Letters to Caroline (Brides of Serenity Book 1)

  Letters to Caroline

  By A.J. Goode

  Copyright @2016

  Brides of Serenity Book One

  To my own Little Bear

  Table of 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

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  A Word From The Author

  Other Books by A.J. Goode

  Chapter 1

  Caroline Morgan wrapped her shawl more firmly around her shoulders and quickened her steps up the path to her door. She’d spent far too long studying the schedule at the train station and now she would be hard-pressed to have dinner ready for her uncle and cousin by the time they returned home. The gray clouds building in the sky to the west told her there was a storm coming, and the swirling darkness on the horizon mirrored the thoughts whirling about in her mind.

  She let herself in and hurried to empty her basket of the few items she had purchased at the market. For a moment, she hesitated over the letter that was tucked underneath the items. She was tempted to read it again and feel the weight of the money in her hand once more to reassure herself that it was real, but there just wasn’t time for that sort of foolishness right now. She crossed the room and buried the letter and its contents with all the others in the bottom of her sewing basket.

  At that moment, the door burst open. Her uncle Roger strode into the room, followed closely by his eighteen-year-old son Stanley. Roger’s sparse blond hair stood almost on end in places, and his clothes were in disarray. Stanley looked even worse, she realized, with a bleeding lip and rapidly darkening bruise around his right eye.

  “Caroline, we need to talk about your future,” Roger announced.

  “Of course,” she said, furtively glancing at the sewing basket to reassure herself that the letters were indeed hidden. Her heart thudded in her chest. He knows. “I’m sorry dinner isn’t ready yet. I --”

  “Forget the blasted dinner!” Roger Morgan snapped. He ran a shaky hand through his thinning hair and scowled at her.

  She’d seen him angry countless times, and had even felt the brunt of his anger in the form of a slap on more than one occasion. This time, however, he seemed more frightened than angry. Perhaps this has nothing to do with the letters, she thought.

  “What’s happened, Uncle?” She asked.

  “I owe Big Tom money,” Stan blurted. “A lot of money.”

  And you’re still alive? she wanted to ask, but held her tongue. “Big” Tom Little owned one of the roughest, seediest saloons in town, and even a sheltered woman like Caroline had heard stories about the gambling and general debauchery that took place there. She’d also heard about what happened to the men who couldn’t pay their debts to Big Tom.

  Roger shot a disgusted look at his son. “Yes,” he said, “a lot of money. More than we can pay.”

  Caroline felt a twinge of sympathy for her cousin. He was a foul-mouthed bully who had made her life miserable from the time she had come to live with them after her parents’ death, but she still didn’t wish the wrath of Big Tom upon him. No one deserved to suffer the kind of cruelty he was known to inflict on anyone who crossed him.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Sit down, Caroline.”

  She obeyed despite the cold fingers of dread that wrapped around her heart at his words.

  “Big Tom says he’ll forget what Stan owes if you’ll marry him.”

  “ ‘Marry him’?” she echoed. “You must be joking.”

  Her uncle swore. “There’s nothing funny about it.” he growled. “I’ve already told him you’ll do it.”

  The men exchanged a look.

  “Uncle Roger, no!” Caroline recoiled in horror. Surely this was some sort of cruel joke.

  “You’re twenty-one years old next month and no husband yet,” Roger said. He spoke slowly and patiently, as though explaining a difficult math problem to a child. “I’ve done my duty to my dead brother by letting you stay here all these years, but I’m not going to support my spinster niece forever. You knew this day was coming.”

  “But--”

  “It’s a good offer,” he said, as though she hadn’t spoken. “God knows what Big Tom sees in a plain girl like you, but he says he’ll trade you for what Stan owes.”

  “But I-- I’m . . . I’m your niece.” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded weak.

  “And Stan is my son.”

  Caroline wanted to slap the bug-eyed expression off her cousin’s face. “When do I have to go?” she asked.

  “First thing in the morning.” Roger stepped back, a grin splitting his weathered face. “You’re a lucky girl, Caroline. You should be flattered that Big Tom thinks you’re worth that much money.”

  And what about the next time Stan owes him money? Who will you give him then? she wanted to ask, but she said nothing. Instead, she rose and reached for her apron. “I’ll start supper,” she told them.

  Roger waved her off. “Never mind supper. We’re going back to Big Tom’s to celebrate.”

  She watched them leave and allowed herself to sink slowly into her chair. She didn’t have much to pack, she knew. A few worn dresses and her mother’s Bible, and not much more. And the letters, of course.

  Caroline reached into her sewing basket and pulled out a small bundle of letters tied together with a bit of frayed ribbon. She had answered the ad in the Matrimonial News on a whim months earlier, after yet another argument with her uncle had ended with him reminding her that she was on her own as soon as she reached her twenty-first birthday. She’d hardly dared to hope that she’d find a good husband this way, but she’d found Jacob Anderson from Serenity, Michigan.

