under, all the time hampered with only one working arm, she took her old pain with her. The intense pain she had felt in her abdomen as she was impaled, the pain in her arm and then nothing. The arm had just gone numb. It was as if she were back in that accident, so strong was her flashback and as she fought through the branches, she fought through her old fear and despair.

She found herself fighting for breath and began to take short gasps, unable to move. But her eyes could see the young woman, so close, yet just out of touch.

“My baby,” the woman said.

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the next book in the Grace & Mercy Find Peace on the Prairie Series

EMMA’S ESCAPE

CHAPTER 1

Benjamin Silks

Emma reread the letter again for the hundredth time. Then she heard her mother fussing out in the hall. She kissed the letter, and her tears smudged the signature. She’d kissed it so many times she couldn’t read it anymore. She folded the letter and tucked it into her bodice, right next to her heart.

Nancy Johnson bustled into the room. Emma watched her through the reflection in her dresser mirror, but she didn’t turn around. “That minister is late again. The Church Commission really should get rid of him. This community deserves a professional man, not some Senator’s son.”

Emma stared down at her fingernails.

Nancy stopped in mid-stride and glanced at her daughter. “Are you ready, dear? I’ll put your veil on.”

Emma still didn’t answer. Nancy came up behind her and draped a square of gossamer lace over her head. It covered her face and blocked out the view of the bride in the mirror. Emma didn’t mind. She never was that bride in the first place.

Nancy fixed the veil to her hair with an ivory comb. Then she lifted the veil from the front of her face and arranged it over the back of her head. “There. That’s perfect. Your father is so proud of you.”

Emma dropped her eyes again so she wouldn’t see herself. The veil stabbed her heart and drove the last nail into the lid of her coffin.

Nancy regarded her daughter in the mirror. “You’re very quiet today. Cheer up. This is the beginning of the happiest days of your life.”

A tear rolled down Emma’s cheek, but she couldn’t summon the energy to sob. Nothing remained in her heart but black despair.

“Now you stop that this instant,” Nancy snapped. “You’ve done nothing but cry ever since we brought you back from Cheyenne, and I won’t stand for it today. Your father and I have gone to a lot of trouble to find a suitable husband for you. Benjamin Silks is the only heir to a wealthiest shipping family in Boston, and he’s a rising lawyer in his own right with a very promising career. You should be delighted with your future prospects. You’re not going to ruin your wedding day by crying all the way through it.”

“I’ll cry through my wedding day if I want to,” Emma grumbled. “I never wanted to have anything to do with Benjamin Silks. You've kept me locked in the house for months ever since we got back from Wyoming. You never let me have any visitors, not even my best friend Mercy Oakes. And now you want to marry me off to a man I don’t love. How am I supposed to be happy about that?”

“You don’t need to see Mercy,” Nancy told her. “She’s the one who dragged you across the country to God knows where and almost got herself killed in the process. She’s a bad influence on you, and she would only interfere with your marriage now. You’d do better to stay away from her.”

“I don’t even know if she recovered from her illness and her broken leg,” Emma pointed out. “You could at least let me see her to set my mind at ease.”

“You can take my word that she’s fully recovered,” Nancy replied. “If your husband decides to let you take up your friendship with Mercy, that’s his business. But I explained the whole situation to Benjamin and he agrees with me. Mercy is a bad influence and you should stay away from her. If it wasn’t for her, you never would have met that low-down cur Jackson Pikes. You wouldn’t be mooning over him the way you have all these months.”

Emma narrowed her eyes at her mother. “Don’t you dare talk about Jackson that way. The month I spent with him in Cheyenne was the happiest month in my life, and I’ll never forgive you and Papa for separating me from the love of my life.”

“The love of your life!” Nancy snorted. “That’s a laugh. How could he be the love of your life? He hasn’t got two pennies to rub together, and you know you wouldn’t be happy slaving away on the Frontier for the rest of your days. You would cry the first time you had to chop the firewood by yourself. Have you forgotten he was supposed to marry Grace Oakes, but rejected her under the most cruel and inappropriate circumstances? You had a childish crush on Jackson Pikes, but that’s all over now. It’s time for all the little children to grow up and put away their toys and behave like responsible adults.”

“I would have suffered any privation to spend my life with Jackson,” Emma returned. “You had no right to refuse his marriage proposal. He’s got as many prospects as Benjamin. He owns his own ranch and a thousand head of livestock. That’s a lot more than Benjamin has.”

“Listen to you,” Nancy shot back. “A thousand head of livestock! Just imagine all the dirt and manure and grime. Who’s going to clean the house every day? You? I don’t think so. Is Mr. Jackson Pikes going to hire a maid for you at that ranch of yours? Of course not. Anyway, you can forget about him. Your father took care of him, and he won’t be coming to your rescue any time soon.”

Emma froze. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” Nancy replied, “I found that letter of his. You know the one I mean. You wrote to him that you were a prisoner in your own home, and that you still loved him and would always love him and all that romantic nonsense. You know what you wrote. He sent you some money to save toward returning to Cheyenne to be with him. He wrote that he was coming to Boston to ask again for your hand, and if we refused, that you should elope with him. I read the whole thing.”

Emma whirled around and faced her mother. “How dare you stick your nose into my private business! You had no right!”

“Anything having to do with you and your future is my business,” Nancy replied. “Anyway, I showed the letter to your father, and he took drastic action. He sent Jackson an invitation to your wedding. He knows you’re marrying someone else. He won’t be riding in on a white horse to rescue you, my dear, so you can put that idea out of your mind.”

Emma turned around again, and her shoulders drooped. “How could you do this?”

“I did it for you,” Nancy declared. “And so did your father. Nothing in the world means as much to us as your future.”

“And what about my heart?” Emma murmured. “Do you care at all that you broke my heart by selling me to one of your rich friends?”

“No one sold you anywhere, darling,” Nancy replied.

Emma only shook her head. No more tears would come to her eyes. This was the final defeat. She might as well marry Benjamin Silks after all and kiss Jackson good-bye. She pressed her hand against her heart, and the stiff letter paper pricked her skin. Let it cut her and make her bleed. Let her blood soak through this rotten wedding dress and ruin everybody’s day. They couldn’t possibly be more disappointed than she was.

CONTINUE READING…