WESTERN ROMANCE: A Ranch to Call Home (Texas Romance, Mail Order Bride Romance, Clean Romance, Christian Romance) (Clean and Wholesome Romance) (5 page)

Alton, 1886

Southern Kansas

           
Dust puffed out from beneath the wagon’s wheels as Alton’s stolen horse carried
it onward. Alton hung on to the reigns in a loose grip, his eyelids drooping
and his shoulders sagging. His mother, brother, two sisters, and stuff were all
clumped together in the wagon, and based on the occasional loud complaint, they
were just as miserable as he was.

           
Life had gotten worse since they went on the run. They had to barter for food
with the few people they had come across, and not only were they running out of
supplies and personal belongings, they were running out of the food they had
managed to obtain.

           
His mother had continuously urged him to go east, but life was so full in the
east; Alton didn’t think they would be able to find their own place in the
cities, too full of people too focused on their own lives. But the west was too
new—too bare—for Alton and his family to survive out there for long. So they
were heading north.

           
“We should go to Mexico,” Betty, his 16-year-old sister, said. As usual, she
sounded pissed. “All fugitives go south.”

           
“Quiet, Betty,” Alton said, grinding out the words. He was exhausted, and he
certainly wasn’t in the mood to explain himself to his family. Again.

           
“What about the Indians?” Zachary said, his fearful tone whiny. He was Betty’s
twin, but where she was always angry, he always seemed to be afraid. “What if
they come and skin us?”

           
Alton rolled his eyes. “Then we’ll be dead.”

           
“What?!”

           
“No, it’s okay,” Penny, their baby sister, said. She was the sensible one of
the group. “I hear most of them are much nicer than what people say about them.
We’ll be okay.”

           
Their mother coughed and hacked repeatedly.

           
Alton’s face softened. Worry pierced his tired form, and he glanced over his
shoulder. “How she doing?”

           
He waited for a few seconds while his siblings checked on their mother. Her
throat had started hurting about a week ago, and now she struggled to breathe
and speak. Occasionally, she would pass out.

           
“The same,” Penny said, her voice cracking. “She’ll be okay though. We just
need to keep praying.”

           
“Praying,” Betty repeated bitterly. “Why don’t we do a little dance around her
while we’re at it?”

           
“Quiet!” Alton said. Anger and fear, and even a little guilt, bubbled up in
him, but he didn’t have the energy to express the emotions any further. “Just
be quiet.”

           
It was only a few minutes later when he noticed some buildings in the distance.
Alton wasn’t sure if entering a city or a settlement was a good thing, but it
was something that needed to be done. They needed help.

           
“No gambling,” Penny said to Alton when he stopped the horse by a shop.

           
“I’m not going to gamble,” Alton said, irritated that his baby sister was
bossing him around. He hopped out of the wagon and headed toward the shop.
“Betty, keep an eye on things.”

           
“No gambling,” she said back.

           
Alton clenched his teeth and entered the shop. It wasn’t anything special—the
wood that held the place up was cracked and splintered, and the items were few
and unimpressive; they were rusty tools and nails, mostly. Regardless, Alton
glanced around the place and feigned interest. When he noticed the shopkeeper
watching him from beside…some kind of machine, Alton smiled and approached him.

           
“Hello,” Alton said. “My ma’s a little…is there a doctor in town? Maybe a free
one?” He laughed, but the sound was horrible even to his own ears.

           
The shopkeeper nodded. “Yeah, there’s a doctor. He ain’t free though.”

           
“Right. Of course not.” Alton glanced around again. “You got a lot of tools
here.”

           
“It’s a tool shop.”

           
“It is, it is.” Alton nodded. “Is there a food shop around here?”

           
“You mean a market?”

           
“Yes.”

           
“Yes. But that ain’t free either.”

           
Alton shook his head and forced himself to laugh again. “No place ever is. But
I’m sure they barter.”

           
“Doubt it. People need money.”

           
“Sure, but people need stuff, too.”

           
“Not as much as money.”

           
Alton’s eye twitched, as did his lips. They were actually getting sore; the way
he was forcing them upward. He took deep breathes through his nostrils and
thought. He had no more ideas though—no more plans, nothing. He had nothing.
The realization finally made his lips lower, and his anger dissolved into
resignation.

           
Alton tilted his head in an attempt to appear nonchalant, even as a part of his
confidence died. “You a gambling man?”

           
The shopkeeper blinked. “No.”

           
“You sure? Have you ever tried it?”

           
“Don’t want to.”

           
“Okay, okay, well…do you know if there is anyone else here up for a game of
cards?”

           
“No. No one gambles here.”

           
Alton barked out a sincere laugh. “No one gambles? Next you’re going to tell me
that no one drinks either.”

           
“No one drinks either.”

           
“Oh…great.” Alton scratched his stomach, his expression twisting. “That’s
great.” He was going to say more, but instead he shook his head and walked
toward the door.

           
“Wait!”

           
The feminine voice made Alton tense and turn. A redheaded lady all but ran into
him, but then she quickly backed away and blushed.

