ROMANCE: Mail Order Bride: A Sheriff's Bride (A Clean Christian Inspirational Historical Western Romance) (New Adult Short Stories) (79 page)

chapter six

“Jo, I’m home, Darlin’.” Warren hopped from his horse and handed the reins to his ranch hand, who led the steed to the corrals. “You’ll never guess who followed me home from Wilson!” Silence. “Jo, sweetheart?” Warren continued to call out to his wife. “Josephine!” He scanned the perimeter of his land, searching for the beautiful, skirted frame of his faithful and honest wife. “Jo!” Still, there was no response. Turning to the house, he discovered the surprising condition of his front door. Without hesitation, Warren bounded up the front porch steps and ran through the entryway. “Josephine, honey, where are you?”

“Warren? What’s going on? Where’s my sister?” T.W. strode through the broken doorframe.

“I don’t know, T.W.” He surveyed the chaotic damage that spread through out the hallway and living room. “Oh, Father, what’s happened to her?” The men continued to search through the house, calling out her name, earnestly praying that she would answer them with a cry of her own.

“Warren, look at this.” The restless preacher tramped over to his rollup desk where his brother-in-law was hovering over a note. T.W. thrust it toward him. “Read this.”

Warren took the piece of parchment with his trembling hand and read the words that had been sloppily scribbled out on its contents.

I have your beloved wife. She owes me a promise that she ran out on. I will get my portion of the contract. But it’s up to you, Preacher Man, if you want to see her alive after I’ve taken from her what’s owed to me. Deliver $1 million to me at Cave’s Spring by sunrise tomorrow, and you’ll get your slut of a wife back alive and in one piece. If you are late or do not have the money, you will have to search the caverns for her broken and dead body. Either way, I’ll get what she promised to me. It’s up to you if she lives to see daylight again. H.A.D

Warren dropped the note and leaned against the desktop, head hanging down in disbelief.

“How far is Cave’s Spring from here?” He didn’t hear T.W.’s question. “Warren, how far is it?”

“What?” He slowly gained his comprehension back.

“Cave’s Spring! How far is it from here?”

“Thirty miles north.”

“How long will it take you to get the money?”

“I have about a hundred grand here in the safe. The rest is in the bank all the way back in Wilson. By the time we get there, the bank will be closed. Oh, Father!” Warren tipped his head to look at T.W. “What is this monster talking about? What promise did Jo make?”

“I have no idea.”

“You must know, T.W. She’s your sister for heaven’s sake! Who is H.A.D., and what does he want with Jo?”

“I already told you, Warren. I don’t know anything about a promise that JoJo made with anybody.”

“What would be worth her making a contract with someone who would kidnap her and threaten her life for reneging on the deal?”

“I don’t know. The only thing she loves more than me and you is the farm.” T.W. leaned his head to the ceiling. “Oh, no, JoJo. You wouldn’t have.”

“What? What are you thinking?”

“H.A.D.Hugh Alexander Doyle.”

“Who is that, and what does he have to do with Jo?”

“He’s a coal miner from Virginia who wanted to buy Belle Fields, but we refused his offer. Immediately after that, we received a summons from the county saying past taxes were owed on the farm. They were way more than we ever could have paid, especially after how the war and new types of tobacco began to effect how we were managing Belle Fields.”

“And you think this Hugh Doyle made a deal with Jo to pay off the taxes in exchange for her?”

Both men just stood there trying not to think the worse of the one woman they both loved in their own unconditional way.

“But, obviously, JoJo didn’t, and now he’s come to get from her what she said she would give him. Or take from her what she wouldn’t give him.”

Warren pushed up from the desk and ran to the front door.

“Thomas, bring me my saddle bag!” He made his way to the picture hanging between the fireplace mantle and the large picture window in the living room.

“What are you doing, Warren?”

He pulled down the picture and revealed the safe door embedded into the face of the wall. He began turning the combination knob with stern concentration.

“You don’t have all the money here.”

The safe lock clicked, allowing Warren to pull up on the handle and pry open the heavy door. “No, T.W., I don’t. But I’m gonna give him every bit that I do have. I don’t care how much money it is. Jo means more than any piece of dollar or coin that I’ve ever have. I’m going to go get her and bring her back home—not broken and not dead.”

“Here you go, Mr. Cooper.” The ranch hand offered the requested saddlebag to his boss.

“Thank you, Thomas. Please make sure Mr. Walker’s and my horses are ready to ride.”

“Yes, Sir.” The young teenager ran quickly to do what he was told.

