Kathryn, page 1
part #1 of MAIL-ORDER BRIDES OF SAPPHIRE SPRINGS Series
KATHRYN
MAIL-ORDER BRIDES OF SAPPHIRE SPRINGS
MARGERY SCOTT
Copyright © 2019 by Margery Scott
All rights reserved
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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.
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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
Epilogue
BOOKS BY MARGERY SCOTT
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chapter 1
The rattle of wagon wheels on the rutted path leading to the house drew Pete Fallon’s attention. He looked through the window of the shed he used as a workshop, smiling when he recognized his visitor—his best friend, John Weaver.
He didn’t see John much these days. When he stopped to think about it, he didn’t see any of his old friends as much as he used to. Now, he was the only unmarried man left in the group he’d grown up with in Sapphire Springs.
Surprised to see John at this time of day, he opened the shed door. A blast of cold air greeted him.
“What brings you out here?” Pete asked once John was inside.
“Miranda sent me to invite you to supper after church on Sunday,” John told him.
“Why? What’s the occasion?”
Pete looked away. “No occasion.”
Pete had known John since they were barely out of diapers and by the way John was studying the grain on the surface of the bureau beside him, Pete knew there was something behind the invitation. “Who else is coming?”
John turned away and ran his hand over the smooth surface of the table. “Well…” he muttered, “Neall and Audra, Sam and Dorothy…”
Three couples. An even number. He’d be number seven. Miranda wouldn’t invite him unless she’d also invited an unmarried—and eligible—woman to even out the numbers. “And?”
“Dorothy’s sister, Agatha, is in town…” John mumbled.
Just as he’d thought. His friends were trying to marry him off. Again.
Not a chance! “Tell Miranda I died, or I’ve got the plague or…tell her whatever you want to, but I’m not spending one more minute with that woman than I have to. Have your forgotten what happened the last time you talked me into having supper with her? She’d already picked out our children’s names before we even had dessert.”
“She’s a nice woman…and it’s time you settle down, get yourself a wife, have a few kids—”
“Why?”
“Who’s going to take over your farm when you’re too old and feeble to do it yourself? And who are you going to teach to build furniture like you do? Besides, you might have enough women to warm your bed right now, but when you’re wrinkled and bald and have one foot in the grave, that bed’s going to be cold and empty.”
“That might be so, but I don’t need a woman nagging at me, or complaining that I don’t bring in enough money to buy her all the frilly things she wants, or telling me what a sorry excuse I am for a man.” He’d heard those words coming out of his mother’s mouth every day for years until his father had had enough and had left a note on the kitchen table one afternoon when Pete was twelve years old. They’d never seen him again.
“You saying Miranda’s a nag?”
Pete laughed. “Nah, you just got lucky.”
“I did, but you were just unlucky with the ma you had. My ma wasn’t anything like that. Don’t tar all women with the same brush. Dorothy’s sister—”
“Will not be seeing me at the same supper table that she’s at. Thank Miranda for the invite, but I’ll pass. Now, do you have time for a cup of coffee?”
“Thanks, but I don’t. The girls want to play the new song Miranda taught them on the piano before they go to bed, so I’d best be getting back.”
John moved to the door. He wrapped his fingers around the handle, then looked back over his shoulder. “Think about it, and if you change your mind…”
“I guarantee I won’t.”
John nodded and opened the door, lowered his head against the wind and hurried away, pulling the door closed behind him.
Pete moved to the window and watched him go until the wagon disappeared around a bend in the road. He shook his head at John and Miranda’s invitation. Surely they knew he wouldn’t be in any hurry to spend time with Agatha Trimble again.
He turned away from the window and crossed the large room to where he’d been carving egg-and-dart molding into the edge of a dressing table for a customer in Austin.
Where was the gouge he’d been using? He’d had it in his hand when he’d heard John’s wagon. What had he done with it? He sighed. It had to be there somewhere.
It took almost five minutes of searching before he finally found it in an open drawer of a chest he’d been working on earlier that morning. He must have put it there just before he’d opened the door for John.
He went back to work, carefully using the gouge to finish the design on the dressing table.
As he worked, his thoughts wandered back to what John had said.
John was wrong. Pete didn’t need a woman. He was happy with his life. When he wasn’t working the small parcel of land he’d inherited when his mother passed away, he spent his days in the shed out behind his house. His reputation for building fine furniture was spreading to the point he had more work than he could handle. He had enough money to get by, and that was all he needed. He could do what he wanted, when he wanted, without having to account to anybody or be criticized for his faults. And he had female company when the mood struck him without having to make any promises.
