The Blacksmith's Mail Order Bride (Wild West Frontier Brides Book 5) Read online

  The Blacksmith’s Mail Order Bride

  Cindy Caldwell

  Prickly Pear Press

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Also by Cindy Caldwell

  Copyright © 2016 by Cindy Caldwell

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Chapter 1

  Olivia swept the last of the dust off the side of the porch and peeked up under the awning. Just in time. The wind would be picking up any minute now and she shielded her eyes against the blazing sun. Thunderheads rolled over the tops of the mountains to the east over Tombstone and they’d be here in no time.

  Across the pasture, Percy shooed the cows they had left into the pen and tipped his hat back as he secured the latch for the night. He turned at the first roll of thunder and squinted toward the mountains, pulling his hat back down, his head lowered as he walked quickly back toward the barn.

  Percy. He never talked much, not even when her pa was alive. She’d tried to talk him out of hiring the scrawny older man with the perpetual twitch in his eye, but her pa’s words rang in her ears once more.

  “You’re going to need help when I pass, Liv. I know he isn’t the finest specimen of a man, but he’s been a friend of mine since I was a boy and we need the help. I’m not going to be around forever.”

  She’d relented as her father’s condition deteriorated far more rapidly than she’d hoped. Her mother’s death had been long and grueling—what she could remember of it as she’d been much younger when it happened—but it wasn’t something easily forgotten, even if it had been long ago.

  She and her father had managed on the ranch alone quite nicely for many years, and it had been a truly joyful time. The passing of the seasons—what there was of them out here in the high desert of Arizona—always pleased her, and now that the monsoons were coming—well, it was the time of year that she felt her father with her most. It was his favorite time of year. The pork was curing by then and there wasn’t too much work to be done until it was time to take it all to market, so the many hours they’d spent on the porch watching the lightning and listening to the patter of raindrops were times she’d been happiest. They’d taken turns reading to each other until it was too dark to stay out, and after a simple meal—she was a pretty good cook, if she did say so herself—they’d sit by the fire until it was time to retire.

  Her shoulders sagged as she leaned her chin on the handle of the broom, turning toward Percy as he reached the steps of the porch.

  “Looks like it’s going to storm,” he said slowly, his eye twitching as it always did.

  She brushed her forehead with the back of her hand and wound her long, brown hair tighter into its bun. She wished she could still wear braids—heck, it didn’t even matter out here where she rarely saw a person other than Percy, she didn’t think—but she shoved the pins in more tightly as she decided that yes, tomorrow it would be a braid. Ever practical, a trait she’d inherited from her father, buns were for the birds and she decided right then and there that even though she’d be thought a schoolgirl, she didn’t care.

  “Yes, it certainly does,” she replied as a bolt of lightning crossed the sky. She jumped at its accompanying crack of thunder and Percy turned back toward her.

  “Did you close up the smokehouse, Percy? We all set to ride this out?”

  Percy reached in his trousers and pulled out a handkerchief, rubbing it slowly over his face as the raindrops started to fall. “Yes, ma’am. All buttoned up for now and the fuel all prepared for the next few days. Shouldn’t need to go back to Tombstone for quite a while.”

  “Thank you for going in today. It’s getting so I don’t even want to leave the ranch much anymore, so I appreciate you heading in for supplies.”

  “No problem, ma’am, and I’m glad you didn’t go. Saw some Indians on the way back. Must not have been Apache or I’d be dead. They kept a wide berth but it gave me a bit of a scare.”

  Olivia looked out over the horizon, her heart beating a little faster. They’d had several visits from Indians over the years but not recently, and she didn’t want that to change. She supposed it was good that they’d had a bumper crop of hogs and were expert at curing the meat they provided. It did invite interest from Indians and white men alike, but they’d had enough run-ins that for the last several years, people had steered clear.

  “You don’t think they’ll be trying to...”

  Percy shook his head quickly. “No. The reputation of the Double Barrel Ranch is a good one, and nobody seems willing to talk about stealing a thing. I was just mentioning it so you could be on the lookout, just in case.”

  “Thank you, Percy.” She glanced at the shotgun leaning against the front door and realized she hadn’t had to use it for quite some time. She supposed the times she’d had to in the past—and hadn’t hesitated one bit to protect the ranch—had people still talking. She banked on that, that no one was willing to rob them—or to try to, anyway, because of the consequence of getting a rear end full of buckshot.

  She turned her attention from her memories back to Percy as he spoke again. “But I think it might be good for you to go in once in a while. A lovely young lady like you needs company—of her own age and possibly of the male persuasion.”

  Percy didn’t customarily speak much and her eyebrows rose at this—what would equal a week’s worth of words, normally.

