A Bride for Gavin Page 5

  Gavin swallowed the ball of emotions. He would not cry, like Lily had done every day since the funeral. But he wanted to. Cole saved his emotional outbursts for bedtime where he cried himself to sleep. It was breaking Gavin’s heart. By the time he came in from the fields and cooked a hot meal it was so late, they all fell asleep and ended up burning most meals. It got to where oats for breakfast was their only meal, and that wasn’t enough for their growing bodies. They looked frail and bony. He was desperate for help and if marrying some woman was his only option, then that was what he’d do, for the sake of the little ones.

  “Mrs. Freeman, maybe you were right. If you think there’s a woman who will marry me, I’d like to give it a try. These little ones need a woman in the house. I tried taking them into the field with me, but I can’t work and keep the proper eye on them. Cole nearly broke his neck falling out of the wagon, and Lily, well, we lost her in the corn rows more times than I care to say. I’m terrified she’s gonna get snake bit or worse.”

  Widow Freeman nodded understanding. “Yes. You’re right. A mail order bride would be a good solution. Now, tell me, how old are you, son?”

  Gavin swallowed. “I’m seventeen.”

  She nodded. “And when will you be eighteen?”

  “Next summer.”

  “Ah.” She looked up. Tsked her tongue. “That might be a challenge.”

  Gavin sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “But! Not to worry. I’ll see what I can do. Now, do you have any funds? These brides-to-be need money to travel and food. We need to be able to offer them that.”

  “Well, how much are we talking about?” Gavin’s stomach knotted.

  She smiled kindly. “Depends.” Turning, she walked to a desk and pulled out some cards. “If we can find you a girl who is not too far away, it won’t be so much. But now,” She shuffled through the cards. “Someone from Boston, say, would be more.”

  “Well,” Gavin slid his hands in his pockets. “I won’t have anything to offer until after the harvest. So, perhaps we need to wait ’til then.”

  She lifted her old, watery eyes to meet his. “Perhaps.” Taking a deep breath, she set the cards back in the drawer. “But in the meantime, I’ll search what I have and see who just might fit the bill.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Gavin didn’t feel hopeful. “What do I owe you for today?”

  “Never you mind.” She shuffled to him. “I take a commission, call it a finder’s fee.” Waving dismissively at him. “We’ll settle up when we know who you decide to offer marriage to.” A cackle escaped her thin lips, like a witch stirring a cauldron.

  A shiver ran down Gavin’s spine. Was he doing the right thing? He was so tired. If only Aunt Carolyn hadn’t disowned him just because his mother was buried on his poppa’s side of the family cemetery. How he’d enjoy one of her meals and a feather-stuffed mattress to sleep on tonight. But neither was available to him or the babies. So, he’d head back to the farm and fix the babies a hot meal. Since he hadn’t been out in the hot sun all day, surely, he could stay awake to oversee a chicken roasting in the oven.

  Three months later…

  “If it’s a matter of money, I got money.” Gavin heard the begging in his voice and hated it, but what could he do? Mrs. Freeman didn’t have one single reply to his heartfelt letter asking for a mail order bride. “My harvest came in good, and I got money!”

  “Mister Sallee, I told ya. It’s not a matter of money.” She hesitated. Here it came. What he already knew. “It’s your age.”

  Gavin sighed. “I can’t do nothing about my age. I am what I am, but that don’t make my circumstances any different! I need help. These babies—”

  “We’re not babies!” Cole stiffened with his hands taut at his side and balled into fists.

  Gavin turned to look at his brother. A slight smile curled on Gavin’s lips. “I reckon you’re right. I’m sorry. I should stop calling you that.” He turned to the matchmaker. “Ma’am, I’ve gotta do something. It’s closing in on winter, and I didn’t put down a winter crop so I could stay in the house with the— these two. But come spring, I’ve gotta plant seeds! I’ve just gotta!”

  “I know. I understand.” She shook her head. “Let me write to my cousin in Ohio. Maybe Fagan will have an idea. Trust me, I know you need a helpmeet in the worst way, regardless of how young you are.”

