His Innocent Bride (The Brides of Paradise Ranch (Spicy Version) Book 11) Read online

  His Innocent Bride

  Merry Farmer

  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

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  HIS INNOCENT BRIDE

  Copyright ©2017 by Merry Farmer

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your digital retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Erin Dameron-Hill (the miracle-worker)

  ASIN:

  Paperback:

  ISBN-13: 9781547067619

  ISBN-10: 1547067616

  Click here for a complete list of other works by Merry Farmer.

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  Created with Vellum

  For Princess Wiggles

  If you’ve ever met her, you know why!

  Chapter 1

  Haskell, Wyoming – 1877

  Sam Standish stood on the platform of Haskell’s train station enjoying his last cigar, his friends Trey Knighton and Travis Montrose on either side. The high-pitched squeal of the train sounded in the distance, bringing with it a deep gloom that left his shoulders and his spirits sagging.

  “Well,” he drawled, taking one final puff before throwing his cigar butt onto the tracks, “that’s the end of me.”

  Trey laughed and shook his head. “Are you going to throw yourself in front of the train or something?”

  Travis thumped Sam on the back. “Judging by the look on his face, he just might.”

  “Nonsense.” Josephine Evans stepped up from behind Sam, fixing him with a scowl. “You’re not here for an execution, you’re here to meet your bride.”

  “Same thing, isn’t it?” Sam crossed his arms and scowled right back at Josephine, ignoring the excited thrum deep in his gut. The truth was, he’d asked Josephine, Virginia Piedmont, and Charlie Garrett to send away to Hurst Home, in Nashville, for a bride. All of his friends were married now, and he’d been feeling more than a little left out for the past few months. And there was that nagging part of him that insisted he was a grown man now, and a grown man should have a wife.

  He wasn’t about to let on to having those thoughts, though.

  Josephine huffed out an impatient breath. “Marriage is not the end of the world, even though too many of you men think it is.”

  “She’s right.” Travis nodded, his mouth twitching as though he were fighting hard not to grin. “Why, my life’s been nothing but wonderful since Wendy and I married. And with little Emanuel crawling around our ankles these days, getting into every little thing, it’s as if I’m a new man.”

  Sam narrowed his eyes at Travis. “What kind of new man?”

  Trey snorted a laugh on Sam’s other side. “A new man engaged in a whole new kind of bliss,” he said. “Just like my life is a completely different world since I married Talia a few months back.”

  “I don’t doubt for a moment that marriage is a new world,” Sam said, his frown darkening deeper as the train’s whistle sounded again. It was closer this time. “It’s the kind of new world that worries me.”

  “What do you mean?” Travis asked.

  Sam sighed, letting his arms and his scowl go. “It’s all this domesticity,” he complained. “Everyone with their babies and their houses.”

  He gestured across the tracks to where a whole new section of Haskell was under construction. Rupert Cole and his partner, Skipper King, from nearby Everland, had built at least a dozen new homes in the past several months, not to mention new businesses. But the businesses were things like a dry goods store, a newspaper office, and, Lord help them all, a library. The houses were large, meant for families. Well, except the one house that Rupert built for Bonnie’s girls. But even the girls seemed to dress more conservatively these days and get more excited about spending their time at the new library than at his saloon. There was something going on under Bonnie’s roof that had nothing to do with “entertaining gentlemen” the way all her girls used to. Everything was just so…different these days.

  “I came out here when I was barely fifteen,” he said, suddenly in the mood for pontificating. He turned to face not only his friends, but the other townsfolk who had gathered to meet the train. Athos Strong and his grown son, Hubert, stopped what they were doing in preparation for the train’s arrival and listened, knowing grins on both of their faces.

  “I came out here with dreams of glory,” Sam went on. “There weren’t towns in those days, only mining camps and waystations. We fought off Indians and claim-jumpers. And sometimes mountain lions. You never knew when someone would start a gunfight or cause a ruckus. Why, when I got my first job in a saloon in Cheyenne, when I was still under twenty and Cheyenne was brand new, I had to break up a fight every night.”

  “Uh, we could arrange for some fights to break out at The Silver Dollar, if you want,” Trey teased him.

  “Sheriff Knighton,” Josephine scolded him. “You’re supposed to keep law and order in this town, not encourage lawlessness.”

  “Sorry, ma’am.” Trey tipped his hat to the older woman.

  “See?” Sam gestured to Josephine to prove his point. “What ever happened to the days of the West being wild? What happened to tough men of grit living by the skin of their teeth?”

  “Well, we figured out that we eat better when a pretty wife cooks for us,” Travis said, still struggling to keep a straight face.

  “And living in a cozy house is a lot nicer than sleeping rough,” Athos added, walking from the station house to the side of the tracks. The train was in its final approach and could be seen chugging along, only a couple hundred yards down the line.

