Grady
Porterville, Texas
“She’s disfigured. If you can’t handle that, I’ll find a different man to be her husband,” Anna-Marie said when she prepared me for her cousin’s arrival.
It was completely unnecessary, but I can appreciate her concern over her relative’s vanity. Scars can cripple a man’s self-worth just as easily. I’ve seen men missing limbs who become shells of themselves rather than stand tall for surviving the unsurvivable.
I don’t care about her scars. She’s willing to uproot her entire life to move out to a small Texas town that’s barely more civilized than the wilderness surrounding it. That’s all that matters to me.
She’s willing to take a chance on me. That’s more than any other woman was willing to do. No woman wanted to follow me out here or wait for me to set up the store. Not the women in my home city of Charleston, South Carolina and not the women of Austin, Texas either. They saw me as a gamble, rather than a man worth marrying.
For a long time, I thought I was the flawed one. That each failed courtship was a mark against me. But then I met Henry Benson and his wife. Two years ago, he was a jaded Texas Ranger, the polar opposite of his young wife, with no house, and a job that put his life at risk every day.
And she still married him.
I have a house, a respectable business, and enough money in the bank to spoil my wife silly. All that’s missing is the wife. Every available woman within fifty miles is either a widow old enough to be my grandmother or too young. I want a wife, not a child I’ll have to finish raising.
Rose Worthington is younger than me, but she’s also a survivor. A woman who has endured suffering and felt the harsh sting of public ridicule. She’ll make a fine wife.
Anna-Marie offered to meet her cousin first, but I insisted that I be the first one to welcome Rose to Porterville. It’s only proper considering that by sundown I’ll be her husband. Her letter reached me before Anna-Marie received her reply. This far from the city, our mail delivery is unreliable at best. It’s a near miracle that both letters arrived altogether.
Like her cousin before her, she’s willing to marry a stranger sight unseen. I had already sent my fiancée a telegram, confirming our engagement before the sheriff’s wife knew her cousin was moving to our small town.
The shop is closed for today. I’ll have to open tomorrow, or my regulars will be tempted to shop at Morgan’s. Hopefully, Rose will understand why we can’t have a lengthy honeymoon. Perhaps in a year or two I’ll have someone reliable to help run the store in my absence.
“Today’s the day huh?” Sheriff Benson asks as he joins me at the edge of town.
It’s more words than he normally speaks to me, but the question is redundant.
The stagecoach bringing my bride the last few miles of her journey is as reliable as our mail carrier. The two-horse coach could come thundering over the plains within the next hour, or it could chase the sun over the horizon tonight.
I should’ve closed the store for a few extra days and borrowed a wagon to fetch her directly from the train in Austin.
“Anna says her cousin likes lilies.”
“That would be helpful if we had a florist.”
The gruff man is quiet for a minute. I think he’s about to abandon me to my post when he coughs. Then when I don’t react, he coughs again. When I turn to face the other man, I find him holding out a length of cloth with a lily pattern printed on it.
“Anna wanted you to have it to give to Rose,” he says thrusting it out towards me. “She found it in Austin, and she’s been saving it for something special.”
I take the cotton fabric from him, grateful that his wife had the foresight to send a gift, even if I could kick my own ass for not bringing her something. I sell gifts to forgetful husbands every day of the week. Never thought I would be one of the pathetic bastards.
“Thank you.”
“I’ll tell Anna,” he replies over his shoulder already walking back towards town. “Don’t fuck this up Grady or my wife will kill you.”
I can’t help but scoff at the idea of the petite brunette trying to murder someone. Henry halts in his tracks.
“You’re right,” he agrees with my unspoken assessment of his wife. “She couldn’t.”
He turns just enough that I can make out the serious expression turning his face grim.
“But if she asked, I wouldn’t hesitate.”
Rose
Travel is grossly over romanticized. For the umpteenth time, my stomach rolls as the stagecoach lurches. Whether the driver is attempting to flip us or one of the wheels is lopsided, the result is the same.
