The Wrong Bride_A Christmas Mail Order Bride Romance Read online

  The Wrong Bride

  Brides and Twins Book 3

  Natalie Dean

  Eveline Hart

  Kenzo Publishing

  © Copyright 2017 by Kenzo Publishing - All rights reserved.

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document by either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited, and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

  Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Author’s Note

  About Author - Natalie Dean

  If you enjoyed reading this book…

  Other books by Natalie Dean

  Something for you…

  BONUS BOOKS SECTION: Descriptions Included

  MAIL ORDER BRIDE COLLECTION I

  The Teacher’s Bride

  Lottie: Brides of Bannack Book 1

  Cecilia: Brides of Bannack Book 2

  Sarah: Brides of Bannack Book 3

  MAIL ORDER BRIDE COLLECTION II

  The Expectant Bride Heads West

  The Big Beautiful Bride Heads West

  The Secretive Bride Heads West

  The Privileged Bride Heads West

  The Scandalous Bride Heads West

  The Unexpected Bride

  Colorado Cowboy

  My Cowboy Hero

  ROMANTIC SUSPENSE COLLECTION

  The Innocent Fighter

  The Missing Girl

  Prologue

  Late Spring, 1883

  Molly Turner wasn’t afraid of Eldora Kennesaw the way others in Mesquite, Texas were. Eldora Kennesaw was a plainspoken woman who depended upon canes to walk after she had been thrown off a horse years ago, but she didn’t depend on much else. So when Eldora said that she wanted to talk to Molly after church, Molly told her husband she’d be a little late coming home. Jim wasn’t one for church-going except when their babies were being baptized. Molly took them with her to church; they were a handful, but the other ladies of the congregation were always willing to lend a hand with keeping them in line.

  “I know what the ladies say about me.” Mrs. Kennesaw began the conversation as soon as they were out of earshot. Molly was holding little Molleen in her arms while the boys, eager to release the energy that had been pent up during the sermon, played with their friends as the adults chatted. Molly Turner and Eldora Kennesaw were off by themselves, standing beneath the spreading foliage of a giant tree that had been there before Mesquite, Texas even had a name, or a church either, if it came to that.

  Molly didn’t react to Mrs. Kennesaw’s comment. She’d come to Mesquite as a mail-order bride from West Virginia, and after living through the War Between the States, she didn’t think much could scare her anymore. She raised her eyebrows inquiringly.

  “They say that I run my grandsons’ lives. No woman in Mesquite will let their daughters marry my grandsons because they fear that I’d run their lives, too.”

  “I expect you would,” Molly said equably.

  Mrs. Kennesaw gave a bark of laughter. “I can see you’re not afraid of me.”

  “No, ma’am, but my daughter is still a baby, and I don’t think either of your grandsons is going to wait for her to grow up, so you and I won’t be clashing in-laws.”

  A smile settled into Mrs. Kennesaw’s sharp eyes. “They grow some spunky girls back East, but you’ve been in Mesquite for quite a while now.”

  “Thirteen years.”

  “You remember the War?”

  Puzzled, Molly nodded. “I was eight when my father went off to fight. James ended up in Andersonville Prison; his twin brother fought on the Confederate side, and he died in 1864.”

  “I lost both my Daniels,” Mrs. Kennesaw said. “My husband and my son. And I lost my daughter, Dora, too. You and me, we know real losses.”

  Molly nodded again, not at all sure where Mrs. Kennesaw was heading with her comments. The War that had split North and South had split the Turner family. She had been the daughter of the housekeeper, but the War, and the death of her father Liam O’Hara, had weakened Maggie O’Hara’s mind. Maggie was Molly’s mother. Molly had grown up fast, and she had taken over her mother’s responsibilities in the household while she was barely in her teens. However, everyone she knew had been touched by the War in some way, even here in Mesquite, where folks had left Confederate gray and Union blue behind. Uniforms could be forgotten, but scars remained. However, in Texas, those scars stayed hidden. Even James, her husband, who had changed so much from his ordeal in Andersonville Prison, rarely mentioned the War. Why was Mrs. Kennesaw bringing it up now?

  “My grandsons,” Mrs. Kennesaw began, “I don’t know what to do with them. Zachary Taylor is heading on to be wild, and Will Henry is still mourning Mary Ellen. I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m telling you all this.”

  “I’m sure you have good reason,” Molly said. She could hear the whoops and yells of her boys as they played. She didn’t want to impose for too long on the patience of her friends, who were minding the boys while she chatted.

  “I sure do. You were a mail-order bride. You came out West, all the way from back East. You and Jim Turner . . . it’s come out all right, hasn’t it?”

  “More than all right,” Molly said proudly. “Five children, all healthy. The ranch is doing well. We’re happy.”

  “I’m thinking of getting a mail-order bride for one of my grandsons.”

  So that was the reason for the conversation. “Do they want to be married?”

