Want Ad Wife
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Katy Madison
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16
Chapter One
Owner of general store looking for a wife to start a family.
Stockton, California, August 1862
Selina Montgomery stood at the altar, marrying the man she’d first laid eyes on that morning. Early afternoon sunlight streamed in through plain glass windows illuminating unused wooden benches and a bare plank floor. The empty church echoed the hollowness inside her.
Hardly believing the ceremony was happening so quickly, she stole a glance at her groom. Upon her first sight of him, she hadn’t believed this could possibly be the distant man with whom she’d exchanged letters. Convinced a less virile specimen would step forward and claim her, she’d kept looking past his tall, broad-shouldered frame for her fiancé.
His smooth, low delivery of his vows made her shiver. She was soon to become Mrs. John Bench. But with each step closer to the completion of the marriage ceremony a knot tightened in her stomach.
She’d thought a man who had to advertise for a wife would have serious shortcomings as a suitor. In her mind what she offered as a wife was supposed to be an even exchange. Her looks, her willingness to work, her loyalty were supposed to balance out the drawbacks she brought to the table, but he wasn’t a man who needed to make concessions to land a wife.
Her voice shook as she parroted the minister. Her closed throat allowed only a thin warble through.
John’s hand cupped her elbow, offering support. Support she didn’t deserve. He’d been nothing but perfect since she’d stepped off the stagecoach. He’d shielded her from the barrage of questions that assaulted her from the townsmen following her wild arrival. He’d guided her away from the pandemonium to a dressmaker’s quiet parlor, where he’d left her while he retrieved her luggage. The soothing darkness of the room and the comfort of a cold glass of lemonade from the matronly, gray-haired Mrs. Ashe had gone a long way toward calming her after the attempted robbery of the stagecoach and the mad dash to town following the exchange of shots that had repelled the thieves.
But the robbery was no longer on her mind. Selina should have told him her secret—secrets, she should say—but everything had happened so fast. She hadn’t had a moment alone with him. She’d intended to tell him before he married her. Withholding that information wasn’t fair, but it wasn’t the kind of thing to reveal in a letter. She bit her lip. Would he have refused to marry her if he knew about the son she’d left behind in Connecticut?
He might still repudiate her when he learned. No matter what he’d promised at the altar. A quiver ran through her and she tried to stop shaking.
Selina wanted to be married. She needed a man to give her a good life. She’d come almost three thousand miles to marry this man she barely knew, and would do anything to make him happy so he wouldn’t abandon her. When her mother had been left on her own, the family had nearly starved. Selina had needed to take a job in a mill, but even that hadn’t been enough to keep the wolves from the door.
Too many times in the last year she’d thought she’d descend into the hellish life of a woman who had to sell sex to survive. If it wasn’t for her friends Olivia and Anna she might now be walking the streets. A ruined woman with an out-of-wedlock child had few options.
She would do whatever it took to be married and make her husband want to be with her. It was a man’s world. A woman without a husband was nothing. She would let John kiss her—and, well, the rest of it—just to have a roof over her head where she couldn’t be kicked out. To have regular food and not to have to do anything shameful to get it was worth any price. What she hadn’t expected was to look at him and want him to kiss her.
Wiping her damp palm against the skirt of the green sprig muslin dress that had been waiting for her on the dressmaker’s form, she tried to slow the pounding of her heart. She hadn’t expected such thoughtfulness. Everything inside her had gone soft when Mrs. Ashe showed her the letters from her good friends that explained how John had managed to arrange to have the dress made for her by secretly requesting her measurements.
The minister neared the part of the ceremony where her groom would put a ring on her finger.
This was what she’d wanted for so long, but it felt strange, the moment too ordinary and small to mark the change from fallen woman to respectable wife.
The minister told her to face John, and she turned. His expression was steady, giving nothing away. He took her hand, his hot fingers searing hers. Then he slid a warm gold band onto her cold finger. She stared down at the bright yellow metal with roses etched into the surface.
