Sally, page 1
SALLY
MARGERY SCOTT
Copyright © 2020 by Margery Scott
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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
Epilogue
BOOKS BY MARGERY SCOTT
About the Author
Chapter 1
Coldwater Creek, Montana Territory
Evan Hunter’s gaze slid to the woman standing beside him. They’d spent the past hour strolling along the bank of the river, the sun shining overhead, birds chirping, flowers beginning to sprout buds that would bloom within the next few weeks.
Spring! After a long and bitter Montana winter, spring had finally arrived, along with stagecoaches and wagons filled with people planning to settle in Coldwater Creek.
Harriet Jamieson had been one of them. The first time he’d seen her, in the mercantile two weeks before, he’d been smitten. He’d introduced himself, asked her permission to call on her, and since then, he’d been spending every spare minute he had with her.
He was growing to care for her very much. Today, though, something was bothering her. “You’ve been awfully quiet,” he said. “Is something wrong?”
She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “I think we should part company.”
Evan’s eyes widened. “What?”
“I want you to stop calling on me,” she said. “I only agreed to come walking with you today to tell you in person rather than having my father tell you the next time you came to the house.”
“But why? I thought we were—”
“You’ve been lying to me.”
Evan’s brow furrowed. “What? I haven’t lied to you.”
“You didn’t tell me about your father.”
“My father?” A chill swept through him. “You mean—”
“That he’s mad.”
“What? He’s not mad.”
“That’s not what some of the ladies in town told me when they heard you were taking me to the Founders’ Day picnic,” she said.
“They’re wrong.”
“They said he has fits. They’ve seen it happen, that he’s like a rabid animal.”
“They aren’t fits,” he contradicted. “They’re seizures. He has a condition called epilepsy. It’s something in his brain—”
“Exactly,” Harriet countered. “And you didn’t bother to tell me about it. That’s the same thing as lying.”
Everyone in town knew about his father’s condition. How was it possible she’d been in Coldwater Creek for more than a day or two and hadn’t heard about it, especially when it was common knowledge he was spending so much time with her. “I thought you knew and you accepted it.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t.”
“I’m sorry—”
“I heard his brain doesn’t work properly. These things run in families. How do I know that won’t happen to you, too? That you won’t have these … seizures … one day?”
“There’s a new medicine he’s been taking. It’s helping—”
“I can’t be married to you and spend my life worrying that you’ll be like him.”
Married! “I hadn’t thought about us marrying—”
“Isn’t that where courtship usually leads?”
Well … I suppose it does …”
She looked away, as if she couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’ve thought about it a lot,” she put in. “I want to get married, to have children. I can’t marry a man—marry you—knowing what the future might bring, worrying that you and our children could be afflicted with this … epilepsy … or whatever it’s called.”
Children? He was never going to father a child, but he didn’t think they were at that point in their courtship where they’d even be discussing having children so he’d never mentioned how he felt about it.
“Either one of us could come down with something—”
“I know that, but I can’t go into a marriage already worried about what might happen. I’m sorry, Evan,” she said. “You are a very nice man. You must understand, though, that I can’t take that chance.”
“I do,” he said quietly, turning away and gazing out across the river to the snow-tipped mountains in the distance. He’d heard the same words before. They’d been said differently, some in anger, some in pity, but still the same meaning in the end. “I’ll take you home now.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” she said. “I’ll walk. It’s not far.”
As he watched her leave and head toward town, he dug his hands in his pockets and lowered his head. Although the sun was still shining brightly and the day was warm, his insides were dark and cold.
He turned toward the trail leading to the small cattle ranch on the outskirts of town he worked with his father. Harriet was right. What woman in her right mind would risk marrying a man like him?
Glenn Pruitt, the town doctor, had told him about the latest findings—that epilepsy tended to run in families, and there was a possibility it could show up in him and his children at some time in the future. But he’d also told him that it might not, and that if it did, a new treatment was having good results so that many of those with the condition could lead relatively normal lives.
But what woman was going to listen to a man’s words when she’d seen what happened when someone had a seizure?
It was painfully clear. He was destined to spend his life alone.
Evan leaned against a tree in the church yard a few weeks later as his friend, Toby Reiger, and his new bride accepted congratulations from what looked like everyone in town.
He was happy for Toby, but he couldn’t help the pangs of jealousy jabbing his insides.
