ROMANCE: MAIL ORDER BRIDE: The Other Man’s Baby (A Clean Christian Historical Western) (New Adult Inspirational Pregnancy Romance) (16 page)

“Men are weak.”

Armeda Winchester made this pronouncement as she gazed down at her youngest son, her only surviving son, who gazed back at her with the one eye that was able to focus, the other eye obscured by a swollen lid and a darkening orbit that would be blue-black by morning. 

“I reckon that’s so,” he replied with the drawling, devil-may-care indifference that maddened her and up until now, had beguiled her with the easy charm that would be his undoing.  And hers.  And the ranch’s undoing, if she allowed that to happen.  But she could not allow that to happen.  She had endured too much, worked too hard, fought too many enemies to concede defeat to this child of her body, the only heir to the land that she and her husband, also weak, also self-indulgent, had seen grow to manhood. 

She fixed him with the stern visage that kept the ranch hands obedient, even those who, when first hired, had thought that a woman would be easy to work for, until they learned that she was a fair employer but a demanding one.  She paid well because she expected every dollar to be earned.  Hoyle Slocum, the ranch overseer, who had worked for her before her widowhood, always warned the new hands that Armeda Winchester paid better than any of the other ranchers because she was tougher than any of the other ranchers.  They didn’t believe him, until they had to face the steel-eyed stare when they missed a morning’s work because of a night spent too late in town the night before.  It wasn’t a mistake that was made a second time.

Except for Owen Winchester, who worked as hard as any hand and played even harder.  The son who, when he was not in the saddle at the Circle W, was in the saloons, upstairs with one of the girls or downstairs at the poker table.  Owen knew his mother’s expectations and seemed intent on defying them.  Hoyle could scold the hired men, but he couldn’t do the same with the man who would inherit the ranch when Mrs. Winchester was no longer in charge.  She was a strong-willed, straight-backed woman who would be described as handsome, not beautiful, and in the 30 years that he had worked for first her husband and then her, he couldn’t recall a time when she’d been laid low by any malady of mortal man.  Pregnancies had momentarily halted her, but not for long; the deaths of three infant sons had not stopped her; neither the marriages of her daughters nor the births of her grandchildren had interrupted her relentless sense of duty. 

“They are weak until they find a strong woman who can prop them up,” she continued as if he had not spoken. 

Owen Winchester tilted his head as if he were tipping his hat to her.  He’d lost his hat in the barroom scuffle that had earned him the black eye, and the reddening bruise on his cheekbone was a receipt from another punch that had landed, but Owen had no hard feelings over the marks.  He’d given as good as he’d gotten, and fighting kept a man trim, even if the fight was over a saloon girl he favored for his Saturday night frolicking.  There was no emotional obligation to the girl; it was a matter of principle.  His opponent understood this now, and if Sallie thought it meant more than that, she would not be the first to misinterpret a young man’s lust for something deeper.  Owen did not trouble himself with the way women took on over him, or what they expected from him other than payment.  If he chose to squander, in his mother’s oft-repeated words, his pay on whiskey and women, that was his business.  He’d worked for the money and it was his to squander. 

Her son’s dark eyes gave her polite attention, as if he were attending to her lecture.  His eyes were his father’s and once, she’d been pliant to his long-lashed, merry look, before she learned to weather the charm that he liberally bestowed upon anything in skirts.  Owen’s gleaming golden hair, a brighter version of the gilt locks, growing so gradually paler that it indicated no signs of ageing at all, was from Armeda.  “Medie, gal, we’ve made us a handsome young’un,” Lance Winchester had crowed over his youngest, the only male child to live long enough to sprout curls and walk. 

And so they had.  The local girls gave him sidelong glances at barbecues and dances, as their mothers watched with hopeful yet worried expressions on their faces.  The Circle W was an impressive spread, its cattle a lucrative inheritance.  But the Winchester men were not destined for taming. 

No, Armeda realized.  If her son was going to settle down, she was going to have to wield a whip hand to make it happen.