Her throat grew thick, and she blinked rapidly, holding back the sudden rise of tears. The ring was beautiful.
She had to stop weeping at the slightest provocation, good or bad. Leaving her son behind with an older, childless couple who adored him was the right thing, but an aching, empty hole remained. John deserved a caring, helpful wife. She firmed her shoulders. That was what she’d be: the most helpful, hardworking companion a man could have. This was her fresh start and she was going to make a wonderful new life with this thoughtful, handsome stranger.
Clasping her hands in his, he rubbed her icy fingers between his palms.
His kindness undid her.
The minister pronounced them man and wife and John leaned forward and brushed his firm lips against hers. It was done so quickly she could hardly credit the tingles left in his kiss’s wake.
“I’ll need you to sign here,” said the minister.
She took the pen, signed her maiden name for the last time, then handed the pen to her husband.
He bent over the register and started writing.
“Your full name,” the minister said.
John exhaled heavily. Next to Selina Ann Montgomery he wrote out John Park Bench.
Her eyes jerked to his. “Park Bench?” she echoed.
“Foundling,” he muttered, as if that explained it all. His mouth tightened.
Her shoulders lowered and she drew in the first deep breath she’d had in forever. Her icy fear melted away. My goodness, she thought, if he was a foundling, he would likely not cast judgment against her. At least not for the child she’d had. Her husband was kind to her, attractive, and likely to be the one man who wouldn’t cast aspersions on her for having a baby out of wedlock. With his background, thinking she was horrible would be condemning his own mother.
“I need to get back to the store.” He caught her elbow and steered her down the aisle.
She barely had time to thank the minister, or Mrs. Ashe and her husband, who had stood witness to their ceremony.
John opened the church door and they stepped out onto a wooden porch. He led her across the street, guiding her over the ruts dried in the dirt, the peaks chipping off with the summer weather.
“I didn’t know you were a foundling,” she said. Questions bubbled in her. She was certain in learning of his background she could find a way to tell him of her child.
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t speak of it.”
She hurried to keep up with his long strides. “Why ever not?”
He stopped and turned to face her. His brow knit. “Would knowing have stopped you from marrying me?”
Had he feared that? A wash of empathy flowed through her. She took a step toward him. “No, of course not.”
“Then the circumstances of my birth don’t matter. There is no reason to talk about it.” His expression closed.
She opened her mouth and shut it. There was every reason to talk about it, but he didn’t know why. Somehow to tell him about her situation while standing in the middle of the street didn’t seem right, nor was his tone encouraging.
If he didn’t want to talk about it, she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. “If anything, knowing only makes my regard for you stronger.”
He looked away, his eyes seeming very blue in the bright sunshine. “I don’t want your pity.”
Pity? No, he misunderstood her. But he didn’t know that his being a foundling could only cement their bond. He couldn’t know how relieved she was to know an abandoned baby could grow into a successful, good man. She could put paid to the idea that her own son would never make anything of himself because she’d left him behind.
John shook his head and then walked away, back the way they had come earlier. Only he was no longer holding her elbow.
For a second she stared at his back. The bright sunshine was no longer warm.
“Are you coming?” he called.
She had to skip to catch up to him. Her stomach echoed the motion.
Ahead of them, gathered in front of his closed store, was a line. She hoped his wanting to reopen the store was the reason he was in a hurry. If her curiosity about his beginnings perturbed him, she didn’t know how to fix that. But until she told him about the son she’d left in Connecticut, he couldn’t know her curiosity sprang from a sympathetic place, not from shame or pity.
She’d had enough shame and pity herself. But for the first time she had hope. Hope that John wouldn’t judge her harshly, hope that her son would turn out all right, hope that her new husband wouldn’t abandon her. They had a connection much deeper than either of them could have suspected from their letters.