“I figured you were planning on riding.” Warren looked over to T.W., stuffing the saddlebags as quickly as he could.

“Thanks, Warren.”

“That’s what family does.” He continued to stuff the remaining cash into the bags. “I can throw these in here as well. The value of them should reach the remaining that I’m lacking.” He chucked in a jewelry box full of pearls, diamonds, rubies and sapphires, along with a platinum-silver flask, a gold pocket watch, and an emerald-eyed golden deer. “I always thought this deer reminded me of Jo’s beauty: her green eyes, golden-tanned skin and the resilience of a doe. I was saving it to give to her next month. But if I don’t have her, it’s all worthless.”

T.W. was taken aback at the transparency that was unfolding before him. He had never seen a man so honest and dedicated to one woman. But the thing that struck him even more was that this wasn’t just any woman. It was his JoJo.

“You ready to ride, Brother?” T.W. looked over at Warren, who was waiting for him in the broken doorway.

“I’m ready to ride, Brother.” With that, the two men mounted their steeds and headed north to bring their beloved Josephine back home to them safe and sound, but most of all, alive.

chapter seven

The sound of a steady dripping brought a bruised Josephine out of her unconscious stupor. But opening her eyes she discovered the dark surroundings were just as black as her hellish nightmares had been. She reached her arm out, urgently searching for some kind of sign to tell her exactly where she was and just how safe she was in her current condition. Moving her arm behind her, she winced as a pain shot straight up and into the middle of her shoulder. The rest of her body began to wake up, each portion, one by one, revealing a different ache in a different location. The pain brought back the memory of exactly what had happened to her for her to be in so much agony.

Suddenly, she heard large footsteps padding toward her. Realizing she was not alone and understanding whom it most probably was, Josephine closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep in hopes of gaining the upper hand on her captor. With her eyes closed, she could make out the movements and motions he was performing. A soft glow slowly moved toward her eyelids followed by the foul stench of body odor and the undeniable smell of whiskey. This was a very good sign: Hugh Doyle had drank himself to a daze.

Patiently, Josephine waited for the opportune moment to better her situation so she was not being his helpless, little victim. She heard the swishing of liquid in a bottle and the heavy breathing of a man anxiously waiting for an immediate result. She had been around enough drunken coal miners in caves to know that the more they drank, the more they would begin to panic at being in such tight quarters. It was as if the cave walls and low ceilings above them were coming alive and inching closer and closer together until the miner would receive his final end.

She had decided to take the chance of peaking through her eyelashes to determine exactly where Hugh was and where she needed to run. Slowly and discreetly, Josephine inched open her swollen eye, figuring it was the better of the two that she could get away with. Scanning her surroundings quickly, she discovered an enclosed path she guessed was the way to her freedom. She also determined the location of her subjugator, realizing his back was to her and that he was reclined on his side, oblivious to her presence in the cave.

Cautiously, Josephine moved herself into a position that would allow her to grab the torch sitting in a crack in the cave wall that would give her the advantage over an inebriated Hugh Doyle in order to run her way to safety. Deciding that there was no better time than the present, Josephine pushed her body up, eased over picking up the torch and slowly turned to her way of freedom.

“Just where you think you going?”

Josephine didn’t wait around to answer. Immediately, she put one aching foot in front of the other and began her running decent to an opening in the cave.

Oh, Father! Please get me out of this cave alive. I just want to go home to my husband and tell him everything. Please, Lord, help me find my way.

“Hey, hold on there!” She could here Hugh scrambling like a cat on its back trying to get to his feet. She didn’t stop.

“You not gettin’ away from me! I gonna find you!”

Right.

Left.

Turn.

Forward.

“I can hear you. I’m gonna … ahhh!” Josephine stopped at the sound of a man in great anguishing pain. “Ah, my leg! It’s broken!”

In that moment, she battled with what she should do: run for freedom or help her kidnapper to a doctor. She knew if she had left him, he would eventually pass out and his leg would develop an infection, leading to his ultimate death. The thought was tempting—extremely tempting—but the truth of the matter was she couldn’t leave a man, any man, to die.

Slowly, she backtracked her steps, following his bellows until she found the injured man curled up and clinging to his broken leg.

“My leg! It’s broken!”

“I know it’s broken, Hugh. That’s why I came back. If you tell me which way to go, I’ll help you out of here and get you to a doctor.”

“And what if I don’t?”

“Then I find my own way out and I leave you here to die from infection. You pick.”