“Tomorrow morning,” she told him, “you will leave for Jackson.  You will go to your Aunt Rebecca’s.  I will follow.   When you return to the Circle K, you will have a wife.  If you do not marry as I direct, you will not return to the Circle K.”

The bland expression vanished.  “What are you talking about?” Owen demanded, his open eye blazing.  “I don’t need a mother to tell me when to take a wife.”

“Most men do not,” she concurred.  “But you are not most men.  You are a wastrel.  You will ruin this ranch and all that I have built.  I will not let you destroy my work.  Tomorrow, you go to Jackson.  When you return, you will have a wife with you.  If you do not, you will not return.  I will turn you out with your horse, your saddle, and your Pa’s rifle, and your wages for the week.  I trust I make myself clear.”

Hoyle told no one the reason why Owen did not show up for work the next morning.  He let them speculate, as they were wont to do, on the follies of the young man who was always ready with a quip, a round of drinks, or a fist as needed.  But when he drove Mrs.  Winchester into town to catch the stage for Jackson, he took the liberty of speaking his mind.

“There’s no ill will in the boy, ma’am,” he said.  “I know he’s got a sporting streak in him, and he runs into a scrap now and then, but I’ll swear he’s as tried and true a man as ever sat in the saddle.”
“Perhaps,” she said, looking straight ahead, the firm line of her jaw visible below the curve of her gray bonnet.  “But that sporting streak will lead to wickedness if it’s not brought to a halt, and marriage is the only way to do that.  I will find a wife for him.”

“Ma’am,” he began.  “A man knows what he wants in a woman and begging your pardon, it’s not likely to be what his ma thinks he should look for.”

“I am aware of that, Hoyle.”

The conversation ended.  He’d said his piece.  He liked the boy. Owen Winchester was no boy; he was .  .  .  well, past 21.  He’d been ten when his Pa was killed in a fight over a bad poker hand, and that was going on twelve years ago, making him 23 or thereabouts.  Maybe if Armeda Winchester hadn’t been so strict with him when he was growing up, he’d have turned out differently.  But she wasn’t a woman to tolerate deviations from the rules, and Owen Winchester had his Pa’s own knack for getting into mischief.  Maybe she was right.  Maybe what the boy needed was a strong woman.  Maybe marriage and eventually, fatherhood, would settle him down and make the man of him that Armeda Winchester required of her son.  But Hoyle felt a bit of pity for the poor girl brought into such an arrangement, with a mother-in-law who would never relinquish control and a husband who would never surrender to decorum.  It was not a recipe for a peaceful household. 

Having arrived in Jackson to his aunt’s ranch, Owen made himself useful as soon as he arrived.  Ranching was more than just his labor, it was his birthright and he took to it with good will and energy.  That night, when the work was over, Rebecca’s son Nels joined his cousin on the wide porch of the ranch house.

“Hell of a shiner,” Nels commented.

“It’s gonna make me a hell of a husband.”

Nels knew that his formidable Aunt Armeda was on her way to procure a wife for her son but Armeda had not shared the details inspiring her quest.  Owen filled him in.

“She’s making you get married because you got in a fight?” Nels couldn’t believe it.  His mother, like Armeda a widow, had raised her brood with love and a wooden spoon frequently applied to their backsides, but she regarded town infractions as something which belonged to men.  “What were you fighting over?”

“Nothin’ I hadn’t fought over before.  Reckon it was one time too many.  She said I marry the woman she picks out for me or I leave the Circle W.”

