MAIL ORDER RACHEL Read online

  Mail Order Rachel

  Widows, Brides, and Secret Babies

  Kathleen Lawless

  Copyright © 2020 Kathleen Lawless

  Mail Order Rachel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  All right reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author.

  Cover design by Black Widow Books

  ISBN 978-1-989873-05-2

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Afterword

  About the Author

  To all you Mail Order Bride readers out there—a great big thank you!

  And to Steel. I know I’m a handful. But I’m your handful, forever and ever.

  Chapter 1

  Rachel woke to the rumble of male voices, low and threatening. She rolled off the seat of the pew and crouched, knife in one hand. Cautiously she peered over the back of the pew in front of her. Four shadowy figures stood near the altar.

  She heard a familiar voice, shrill with a note of false cheerfulness, and recognized Paddy facing three men with their backs toward her. Her childhood friend had been seen flashing a roll of cash lately, money she doubted he’d come by honestly.

  She ducked, feeling a rush of night air as the church door opened behind her. A man passed the pew where she hid, close enough for her to get a good look at his face. He joined the others, and aimed a pistol directly at Paddy. Seconds later Rachel darted out the door into the darkness, the sound of a gunshot ringing in her ears.

  She swallowed her scream. What if they’d seen her flee? She had to get out of here before she was next.

  She raced back to the squat she shared with several other women who had grown up the way she had, scrambling daily to survive. Even in summer the place held a chill, compounded by a pervading feeling of hopelessness. Mary Margaret, Meg as she was called, lay on a lumpy mat on the ground, her labored breathing worse than ever. Her friend watched with fever bright eyes as Rachel flung a few things into a worn valise she had stolen.

  Meg had been burning up for days, despite Rachel’s attempts to lower the fever with cloths dipped in their precious supply of water. Rachel didn’t blame her for refusing to go to the hospital. When folks like them went in there, very few ever came out.

  “I hate to leave you, but I’ve got to go,” Rachel said, as she stooped to kiss the burning hot forehead of her partner in crime.

  Meg pushed herself to one elbow with considerable effort. “Go where?”

  “As far away as I can get,” Rachel said.

  Meg reached under her pillow and passed Rachel a dog-eared envelope. “There’s a train ticket in here to Yuma. And a letter from a man named Daniel Chambers. He sounds like a good man.”

  “Meg—I can’t! That’s your ticket out of here.”

  Meg plopped weakly back onto the mat. “We both know I’m not getting out of here. You go, Rachel. You go for both of us.”

  Rachel fisted the ticket. “They killed Paddy, Meg. I saw who did it.”

  Meg gave her a weak, ineffectual push. “What are you waiting for? Get out of here. Be happy!”

  Rachel didn’t leave. Instead, she squatted and held Meg’s frail hand as her friend eventually took her last, rattling breath. Then she grabbed her things and skedaddled.

  Daniel paced the platform impatiently. The train was late. It had been several months since he had been introduced by mail to a sweet-sounding girl from Boston who had agreed to become his wife. Even her name was sweet. Mary Margaret. He felt in his heart that any woman with a name like that had to be a Christian. She was Irish, she had told him, with red hair and freckles. Her words sounded hesitant, as if she feared he might reject her on that fact alone.

  He’d heard that the Irish immigrants hadn’t been treated very well back East, and could hardly wait to make up any indignities suffered by his sweet bride-to-be.

  Finally, the train pulled into the station and discharged its passengers. Daniel stood taller than most, watching each passenger disembark, but there wasn’t a single redhead in the lot. His shoulders slumped. Surely Mary Margaret hadn’t changed her mind?

  As the platform started to clear, he saw the porter approach a young woman with an infant. The porter dropped an infant’s traveling basket at the woman’s feet. The woman didn’t look happy, and heated words were exchanged. Daniel felt sorry for the little tyke, for its ma held it on one hip as if it were a bag of flour.

  The porter left and she turned defiant blue-gray eyes his way. “You must be Daniel.”

  He swallowed his surprise. This couldn’t possibly be Mary Margaret, his sweet Irish bride. “Who are you?” He took a hesitant step toward her and the infant.

  Dark hair tumbled about her shoulders and looked as if it hadn’t seen a comb in weeks. As he reached her side, the baby let out a pitiful cry.

  “I’m Rachel, Meg—I mean Mary Margaret’s friend. She sent me in her stead.”

  “I don’t understand,” Daniel said. “Why would she send you? And who is this?”

  “Dunno,” the young woman said with a careless shrug. “Some girl on the train asked me to hold it. I never even agreed before she shoved it into my arms. Next thing I know, I look out the window and see her flying through the air.” She gestured toward the sky with her free hand. “Finally at peace, I hope. Poor thing spent the entire time since she got on blubbering something fierce.” She glanced down at the baby on her hip as if wondering how it had got there.

  In spite of himself, Daniel reached out and rescued the infant before she dropped it.

  “The porter wouldn’t let me leave it on the train,” Rachel said. “Said there’s an orphanage around here somewhere. Told me to take it there.”