  “Z wants to spend his time and money on fancy ladies and poker,” Mrs. Kennesaw said candidly. “Time for that to end. Will Henry, he’s forever melancholy over Mary Ellen dying on him.”

  “He loved her,” Molly said gently. William Henry Harrison Kennesaw’s devotion to his dead fiancé was well known in Mesquite and although many found it odd, Molly did not. Will Henry Kennesaw was a man of deep feeling and he had loved Mary Ellen with all the depth of his quiet, reserved nature. Although the Kennesaws were twins, they were as different as night and day, and if Z Taylor Kennesaw was day, Will Henry was surely the night.

  Mrs. Kennesaw made a disdainful sound. “Love. They weren’t married. They didn’t have children. They weren’t one.”

  “They planned to be,” Molly reminded her gently. “But she died before that could happen.”

  “Courtship isn’t married. I didn’t stop living when I lost my Daniels and my daughter Dora. I couldn’t; I had the grandsons to raise. This is a weak generation, Molly, can you tell me it is not? You know; you’ve lived through hard times too. My grandsons are like sons to me, you know the truth of what I say, but they have grown up without the hardships we faced. You’re not much older than they are, but the War made you older, now didn’t it?”

  “In some ways, I suppose it did,” Molly conceded. “But that doesn’t mean that your grandsons are weak. They’ll face different challenges, that’s all. The soldiers fought the war so that the next generation could live in peace.”

  “I’m going to get a mail-order bride for Z,” Mrs. Kennesaw spoke as if she ha
dn’t heard what Molly was saying. “There’s no sense in trying to get Will Henry interested in a living woman when he’d rather nurse his broken heart at the gravesite of a dead girl. I just need to know how to go about it, and I know you aren’t the kind of woman to go blabbing to everyone about what I’m doing.”

  “No, I won’t,” Molly agreed. “But you can’t send the advertisement. It has to come from Z. You can see that a woman might have second thoughts if she saw an advertisement for a mail-order bride that had been submitted by someone’s grandmother.”

  “Oh, I’ll make sure Z knows what I’m writing.

  “You’re sure he’ll agree to it?” Molly inquired delicately. She knew Z Taylor to be an amiable young man, but no one would call him malleable. His grandmother was a formidable woman, but her grandsons were not pliant. They were Texans, strong, independent, and bold. Even though Will Henry was more reserved than his high-spirited brother, he was respected in Mesquite for his judgment and his knowledge of ranching.

  “Why wouldn’t he?” Mrs. Kennesaw asked, as if the query were preposterous.

  “I don’t know any man who wants to be told he’s getting married,” Molly replied.

  “I’ll put it to him so that he agrees,” Mrs. Kennesaw said matter-of-factly. “It’s Will Henry I worry about. He can’t mourn that girl forever.”

  “Didn’t you approve of their engagement?”

  “Of course I did,” Mrs. Kennesaw said impatiently. “She came of good stock and the children would have been sound of body and mind if they’d married. But they didn’t marry,” Mrs. Kennesaw said as if this were a telling point. “And there’s no sense in grieving over something that was only half measures.”

  Molly thought back to the way she’d felt about James Turner when he was the idol of her childhood. She’d come to Texas not even sure if the Jim Turner who advertised for a mail-order bride was the same man she’d known in Reddington before the western region of the state seceded from Virginia. Will Henry’s commitment to his mourning was for him to live with, not his grandmother’s.

  “There’s no way of telling how a child will come into the world,” she said.

  “Yours are all healthy. Lots of life to them,” Mrs. Kennesaw said.

  “Sometimes a little too much life,” their mother replied ruefully.

  “Well then, you’ve settled it in my mind. And I’m sure I can count on you to keep this private. I’m going to send for a mail-order bride from back East for Zachary Taylor,” Mrs. Kennesaw announced.

  Mrs. Kennesaw didn’t ask Molly to keep the confidence, she expected it. But that didn’t include her husband, and when she told James about the conversation later in the afternoon, after they’d eaten lunch and the children were outside playing, James shook his head disapprovingly.

  “Does she think people in Mesquite won’t wonder why an Eastern woman suddenly shows up and Z marries her? Eldora Kennesaw has always been so determined to have her way that she ignores every consideration that doesn’t fit into her plan. I don’t see Z Taylor settling down meekly to being married. He’s mighty fond of the saloon on Saturday nights and playing poker, and if he’s going to give that up, it’ll have to be because he’s found something better in a solitary woman.”

  Chapter 1

  Summer, 1883

  Will Henry poured himself a cup of coffee. Night had fallen on the cattle drive; by the end of the day tomorrow, they would be in Abilene. The drive had gone well, and they hadn’t lost many cattle. Grandmother would be pleased with the profits. She’d agree with his suggestion that they put some of the money into expanding the herd. He knew that, even though she and the Turners were friends, Grandmother wanted to match their spread in acreage and in cattle. Jim Turner had started out with nothing, but he’d worked tirelessly to build up his ranch. Grandmother had had the boys to raise after their father died and she had not been able to focus on the Kennesaw Ranch, as she’d have liked to do. But now that Daniel Kennesaw’s sons were full grown men, the ranch had recaptured lost years.