“She doesn't’ mean it!” Nels declared.  He knew how much the ranch meant to his cousin, who had been in a saddle, the family joked, before he’d been out of diapers.  Owen relished the tiring, backbreaking labor and tolerated the tedium that was as much a part of raising cattle as calloused hands, sun-weathered skin and squint lines around the eyes before a man was 30.   Wyoming sun wasn’t nearly as merciless as the rays of Texas and the desert regions, but days spent outdoors gave the sunshine victory over flesh.  Women who never complained about their lives in the unbroken land out West endured much, but they tried to protect their skin as best they could.  Apple barley water mixed with balm of Gilead, or honey combined with a mashed apple; oatmeal and honey to make a paste that could ease the ravages of the sun were part of a woman’s beauty arsenal.  Nels and his brother had teased their mother for her vanity when their father was alive, but Beckie had had the last word.  “Can you imagine snuggling up and kissing a gal with skin like a saddle that’s been left in the sun?” she’d retorted.  “Don’t mock what a woman does to make herself pretty for her man or she’ll stop doing it, and then there’s no difference between kissing her or some old buffalo skinner.”

Ranching was all Nels knew, so whether he liked it or not, it was his fate.  But Owen was different.  Owen didn’t want anything but ranching.

“She means it,” Owen said.  “And she’ll probably marry me off to some cow-faced nag who’s cussed-natured enough to geld me but fertile enough to bear baby Winchesters.  She knows I’ll never leave the Circle W.  I reckon that she sees too much of Pa in me and she’s bound and determined to wring it out of me before the ranch belongs to me.”

“Uncle was a trial for a woman; that’s what Ma says.”

Owen didn’t dispute this.  “Pa was rowdy.  But I never gamble more than I can lose, and a single man can share a woman’s bed without breaking any vows.  Circle W is my home.” He didn’t add that the Circle W was also who he was; he wouldn’t have known how to express a thought that sounded too poetic for a Western man.  But he knew that he would do whatever Armeda Winchester required if the alternative meant being forced to leave the Circle W. 

Willovene smoothed her skirts and studied her reflection in the mirror.  She knew why she was summoned to the parlor.  There was a prospect.  That was what Mrs.  Locksley termed it when a matrimonial opportunity arrived.  The Rev.  and Mrs.  Locksley ran a home for decent girls whose marital expectations were less than pristine.  Whether they were orphans abandoned by mothers who had fallen into sin or fathers who were moving on and could not be encumbered by a girlchild, the females of the Locksley Home had one thing in common: they were for marrying.  The Locksley's’ were part of a discreet but effective network of marriage brokers who provided wives for those who could not expect to woo a woman on their own. 

Willovene Harvester just hoped that this man wasn’t fat and piggy-eyed like the last one who’d shown up at the parlor.  He’d cast a greedy gaze upon her, noticing the curves of her bosom and the swell of her hips as she walked into the parlor.  Then he noticed Eli at her side, toddling on unsteady feet, half-concealed in his mother’s skirts.  He wanted no babies, he’d roared.  He wanted a pure girl.  In vain did Rev.  Lockley explain that Willovene had been tragically widowed when her young soldier husband was slain by a Blackfeet arrow, leaving her in the family way with no means of returning to the Indiana home she came from.

Mrs.  Locksley had been philosophical at the man’s departure.  Not all men, she advised Willovene, were designed to tolerate another man’s offspring.  “Some men must be the first to set foot on the land,” she said obliquely.  But Mrs.  Locksley was optimistic.  Willovene was an excellent cook and she made the best marmalade of all the girls at the Home.  She could read and she wrote a fair hand.  She was pleasing to look at, with those gentle blue eyes and red-brown hair that reminded Mrs.  Locksley of the color of the canyon rocks when the sunlight struck.  Some men would be gratified to know that she was fertile, too, and, having borne a healthy, sturdy babe, would bear more.  Men needed children in this demanding land and a barren woman was of no use to them.   Yes, Mrs.  Locksley was optimistic.

Willovene knocked on the parlor door before entering.  The protocol was well established.  But she was surprised to see no man in the parlor except for Rev.  Locksley.  There was a woman sitting by the fireplace, a woman whose straight back did not touch the chair’s back.  She had an upright chin, a straightforward glance, and she was not smiling. 

