Mail Order Bride Leah: A Sweet Western Historical Romance (Montana Mail Order Brides Series Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

smiled. “I was afraid you would think ill of me for such a thing. I’ve got a sweetheart out there. His name is Eugene and he has a farm. His wife died from a fever and left two little ones behind. I grew up taking care of my little brothers, so it’ll suit me just fine,” she said, smiling bravely.
    “That’s wonderful. I’m happy for you, Rose. I answered an advertisement myself. The gentleman owns an inn and a stable.”
    “Oh, he must be very successful! Is he a good Christian man, then?”
    “The very best, I believe,” Leah admitted bashfully.
    The two women chatted about their hopes, and Rose shared some cold chicken she’d brought for a meal on the train. Having such companionship on the train made the journey less painful for Leah, who had little time to grieve over the breach with her brother with the excitement of her new life ahead. Rose was quite young and had worked in a factory for four years already. She wanted to be quit of the noise and dirt of the city. She wasn’t very well prepared, Leah thought, so she shared some of the advice from her mother’s book, and Rose was grateful for the guidance.

Chapter 3
    BILLINGS, MONTANA, 1884
    After long, monotonous days on the railroad, Leah stretched as she stood up when the train stopped at Billings, Montana. The train platform was nearly empty when Leah struggled to disembark with her bags. A porter deposited her trunk and boxes beside her and she looked forlornly around. A family was greeting an older woman and a young couple made their way down the steps, talking excitedly about finding the inn. Leah wanted to follow them, knowing that the inn would belong to Henry, but she had those boxes, that trunk, and she could not leave them. She stood, feeling color creeping into her face as she waited like a parcel that hadn’t been picked up.
    Slowly, a man stepped forward out of the shadows.
    “Are you Miss Weaver?” He asked in a low voice. He had a taciturn manner, his eyes not meeting her own.
    He was tall and strong, as he had promised, but this could not be the same man she had written to. He was handsome as the sun itself, his beautiful face not at all the craggy or hawklike sternness she had expected from a frontiersman. He looked out of place, as if he ought to have been clad in a fine suit and striped waistcoat, checking his gold pocket watch on a busy boulevard…not waiting in homespun on a train platform.
    “I—I am,” she stammered. “You are—Henry, then?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” he said shortly and reached for her bag.
    She let him have it but felt strange, off-balance. He loaded her boxes and trunk into a barrow, heaving the massive trunk alone with the strength of his wide shoulders. She had expected the warm greeting of old friends, not this stilted formality, this meeting of strangers. Leah told herself to be strong, to have faith.
“This way,” he said gruffly but not unkindly. He walked on in silence without looking back even to see if she trailed behind him.
    Leah held her hem clear of the thick dust and followed him, head bowed modestly beneath her straw bonnet. She had only to be pleasant and claim her room at the boarding house, and then she could retire to that room to cry. The fatigue of the long train ride made it easier for doubts to assail her now, and she kept thinking of how she had thrown off her family and been disowned by her brother only to come here and be met by a grim Adonis, a man who acted as though he knew nothing of her true heart and felt no friendship at all toward her.
    As they walked, Leah saw that this was a bustling, prosperous town, with two feed stores, a general mercantile, a hardware store, a dry goods store, a millinery shop, and a bank. The buildings were neat and well-kept, and Leah knew she would like to see more of the town at a point when she hadn’t spent days on a train. There were two saloons, one of which advertised that food was served at noon and six. She knew it was a settlement that