  Frustration escaped Gavin’s mouth, but he tried to make it sound like he had sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’ll send word as soon as I have something for you.” She concluded.

  Gavin nodded. “The sooner, the better.”

  She, too, bobbed her head. “I understand, honestly I do.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He resolved he could get no further today. He gathered his siblings and headed over to the hotel. Tonight’s hot meal was gonna be without dishes to wash.

  Chapter Seven

  Seward, Kansas - 1868

  “… and that’s when Granny Fagan informed you about me?” Emma Grace turned as if on a perch to face Gavin. They were nearly to his farm. Even if he had not announced the giant cottonwood tree was a landmark indicating they were on his land and had a little ways more to go, the children getting restless in the bed of the wagon would have been the clue she needed.

  “Well, it still took three more months. According to Missus Freeman, your matchmaker drove a hard bargain. She corresponded all that time, negotiating a plan, I suppose, to get you and me together. It was Missus Freeman’s suggestion that I lie about my age. And it was Missus Fagan—”

  “Granny Fagan.”

  “What?”

  “Fagan is actually her Christian name. Come to think of it, I don’t know her family name. Everybody calls her Granny Fagan, even the elder women in Franklin call her that. It’s what she prefers, I suppose.”

  “Well, it was Granny Fagan’s suggestion that I request a proxy bride and send a signed certificate of marriage. She said it was the better way, and she’d handle everything on her end.”

  He looked into Emma Grace’s eyes. “I didn’t mean to trick you or nothing. I was told it was the better way. What with your circumstances, and mine… it was best.”

  Emma Grace drew herself up and crossed her arms over her chest. “I do feel tricked. But then again, I’ve heard tales of proxy brides who ended up in much worse predicaments than this. It just worries me.”

  “What?” Gavin glanced her way.

  “What will the people in town think about you being so much younger than me? What kind of desperate fool does that make me look like?”

  “I don’t care.” Gavin said firmly.

  Emma Grace stared at him. “What? Why?”

  “Because! It ain’t none of their gall-dern business.” He drew himself up straight with an intake of air. “Wasn’t a one of them would take the time to come out here and help me, no how. I begged the pastor’s wife to ask one of the church ladies to help me. Our own aunt wouldn’t help us. Believe me, I did the best I could. Even forfeiting a winter crop so I could take good care of these children. I love them. They are my charge. Momma’s dying words were to take care of them. Probably Poppa’s too, but his words faded before he could say them.”

  Emma Grace lowered her arms. His words were sincere. She could hear it in his voice and see it… in his eyes. He had kind eyes, long eyelashes, and such an honest disposition about him. She believed what he was telling her. Even though he had lied when he wrote the letter asking for a proxy bride.

  But that wasn’t necessarily his doing, and he was, like her, at the end of his rope and desperate enough to try anything. As long as this remained a marriage of convenience, she could help Mr. Sallee with his problems while he helped her with hers. Besides, maybe, once everything settled down, she could start a small school for the other farms out this way. Save them from having to travel so far into town for schooling.

  Her and Mr. Sallee’s age difference didn’t have to get in the way of these two young ones needing to be cared for
or the farm needing dawn-to-dusk work. They weren’t her children, more like brother and sister, but they were very young, and still needed a woman’s hand to raise them. She looked out across the green fields. Sprouts were about knee high. “Is that corn?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  She laughed. “I have something I want to show you.”

  “All right? What?”

  “You’ll see. It’s in my trunk.”

  He furrowed his brow but turned to guide the mule who didn’t seem to need any guiding. She knew her way and was speeding up the closer they came to home.

  “Here it is.” Emma Grace came out from behind the quilt that separated her bedroom from Gavin’s. He had taken his parent’s larger room which had its own small fire hearth and divided it in half by hanging a clothesline and pinning four quilts back to back across it for the two of them. On her side, she had the off-the-floor bed with a cornhusk tick mattress. On his side, he had a cot that looked like it had been a surplus from the War.

  If she agreed to this sleeping arrangement, he planned to let Cole have Gavin’s bed upstairs in the divided loft and Lily would get to stay where she was, giving her a bed area to herself. The large hearth in the main room of the house provided warmth for the loft in the winter.