  Will Henry sat down on the ground, leaning against a boulder, sipping his coffee. Z was in a card game with a couple of the ranch hands. Lowry was playing his guitar, making mournful chords that seemed to suit the still night. It would be odd, as it always was, to return back home, after weeks of hearing the sounds of the cattle along the drive.

  The good thing about a cattle drive was that it took him away from Mesquite. But the bad thing about a cattle drive was that there was time to think. Time to miss Mary Ellen. Time to wonder what he would do with himself.

  “Any more in the pot?” Z came near.

  “Some,” Will Henry said. “Bad hand?”

  “Always,” Z said good-humoredly as he poured a cup of coffee and sat down opposite his brother. “There’s something about a hand of cards when it’s actually in my hands. It just goes rogue.”

  Will Henry grinned. “But you keep right on playing brother.”

  His brother shrugged. “I don’t mind losing,” he said.

  “You ought to be used to it.”

  In the glow of the firelight, Will Henry could see his brother’s teeth gleaming in the dark night as he grinned. “I sure ought to be,” Z agreed. “But not enough to quit playing. I hope that Eastern gal isn’t one of those prim Eastern ladies who thinks cards are the devil’s sport.”

  Will Henry had been surprised when his brother had acquiesced so readily to Grandmother’s intention to have him marry a mail-order bride. He was still surprised by how calmly Z, who did as he pleased, accepted the notion of marriage.

  “What if she does?”

  “I reckon I’ll play anyway, but I won’t tell her.”

  “Mary Ellen didn’t like cards,” Will Henry said. “She was Baptist.”

  “You might as well be Baptist, too,” his brother said. “You don’t play cards, you don’t drink, you don’t carouse. And here I am the one getting married.” He sounded amused.

  Grandmother had not bothered to ask Will Henry if he wanted a mail-order bride. She knew how he felt about Mary Ellen. She did not understand it, but she knew without asking that Will Henry was not looking for a wife. Neither was Z, but Grandmother had been blunt. The ranch needed the next generation of Kennesaws.

  “You’re still of a mind to do it?”

  “I’d better be,” Z declared, laughing. “Little Miss Bonnie Yankovich is heading to Texas, and if I don’t marry her, I expect Grandmother will turn me out with nothing but my saddle.”

  “She wouldn’t do that. But if you don’t want to marry a mail-order bride, why are you doing it?”

  Z’s broad shoulders lifted in an easy shrug. “No reason not to,” he said. “I’m twenty-five. I want a family. I don’t much feel like courting a local gal who’s been scared off by Grandmother. I’m not like you, Will Henry. I don’t need to be in love with her.”

  Will Henry knew that Z was just being honest. Z was generally honest about most things. It didn’t mean that what he said was particularly noble or uplifting. What Z meant was that if Grandmother wanted him to marry, he wasn’t against it, but he wasn’t going to change the way he took his pleasures because of it. It didn’t seem right to Will Henry’s way of thinking. Marriage was a covenant. If he and Mary Ellen had married—

  He forced his thoughts to turn in another direction He could endure the thought of Mary Ellen, but he couldn’t bear the burden of what he’d lost by her death. All he knew was that he could not be a husband to another woman when his heart and soul had belonged to Mary Ellen. She’d been dead for months, but it was still a fresh wound for Will Henry. There were times when he couldn’t sleep. The bedroom confined him. The ranch itself caged him. During those nights, there was no recourse but to get up, get dressed, even when it was pitch black outside, and walk. He’d walk miles sometimes, all over the grounds of the spread; his mind filled with the weight of loss that drove slumber away, his thoughts raw with memories of Mary Ellen and the things they’d talked about, the joy of d
ancing with her and standing next to her in church, sharing a hymnal, the comfortable way he’d felt sitting on her aunt’s porch in the evenings, like he was already a member of the family. Mary Ellen had never entirely been at ease in Grandmother’s presence, and in deference to that, he’d gone over to her aunt’s place to spend time with her.

  “It really doesn’t matter to you?” Will Henry asked.

  “What doesn’t matter?”

  “Marrying someone without knowing her or loving her.”

  Z’s laughter, rich and confident, rang out in the clear Kansas night. “Brother, I’ve known lots of women I haven’t known,” he said. “I’m not a saint, and I don’t pretend to be.”

  “How can you be a good husband if you’re not planning to act any differently than you do now?”

  “Like I said, you should be a Baptist,” Z said, not offended by his brother’s probing question. “I’m not you, that’s all. I like most folks. I reckon love is just a little more liking than usual.”

  “It’s more than that,” Will Henry disagreed. “Being in love isn’t the same as liking.”