  They’d been writing back and forth ever since. Jacob seemed nice enough in his letters. He was a widower in need of a wife to be a mother to his children, and as a spinster in need of a husband she could hardly afford to be choosy. Besides, Jacob assured her that the town of Serenity was growing rapidly, with fine plank roads that made it a simple task to travel to some of the larger towns in the area. And Michigan was hardly the wild west, she told herself.

  She’d received Jacob’s final letter with money for her train ticket just today, and gone directly to the train station to inquire about the train schedule. She had planned on coming clean that evening, asking Roger for his blessing as she assumed he would happy to be rid of her after all these years.

  Now, Caroline glanced at the clock on the mantle and leaped to her feet with a new sense of urgency. It was nearly half-past five, and if memory served, there was a west-bound train scheduled to leave at half-past seven.

  Caroline Morgan had every intention of being on that train. She could only hope that Jacob would be happy when she arrived so soon.

  Chapter 2

  Adam Phillips could have listed a dozen places he would rather be than sitting in church. It was unnaturally hot and humid for late September, with absolutely no breeze moving through the small room despite the open windows. He fought the urge to wipe the sweat from his face and struggled not to give in to the urge to squirm and fidget in his seat like an impatient child.

/>   To his left, he could feel his niece squirming and fidgeting as well. At twelve years old, Sophie was still an unrepentant tomboy who could run faster and climb better than most of the boys in town, and she was utterly miserable trying to behave like a lady in her Sunday dress. When Reverend Brown took a deep breath and launched into yet another new tangent with his sermon, Sophie fairly quivered with frustration.

  Adam rested his hand on hers for a moment. She looked up at him, misery in her wide blue eyes. Not much longer, he mouthed silently, and she nodded.

  He leaned forward slightly to peer at Emily, who was seated to Sophie’s left. Although they were twins, Emily was everything Sophie was not. She sat primly, her gloved hands folded neatly over the Bible in her lap, watching the pastor with rapt attention. Adam sensed her disapproval, and struggled to remind himself that he was the adult here and she was still a child.

  At last, the sermon meandered down to its conclusion, and Adam breathed an enormous sigh of relief. Almost over, he told himself.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t like church. He just hated sitting still indoors for so long when he could have just as easily had a conversation with God outdoors somewhere under the open sky. Preferably on a shady river bank somewhere with a fishing pole in his hand, if he were going to be perfectly honest with himself. But he’d made a promise to his brother that he would take the girls to church every Sunday as long as the weather allowed, and he wasn’t about to break his promise just because he was hot and miserable on this particular September morning.

  He looked around to reassure himself that the windows were still open. They were, as was the door, but the air was hot and humid and still. How do the kids stand it? he wondered. The little church doubled as a schoolhouse during the week. Stifling a grin, he wondered what would happen if he leaped up and ran to the door to ring the shiny new school bell that had just been added the previous week.

  The minister dismissed the congregation then, and Sophie shot out the door ahead of everyone else. Adam pretended not to see the disapproving glances aimed his direction as he waited for Emily to gather her things and stand. “Any idea where she’s headed?” he asked.

  “Probably the train station.”

  Of course. Sophie loved trains. She took every opportunity to spend time at the train station. She said it was because she wanted to know more about the engines and how they worked, but both Adam and Emily knew she still held onto the hope that one day, one of those trains would bring her father back home to them.

  “Your niece seemed to be in a bit of a hurry,” Reverend Brown commented when Adam stopped to shake his hand at the door.

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  The minister’s eyes twinkled. “Don’t be. I’d do the same on a day like this if I didn’t think tongues would wag about me as soon as I was gone.” He smiled down at Emily for a moment and turned his attention back to Adam. “Adam, I was hoping you could help me out with something.”

  “Of course.”

  “I would like it if you would talk to Rich and Grace Anderson.”

  “I can do that.” Adam was puzzled. He knew that Rich’s father Jacob had passed away earlier in the week, but neither Rich nor his wife had appeared to be particularly distraught at the funeral. The whole family, in fact, had seemed to be at peace with his passing. After all, Jacob Anderson had slipped away in his sleep a few days after his seventy-sixth birthday, and had seemed to be full of vinegar right up into his final days.

  Adam could see Rich talking to Pieter VanDam in the shade. Both men seemed cheerful enough. Rich’s wife Grace was surrounded by her usual circle of women, all of them dressed in their Sunday best. While no one would ever describe Grace’s haughty expression as cheerful, her demeanor seemed normal enough.

  Reverend Brown looked around for a moment before guiding Adam away from the door and a few curious members of the congregation. “Rich just told me that he found out Jacob placed an ad for a bride in the Matrimonial News a while back,” he confided in a low voice. “He thinks his father may have actually sent for a woman to come marry him.”

  “That old goat!”

  “I thought it was amusing at first, too,” Brown murmured. “But there’s a very real chance that a young and innocent girl is on her way out here at this very moment, expecting to marry a man who’s already gone to meet his Maker. Rich and Grace are panicking that they are going to be responsible for her.”