“Willovene, dear, this is Mrs.  Armeda Winchester from Cheyanne.  She has come to you with a matrimonial prospect on behalf of her son.”

Dear God, what mother would do such a thing unless she were the parent of an imbecile, or someone so defective in looks, bearing and character that no woman would willingly marry him. 

“Sit down, dear,” Mrs.  Locksley said.  “Mrs.  Winchester has some questions for you.”
“Mrs.  Harvester,” the guest began, “you have a son.”

Mrs.  Locksley had instructed her not to bring Eli with her to this first meeting and reluctantly, Willovene had obeyed.  She drew comfort from her year-old son’s red curls and rosy-cheeked smile.  He reminded her so much of his father, the father who had never seen him and would never know him.  She was not wearing black for Elijah Harvester; Mrs.  Locksley advised against it.  Black was not an encouraging color for marriage prospects, she explained.  So Willovene wore a soft dove-gray that was as much mourning as she was permitted.  The color emphasized her demure appearance and womanly grace, Mrs.  Locksley noted.  It made her look biddable and compliant and that was what a man wanted in a wife.  It was also, Willovene realized, what a mother-in-law was likely to want.

“Yes,” she said, raising her head and not realizing that her chin was just as determined and resolute as that of the woman sitting opposite her.  “My son’s name is Eli.”
“He is in good health?”

“Excellent health.”

“He is full-witted? No marks or deformities?”
Before Willovene could respond with the heat that was showing in those gentle blue eyes, Mrs.  Locksley intervened.  “Eli is an enchanting little boy with great promise.  He has begun to walk and is already forming some words, and he’s a most well-behaved child.”

“I must see him,” the woman said, standing up so that her intention could be complied with.

“He’s taking his nap,” Willovene said, her tone as emphatic a refusal as if she’d barricaded the door to prevent Mrs.  Winchester from leaving the room.

The two women measured one another, one mother to another.  A very faint smile flickered on Armeda Winchester’s lips.  “You’ll do,” she said. 

Willovene didn’t have much in the way of belongings, and she’d learned to pack sparingly when she’d left Indiana to accompany Elijah to his posting out West.  The family Bible that her mother had given her before passing away; a cameo brooch that had belonged to her great-grandmother in Germany; a book of medical information for children’s ailments; her clothing and the clothes she’d sewn for Eli.  She placed her wedding ring in an embroidered pouch and stowed it with her personal items.  No matter what her future held, she was Elijah Harvester’s wife and someday Eli would give this wedding ring to his betrothed.  In the meantime, she stewarded it carefully, along with the few photographs that she had: Elijah looking proud and ready to burst into a smile as he posed in his regimental uniform; her mother and father in their Sunday best, staring into the camera as if they were not quite sure what was staring back at them.  They all seemed to come from a long-ago time, but the years were not many.  It was the distance she’d traveled that made the years lengthened.  Married, widowed, and a mother all before her 20th birthday.  She had nothing to return to Indiana for; her parents were gone and the family farm belonged to her brother and his wife and family.  Her sister-in-law had been circumspect but definitive when she had encouraged Willovene to find her place in the West.  After ‘Lige’s death, Willovene had felt helpless until the wife of one of the officers told her about the Locksley’s and their crusade to help women such as herself who were in a bind.  Mail order brides were not uncommon in the West where women were scarce, but as a widow and mother of a young child, Willovene knew that her marital appeal could be limited.  And what else was there? She had no fortune, nothing but the son who depended upon her.

As she waited for the stage coach to arrive, with her trunks at her side and Eli’s hand firmly gripped in hers, she pondered the woman, Armeda Winchester, who had been searching for a wife for her son.  She didn’t have to marry him, Willovene told herself.  If he were given to vice, or in some way unsuitable for marriage, if there were any indication that he would not accept Eli, she would leave.  She would not bind herself to a man simply because she had no other options.  There would be something.  Dear God, surely there was something for her and for Eli.

