Mail Order Bride Margaret (Montana Destiny Brides, Book 1)

“Oh Mags, I can’naw believe you’re really leaving me,” Brigid said, squeezing her sister tight. “What will I do without you underfoot all the time?”

  “Oh Bri, don’t be teasing me now! The train arrives any minute, and I can’naw let myself think of it carrying me off,” the young woman said fretfully, her long black hair escaping the bun she’d hastily tied it back in. “Tell me happy things to send me off!”

  “Well, here’s a word of happiness. I know you’ve written to this gentleman for a while now, and he seems like a hard-working and godly man. He’s Irish to boot, saints be praised for that! I know you’ll be blessed and filled with joy in this new marriage.” Brigid smiled and hugged her younger sister once again. “And if you’re naw, you just send word. My Seamus will ride all the way to Montana to fetch you back, and probably clobber this husband upside the head for his trouble!”

  Margaret couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of her enormous brother-in-law striking fear into another man. She knew he seemed to be scarier than most, but she also knew him like most other people didn’t. He was the most tender-hearted man a wife could hope for, gentle with his children and loving with his wife. He’d even opened his home to Margaret, practically a stranger and yet another mouth to feed, when she came from County Cork to join her sister in America.

  “Bri… I’ll miss you,” Margaret said, her eyes welling with tears again.

  “Mags, if you’re not sure about this…” Brigid said urgently, taking both her sister’s hands and squeezing them. “If you’re not certain, you do naw have to go! You can stay on at the yarn mill, I know Mr. O’Conner will give you back your job! And if it’s Seamus, he’s never once uttered a word of complaint about having you stay with us, not with you being such a help to our little ones…”

  “You’re too kind, but no, ‘tis not that. I just can’naw believe how far it is! Days and days on the train, they said. Why, ‘tis longer to cross this country than it was to cross the ocean! How will I ever see you again?” Real tears spilled down her cheeks now that the moment to leave had finally arrived.

  “We’ll see each other soon, I’m sure of it! Why, perhaps Seamus might think on moving to the land of open skies and grassy plains, places where children can breathe freely rather than the soot of the city. But never you mind that, we’ll write to one another often, and just know that I’ll always be here if you have need of me. I love you, my sister!”

  They hugged one last time before Brigid had to say her goodbyes. “I hate it that I can’naw see you off, but I’ve left Mrs. Mantiglioni watching the children and you know how testy she gets when she thinks we’ve put her out. I love you, Mags. I know you’ll be so happy.”

  Margaret could only nod as she continued to sniff back her tears. Her heart was breaking at leaving her sister, whom she’d only gotten to live with again for a couple of years. She was excited to finally meet this Irishman who’d written for a wife, but the nagging feeling that she was leaving for good tore her heart in two.

  She took a seat on the bench overlooking the track, clutching the handle of her bag and keeping an eye on her trunk. Strangers milled about from every direction, and unlike the passengers who waited at the docks for the ship that brought her here, the people moving here and there were a stranger hodge podge of different cultures, speaking to one another rapidly in different languages. It was overwhelming, and made her somewhat fearful.

  Margaret passed the time with imaging what she could piece together about Montana, and about this stranger named Declan. His letters had been perfunctory but polite, kind and businesslike if not overly romantic. Brigid had assured her that romance and things of the heart would be hard to judge in a letter from a stranger, but had encouraged her greatly when she pointed out the things that Declan hadn’t so much as said.

  “He’s tall, and has brown hair,” Brigid had explained when she read through the letters one by one. “See? He also works in a sawmill, so he must be strong. That means he’ll be in good health, and the fact that he farms his own land and still works for an employer means he will be a good provider. He’s not afraid of hard work, and nor does he shirk his duties. That’s something as to be proud of!”

  “I suppose you’re right,” she’d answered at the time, but the more she thought on it, the more she’d come to love that about this man she’d never met.

  Margaret snapped back to the present when the echoing moan of a train whistle sounded in the distance. She patted her black curls, fluffing them lightly where they hung down her back, trying to make sure everything was just. The lady at the agency had told her not to dress too fine for the journey across the country, since she wouldn’t want to give any ruffians the idea that she had any valuables. She’d purposely packed her grandmother’s opal-crusted abalone hair combs in her trunk, and used only a simple leather chord to tie some of her hair back from her face.

  “You’re boarding, miss?” a cabin boy asked when she handed over her ticket. “Have you stowed your luggage?”

  “No sir, this is all I’ve got,” Margaret answered, holding up her oversized bag and pointing to the trunk filled with items that the brides’ office had told her she’d need. There were linens to outfit her home, but sewing supplies, cooking and canning implements, even some medicines and bandages. Most men who wrote, she’d been told, were set up in their homes but were bachelors who had no time to think of the little touches.

  “I’ll carry that aboard for you, miss, but I hope there’s someone waiting on you who can carry it the rest of the way to your destination.” The cabin boy reached for the handles on either side of the wooden trunk and lifted it with ease, hoisting it up to his shoulder and climbing the steps into the train car.

  I hope so too, Margaret thought with a slight flutter of nerves. She shook her head. That’s no way to think, Mags. Declan has been writing for weeks, and ‘tis at his bidding that I’m coming West. He’s asked me to marry him, and I’ve accepted. That’s all there is to that.

  It seemed like hours before the train finally began to roll, and those first few ear-splitting screeches of the large iron wheels against the metal tracks were the most unnerving sound Margaret had ever heard. When they finally began to move with some measure of speed, the swaying of the cars was almost as upsetting to her stomach as the rolling waves of the Atlantic had been. This would be the longest journey of her life, and one that she met with equal parts joy, excitement, and dread.

  Chapter Three