  Color rose in his cheeks as he kicked the dirt. She’d been grateful Percy was around and he had been a good friend to her father. They’d even taken weekly trips into Tombstone, sometimes spending the night, during that last year of his life. She was grateful that her father had had the opportunity to get out and about. But he’d never to date given his opinion about much of anything. Well, not anything, really, that didn’t involve the smokehouse.

  “I appreciate the sentiment, Percy, but I don’t have time for things like that. Nor the interest.” She glanced over toward Tombstone, thinking of how quickly it had grown. She’d even heard that there was a bowling alley next to the theater that ran all year long, all day and all night for the miners who were on different shifts. She might like to see it
one day, but she shook the thought from her head.

  “Supper shouldn’t be more than an hour. I’ll ring for you when it’s time,” she said as she turned to go into the clapboard house her father had built with his bare hands.

  “Anything I can help with?” He looked up at the sky and stomped his boots, which would soon be covered in mud.

  “No, thank you. Rabbit stew tonight and biscuits are already made. I’ll see you in a little bit.”

  As Percy headed toward his quarters in the barn, her eyes drifted to the small hill on the far side of the pasture, the bright yellow of the flowers she kept on the tidy graves catching her eye. She thought maybe tomorrow she’d take some new ones, for both graves, and she plopped onto the wooden rocker as she rubbed her forehead.

  The clouds moved quickly toward her, and she imagined the streets of Tombstone must be rivers by now, the flash floods coming down from the hills that surrounded it. She could see it, Tombstone—although it was a decent ride away, quite a few miles. She didn’t get in often and wondered if maybe she should try to get in more—especially now that the meat was put up and curing for a while and things on the ranch were calm.

  Actually, she said a brief prayer of gratitude that things were calm out here for her. She was, in fact, a woman trying to keep a ranch and a business going on her own. She had Percy, certainly, to help but it could get a little lonely these days. Percy wasn’t near the conversationalist her father had been and a month or two after her father died, she’d quit trying.

  A squall settled over Tombstone in the distance, and she laughed as she imagined the ladies in their finery, the feathers in their hats flying as they ran for cover through puddles and puddles of mud. Maybe they had a man who would take off his cape and throw it over a puddle for her so as not to sully her boots.

  She shook her head as Percy closed the door to the barn behind him, stopping to blow his nose loudly in his handkerchief. He didn’t even own a rain cape, she imagined.

  Her father did and would have been one to help a lady on the rare occasions it was necessary. “Just because we live out on a ranch doesn’t mean you’re not a lady, Olivia. Don’t ever forget that.”

  She laughed out loud as she gazed down at her dirty hands and stained apron from her day’s work. A lady? Hardly. Nor did she want to be.

  Glancing back at Tombstone, she was glad that she wasn’t standing on the boardwalk waiting for someone to throw down a cape so she could cross. No. She was practical. She’d take care of it on her own, feathered hat or not. She would just walk to the other side of the street and deal with the consequences afterward.

  Just like now. She’d go inside, light the fire, clean up and provide a perfectly decent meal. Just like she’d done for years.

  Chapter 2

  Joe Stanton leaned his head against the closed door of the blacksmith shop that he owned with his brother, Will, and pinched the bridge of his nose. He turned the sign around, “Closed” now showing toward Allen Street, one of the busiest streets in Tombstone.

  He wiped soot from his hands and threw the soiled rag into the washbasin. He realized he’d barely spoken to a soul all day and while that sometimes was a very good thing, he missed having his brother, Will, there with him in the shop their father had left them when he’d died.

  He supposed he should be grateful for the silence—especially when he still had to go home to their ma, who could talk the bark off a tree. Wouldn’t be so bad if it was something interesting but it usually wasn’t. Lately, it had mostly been how upset she was about Carol and Will getting married. As Joe didn’t share her opinions even a little bit—he loved Carol, and had never seen Will happier—he mostly tried to avoid her when he could.

  Tonight, though, there’d be no avoiding her. He’d agreed to meet his aunt and mother at the Occidental for supper. The only reason he had was because Will had been the only decent cook in the house and since he’d left, Joe felt like he’d been starving to death. A decent meal at the Occidental, the best restaurant in town owned by old friends, was worth putting up with just about anything.

  That’s what he’d thought, anyway, when he’d said he’d meet his mother and aunt there at six o’clock. As he locked the door to the shop and stepped outside, he looked both ways up the boardwalk as water rushed by and the rain pounded the dirt. He inhaled deeply, the smell of rain one of his favorites since childhood. He didn’t even mind that the streets of Tombstone looked like rivers as the heavy rain commenced and thunder cracked over the town. Monsoon season, one of his favorite times of the year, was in full swing and he never minded how wet he got.

  The storms would come and go quickly for the next few months in the high desert and he looked forward to how green things would become, almost the opposite of other places he’d visited where in summer, all the plants turned brown. Not here.