  Adam suddenly understood exactly why the man had asked him, of all people, to talk to the Andersons about the situation. “Reverend --”

  “All I’m saying is that opportunity often comes when you least expect it. Think about Sophie and Emily. Oh, look, the Groningers brought their new baby to church! If you’ll excuse me.” And with that, the older man hurried away as though the subject was settled.

  Adam sighed. It didn’t matter who he talked to lately; every conversation seemed to boil down to the same conclusion: he needed a wife.

  He had to admit he was out of his league when it came to parenting the girls, but he thought he’d done reasonably well. So Sophie often embarrassed herself with her tomboy antics and Emily had grown up much too quickly in her efforts to take care of the household chores. At least they were both healthy, he told himself. Healthy and well-fed, and he saw to it that they both went to school and church whenever possible.

  He sought out Emily with his gaze. She stood quietly in the shade near their wagon, waiting for him and Sophie. She didn’t seem to notice that the other children were chasing each other around in an impromptu game of crack-the-whip without her. It suddenly dawned on him that he didn’t remember the last time he’d seen her play with other children.

  In the distance, he spotted Sophie running toward him, her blond hair streaming behind her in the wind. He winced at the sight of her petticoats flashing with each step as she ran.

  All right, perhaps he did need help. The girls needed a female influence in their lives, but that didn’t mean he had to rush right out and get married. Or did it? He shuffled his feet uncomfortably, thinking about the letter he’d tucked inside his Bible earlier in the week.

  The twins’ maternal grandparents wanted the girls to come live with them in New York. Frank Harrington, their grandfather, had written several times, explaining all the reasons why he believed the girls would be better off with them in the city, and Adam had done his best to put him off. But in the most recent later, Frank had announced that he was consulting with a lawyer on the matter.

  I want my grandchildren to be raised near civilization, he wrote. Surely you will agree that it is not in their best interest to grow up without feminine influence or opportunities for education. I know that you will want to do what is best for them.

  Adam was prepared to argue that there was a perfectly good school right here in Serenity, even if it was without a teacher at the moment. Both girls were doing well with their studies at home. But he had to agree that the lack of “feminine influence” in their lives was indeed a problem. Perhaps Reverend Brown and the others were right. If only he had a wife, perhaps he could convince their grandfather that the girls truly belonged here.

  He smiled at Sophie as she approached, determined not to let her see his despair. “What’s got you all worked up?” he asked her.

  “Uncle Adam -- there’s a -- lady,” she gasped. “At the station -- supposed to marry -- Mr. Anderson!”

  “She’s here?” Oh, no. Adam looked around quickly to see if anyone else had heard. No one seemed to be paying any more attention to them than usual. “Sophie, get Reverend Brown. Tell him I need his help with the situation we discussed. Don’t say anything more than that. Got it?”

  She nodded.

  He set off toward the station at a brisk pace. He was tempted to break into a run that might rival his niece’s speed, but he was afraid that might attract unwanted attention. The young lady at the train station was about to get some bad news, and he didn’t want the entire town there to witness her reaction.<
br />
  What kind of woman agrees to marry a man she’s never met? he wondered. Especially an old man like Jacob Anderson. Perhaps she wasn’t quite as young as he thought. Or perhaps she was plain, or maybe she was what his mother used to refer to as a “soiled dove.”

  He shook himself. Either way, she was alone and probably frightened at the train station, and she deserved kindness regardless of her reasons for being here.

  Adam rounded the corner and saw the woman standing alone on the platform. She was tall and thin to the point of gauntness, wearing a faded and patched blue gown that hung loosely on her frame. Her light brown hair had been pulled back under her hat, but he noticed that several strands had worked their way loose to curl around her face.

  She looked up at him as he approached, and he nearly stumbled over his own feet. She was not a beautiful woman, but there was something appealing in her narrow face and sharp chin that she raised defiantly as though daring him to tell her bad news.

  “Are you Jacob Anderson?” she asked.

  “No, Miss.” He hesitated, wondering how to break the news to her. “I’m afraid Mr. Anderson won’t be coming for you. He passed away a few days ago.”

  “I see.”

  Her eyes, he decided, were the exact color of the maple syrup candies his grandmother used to make when he was a child.

  “I thank you for delivering the news,” she said calmly, nodding. “That settles it then, doesn’t it?”

  And then, to the general astonishment of both, she fainted.

  Chapter 3

  Caroline heard the murmur of unfamiliar voices around her. Gradually, she became aware of her surroundings. There was something soft beneath her head, and she could smell something delightful cooking.

  “I think she’s coming to,” a man said. His voice seemed vaguely familiar.

  “Miss?” another male voice called. “Can you hear me?”

  “You ought to be ashamed, both of you.” A third voice, definitely female, broke in. Caroline heard a swish of skirts. “Poor thing is probably scared to death with both of you looming over her like that.”