Read Grace: Bride of Montana (American Mail-Order Bride 41) for Free Online Page B

grinned at Seth. “Guess I should be grateful you two already went through this mail-order bride business so I can just follow in your footsteps.”
    “Yes, siree,” Seth drawled. “If I left everything to you—” he gave a mournful shake of his head “—you’d land in the doghouse in no time.” He stooped to run a hand over the dog’s back and fondle her ears. “No disrespect meant to you, Miss Gertie.”
    “I would not,” Frey protested. “Besides, I’d never fit in Gertie’s doghouse. If she had one, that is, which she doesn’t.”
    “Oh—” Seth cocked an eyebrow “—then you remembered flowers on your own, and we didn’t need to bring any along?”
    Frey glowered at his friend. “I just hadn’t gotten them yet,” he said with stiff dignity, ignoring Seth’s so-you-say nod.
    His friend’s expression turned serious, and Seth met Frey’s gaze. “Hope everything works out as well for you as it has for us.”
    “Just be patient,” Trudy warned. “If you are kind to each other, love will come in time.” She glanced beyond him to the foursquare. “Amazing how two houses can have a similar design but still be different—ours is wood, and yours is brick. The window is beautiful.” She turned hopeful eyes in her husband’s direction.
    Shaking his head, Seth held up his free hand. “Oh, no you don’t, Mrs. Flanigan. We’ve just sunk a heap of money into that house of yours. We have to save some things for the future.”
    Trudy’s dimpled smile at her husband told Frey she’d be getting her stained-glass window before too long. I wonder if Grace will have me wound around her finger like that?
    Somehow, he didn’t mind the idea one single bit.
    * * *
    As the train neared Sweetwater Springs, Grace stirred from her melancholy thoughts. The first part of the trip had been made tolerable by a chance meeting with Libbie Van Eycken, a South African girl who was acquainted with one of the other seamstresses who’d worked for the Brown Textile Mill. The two women had seats together on the route from Boston to Chicago. Libbie, too, was in dire financial straights and when she’d learned about the Grooms’ Gazette had decided to become a mail-order bride to a rancher in Arizona.
    The pair had talked their way through two days of travel before parting in Chicago, promising to write. When Grace was with Libbie, she’d felt almost optimistic at times, for if she could set aside her reserve and form close bonds of friendship with someone she’d just met on a train, then maybe she could make friends in this new town and come to care for the stranger who’d be her husband.
    But without Libbie to distract her, Grace had fallen into low spirits, staring out the window without really seeing the passing countryside, her thoughts on Victor. Each time her heart ached with missing him, she told herself, He’s not the man I love. That man doesn’t exist.
    Cold comfort. But the idea that she’d loved an illusion, rather than the real man seemed to help.
    A few stops before Sweetwater Springs, after washing her hands and face, Grace thought about taking the advice she’d given to Libbie and changing clothes before her arrival. But Libbie had been wearing poorly dyed mourning attire that didn’t become her and had been so hopeful for her forthcoming marriage.
    Grace couldn’t muster up any hope, much less the energy to leave her train seat. I lack Libbie’s optimism. Plus the washroom was so tiny, she couldn’t imagine changing out of her traveling dress—the one she always wore to work—in the small space.
    Frey Foster will just have to take me as I am.
    After riding past poky frontier towns, when the train slowed, Grace didn’t hold out much hope for Sweetwater Springs. But she was pleasantly surprised by the town, which seemed somewhat larger than most—with spaces between buildings that flanked a wide dirt street, rather than being crammed together like most she’d seen. She caught a glimpse of