Yeah, he’d worry about his old age when the time came.
The bell jingled again, the fifth time in less than a half hour. Kathryn Higgins leaned against the counter in the kitchen and let out a sigh. She loved her father. She really did. But sometimes the constant demands and complaints made her want to run screaming out of the house and as far away from Ohio as her legs could carry her.
She wouldn’t do it, of course, but deep down, when she allowed the dreams to take root in her mind, she craved a life of her own, a home of her own, a family of her own …
She’d mentioned leaving once, and her father had become so distraught she’d thought he was going to have a stroke right in front of her eyes.
Slowly, she straightened and climbed the stairs. He was propped up in bed, pillows behind his head, his breakfast tray across his lap. “What is it, Papa?” she asked.
“When’s Doc coming?”
“He said he’d stop by this morning sometime.”
“I need to be washed and my hair combed before he gets here.”
“I’ll be back to do that as soon as I finish my breakfast. Are you finished with yours?”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t eat it,” he said. “The porridge was lumpy and my coffee is cold.”
If you hadn’t left it for a half hour, she wanted to point out. Instead, she clamped her lips shut and crossed to the bed. “Do you want more coffee?” she asked quietly as she picked up the tray and turned to leave.
“That would be nice,” he replied. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she heard him say as she went back downstairs.
She’d just finished her own bowl of cold porridge when a knock came to the door. Dr. Lawson stood on the porch, his white hair disheveled, fatigue showing in his eyes. She was surprised to see him at this time of the morning, but she couldn’t very well turn him away until she’d had time to make her father presentable. She’d hear about it later, though. “Come in, Doctor,” she said, opening the door wide.
“I apologize for stopping in so early, but I’ve been up all night delivering Mrs. Gradwell’s twins so I decided to check on your father before I head home.”
“That’s quite all right. You must be exhausted,” Kathryn said sympathetically. She knew the doctor was at least ten years older than her father, yet he was never too tired to make a house call. “Can I get you a cup of coffee or something to eat?”
“No, but thanks for the offer.” He took off his hat and hung it on the hook behind the front door. “Is your father still in bed?”
She nodded.
He made a sound that almost sounded like disapproval and trudged over to the stairs. “I’ll just go up now then,” he said, gripping the banister and hauling himself up to her father’s bedroom while Kathryn went back into the kitchen to clean up the breakfast dishes.
She was scrubbing the porridge pot when she heard the doctor’s footsteps on the stairs a few minutes later. Drying her hands on a towel, she hurried through to meet him in the foyer. “How is he, Doctor?” she asked.
“He’d do a lot better if he’d get himself out of bed and start moving.”
“Excuse me?”
He scrubbed a hand through his sparse white hair.
“That’s not possible…his rheumatism…his muscles…he’s so frail. I can see that when I wash him…”
“They’ve shrunk because he doesn’t use them. Same with his joints. They need to be used to function properly.” He took Kathryn’s hand in one of his and patted it kindly with his other hand. “You’re a good daughter, Kathryn, but you’re not helping him when you run after him hand and foot. He needs to do for himself, and there’s absolutely no reason he can’t. He’s not an old man. There’s plenty of life left in him if he wants it.”
“But—”
“When your mother died, it was as if he decided to give up on life. All he’s done since the funeral is sit in that bed and let you do everything for him. And it’s time to stop.”
“He misses her…it was such a shock to his system…”
The doctor nodded. “I know that, and I’m not telling him not to grieve. But he’s going to be joining her soon if he doesn’t do something about it.”
“Did you tell him this?”
He nodded. “He told me to get out and not come back.”
Kathryn gasped. “He didn’t!”
“He did, and I won’t be back unless there’s something really wrong. I have other patients who need me. Your father doesn’t, at least not yet. He will if he doesn’t change, though. He’ll be sick…or worse. I likely shouldn’t be telling you this, but you have to stop letting him use you as a maid. It’s not your fault, but what you’re doing is making him worse and it’ll eventually kill him. Now I have to go and get some sleep before my clinic this afternoon.” Again, he patted her hand. “You’re a young woman who should already have a husband and family of your own. Don’t let your father ruin your chances.”
With that last piece of advice, he plucked his hat off the hook and gave her a gentle smile before he walked out.
Kathryn closed the door and rested against it, the doctor’s words spinning through her brain. Was she really making her father’s health worse by taking care of him? How could she just desert him?
Her father’s voice split the silence. “Kathryn! Come up here! And bring me another cup of coffee!”
