Anne Greene

A CHRISTMAS BELLE

CHAPTER ONE

October 1877, Wyoming

            Was this really what it took to find a husband?        

Amanda Geoffrey heaved a deep sigh and brushed dust from her traveling gown. She turned to one of the other mail-order brides jouncing on the buckwagon’s wooden seat beside her. “Yes, from my earliest memories people esteemed me as a mind-reader. I do possess a knack for reading people’s fleeting involuntary expressions.” She smiled. “People immediately erase those swift reactions hoping to mask their true thoughts.”

“Your ability sounds like a gift.” Though they’d been riding in the wagon almost eight hours, Henrietta’s eyes sparkled.

“When I concentrate, I can almost mind-read. But, after some awkward experiences, I’ve pretty much learned to keep the knowledge of my gift to myself. I’m trusting you not to tell a soul.”

“You can be certain I’ll keep your secret. I hope we can become friends. Please tell me more about your gift.” Henrietta arched her back and rubbed gloved hands just below where the buckboard’s backrest ended.

“Expressions truly are the window to the soul, and I knew how to peek into that window and discover whatever the owner wants to hide.”

“That is frightening, Amanda. Can you read my thoughts now?” Henrietta turned a pretty face toward her.

“Like me you’re tired, hungry, thirsty, and frightened at what we shall find at the end of our long journey. These are not the fleeting expressions I’m speaking of. What I do is hard to explain. I study the emotions people try to hide. The emotion appears for less than a second and then the expression is hidden.”

“I see.”

But Henrietta didn’t, of course. She, like most people, never glimpsed those swiftly hidden feelings. Amanda so wanted her new friend to understand. “When we reach Angel Vale I’ll concentrate as if my life depends on what I see in my groom-to-be’s face.” Amanda gripped the tapestry purse jiggling in her lap until her knuckles whitened. Because her future did depend on what she identified in his expression.

Henrietta nodded and then leaned against the hard wooden backboard and closed her eyes. “I’m so glad we’ll be friends.”

Amanda pulled in a deep breath. Her heart beat fast. If only she could relax. After upending her life, she faced a fork in the road. And she’d use her gift to discover the best path to her new life.

She straightened her shoulders, stiffened her back against the wagon’s wooden seat, and planted her pointy-toed boots on the floorboard. Her gift gave her an advantage, but she needed every ounce of help she could secure. She had this one chance. So much could sour with this bridal agreement. So much could go wrong. 

A headache pounded behind her eyes.

She rubbed her neck, trying to relax her rigid muscles. The wagon’s hard ride scrambled her insides. She dug her hankie out of the large handbag on her lap and wiped dust from her face. “Such a long, dirty trip from Merville, Maine. I won’t miss that smelly fishing village.”

Without opening her eyes, Henrietta murmured, “Oh, I’m sure I will.”

Amanda’s pulse raced faster than the rugged western countryside moving beneath the long wagon. After the punishing eight-hour ride from the train station in Cheyenne, the other mail-order brides jammed in with her looked as fatigued as she felt. But exhaustion couldn’t dull her foreboding, which grew greater the closer they rode to Angel Vale.

She so dreaded meeting the cowboy. Neither Aunt Bessie Mae, when she lived in Atlanta, nor Uncle Stephan, when she lived in Merville, had wanted her. She had never been good enough for either of them. What if she wasn’t good enough for the cowboy either?

1955, Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia

Holly and Shirley trudged down Duke of Gloucester Street toward the buildings where each of them rented an apartment.

“What’s buzzin, cuzzin? Saw a ghost? You looked like something the cat dragged in this evening at work.”

Holly nodded. She needed to talk to help clarify this new situation in her mind. “It’s a long story. And not very pretty.”

“Those are the best kinds. Hit me with it.”

Holly drew a belly-up breath. Tonight, even the Christmas lights failed to cheer her. “You noticed the quartet that played this evening?”