  Sam snorted and shook his head. “Is this what’s become of all those footloose and fancy-free days when the frontier was new?” he lamented. The only answers he got were teasing looks and his friends trying to hide their grins behind their hands. Trey wasn’t even trying to hide his.

  And yet, he had to admit that the few telegrams he’d shared with his prospective bride, Miss Julia Frost, had been intriguing. Even in a few sentences, she’d managed to convey that she had an upbeat and sunny disposition. Mrs. Breashears at Hurst Home had insisted she was unique and that she would make a good saloonkeeper’s wife. But Sam still wasn’t quite ready to admit that the reason his heart beat faster as the train crawled into the station was because he was about to meet his bride. More
likely he was panicked about his life as he knew it coming to an end.

  “All I’m saying,” he finished, speaking up over the screech and hiss of the train braking and the whistle blowing, “is that I used to be as rough and rugged as any outlaw. Life was exciting. You never knew what was going to happen next. Now all I’ve got to look forward to is day after day of domestic boredom, even if it does mean good food and a soft place to lay my head at night.”

  Trey and Travis exchanged looks and burst into laughter. “Is that what you think marriage is?” Travis asked.

  Sam didn’t have time to answer. The train came to a complete stop, and passengers began to disembark. In spite of himself, Sam stood straighter, tugging at the bottom of his vest. He’d had all of his clothes laundered especially so that he could make a good impression on Miss Frost. He’d bathed and washed his hair the night before too. And shaved. Something must have been seriously wrong with him, or else the very thought of sending for a wife had already tamed him.

  That was it. The wild mustang in him had been caught, broken, and saddled. He craned his neck to see if he could pick out which of the ladies stepping down from the train was his new bride, and he felt the same sort of excitement that he’d once had in making a trade out in the wild with a band of Cheyenne braves.

  He thought he’d picked out the right woman—tall, blond, and looking to be in her early thirties—but that one veered off to the side and greeted another man with a quick embrace. Another woman—a brunette who might have been about twenty-five—stepped down and looked around. Sam tugged at his vest again, but that one spotted someone farther down on the platform, broke into a smile, and headed that way. Sam looked back at the train door, but the next woman to step down had a little too much grey hair to be his bride.

  “Where is she?” he muttered.

  Athos and Hubert were stacking baggage from the car directly behind the passenger car on the platform, but Athos glanced up, looked from the passenger car to Sam, and shrugged.

  “You’re not anxious, are you?” Travis ribbed Sam, grinning from ear-to-ear.

  “Not afraid she’s changed her mind?” Trey joined in.

  “No,” Sam growled at them. “It’s just that I have a responsibility to the woman.”

  “Ah, responsibility.” Travis nodded sagely to Trey. “That’s a little like domesticity, isn’t it?”

  The two of them laughed as Josephine rolled her eyes and clucked.

  Sam wasn’t able to tell them off, though. As he opened his mouth to say something, a loud crash came from the direction of the train. He twisted to look just in time to see a very young woman stumble off the last step down from the train and crash into the pile of baggage Athos and Hubert had made.

  “Oh!” she squeaked. “I’m so sorry.”

  She reached to set the smallest trunk on the top of the pile to rights, but ended up knocking over the hat box stacked next to it. The hat box bumped into a carpetbag on the way down, spilling that as well.

  “Oh, dear.” The young woman lunged forward, bending to grab at either the hat box or the carpetbag. Instead, she stepped on Hubert’s hand as he did the same.

  “Ow!” Hubert yelped and jerked back. When he did, he slammed into Athos, who dropped the trunk he was carrying. That fell to the ground with a sickening crunch.

  At the same time, the young woman leapt backwards. Without looking where she was going. She bashed into the middle-aged man who had just stepped off the train, sending him careening toward the tall, blonde woman, who was still talking to the man who’d met her on the platform. The blonde shrieked in surprise as the middle-aged man grabbed her sleeve to stop himself from falling.

  “Here, let me help you,” the young woman said. She reached for the falling man, but in the process, the large reticule she carried slipped off her arm, plopping to the platform. The falling man chose just that spot to place his foot in an attempt to get his balance. He tumbled hopelessly forward, grabbing and ripping the blonde’s skirt as he did. She went down with him, knocking into her gentleman friend and sending him sprawling too.

  “Oh, no.” The young woman took half a step back from the scene before changing her mind and reaching for her purse on the platform. She picked it up, putting a little too much swing into the movement. As she stood, her purse flew back and hit the porter—who was helping an older woman down from the train—in the side of the head. He flinched, the older woman started and dropped the reticule she was carrying, and the faint tinkle of glass shattering was heard as her bag hit the platform.

  As fast as the storm started, it was over. Hubert cradled his hand, the porter clutched his face, the older woman wailed, and the three people on the ground gasped and muttered. The young woman stood above them all, completely unharmed. She blinked around her with wide, brown eyes, her apple-round cheeks pink.