She gave him about 10 seconds before turning around and heading back the way she came. “All right! Stop! I’ll tell ya how to get out of here. Just don’t leave me.”

“I told you I wouldn’t. Now, you’ll have to lean on my shoulders because there’s no way I can carry you out of here.”

“Fine.” Hugh eased himself up, throwing an arm around Josephine’s broad shoulders.

“Now. Which way?”

Hugh nodded toward the right. “Go straight through there and just follow the length of the cave wall. It’s about two miles.”

“All right then, let’s go. And don’t you dare pass out on me or I’m leaving you here.”

Hugh nodded. The two battered and bruised bodies maneuvered through the darkness of the cave until they could finally see a glowing light about 30 feet in front of them.

“That’s it. That’s the way out.” Hugh’s breath was heavy.

“Before I get you there, you must promise me that this is it, that you’ll leave me alone and you’ll never come back to Texas.”

“You’re getting away with breaking a promise.”

“I’m sorry. I never should have made it. Just please, let this be the end.”

“Just get me outta here.”

Josephine knew she couldn’t just leave him this close to the exit. She just had to trust that the Lord would take care of the situation, just as he had taken care of her through this entire ordeal. A few minutes later, Josephine smelled the fresh Texas air and could see the bright stars shining in the dark silky sky.

“Jo?” She thought she had heard the sound of her husband’s voice calling to her. “JoJo!” Yep, definitely hallucinating because that was her brother who was all the way in Virginia. She lowered Hugh to a rock and fell to the ground herself in exhaustion.

“Jo, honey!” It wasn’t a dream! It was Warren’s arms, her husband’s arms, holding her and his hands caressing her forehead.

“Warren?”

“Are you OK, my love? Did he hurt you?”

“JoJo!”

“T.W., is that you?”

“Yes, Sister, it’s me.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I came here to see you.”

“Oh, well, hi there.” She smiled.

“Jo, honey, I need you to look at me and tell me the truth.” She turned her face to Warren’s anxious eyes. “Did he … ?”

She reached up and caressed his cheek. “No, sweetheart, he didn’t. And there’s something else I need to tell you.”

“Let’s just get you home, JoJo. Then we can talk as much as you want.”

“No, T.W., I have to say this right now. I made a promise to Hugh Doyle that if I slept with him, he would give me the money to pay the taxes on Belle Fields. I agreed, but at the very last minute as he was on top of me, I pushed him away and said I couldn’t do it. He got angry and came after me, beating me up until I thought he would kill me. Only by God’s grace was I able to get free and run away from him. He continued to threaten me. With that and the burden of the taxes, I decided I needed to get as far away from Virginia as I could but not without securing the future of Belle Fields. That’s why I put the ad out for marriage and made the stipulations that I did when I wrote you, Warren. I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you or to deceive you. I thought I’d come out here and find a place for me to go, leaving you and my past behind. But I fell in love with you. Everyday I felt more and more convicted to tell you the truth.”

“But Hugh found you and decided to take matters for himself, didn’t he?”

She nodded at Warren’s realization. “I’m so sorry, my love. I’ll pack my things as soon as I get to the ranch, and I’ll head back to Virginia with T.W. I’ll pay you back everything I ever took from you, and we’ll be out of your life forever.”

“No, Jo. You’re coming home to the ranch to get better and to stay and make a life with me.”

“But I don’t deserve it.”

“That’s my unconditional love for you, Josephine Rose Cooper.”

Tears began falling down her face as Warren lowered his lips to hers, giving her a kiss of passion and security and, most of all, unconditional love.

“Isn’t that sweet!”

Warren stood up and picked up Josephine, leaning her against T.W. “Stay here, Honey.” He walked over to the saddlebag, strapped it to Hugh’s horse and walked the horse over to him.

“I’m only going to tell you this once. You’re going to get on your horse, take yourself into Wilson, get your leg taken care of, and then go back to Virginia and never come back to Texas. There is enough in that saddlebag to keep you set for life. If you ever come back, I will call the law, and I will have them throw you in jail to face your wrath with the judicial system.”

“What’s in the bag?”

“The million you wanted. It’s in cash and gems and gold and silver. Like I said, set for life. Now, get out of here.”

Hugh looked over at Josephine, clinging to her brother. “You got off easy.”

“Get out of here, Hugh! Now! Before I change my mind.”

They watched as he climbed his horse and headed for Wilson and out of their lives for good. Warren looked over at his new family.

“Let’s go home.”

With that the three mounted their horses and set off for the ranch, leaving the past behind them.

The End

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