  Emma carried some paper as she walked to where Gavin sat. It had two tears at the top left corner, folded this way and that, to keep the two pages together. Clever. “What is this?”

  “The day I was fired… supposedly replaced.” She rolled her eyes. “I was grading my student’s papers. This one is Robby’s. I think you might be impressed with what he wrote. At least amused by it.” She handed the paper to Gavin. He looked at the red B+ circled at the top right. “A B+, huh? Ole Robby didn’t do so good? Huh?”

  She took the paper back and held it against her chest, as if it were precious and he was not appreciating its value. “On the contrary. It was a very informative paper. Only because of grammar and spelling did he not get an A.” She giggled and sat down at the table across from Gavin.

  “How do you have this? I thought you said that Greenleaf fella told you not to take any materials from the classroom.”

  She smiled. He liked the mischief in her eyes. “I was grading these when I was so rudely interrupted and uprooted. I hadn’t had an opportunity to enter the grade in my grade books, so the way I see it, they were not yet property of the classroom. Besides, with the faces H.G. Williams was making, he wouldn’t have accepted this writing assignment anyway. Lord only knows what curriculum he had in mind for my poor students.” Sadness laced her words. Gavin felt sorry for the children in her classroom, too. Losing Emma Grace as their teacher must have been a traumatic event for them. “Besides, now I have something that I think you will appreciate.”

  She laid the paper on the table in front of Gavin. He lowered his eyes and began to read. It was good. Some of what the boy wrote, he had heard from his poppa, but other parts he had not. “Say, this is very clever.” He looked up at Emma. “Thank you. I’m gonna work this into what I do.”

  She smiled. “Good.” She sniffed. “Oh! The biscuits.” Leaping from the chair she rushed to the oven. Using her apron like Momma did, she opened it and took out a pan of golden biscuits.

  “Those smell so good.” Gavin inhaled. “What else are we having?”

  “Just this.” A twinkle shone in her eyes. Gavin’s mouth dropped open. “Really? Just biscuits?”

  “Yep.” She glanced at Cole and Lily with a wink. They were on the floor by the big hearth, coloring on something Emma had given them from her school supplies. Lily giggled.

  “Why do I feel like there’s a joke in this somewhere?”

  “What on earth are you talking about, Mister Sallee?” She grinned at him and set the pan on top of the stove. “Lily, could you and Cole set the table?”

  Gavin rose and helped his siblings gather the appropriate number of plates and eating utensils. Emma Grace watched them as if observing a classroom activity. He was proud that they knew the proper placement of plates, utensils, linen napkins, and cups. They set the table the same as Momma had, with the Poppa, which was him now, at the end of the table, Emma Grace, at his side, like Momma had sat next to Poppa, and Cole and Lily across from her. It felt good to have the table set this way again.

  Emma Grace carried the coffee pot and poured Gavin a cup, then herself. She ladled two cups of milk and set them in front of the little ones. Then she brought the pan of biscuits to the table and set it in the middle. She lifted Gavin’s plate and dipped a large soup spoon into the biscuits, scooping biscuit and a creamy chicken and vegetable mixture onto his plate.

  Gavin’s eyes widened. “Oh! What is this?”

  Emma Grace smiled. “Granny Fagan taught me several hardy dishes she called, Man-Pleasing Meals. This one is called Chicken Biscuit Pie.”

  Gavin inhaled the delicious aroma. “Mmmm. It smells really good.” Then he turned to Cole. “So, that’s why you killed a pullet. I wondered what had happened to it when all I saw was the biscuits.”

  Emma Grace and the little ones laughed. While Emma dished everyone a healthy portion she continued to explain. “And we saved the feathers in the only thing I could find in the barn, a gunny sack. Lily didn’t know if you saved feathers or not.” She lifted questioning eyes to Gavin.

  “Of course. Waste not—

  “Want not.” She finished the saying.

  He smiled. “Right. So, after supper, I’ll show you around the barn and where we store such things.”

  “Good.” Emma Grace bowed her head.