           
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I didn’t need to run. Or shout.” She stuck out
her hand. “My name is Mary Anne.”

           
When she waited for him to shake her hand, he reluctantly did so. She was
awfully pretty and all, but there was something strange about her. This whole
situation was confusing to him.

           
“Am I to understand that you are in need of money?” she asked.

           
He glared. A part of him wanted to spout out a few defensive insults, but
another part of him wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. To ask such a
question…it was crude for anyone to do, especially a woman.

           
She tilted her head and squinted at him. “Are you trying to silently say ‘yes’
to me?”

           
“What?” Alton blurted. He shook his head and decided it was best not to engage
in this oddness any further. “Look Miss, I need to be going, so—” He went to move
around her, only to have her jump in front of him. Annoyed, he pressed his lips
together.

           
“I have a proposition for you,” she said. “Please, just listen…”

           
After Alton’s father walked out on his mother several years ago, Alton stopped
believing that people got married because they were in love. As far as Alton
was concerned, when two people got married, they were simply making an
agreement that at least one of them wasn’t going to die alone. It was shallow
and idiotic, and he never thought he would ever be a part of such an
arrangement. But, to be fair, he had never thought he could profit it.

           
Marriage for money and a luxurious lifestyle? Who would have thought?

Mary Anne, 1887

Kansas City,
Kansas

           
Marrying a stranger and then having his family move into her father’s home…the
process of it all was much easier than Mary Anne thought it was going to be.
Her father agreed to pay for the tutoring of Alton’s siblings, all of whom were
interested in it. And, of course, her father agreed to pay for Alton’s mother’s
medical bills. After that, life was nice again. Well, except for the people she
now had to deal with every so often—those people being her father’s friends,
people her father had heard about, people who her father thought were
important—just…people.

           
“So Alton Smith and his entire family are moving in with you and your father?”
one of these people had asked her at the wedding. He was a business man of some
sort, and based on his judgmental and belittling tone, he did not approve of
the future living arrangement.

           
Anger had twitched within Mary Anne’s psyche, but she smiled through it. “His
mother has taken ill, and he has been staying close to her and his younger
siblings throughout it all.” She brought a hand up to her mouth and blinked
hard. “For a while, they didn’t think she was going to make it.”

           
“Oh my,” the man had said, sounding guilty and horrified. “How awful.”

           
“He’s a good man, Alton Smith,” Mary Anne continued, making her tone watery and
dramatic. “He is exactly the kind of person I want to be. And I want to be
close to him and my father—close to family, always. It is the honorable thing
to be.”

           
At the time, the weight of her lies—of her exaggerations, hadn’t bothered her
in the slightest, and that in itself bothered her. Was lying second nature to
her? Was her heart so cold that being immoral didn’t faze her?

           
Mary Anne mentally shook these thoughts away. It was silly to fret about the
past and such, especially when life had returned to the way she wanted it to
be.

           
She was in her study and sitting in an armchair in the corner. A novel was in
her hands, and, though her mind kept drifting, she actually found the story
interesting. She took in a slow breath and shifted in her seat. Life was good.
It was.

           
She returned her attention to her book. Or she tried to, but then she
remembered lying to someone else—someone whose name she couldn’t even remember—about
how Alton came from a wealthy family who worked in timber. She hadn’t even
known what that meant—working in timber. Did they chop down trees? Did they
sale land with timber on it? Were the buildings in which they worked made out
of timber? What did working in timber mean exactly? But she had said it, the
person had believed her, and Mary Anne was clearly a gifted liar. How awful.

           
Mary Anne clenched her teeth and closed her book. She decided that the guilt
and confliction that made her stomach churn was unfair. She had been doing
right by her father. By telling people the truth about Alton, she would have
humiliated him more so than he already was. Now
that
would have been
immoral.

           
Sighing, she stood up and put the book back on the shelf before leaving the
study.

           
She walked around the house for a while, wanting to expel some restless energy.
While she did so, she could hear Alton’s mother speak with Penny about her
tutoring from one room, and she could also hear the twins arguing about
something silly in another room. Mary Anne’s pace slowed as she listened to
these sounds. The longer she listened, the more she calmed. She wasn’t sure why
hearing multiple voices in a home was so soothing, but it was.

           
Mary Anne found herself in her bedroom, one she shared with Alton, though they
slept in separate beds. Alton’s bed was closest to the door, and without
thinking much about it, Mary Anne laid herself over his covers. She continued
to listen to her family—her paid family’s voices. They made her smile, and she
liked the idea of falling asleep to the nice sounds.

           
And she might have, had Alton’s nightstand not grabbed her attention.
Specifically, what was under it.

           
Mary Anne moved herself over on the bed a little and lowered her head closer to
the floor. Beneath the nightstand was some kind of glass, hidden beneath a few
rags. She had never noticed it before—never thought to look over at Alton
before.

           
Curious, and once again immoral, Mary Anne lifted up the rags to get a better
look at the strange glass.

           
They were bottles of liquor. All of them only partially full.