“Sure. Their name’s Radioactive. Bunch of cool-looking cats with their pegged jeans, their black-striped shirts, and their ducktails. Played good too.” Shirley gave a thumbs-up, then winked. “Did you see that dreamy one who played that big brass horn? I could go for him in a big way.”

“Feel free. His name’s Trent Conway. We went steady during our senior year of high school.”

“Cool beans!” Shirley gazed at Holly’s face. “But no way I’d go out with one of your old flames.” She tugged at Holly’s red wool coat sleeve. “You saw a ghost from the past. I’m all ears.”

Holly walked a short distance. Why not? They had time before they reached their apartments. “Okay, you asked for it.” She forced a smile. “Start with two years after high school. My broken heart had almost healed when I met Vince. Haven’t thought about these high school memories in years.”

“That horn player broke your heart?”

“He did. I’d been expecting a proposal and a ring the summer I got a job and before Trent left our small town to attend Ohio State. He promised to write.” Holly tried to sound light-hearted. “But he didn’t. At all. I tried to contact him, but he’d left no address. After a year of mourning and moping, I left my job in West Liberty and found work in Columbus. I rented a room at the YWCA near Ohio State.” Holly gave a rueful grin. “Since we lived in the same city now, I started each day expecting to run into or hear from Trent.” She shook her head. “Neither happened. Like he’d fallen off the face of the earth.”

“Why would Trent do that?” Shirley’s blue eyes sparkled tears.

“I don’t know.” Holly smiled. “Then Vince exploded into my life like a superhero with a whirlwind romance and marriage. I almost forgot Trent.”

“Way to go!”

 “I thought I’d forgotten Trent, right? Does a girl ever forget her first love?”

“You never saw Trent again—until now?”

“Right. The last time I saw him was the day he climbed into his 1941 Ford and left for college. He kissed me and said, ‘I’ll always love you, Christmas Girl.’”

Shirley’s blue eyes opened so wide she resembled an astonished child. “He called you that? How romantic!” She took several steps then stopped. “I wish a boy would call me something sweet.”

“Trent had several nicknames for me, but that’s the one he used the last time we saw each other.”

“Oh, Holly, you’re so lucky a boyfriend cared so much for you.”

The pain certainly hadn’t felt lucky. Or the years of wondering. Or the shock of running into him again with him looking even more attractive than he had in high school. “Nowheresville! I never want to see Trent again. Not now. Not ever.”

“Well, you’re lucky. Dream Boat Trent is not the one I set you up with.”

“Yuck!” Holly stopped dead and grabbed Shirley’s arm. “No!”

Shirley’s face sported a huge grin. “Yep. Mr. Clarinet Player…and all the guys…are used to girls asking them for dates after their gigs. Groupies they call us. Anyway,” Shirley’s bright smile dimmed for a second, “he turned me down at first…until I pointed you out. Then he asked, ‘When and where?’”

“You didn’t, please say you didn’t.”

“Honey, you need to get out of that apartment and see some nightlife. Santa’s bringing Mr. Clarinet Player to pick you up at seven. I’m babysitting.” Shirley flashed a genuine this-will-be-so-good-for-you smile. “His name’s Bob Robinson.”

EXCERPT – AVOIDING THE MISTLETOE

1865 – Lowell, Massachusetts

Olivia Rose Baker glanced up from the headlines in the Massachusetts Matrimonial Gazette. With an explosive smack, she slapped the newspaper on top of the breakfast table. “No! I refuse. I absolutely, unconditionally reject this lame-brained scheme!” She set her mouth in a hard line to keep her lips from trembling.

“You’ve been a widow for six months, dear sister, and take a look around you. The war wrecked our town. The men are dead, never to return. The economy is ruined. With the South destroyed they can’t send us any cotton for our textile mills. And without slaves, the South may never recover. Lowell is a ghost town of devastated women, alone with no men to provide for us or offer us protection. No men to give us children.” Darcy strode around the kitchen, her red hair flying, her green eyes ablaze. “No men to love.”