His gaze landed on Harriet smiling up at Virgil Foote, her hand tucked into his elbow.
“You look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders,” Josie Thompson said as she strolled towards him.
Josie and Cooper Thompson were good friends, and he gave her a weak smile as she approached.
She followed his gaze and nodded. “Cooper told me about what happened with Harriet,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. There was nothing he could do about it. He’d learned long ago to accept the things he couldn’t change, and it seemed finding a woman who’d be willing to marry him was one of them. There weren’t many available women in Coldwater Creek, and even those who were considered spinsters wouldn’t get involved with a man whose father had ‘fits’, or what some of the folks in town called loco, crazy, or ‘tetched’.
He was lonely. His twenty-fifth birthday was coming up and he’d always figured he’d be married and have a family by now. Instead, two years before, his life had changed drastically when his father had his first seizure.
It had happened at a pot luck supper in the town hall in front of almost everyone in town. That seizure, and the ones that followed, were terrifying to watch, and Evan understood people thinking his father had suddenly gone insane. But when the doctor had explained that there was a medical explanation for the seizures, he was sure people would understand.
Some did, but most didn’t, and even now, many of the people he’d considered friends kept their distance from his father. It didn’t seem to bother him much, but it bothered Evan.
The young woman he’d been planning to propose to at the time suddenly was too busy to spend time with him, and over the next few months, every eligible female in town avoided him.
He’d thought Harriet was different, but she wasn’t. She just hadn’t been in town long enough to hear the gossip.
One of his friends had once suggested that he move away, somewhere where no one knew him or knew about his father. He couldn’t do that. Not only would he’d miss his father, it would be dishonest. He couldn’t marry a woman without her knowing the truth and the possibility of him ending up the same way.
“Thanks, Josie,” he said, turning his head away from Harriet and focusing on Josie. “It just wasn’t meant to be.”
“I’m sure you’ll find someone, a woman who’s going to be the perfect woman for you.”
Evan laughed, but he couldn’t hide the trace of bitterness in it. “Not in this town, it seems.”
They stood together quietly, watching the newly married couple smiling and laughing with their friends. Suddenly, Josie spun around to face him. “Have you ever thought about getting a mail-order bride?”
Evan looked at her, a frown creasing his forehand. “A mail-order bride?”
Josie nodded. “Yes. Don’t you remember I was
He smiled. “I did forget,” he said. “It seems as if you’ve always lived here.”
“No,” she said. “I came here less than two years ago. I give thanks every day that when I left the orphanage in Chicago, I was lucky enough to come here and marry Cooper.”
“You and Cooper do seem happy.”
“We are now,” she replied. “We had a lot of problems at first, but we worked through them and fell in love. Now I can’t imagine my life without him. Perhaps a mail-order bride is the answer for you, too. Something to think about.”
“No woman is going to marry a man like me and take a gamble that I won’t end up with the same affliction as my father. And that I won’t pass it on to our children.”
“I think you’ll find there are many women who are willing to do almost anything to have a better life,” Josie insisted. “Back East, there are women whose lives are so wretched that they’d be happy to take a chance. For them, it’s worth the gamble to escape the miserable existence they have there.”
“Is that why you came West?”
Josie nodded. “When I had to leave the orphanage, I had nowhere to go. Employment for women was scarce, especially for women with no experience or skills. I was afraid my only other option would be to work in one of the brothels near the waterfront. Even traveling west and marrying a stranger was better than…well…”
“I understand,” Evan said.
“I’m sure there are many other women who feel the same way I did,” Josie went on. “And as long as you’re both completely honest about who you are and why you’re marrying, there’s no reason you can’t have a good life together.”
“You really think—?”
“I do.” A tiny gasp escaped Josie’s lips and a slow smile lit up her face. “In fact,” she said, a touch of excitement creeping into her voice. “I think I know a woman who would be thrilled to marry you. I’d be happy to tell you more about her later, but right now, I really have to go and help the ladies set up the wedding supper.”
“And I need to go and congratulate the bride and groom.”
“Let me know if you’re interested,” Josie said over her shoulder as she hurried away and disappeared into the crowd.
Evan watched her go. Was he desperate enough to marry a woman he didn’t know, to promise himself to her for the rest of his life?
Three days later, he mounted his horse and rode in the direction of the Thompson ranch to find out more about the woman he hoped would be his bride.