Night had fallen by the time Pete blew out the lamp and left the shed. Clouds partly hid the moon, but there was enough light to see as he made his way across the yard to the house.
It was in darkness, and when he opened the door, for the first time, he noticed the emptiness in the house. No fire blazed in the fireplace. There was no aroma of supper cooking on the stove. No one to greet him and ask how his day had gone.
He was alone, and he always would be.
He’d never really thought about it before, but since John’s visit, he hadn’t been able to get it out of his mind.
He always had plenty of female companionship when he wanted it, and he’d always been quite content to look after himself. So why was it bothering him tonight?
He shivered as he piled old newspapers and kindling in the fireplace and added a log on top, then struck a match on the sole of his boot and held it against the newspapers, gazing absently as the flames took hold.
Then he went into the kitchen and found a loaf of bread and a block of cheese. That would have to do for supper since he didn’t have the energy to cook. Not that he could cook much anyway. Eggs and stew. Those were the only things he knew how to make, and even those were barely edible.
After he finished eating, he went upstairs to his bedroom and stripped off his clothes before he slid between the sheets.
There was no warm woman beside him tonight, and if Pete was right, there would come a time when there would never be a woman in his bed again.
Maybe it was time to find a wife. He’d never really thought about being with one woman for more than a few weeks. Being faithful to one woman for the rest of his life.
Somehow, the idea of it wasn’t as terrifying as he’d once thought it was. In fact, having a woman who was willing to spend her life with him wouldn’t be such a bad thing. But where was he going to find one? There were very few unmarried ladies in Sapphire Springs, and he wasn’t interested in those who were.
Both John and Neall had brought mail-order brides to Texas. John had first brought Miranda, and then Neall had asked for Miranda’s help to find his bride, Audra.
Neall and John were happy with their new families. Was it possible Miranda could find him a bride, too?
He wouldn’t love her. He wasn’t capable of loving a woman. He knew that. He’d tried to fall in love and hadn’t been able to, at least not enough to ever think about spending his life with that one woman.
Love was for fools. Love had made his father a victim. His father had loved his mother so much he’d put up with years of criticism and nagging trying to make the woman happy. And failing.
He rolled over, tugging the quilt tight around his neck. He still wasn’t sure about being attached to one woman for the rest of his life, but it would be nice to have someone to welcome him home at night, to cook for him and clean up after him. And to take care of his needs in the bedroom when the mood hit him.
He’d make sure she understood that he would take care of her and protect her, but love wasn’t something she could expect. As long as she agreed to that, they could have a good life together and maybe one day have children of their own.
Yeah, he thought moments before sleep finally claimed him, maybe I’ll take a trip into town and talk to Miranda about finding me a bride, too.
Chapter 2
Snow swirled around Kathryn as she hurried the three blocks to her sister’s house a few days later. Her nose was numb from the frigid weather but after the morning she’d had running after her father, she needed some fresh air.
She missed the days when she and Charlotte used to curl up in their bed and giggle and chatter until the wee hours of the morning. Charlotte had married a banker the year before and now had twin baby girls. She’d told Kathryn that even though she cared for Owen, she didn’t love him the way she thought a woman should love her husband. She’d also told her that at twenty-two, it was likely the last chance she’d have to escape a life of drudgery looking after her father.
Since Charlotte’s marriage, care of the three-story brick house and her father had fallen on Kathryn’s shoulders. Her father wouldn’t tolerate having a housekeeper, and between cooking and caring for him and taking care of all the household chores, she was busy every waking minute.
But Kathryn didn’t blame her sister for taking the opportunity to have a life of her own. She only wished she had the courage to do the same thing—to leave, to live her own life, especially after what the doctor had told her.
Charlotte’s face split into a wide smile when she opened the door to Kathryn’s knock. She threw her arms around Kathryn and dragged her inside out of the cold. “It’s so good to see you,” she said. “But you’re frozen. Why would you come outside on a day like this?”
Kathryn loved to visit Charlotte’s house. It was small, but always gave her a warm, cozy feeling, something she missed at home since her mother died two years before. The aroma of cinnamon hung in the air.
“I just…I needed to get out of the house for a little while, and I miss you.”
“I miss you, too,” Charlotte said. “I just took an apple pie out of the oven. Take off your wet clothes and sit down by the fire and warm up. I’ll make us some tea and we can catch up.”
While Charlotte prepared the tea and sliced the pie, Kathryn settled into an armchair facing the fire and rubbed her hands together to get the circulation back.
“How’s Papa?” Charlotte asked as she set two places at the small dining table.
“He’s fine,” Kathryn replied. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