  “Quit saying ‘it,’ ” Daniel said impatiently. “Is the wee one a he or a she?”

  “How should I know?” Rachel said. “Not my brat.” She gave him a defiant look. “Are we standing around here all day? I’m famished.”

  Daniel lifted the bottom of the baby’s gown and peeked inside its soggy soaker. “It’s a boy,” he announced.

  Rachel looked unimpressed. “Which way to the orphanage? Best get rid of it first.”

  Daniel stiffened and gave her a cold look. “We’re not going to an orphanage,” he said. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to grow up in one?”

  Rachel gave a careless shrug, but something in her demeanor told Daniel her childhood hadn’t exactly been a piece of cake. Her eyes held a wariness he recognized well.

  “I grew up in an orphanage,” Daniel said, “and it’s not something I would wish on any innocent child.”

  “You can’t be planning to keep it?” Rachel said, sounding aghast.

  “It’s a him, not an it.” Daniel studied the baby’s scowling face beneath the ruffled brim of his bonnet. “We’ll call him Thomas. Best if we tell the townspeople you’re a widow, and this is your son.”

  Except the woman before him was not Mary Margaret, the one who had penned the cherished letter he had re-read so many times it was nearly in tatters.

  “Where is Mary Margaret? Will she be on a later train?”

  Rachel made a quick sign of the cross. “She fell ill. Originally, she’d hoped that coming here, the warmer climate would help cure her. May she rest in peace.”

&nbsp
; Daniel closed his eyes, aching for the loss of his sweet Irish bride. The woman before him seemed a woefully inadequate substitute.

  When the babe in his arms began to cry in earnest, Daniel picked up the travel basket with his free hand, hoping there was a fresh soaker in it.

  “This way,” he said, gruffly. “The minister is waiting.”

  He could only pray that Mary Margaret knew what she was doing when she sent this woman in her place.

  “Wait a minute,” Rachel said. “Maybe I don’t want to get married.”

  Daniel gave her a long, assessing look. “I sent my bride-to-be a train ticket. The entire town knows I’m getting married today. My friends have a wedding supper planned.”

  Rachel crossed her arms over her chest. “I won’t be bullied or bossed around.”

  “I’m not the bullying kind,” Daniel said. “But I expect to be obeyed.”

  Her lips thinned defiantly. “You want to be obeyed, get a dog not a wife.”

  Daniel shifted the fussing baby as he faced his soon-to-be bride. He’d been jilted some years ago, before he came to Yuma. He wasn’t about to have it happen a second time. “Are you always this stubborn?”

  “No one forces me to do something I don’t want to.”

  “Here are the facts. By boarding that train with a ticket purchased for my intended wife, you entered into a contract. Break that contract and you’ll find yourself before a magistrate. And since you showed up with young Thomas, you’d better learn really quick how to be a mother as well as a wife.”

  Rachel sent him a baleful look. “Why is he crying?”

  “I expect he’s hungry. You had better hope the mother included a feeding bottle and a change of clothing in his basket. This way to the church.”

  Meg had said Daniel Chambers sounded like a nice man from his letter, but she couldn’t have known how handsome he was, tall and broad shouldered with a head of thick dark hair and the assured air of a man used to being in charge. Meg would have liked that about him. Someone to take care of things.

  Rachel preferred to take care of things herself. Twenty years of fighting to survive had taught her not to rely on anyone else, for they were sure to let her down. At least, here, she was far enough away from Boston that she didn’t have to worry about those thugs sending her to her maker.

  She hurried to keep up with Daniel’s long-legged stride. She couldn’t believe he insisted on keeping the baby. Life on the streets had taught her that another human being relying on her was a responsibility she didn’t want, and a baby struck her as the biggest responsibility of all. More so even than a husband, who could at least dress and feed himself.

  As they passed a ladies’ dress shop, Daniel paused before a window displaying a variety of pretty gowns the likes of which Rachel had never seen before. He cleared his throat. His face took on a ruddy hue.

  “It strikes me you might like something special to wear for the ceremony.”

  Rachel jutted out her chin. “I have no money for new clothes.”

  Daniel nodded as if he had expected as much. “Naturally, as my betrothed, soon to be my wife, it would make me happy to see you garbed in a manner becoming my station in life.”

  “I get it,” Rachel said haughtily. “Can’t have me embarrassing you in front of your fancy friends.”

  Her original plan had been to give him the slip once she arrived, but she was realistic enough to know that she wouldn’t get far without any money. She dismissed any earlier thoughts of picking his pocket and taking off before he noticed. She had her principles. She only stole from those who deserved it.

  While Daniel faced her, she looked past him at her reflection in the shop window. Her clothing was wrinkled and soiled, the hems of her sleeves frayed, the toes of her boots and the hem of her skirt dusty. Next to him, in his smart suit and crisp collared shirt with a tie, she looked like a homeless urchin.

  She looked away from the reflection, to the man before her. His expression was kind, something she wasn’t accustomed to seeing directed her way.

  His voice was kind as well. “I’m guessing life hasn’t treated you very fairly. Something I’d like to make up to you, if you’ll let me.”

