Out West: A Pair of Historical Romances
By Beth Overton
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About this ebook
Mail Order Bride: Arranging Marriages For All Of Her Sisters - A young woman tries her hardest to escape the clutches of a woman claiming to be their aunt, who had taken over the family ranch in Colorado when her parents died. She has always looked after her younger siblings and they all plot to escape the harsh woman. Later, she will have the task of arranging marriages for her sisters.
Mail Order Bride: Only One Hand, But A Complete Heart - An orphan from New York discovers a mail order bride poster and decides to correspond with a cowboy rancher in Texas. He replies immediately, with a ticket enclosed, and she has no chance to tell him she lost one of her hands to a childhood accident. He is abrupt with her when he sees it, but takes her out to his ranch to meet his son. She feels it will be an uphill battle to prove herself with both.
Beth Overton
Beth Overton lives in Northern California with her husband and three cats. Besides writing romances, she loves to read everything she can get her hands on, as well as cooking up gourmet delights for her entire family.
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Out West - Beth Overton
Out West: A Pair of Historical Romances
By
Beth Overton
Copyright 2016 Quietly Blessed & Loved Press
Mail Order Bride: Arranging Marriages For All Of Her Sisters
Mail Order Bride: Only One Hand, But A Complete Heart
Mail Order Bride: Arranging Marriages For All Of Her Sisters
Synopsis: Mail Order Bride: Arranging Marriages For All Of Her Sisters - A young woman tries her hardest to escape the clutches of a woman claiming to be their aunt, who had taken over the family ranch in Colorado when her parents died. She has always looked after her younger siblings and they all plot to escape the harsh woman. Later, she will have the task of arranging marriages for her sisters.
Ruth plopped down at the kitchen table in her two-room cabin after a long day in the restaurant. A new group of prospectors and those taking advantage of the government’s land rush program to settle Nevada and California had brought a whole lot of rough characters. However, she saw a lot of gentle folks, too.
As she tried to unwind, she watched her younger sisters sleeping in the other room. The older five boys from her father’s first marriage and two girls had already grown up and moved on. They had no contact with the younger children. Her younger siblings were from their father’s second marriage. As the remaining girls were getting older, she knew it was up to her to make some decisions for their future.
As their older sister, she had stood in as their mother and father for as long as she could remember. She could barely remember their parents as they had originally traveled from New York in a wagon train to Kansas and then again to Horse Head, Colorado. They had just settled in their Horse Head ranch when she noticed her parents were starting to act strange.
Her father and mother seemed to have no interest in keeping the ranch going. The three oldest children took on caring for the land and the animals while the twins, Lily and Phyllis and the second oldest girl, took on the household chores. Marybeth was charged with the care of the younger children, the twins Holly and June and Olivia, the youngest.
One day, she woke to find both of her parents were gone and a strange woman claiming to be their aunt on their mother’s side taking responsibility for them. Heather was a harsh taskmaster. She chose to get rid of the animals and force the boys to take on additional tasks. Despite their best efforts, the ranch was still going downhill.
They even had to take down some of the side rooms of the house to pawn for supplies or burn the wood for heat. The children were forced to sleep on the floor in one room while Heather kept their parent’s room to herself. She didn’t seem to care as long as she was kept warm and comfortable.
You brats aren’t earning your keep,
snapped Heather one morning after arriving late for breakfast and complaining about it being cold. I really don’t know what I am going to do with the lot of you.
You could go away,
shouted Olivia, the baby of the group.
Or perhaps I could just give you all to the local workhouse,
she sneered in Olivia’s face forcing her to cower in fear. I’m good friends with Mr. Lawrence …
Alex, the younger boy, muttered, I bet you are.
You see, young man,
Heather continued, leaning into his face, boys like you do very well in the quarries using pick axes making large rocks into small ones or on the railroad as a shaker for the railway spikes. An even better job than that is the shakers for the mines where you can place the explosives then shovel out the rocks afterwards.
Turning and leaning toward the girls she said, The littlest ones get to work in the wash houses being waist deep in dirty laundry, water, soap, and starch. The older ones can be nursemaids to wealthy families. So, how does that sound, kiddies?
All the kids muttered their own responses but none of them audible to Heather, not to give her any excuse to make good on her threat to her friend, Mr. Lawrence. The older girls went to remake her breakfast while the others resigned themselves to getting their chores done.
Don’t worry,
Ruth whispered to each sibling, I promise that we will be long gone before she has a chance to make good on her promise.
What do you have in mind,
asked Alan, the oldest boy.
Ruth said in a reassuring voice, I will let you know when I have it all together. We will stay together and away from her.
She knew that, it was going to be easier said than done.
Ruth tried to contact the older siblings, detailing what was going on as well as asking who this Heather was but she had gotten no response from them. Heather found out about it and took a paddle to her for trying to undermine her authority and create trouble.
Heather was never happy about the kids going to school. She saw no need for it, especially since they were never going to amount to anything in her eyes. She would only send them when she would hear from the schoolmarm, Mary, or the Pastor and that would be only for a few days a time and seldom for the full day. She would always make some kind of excuse for them to be away.
The schoolmarm, Mary, was ringing the school house bell when she turned to find Ruth and the other kids making their way behind her into the large room.
Nice to see you, Ruth.
She nodded at the other children as they passed her.
Once inside, she took out the chalk slates and the McGuffey readers for Ruth and her siblings. She had sent the readers home several times in the past only to find out that they had made their way to the wood pile, so now she hung onto them for the odd times that they actually came to class. However, it had been awhile since they were there last. She had to start from the very beginning. Unfortunately, this also applied to Ruth.
After recess, Ruth settled back down to her seat and pulling out her McGuffey reader, she found a note addressed to her. Unfortunately, Ruth had not gotten that far on her reading so it was difficult for her to make out what the note said. She figured that if Heather didn’t show up early to whisk them away to do some kind of mindless chore again, maybe she could ask Mary, the schoolmarm, what it said.
Mary noticed that Ruth kept an eye on the entrance to the large room, hoping Heather would not show up. She decided to pull Ruth aside now and talk to her before Heather had a chance to intervene.
I see you found the note,
said Mary.
Yes. You wrote it?
"I am aware of what has been going on with you and your siblings and