* * *
Once inside his store, John pulled his apron from the hook. Closing the store on the day the stage came in and the day before the largest packet ship to San Francisco went out was never a good idea, but he’d taken one look at Selina, her rich mahogany hair, her luminous skin and her hourglass curves, and any thought of delaying the marriage was squashed.
He’d wanted his ring on her finger as fast as possible, before every single man within a hundred miles was sniffing at her skirts. Before she had enough time to have second thoughts. After all, why would she want to marry him when a woman as beautiful as her could pick any one of a dozen men with gold lining their pockets? Not that he was poor, but there were men with big houses and more time to attend entertainments. Now, he wanted to hide her away so no man could tempt her from him.
“What should I do?” she asked.
What did she mean? She should start settling into their home, as women did. He suddenly had no idea what wives did all day. Or at least he didn’t know what they did before the children came. Well, beyond the cooking and cleaning, it seemed unmarried women were always changing from one outfit to another. Perhaps married women did that, too.
“Go upstairs, unpack and change.” He lifted the counter gate and ushered her through. The minute he touched her, a buzz shot through him. He yanked his hand back, lest he just throw her over his shoulder and carry her upstairs.
“Are you?”
The words could have been uttered in a foreign language for all the sense they made to him. He shook his head to clear it. “What?”
“Are you changing?” she asked.
“No.” He had his apron to protect his suit. The apron dangled uselessly from his finger. Besides, if he went upstairs and took off his clothes, and she took off her clothes—well, the chances of him returning to the store before everything was carted off were nil.
The corners of her mouth slipped down.
Women never understood a man’s urgency and need. As if by claiming her he could keep her by his side, he derided himself. He had to figure out his role as a husband. “I have to mind the store.”
“I don’t want to change just yet.” She smoothed the skirt at her hips. “I’ll be careful of my new dress.”
Her new dress made his loins ache. It was tightly fitted, unlike the dark jacketed thing she’d been wearing when she stepped off the stage. That had been bad enough. He’d stepped forward, mindful of not tugging at his trousers, which would have only drawn attention to his newly sprung problem. The hours until he could close the store and get her alone seemed an eternity. Somehow “get out of my sight so I can calm down” didn’t strike him as a good thing to say to his new wife. “You should get settled in.”
Her dark eyes narrowed, then transferred to his apron.
He pulled it over his head. It would at least hide his response to her. And he had to think of something else besides bedding her before his brain stopped working entirely. He had a hundred questions to ask her, but right now he couldn’t frame a single one.
She stood, still not heading for the narrow staircase at the back of the storeroom.
His heart pounded crazily. He pointed in case she didn’t see the stairs past the crates, barrels and sacks. If she was out of his sight he could concentrate on filling orders, stock shelves with his newly arrived goods, and get the mail sorted. He could scarcely keep his eyes off her or keep his mind on serving his customers. He’d be trying to keep other men from stealing her. Or too busy staring at her himself.
While he’d known she was pretty from her picture, he’d expected her to have some flaw, crooked or missing teeth, an annoying squeaky voice, a clubfoot or something that would have prevented her from finding a husband back East. He’d heard plenty of tales of woe regarding mail-order brides. Most arrived with shortcomings. Rarely were they pretty, no matter how much they’d gussied up for a nice photograph.
Wasn’t as if he had a whole lot of choice in brides, with bachelors outnumbering single women seven to one in California. Still, he’d been prepared to settle for whatever he got as long as he could have children with her. Children would fill that missing part of him. He hadn’t really thought a woman would fall in love with him, but a practical bargain he understood.
But so far his wife made him wonder if more than a practical marriage could be had. Or was there some flaw in her she just hadn’t revealed yet? More than likely she’d leave him when she realized he’d never learned how to be part of a family. He’d never had an opportunity to be a son or a brother, let alone a husband. He had to learn now and fast.
“Who’s the gal, Bench?” asked a sunburned miner, jarring John back to where he was.
“My wife.” The word was foreign on John’s tongue.