  “Excuse me,” she said, then smiled.

  Something funny bubbled up in Sam’s chest. He gaped at the woman. No. It couldn’t be. Absolutely not. Warmth began to spread from his neck up to his face. She was young. Very young. Much too young. And pretty as a button in her lavender traveling dress.

  “Are you Mr. Sam Standish?” she asked, confirming his worst fears. Her voice was a fraction louder than it would have been in polite society.

  “Uh, yeah?” Sam took a half-step forward, doing his best to avoid the groaning people who were struggling to their feet.

  The young woman put on a beaming smile and extended her hand to him. “I’m Julia Frost. I’m going to marry you.” Her voice pitched high with excitement, and her eyes glittered.

  And as she stepped forward to greet him, she somehow managed to hook the toe of her boot through the handle of the carpetbag she’d knocked off the pile of luggage. It threw her off-balance, and with an almighty shriek, she plunged forward into Sam’s arms.

  Somehow, he caught her. She was a tiny thing, slender to the point of being bony under her traveling clothes. He instantly wondered if she got enough to eat. That thought was quickly replaced by a deep, buzzing feeling in his soul as he lifted her to stand. He didn’t move his hands away from her waist, partly because he was afraid she’d cause another disaster if he let her go.

  “How old are you?” he asked instead, eyes narrowing.

  “Nineteen. I’m nineteen,” she answered, a little breathless. “Wait, no.” Her eyes darted to the side in a shifty look. “I’m twenty-three. That’s right.”

  Sam narrowed his eyes even further. “Really?”

  “Mmm hmm.” Her humming was so high-pitched it would make a dog bark. Her cheeks flooded with color, then her expression turned guilty and she lowered her head. “All right, no, I’m nineteen.” She jerked her head back up to meet his eyes. “But my cousin Myrtle said that you should always tell people that you’re older than you are, lest they treat you like a child. And frankly, Mr. Standish, I didn’t want Mrs. Breashears to think I was too young to come out West as a mail-order bride. My second-cousin Elizabeth came out West to be a mail-order bride five years ago. Of course, she married a miner who was drunk most of the time and threw her down a well where she broke her neck, but you don’t look like the kind of man who would do that. Throw someone down a well. And break their neck. Or drink too much. You don’t drink too much, do you?” She finished her avalanche of words by gazing up at him and blinking rapidly.

  “I—” Sam couldn’t think of a word to say. He still wasn’t sure what was happening.

  “Of course, Mrs. Breashears did mention that you own the saloon in town,” she went on, hardly taking a breath, when Sam didn’t answer. “That doesn’t mean you’re a drunk, though. In fact, I’ve heard that saloonkeepers drink less than anyone else because they have to keep their wits about them as they serve their customers. I imagine that you have lots of wits. Although Mrs. Breashears said that I was likely to drive you to your wits’ end.” She gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth. “I wasn’t supposed to say that.”

  “You—”

 
“What I meant to say was that Mrs. Breashears thought that of any of the women at Hurst Home, I would be the most suited to being the wife of a saloonkeeper,” she flew on. “Which I think is funny, since I don’t think I was there long enough for her to get a true impression of my character. You’d think she was trying to get rid of me or something.” She punctuated her comment with an airy laugh.

  Sam stared at her. And stared. What in the name of all that was good and holy had he gotten himself into?

  He was jolted out of his thoughts by Trey thumping him on the back. “And here you were worried about your life getting boring,” Trey laughed.

  “We’d, uh, better get over to the church,” Josephine added, a wary look in her eyes. “As soon as possible. Before anyone can change their minds,” she ended in a mutter.

  “Hold on one second,” Sam said, letting Julia go at last. He rubbed a hand over his face. “I’d like to have a private word with Miss Frost here before we go anywhere.”

  “You can use my off—” Athos stopped halfway through making his offer. He glanced around at the carnage on the platform, the baggage and the people who had only just righted themselves. “Uh, there’s a nice, quiet spot right over there, next to the street, far away from any people or property.” He ended with a wry chuckle.

  Sam frowned at the man, but nodded. He took Julia’s hand and led her away from the others.

  Julia’s heart beat a million miles per minute as Sam Standish led her across the platform and down to the empty spot beside the street. “I’ve messed things up, haven’t I?” she said, panic welling within her.

  “No, you haven’t,” Sam said, though she wasn’t sure she could believe him with the dark tone of voice he used.

  She bit her lip as he helped her down the platform stairs. This was what came of rushing into things without looking. Cousin Elizabeth’s story should have been a warning to her. But Hurst Home had such a good reputation for helping young ladies in trouble, and she’d been longing for a solid, steady home and a man she could give her heart to for so long that it didn’t matter to her that she was rushing into the unknown.