“Please don’t speak to me of love.” Olivia gazed down at the slice of bread and the cup of weak coffee that would have to satisfy her empty stomach throughout the long day until dinner tonight.

“Pshaw! So, Howard Baker didn’t have enough love in his heart to share with you. Not every man is so self-centered and abusive.” Darcy settled into a chair at the table, wet her fingertips, smooshed up the few remaining bread crumbs from her plate, and licked them into her mouth.

“Darcy Davenport, I never told you Howard mistreated me.” Olivia glared daggers at her sister, then nibbled her bread, her stomach rumbling.

“I saw the bruises you tried to hide. I’m no Simple Simon.” Darcy snatched the newspaper and shoved the sheets over. “This Asa Mercer already successfully shipped a boatload of women to Seattle, Washington Territory. He states the ladies all celebrated excellent marriages.” Darcy pointed to some lines of print. “The paper says right here that Mr. Mercer isn’t searching for just any women as mail-order brides. He’s seeking high-minded women who can exert an elevating influence in Seattle, where there are ten men for every woman. Mail-order brides, yes, but of a certain caliber.”

“A mail-order bride is a mail-order bride. You meet a man and if he looks at all decent—that is if he’s not too old, not too rotund, not too bald, and not too poor, then you decide to marry him.” Olivia shoved back her empty plate. “I will never rush into a marriage with a tall, good-looking, and supposedly prosperous male again.” She sipped her tepid coffee. If only she had a smidgen of cream or sugar. “A war bride is not dissimilar to a mail-order bride. Besides, look at me.” She gestured from her face to her toes. “No man wants to marry a widow without means.”

Darcy stamped her button-down shoed foot. “But I want to become one of Mr. Mercer’s mail-order brides. And I won’t move to Seattle without you!”

Olivia gazed past Darcy’s bouncy curls, out the window at the back yard draped in an overcast day that promised even more rain. The overgrown weeds and mud-coated garden with a few wilted stalks of corn poking through the unworked soil attested to the fact that no man had inhabited their salt box style home for over four years. The rumpled tool shed appeared to be held up by their weeping willow tree. If one leaned too hard on the other, both would fall. Their back porch had already collapsed.

“Mr. Mercer wants to populate Seattle with women who will bring culture, education and domesticity to that uncivilized city with thousands…of…single…men.” Darcy’s emerald eyes transformed from flashing to pleading. “Face facts, Olivia Rose, this might be our one chance to marry.”

“I repeat. I don’t want to wed. I didn’t find marriage at all agreeable. I am so happy Howard didn’t leave me with child when he marched away with Captain Joshua Chamberlain’s Union Regiment.” Olivia tried to keep the anger from her voice. No amount of prayer had erased her animosity toward her late husband.

“So, you prefer, at your young age, to remain a widow for the rest of your life? You don’t want children?” Darcy leaned across the table. Her warm fingers grasped Olivia’s wrist, her heart-shaped face intent. “Olivia Rose, I’m pouring my heart out here.”

Olivia sighed and pushed her chair back from the table. So very difficult to deny her younger sister. And until she married Howard, she’d badly wanted children too.

“You prefer to remain here, despite Lowell’s bleak prospects? You expect to remain here in our house that is falling down around our heads? A house we can’t even sell because no one has money enough to buy it, even if they wanted this old wreck.” Tears rose in Darcy’s minty-green eyes. “You choose to remain in Massachusetts even though you know I won’t ever find a husband here. You want me to remain a spinster my entire life!”

A black curtain strangled Olivia’s heart. She rose and wrapped her arms around her sister’s rigid shoulders. “Darling, you know I would do anything for you. Except I refuse to become a mail-order bride.”

Darcy gazed up, her pearl-fresh complexion wet with tears. “Mr. Mercer promised some of the women would garner positions as school teachers. I know you would like that.”