  Gavin smiled and said the blessing before she could.

  “Amen.” Emma Grace lifted pleased eyes.

  Perhaps they were not so very different after all.

  A rap on the door startled Emma Grace and Lily alike. Gavin wiped his mouth with the linen napkin and turned to the pounding. He glanced at Emma Grace, and the little ones. “Stay seated.”

  Crossing the open room, he eased the door open. “Uncle David? Aunt Carolyn? What—”

  The door swung open as Aunt Carolyn shoved her way through. She glared at Emma Grace and the children at the table. Emma Grace stood. “Who are these people?”

  Gavin rushed to step in front of his aunt, blocking her from whatever she intended. “Uh, Emma Grace, this is my mother’s sister, Aunt Carolyn, and her husband, Uncle David Collins. They-they own a farm just north of town, and” —he emphasized his words while glaring at his aunt— “We haven’t seen them since the day after Momma and Poppa died.”

  Chapter Eight

  “So, it’s true!” Carolyn spat. “Look at this!” She turned to her husband who nodded confirmation of whatever she was so upset about.

  Emma Grace stepped forward, positioning herself between this angry woman and the little ones. Aunt or no aunt, this woman’s hostile appearance brought out Emma’s protective instincts. There was no way Emma would allow the little ones to be harmed in any way, unless this woman ran over Emma’s dead body!

  What could this woman want? A desperate stone of regret slammed into Emma Grace’s gut. Had this woman learned about Emma Grace’s situation? Her age difference with her proxy husband. Was this the very thing she feared from the citizens of Seward? Accusations of an improper arrangement? She should have turned around as soon as Gavin told her his true age and bought a ticket home.

  But she didn’t have a home.

  “Gavin Garret Sallee!” Carolyn’s angry eyes bore down on him. “How sinful of you to bring this woman to your home, and to carry on like this” —she waved her arm toward the supper table— “in front of two innocent children…” Her voice cracked with emotion. “Whom I love, with all my heart.”

  “There’s nothing sinful about any of this.” Gavin held his stance between his relations and Emma Grace. She too stood tall with her hands on her hips, ready to shield Cole and Lily in case this woman attacked. Would she attack? Gavin had told her the crazy woman tried to take Cole and Lily the day before the
ir parent’s funeral. Would she try to snatch them now?

  Gavin’s brow lowered over glaring eyes. “Aunt Carolyn, Emma Grace is my wife. We have a certificate of marriage to prove it.”

  Emma considered running to her room to pull out the certificate, but determined her physical presence was more important until Gavin told her to get it.

  “Your wife!” Carolyn turned to look at her husband. “How? You’re too young to take a wife!”

  “How old do you think I am?” Gavin laughed, but he wasn’t amused. “I turn eighteen in two days. Don’t you even know how old I am? For someone who supposedly loves us offspring of your sister so dearly, you’d think you would be aware that I’ve been old enough to take a wife for some time now.” He crossed his arms over his chest and Emma Grace did the same.

  Carolyn turned aggressive eyes to Emma. “You certainly do not look to be in your teens!”

  Emma Grace opened her mouth to reply, but Gavin stepped in front of her, blocking Carolyn’s view of Emma. “My wife’s number of years on this earth is none of your business. We are legally married, there’s nothing inappropriate about her being here with me, and you need to leave.”

  Carolyn’s jaw dropped. She sputtered indignant mutterings and turned to her husband. “Well, I never! David, do something!”

  Mr. Collins stepped past his wife. Gavin’s hands dropped to his side and Emma Grace saw him tense. She did the same. The man approached Gavin, stuck out his hand, took Gavin’s into his, and shook it. “Congratulations, Son.” He turned to Emma Grace with a two-finger salute. “Welcome to the family, Miss.”

  Gavin and Emma Grace stood in silent shock as he turned and took his wife by the shoulder. “Come along, Carolyn. We need to get home.”

  “But… what?” She stammered as he pushed her out the door. “But it’s not right…” she continued to screech all the way to their buggy, while he helped her into the seat, and while their horse turned and walked an easy pace down the road. Her complaints could be heard fading but not ceasing.