Mrs.  Winchester was already on board the stage coach.  The driver helped Willovene enter, and loaded her trunk.  They were the only passengers aboard.  Beside her, Eli watched everything with fascination.  He was an amiable boy, little given to temper.  But she hoped that he would sleep most of the journey. 

“Good morning,” Mrs.  Winchester, her hands busy with yarn and needles, greeted Willovene. 

‘Good morning.”

“We are driving to my sister’s ranch in Jackson.  My son is waiting there.  You will be married there.  Then we will return to the Circle W tomorrow.”

There was nothing to add, and Mrs.  Winchester’s attention returned to her knitting.  Eli watched, speechless, until his eyelids grew heavy and, leaning against his mother’s side, he fell asleep.  Willovene wished that she had taken out her own knitting before boarding the stage coach.   As the journey went on, she marveled at Mrs.  Winchester’s ability to maintain even stitches when the coach jostled them on rough pathways. 

They stopped for lunch and the use of the facilities at noon.   Willovene was relieved to move, and drink.   She wondered how much longer the journey would last but to ask would indicate that she could not endure the demands of the traveling and she was loathe concede weariness.  Mrs.  Winchester was not a woman to whom one would reveal one’s weaknesses.

Eli awoke, yawned, and looked at his mother with bright, questioning eyes.  She took him onto her lap and began to play Pat-A-Cake with him.  Eli chortled each time the cake went into the oven for baby and me, repeating “ba” each time.  Patiently, Willovene repeated “baby” but two syllables were beyond his understanding when, to him, “ba” conveyed the word just as efficiently.   Mrs.  Winchester gave no notice that the diversion bothered her, which surprised Willovene; even a tolerant adult would have been bored before long by a child’s game.

Finally, the stage coach horses halted and the driver alighted, raising his hand so that he could help her descend.  His assistant driver did the same for Mrs.  Winchester.

“My son will be here,” Mrs.  Winchester announced.  “He will take us to my sister’s.”

Nervously Willovene scanned the people at their business along the dusty street.  She saw no one whose looks were so reprehensible that he could not make his own case to woo a wife.  They were the only passengers, so whoever was waiting would surely be kin to Mrs.  Winchester.  She saw women chatting in front of the general store, and several men in cowhand gear lounging in front of the saloon.  Then the saloon doors swung open and a tall man in a flat-brimmed hat strode out, his eyes sighting the stage coach.  With no change in his visage, he moved in their direction, his pace measured and without haste.  There was no indication of anticipation in his gait or in his expression. 

He was not an imbecile.  Nor was he unfavored.  When he neared them, he raised his hat, revealing bright gold hair the color of new coins.  “Ma’am,” he greeted her.  “Ma,” he said to Mrs.  Winchester.  “Aunt Beckie sent for the par―well, who’s this young buckaroo?” Spying Eli leaning into his mother’s full skirts, the man bent down.  “Howdy,” he said.  Eli considered him soberly, and then smiled.  The man smiled in return and held out his arms. 

To Willovene’s amazement, Eli raised his own arms.  The man swept her son into a one-armed hold with ease.  “Ma’am, I’m Owen Winchester,” he introduced himself. 

“I’m Willlovene Harvester,” she answered, her voice soft.  
“Probably plumb tired and sore,” he guessed.  “Over here.” With Eli firmly held in his one-armed embrace, he offered Willovene his assistance into the wagon seat in front, then handed Eli back to her.  Behind her, she heard Mrs Winchester ascend to the seat with her son’s assistance.  No greeting had passed between them. 

As they rode, Owen Winchester whistled a lively tune.  Eli turned in Willovene’s arms to contemplate the sounds that were emerging from the man’s pursed lips.  When he saw that he was being observed, Owen Winchester aimed his tune in the little boy’s direction, and Eli laughed.  Something tight and confining that had compressed Willovene’s ribcage began to ease as she listened to her son’s laughter.  It was her favorite of all sounds, and a promising omen for their future with this unknown man and the forbidding woman who had brought them here.