Olivia’s heartbeat quickened. Yes, she would enjoy a position as a teacher. She could influence, teach, and love children without needing to have any of her own. She would have a job, be self-sufficient, and not rely on any man. And Darcy would gain her chance at happiness.

She bowed her head. Truly Lowell offered nothing for either of them except hunger, need, and loneliness. “Are you certain Mr. Mercer advertised for teachers as well as mail-order brides?”

Darcy pointed to the last sentence in the newspaper clipping.

There are many teaching positions available for prospective brides.   

A tad cryptic, but she couldn’t jeopardize Darcy’s future by refusing to accept this possibly only opportunity to leave her dying town. A vision of herself and Darcy popped up. Bent with age, hobbling around their tumbled-down home, hair white. Both of them as ramshackle as the house, with nothing to show for the lives they spent. Olivia’s heart bled. 

She forced a smile. “Consider this my Christmas present to you, Darcy. We shall travel to Seattle, though we know nothing about the place. And you shall select a suitable husband, and I shall accept a teaching position. And may God bless us and keep us.”

“Oh, Olivia Rose, I knew you would agree to go! Thank you so much for the best Christmas present I’ve ever received!” Her sister’s eyes turned mossy green and sparkled. “I’ve already written Mr. Mercer.” Darcy pulled a rumpled envelope from her day dress pocket. “His reply arrived yesterday. He declared we must meet him in New York City on January 16^th. Then we shall travel from there to Seattle aboard the S.S. Continental.” Darcy leaped from her chair and danced around the kitchen.

“January 16^th! We’ve only a few days to get ready.”

“Mr. Mercer sent train tickets to New York. We leave January 7^th.”

Olivia dropped her forehead into her hands. “How much do we owe for the train tickets and the ship passage?”

“Nothing. The men in Seattle coughed up three hundred dollars per man to transport us.”

“Oh.” Olivia rose from her chair and gazed around the kitchen that she’d known for the last twenty-five years. The coziest room in the home where she’d been born. Did she really want to leave? No. She’d buried Mother in the cemetery that abutted the church, and set up a monument over Daddy’s empty grave. He lay somewhere in a Union burial grave at a place called Gettysburg, killed in the same battle that freed her from Howard. No. She’d thought never to leave home again after she returned from the tiny rented room Howard had provided for her as his new wife. The only goods Howard bequeathed her were her new last name…and a head filled with bad memories. And the title widow.

Certainly, no man in Seattle desired to wed a widow, much less pay for one. The purchasers hoped to spend their money on young, beautiful girls…like Darcy.

Olivia closed her eyes. Bitter to leave her home and all she knew.

But sweet to think of a new beginning, a new life, a new adventure, and a new job. If that actually happened.

Yes, God’s peace spread in her heart. This might be the right decision—certainly for Darcy…and perhaps for herself as well. She straightened her shoulders. Under the circumstances this was the only decision available.

Olivia glanced at a beam of sunlight struggling through the gloomy clouds. She gathered up the long skirts of her day dress, motioned to her sister, and started toward the stairway. “Let’s pack.”

She’d leave the home place to fall into decay. But she and Darcy would grab this chance for a new life. And unlike Lot’s wife, she would not look back.

And she and Darcy would not make horrible choices like Lot’s daughters.

She would proudly wear her title widow.

Or was she hiding behind her widowhood, afraid to venture again into the distasteful realm of marriage?

No matter. She would be the schoolmarm. The beloved teacher. The nurturer. The protector.

     What could go wrong?

     Oh, so many things. 

A lady Coastguardsman searches for a killer. An oil rig troubleshooter accused of murder races to clear his name. The murderer strives to silence them both.

Sparks fly as Amber Meredith seeks to arrest Derrick Darbonne. She needs to solve her first case, but the handsome Cajun suspect makes her heart race and her toes tingle.

Derrick worked all his life for his high-paying, adventurous job. When his past threatens his future, will he endanger the woman he loves?  

Anne's books can be found here - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anne-Greene/e/B004ECUWMG
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