  He turned up his collar and headed toward the Occidental, his stomach grumbling already. As he’d done his repetitive work today and hammered horseshoes, rotating them back and forth from the fiery forge and the water barrel, he’d already been trying to decide what he’d order. Tripp and Sadie’s restaurant was famous for unusual dishes and he wondered what might be on special tonight. If it wasn’t something he just had to try, he’d already settled on Tripp’s trail stew and biscuits, a favorite of all the ranch hands that had ridden the trail with him and one of Joe’s favorites as well.

  Joe slowed as he approached the Occidental. He’d grabbed his cloak at the last minute, hoping to stay a little dry as he’d be going to the restaurant, and he saw his mother and aunt had done the same thing. They stood on the boardwalk outside the restaurant next to a covered buggy, and Joe stopped dead in his tracks.

  His stomach dropped and he closed his eyes tight, hoping that in the buggy would be someone—anyone—but his cousins. As much as his mother babbled, you’d think she would have mentioned that they would be there. Or maybe she’d finally understood what he’d decided long ago—that where they were, he wouldn’t be. If he’d known they were coming, he’d have gone home and had a hard biscuit or even a lump of coal for supper. Anything was better than his cousins.

  “Joseph, how lovely to see you,” his aunt Dorothy—or the Widow Samson, as most people in Tombstone called her—said as she held out her limp hand to him and leaned on her cane with the other.

  Joe glared at his mother who looked quickly away, her smile wide as she bent over to peer into the carriage.

  “Look who’s here, Joseph. Trudy and Taffy and Tracy, all three.” His mother held up her hand and wiggled her fingers toward the carriage. Joe cringed as his cousins stood.

  Trudy, the oldest, sounding just like her mother, said, “How lovely to see you, Joseph. I haven’t seen you since—well, since—”

  Joe was glad she’d just stopped, as he knew full well what she meant. None of them had seen each other since Will and Carol’s wedding, and what a disaster that had been. For him, anyway, and his heart ached at the way his family had treated his brother’s new bride. He was grateful that she and Will were so in love that they only had eyes for each other, and hadn’t noticed the disrespect and downright rudeness of his family.

  He wasn’t at all surprised when she lifted her nose in the air and her eyebrows rose as she looked down at Joseph on the boardwalk. He thanked his lucky stars that he’d grabbed his cape at the first crack of thunder before he’d locked the door of the shop. He knew exactly what she wanted, and knew she’d stand there in the carriage until she got it.

  “Joseph,” his mother prodded as his aunt stood by, her eyebrows raised as well as she tapped her cane on the planks of the boardwalk...a sound he’d hated since he was a child.

  He sighed and looked up at his cousins as they all stood watching him, their parasols ready for when they needed them. He unbuttoned his cape and laid it down on the mud between the carriage and the steps of the boardwalk, extending a hand to each of them in turn.

  His three cousins were safely on the boardwalk as he r
eached down to retrieved his muddy cape and he stopped when he heard his aunt clear her throat. He looked up at her and she nodded to the carriage. Confused, he turned toward the buggy and looked up into the eyes of a young woman he’d never met before.

  “Beautiful, isn’t she?” his cousin Taffy whispered in his ear. He reached up, taking her gloved hand in his as he helped her down. It felt cold even through the leather, and as she smiled vacantly and batted her eyelashes at him, he couldn’t quite look her in the eye. If she was anything like his cousins, beauty wouldn’t save her.

  With the gaggle of ladies safely on the boardwalk, he collected his cape and walked behind the buggy to shake it out. Clumps of mud flew as it dripped in the street, and he rested it over the bench outside the restaurant, hoping it would dry by the time they’d finished supper. The rain had just stopped and a ray of sun poked through the clouds—although it did nothing to lighten his mood.

  When he returned to the group, his cousin Tracy reached for his elbow and steered him straight toward the woman he’d helped down from the buggy last.

  “Joseph, I’d like you to meet my friend, Jasmine Bartholomew, who’s recently arrived from New Orleans. We met when I was traveling. She’s come to visit and to—look around,” she said, snickering behind her hand as she winked at Jasmine.

  Joe tugged at his collar as he tipped his hat at the young lady. “How do you do, ma’am? It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said, although he most certainly did not think it was a pleasure at all. He looked around at his cousins, each smiling smugly—expressions that matched his aunt’s and his mother’s.

  Like a bull heading to slaughter, he held the door open for the ladies—were they ladies, really? Carol was a true lady, in his estimation. These women were...well, they’d tricked him, for one, and it wasn’t fair. Especially without his brother. He was unprotected, easy prey.

  “Joseph, you sit next to Jasmine, right here,” Taffy said as she maneuvered him next to their friend. “She can tell you all about New Orleans and about herself. She’s fascinating, really.”