           
Mary Anne’s widened at the sight, her heart stuttering. Alcohol was illegal to have
in Kansas, and even if it hadn’t been, drinking alcohol was not Christian. And
if Alton did anything that wasn’t Christian, it would hurt her father’s
reputation. And then this whole mess would have been for nothing.

           
Mary Anne jumped out of bed and rushed out of the room. Dazed, she glanced
around the hallway before she thought it would be best to ask about Alton’s
whereabouts rather than wait for him to suddenly appear.

           
She found the twins first. They were doing their homework in Betty’s room, and
they were arguing about how to solve a particular equation.

           
“Have you seen Alton?” Mary Anne said, squeaking.

           
The twins’ heads snapped up. Betty was the one who said she Alton in the
kitchen a few minutes ago when she had been eating some cookies.

           
Mary Anne smiled at her. They were supposed to save the sweets for dessert, but
she always sneaked a few bites of dessert before her meals, anyway. “Good for
you,” she said to Betty, and Betty beamed at the praise.

           
Then Mary Anne remembered she was panicking, so she returned to it and hurried
downstairs to the kitchen. Sure enough, Alton was at the table—the small one
they never ate at because her father always wanted them to eat at the big table
in the dining room. Though it was late afternoon, Alton just now reading the
newspaper. He looked relaxed and relatively happy.

           
“You have booze?!” Mary Anne snapped as she approached him. She immediately
regretted it and, with horror, she spun around. She just about gasped with
relief when she saw that there wasn’t anyone else in the kitchen.

           
“We live right on the border of Missouri,” Alton said, lowering the paper and
glancing up at her, “Of course I have booze. I can’t live dry like the other
church-goers here. It ain’t happening.” He returned his attention to the paper.

           
Frustration and fear flared within Mary Anne. However, she managed to restrain
herself long enough to look around and make sure no one was about to walk in on
them. Then she took a few steps closer and glared at Alton. “If people find out
that you are breaking a law, you will ruin your father-in-law’s reputation in
this town—a town he helped built.”

           
Alton pursed his lips with mock-thought. “Well, then, I guess no one can find
out.” He rolled his eyes.

           
“I’m serious.”

           
“Relax. I’m not going to get caught. I got drunk at our wedding, and no one’s
said a word about that.”

           
“You got drunk at our—?!” Mary Anne pressed her palms to her face and growled.
Once she got some animosity out of her system, she slapped her hands down on
the table and sneered at Alton. “Listen, we have a deal here. You can’t be
doing this, or there will be negative consequences for you.”

           
Alton lowered the paper to his lap. He tilted his head at her and smirked. “Is
that so? And by ‘negative consequences,’ do you mean a divorce? Because I don’t
think that would do ol’ daddy’s reputation any good either, would it?”

           
Mary Anne paled. Regardless, she still tried to look tough and angry, but Alton
clearly saw through it.

           
“You’ve got nothing, sister. So, like I said, relax. I won’t get caught, I just
need a drink every now and again.” He raised the paper again. “Living life
sober all the time just ain’t natural.”

           
Mary Anne gaped at the newspaper for a few seconds. Ultimately though, she had
no way to counter-argue him, so she reluctantly left the kitchen in defeat. She
was only a few feet away from the kitchen when she heard Penny and her mother
start to sing a hymn of some sort. They were out of key, but hearing them
express their faith and be who they were in the safety of this house was—

           
A rotten idea popped up in Mary Anne’s mind. Grinning, she hurried over to
where Penny and her mother were, which was in the front room. They were sitting
on the couch, but when Mary Anne entered the room, both of the women stood up
and stopped singing.

           
“Oh,” Mary Anne said, blushing. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think—I didn’t want to
interrupt.”

           
“We were just having some fun,” Alton’s mother said, her voice bitter and her
eyes narrowed. She had yet to start liking Mary Anne. “It’s been a while, what
with all of the children’s tutoring sessions and what not.”

           
Mary Anne glanced at Penny, who shrugged.

           
“Uh,” Mary Anne said. She cleared her throat, and after a few awkward seconds,
she remembered what she had hurried in there for. “Oh, um, Miss Smith, I’m
afraid there is something I need help with. It involves a problem your son
has.”

           
After Mary Anne had explained the situation, Alton’s mother had stormed into
the kitchen and yelled his ear off about his drinking. Mary Anne thanked God
that her father had been out of the house at that particular moment—see his
friends or doing who knows what.

           
In any case, Mary Anne’s silly and simple plan actually worked. Alton’s mother
had gotten him to promise to get rid of the alcohol and never go near the stuff
again.

           
Mary Anne would have been happy, if Alton hadn’t sworn vengeance against her.

           
“What?” Mary Anne said, now alone in the kitchen with a pissed off Alton.

           
“You heard me,” Alton said. “You’ll pay for this.”

           
Gripping the newspaper tightly, he strode out of the room with an indignant
huff.

           
Mary Anne wasn’t sure how seriously to take him, so she figured it would be
best to forget this whole awkward event ever happened.

           
That had been a mistake.