  Rachel pressed her lips together, and switched her dilapidated valise from one hand to the other. If she was going to go through with this marriage, the least she could do was look respectable.

  “All right,” she said. “But I’m not some charity case. I’ll pay you back.”

  “Whatever you wish,” Daniel said, as he pushed open the shop door. A bell over the door tinkled as they entered.

  Inside, Rachel looked around in awe. She remembered ma, before she passed away, stitching their clothes by hand by the light of a candle. Nothing near as fancy or as fine as what she saw in the shop.

  A woman, whom she assumed to be the proprietress approached, and she heard Daniel explain that Rachel’s trunk had gone astray on the train, leaving her in need of a few items of clothing until it showed up.

  The proprietress turned to Rachel with a calculating smile, a measure tape draped over her shoulders and massive bosom. When she eyed Rachel as if she were a prize mare, Rachel figured the older woman smelled a lucrative sale for her shop.

  The shop keeper turned back to Daniel. “She has a lovely figure, your new bride. I should have something already sewn that will fit her to like it was custom made.”

  “I’ll leave you ladies to it,” Daniel said, “while I see to this little guy.”

  When the shopkeeper approached and tried to wrap her in the measure tape, Rachel slapped the woman’s hands away. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Miss, I need to get your measurements.”

  “Hang that,” Rachel said. “Fetch me something that should fit. I’m not all that fussy.”

  As the woman huffed her way into the back room, Rachel studied the hats, gloves, bags and shoes displayed, unable to believe the shop’s owner had left her on her own. She was asking to get robbed.

  “Your figure is quite slim, for having just had a baby,” the proprietress said, as she returned with several dresses draped over her arm. “I’m sure your husband will be pleased with whatever you choose.”

  “He’s not my husband,” Rachel said. Then seeing the woman’s startled look, she added, “not yet.”

  The woman nodded. “Mr. Chambers is quite wealthy, you know,” she said. “And very well-liked by the townsfolk.”

  Rachel gave her a pointed look. “I’m not marrying him for his money, but for his kind disposition.”

  She wondered if she sounded as sarcastic as she felt, for she hadn’t originally intended to go through with the ceremony. Now, a short time later, she was picking out a gown to wear. For, having glimpsed a shadowed sadness when Daniel’s eyes first met hers, she’d felt a tug at her heart, and couldn’t bring herself to add to whatever had caused that unhappiness.

  Chapter 2

  Daniel returned to the shop, half wondering if Rachel would still be there, or if she’d run off the second his back was turned.

  “Mrs. Turnbull,” he greeted the shop’s owner. “I trust Rachel is all taken care of.”

  “Oh, yes,” said the woman. “She was easy to fit.”

  Daniel glanced around the empty shop, his stomach sinking.

  “And she is. . .?”

  “I sent her over to the café. Poor thing, her stomach was gnawing away so loud I feared she might faint from hunger. I told her to put her meal on your tab.”

  Daniel inwardly berated himself. Rachel had told him earlier that she was hungry, but he had been intent on seeing the ceremony done first, with his bride suitably garbed.

  Just then, the bell tinkled and in she strolled. Daniel blinked and had to look twice. Not only was Rachel wearing a fetching new gown in a soft shade of blue that brought out the unusual blue-gray hue of her eyes, she had brought order to her hair and secured it with a velvet bow. She looked—Daniel wasn’t sure how to describe it. She looked like someone he would like t
o get to know better.

  He gave a relieved smile.

  Rachel came toward him with a knowing smirk, and a sway to her hips he’d not noticed earlier.

  “Surprised? I bet you thought I’d run off, didn’t you?”

  “No. I—” He cleared his throat as he set down the travel basket where Thomas slumbered peacefully, having drank his fill of warm goat milk. “You look lovely.”

  Rachel lowered her gaze and focused on the sleeping baby, as if she wasn’t accustomed to receiving compliments. “I see you got him to stop crying.”

  “Nothing like a full tummy and a dry bottom.”

  She glanced up at him, her expression still wary but softer. Her gaze was probing, as if she was looking for something she’d missed earlier. Silence stretched between them until Mrs. Turnbull cleared her throat and Daniel stepped up to the counter to settle the bill, pleased to note Rachel’s purchases had been packed into a shiny new valise, as per his instructions. He hoped Mrs. Turnbull had discreetly disposed of Rachel’s original garments.

  Behind him, he heard Rachel gasp when Mrs. Turnbull recited the amount owed. He’d have to reassure her he didn’t expect to be paid back anytime soon. If ever. It was a man’s job to provide for his wife and family, and given his recent success in the shipping industry here on the Colorado River, providing for her and Thomas wouldn’t be a hardship.

  The ceremony was short and sweet, as Daniel had requested earlier of the pastor. Through the exchange, he couldn’t take his eyes off Rachel, and hoped one day soon their vows would mean as much to her as they did to him.

  “I hope you didn’t eat very much at the café,” Daniel said. “I told you my friends have prepared a wedding meal.”