Chapter 2
Chicago, Illinois
Curled up on the stained sheets covering the worn mattress, Sally Mason tasted blood from her split lip. Her body ached, bruises already forming on her pale skin, and her eye was already swelling shut. It would be black and blue by morning.
The man’s liquor-laced breath filled her nose as he leaned over her. “Next time, you better be easier to get along with and do what you’re told.”
Sally kept her eyes closed as the man, her fourth customer of the night, dropped a few coins on the bed beside her and then left the room.
The door clicked shut behind him, and Sally released her breath, letting her tears fall and muffling the sound of her sobs with her pillow.
Voices, cries and laughter floated through the thin walls where other women, in other rooms, were ‘entertaining’ men.
Slowly, gritting her teeth through the pain, she got up and washed the blood off her face. In the dimly-lit room, she glanced quickly in the mirror above the bureau, barely recognizing the woman looking back at her.
The door opened as she was pinning her hair back in place. Gus Angstrom, the brothel owner, filled the doorway. His eyes blazed with anger, his cheeks flushed and his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his brocade vest. A layer of fat spilled over the collar of his shirt, which often made Sally wonder how he could breathe without choking.
A cold chill of fear washed over her. Her heartbeat raced. Her legs trembled.
She took a step backward as he approached. “Look at you,” he spat out. “Avery told me you weren’t very co-operative, and now I’m not going to be able to use you until your face heals.”
He closed the gap between them and trapped her cheeks between his thumb and his middle finger with vice-like strength , the pressure making her cry out in pain. “This is the last time I’m going to tell you,” he said. “I paid good money to buy you decent clothes, give you a place to live, feed you. One more complaint and you’ll get a lot more than what you got tonight. Do you understand what I’m saying?” He squeezed a little tighter. “Do you?”
She wanted to swear at him, to spit in his face, but she’d learned the hard way not to talk back to Gus. She nodded.
He released her with a shove. “Last chance.”
He spun around and stormed out.
Sally sucked in a few shuddery breaths as she wrapped her arms around herself. Only a few weeks before, Sophie, one of the other ladies who worked in the brothel, had suddenly disappeared one night after a customer had complained once too often. No one had seen or heard from her since.
Sobs shook her, the salt from her tears stinging the cut on her lip. She couldn’t stay here. She just couldn’t.
Slowly, she moved toward the bed, noticing the coins on the sheet. Gus had been so angry he’d forgotten to take them. He’d be back for them once he remembered.
She opened the drawer on the table beside the bed and took out the envelope, gazing at the return address. Coldwater Creek, Montana.
She didn’t need to read the words on the letter inside. She knew them by heart.
Dear Sally,
I hope this letter finds you well and that you’ve found a way to leave your past behind and build a new life. If not, I’m hoping that what I have to say will be the answer to your prayers.
There’s a man here in Coldwater Creek, a good friend, who wants to marry. His name is Evan Hunter. He is twenty-five years old and quite handsome, although not as handsome as Cooper. He is a hard worker, kind and generous.
You’re probably wondering why, if he’s such a good man, that he can’t find a wife here in Coldwater Creek. There is one problem—his father has a medical condition that could possibly affect him as well in the future, and the women here aren’t willing to take that chance.
I know how unhappy you are, and that the chances of finding a home and husband in Chicago are slim to none. I’ve told Evan about you and your situation, and he’s willing to marry you if you’re agreeable. He assures me that he’ll be a good husband and that he’ll care for you and treat you well. I believe him. All he hopes for in return is friendship and respect.
Please say you’ll come. I know that even though you don’t know each other, you could be happy together.
One more reason to consider this—I miss you so much!
Your friend always,
Josie
* * *
For several long minutes, Sally held the letter in her hand, her thoughts spinning. She had no life in Chicago, and because she couldn’t bring herself to perform the way some of the brothel’s customers expected her to, there would be more complaints.
Gus’s threats weren’t idle threats. Next time, she would likely disappear the way Sophie had.
Josie was offering her a new life where no one needed to know about her past, where she could become a lady. If this man was willing to overlook her sins, she’d be the best wife he could ever ask for. This … condition … he might get one day couldn’t make her life any worse than it was now.
She picked up the coins on the bed beside her. These, along with the few she’d hidden away in the time she’d been here, might be enough to get her to Montana. If not, she’d do whatever she had to do to pay her fare the rest of the way. No matter what that was, it couldn’t be any more degrading than what she’d been doing for the past three years.