Her eyes widened and she stared up at him. His wife likely wanted a husband who could control his urges, not a brute. He never lost control, but damn, he wanted nothing more than to lean in and kiss her thoroughly.
As if his eyeballs were glued to Selina, he had a hard time peeling his gaze away.
The miner, Olsen, had been one of the group waiting for the store to reopen. He regularly showed up after the mail came in on the stage, and often received thick letters. With a smirk on his face he looked Selina over.
Wanting to punch him, John drew in a slow breath. The man was a customer. “Haven’t had a chance to sort the mail yet. But I have a fresh shipment of tobacco.”
Olsen leaned his arm against the counter.
Selina grabbed his spare apron and pulled it over her dress.
“What are you doing?” John sputtered.
“I’m helping. Don’t you want me to?” she asked.
“No. I mind the store and you mind the house. That is the way it is supposed to be.” Wasn’t it?
Her brow clouded, but then she smiled brightly. “Oh, come now, surely you could use a helping hand.” She finished tying a saucy little bow in the front of the apron—a bow he never would have tied with the same strings—and turned her palms up. Her head tilted and her smile turned teasing. “And I have two of them.”
He was as breathless as if he’d been punched in the stomach. But he wasn’t prepared with a reason to tell her she shouldn’t help in the store. He’d never in his wildest dreams imagined that she’d want to work alongside him. He had a hard enough time believing she would actually show up and marry him.
She seemed to take his lack of a response as an answer and glanced toward Olsen. Her mouth rounded and opened for a tiny space of time before she stepped toward the counter and painted a friendly expression on her face. She sweetly asked, “Are you here for your mail?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The miner’s half-unbuttoned red flannel undershirt had faded to a grayish pink. And he wasn’t wearing a shirt over it.
Funny, John had never really noticed how uncivilized some of his customers looked. Nor had he ever before felt an urge to tell them to cover up. He stepped between her and Olsen and reached for the mailbag. The sooner he found any letters for the miner, the sooner he could get him out of the store.
Olsen leaned to look around him. “Didn’t know you was married.”
The last thing he wanted to do was discuss Selina with Olsen. Or have every lonely Argonaut flirting with his wife. “How’s your lode holding out? Brown said he was going to start blasting soon. The vein he was following played out.”
She stepped to his side and her dark eyes bored into him. John wanted to forget the customers in his store, haul her upstairs and lock her out of sight of other men, but that would be just as uncivilized as not wearing a shirt. Probably not what a good husband would do, either. He couldn’t lock her away forever. If she was going to leave him, she’d leave him sooner if he tried to cage her.
Olsen shrugged. “You’re a right pretty thing,” he said to Selina.
She inclined her head and gave the faintest of smiles in response.
“And my wife,” repeated John. The jealous burn in his gut surprised him. He should have complimented her first. Even now his tongue was thick. “I’ll have the mail sorted soon, if you want to look around for anything else you need.”
Olsen ignored his hint and watched Selina. Heat crept under John’s collar. He couldn’t exactly throw the man out for ogling his wife, as much as he wanted to. Did she see working in the store as a way to look over all the other men and see if another one was more to her liking? She didn’t seem to be encouraging Olsen with smiles or coquettish looks.
John caught her elbow and guided her toward the back. This time he was prepared for the low thrum of excitement that heated his blood. But he had absolutely no indication from her that she felt it, too.
“Don’t you want to look around upstairs where we’ll live?” he asked. Didn’t she want to rearrange and tidy up the way women always did?
“Of course I do. I’d love to have you show me our home, but I know you can’t while the store is so busy.” She patted his arm, sending jolts through him. “Don’t worry. I’ll go upstairs in plenty of time to prepare supper.”
“You needn’t do that. I’ve arranged for the hotel to provide our dinner tonight. I didn’t want you to have to cook today.”
“Oh, that is so sweet,” she said. There was that smile again that almost made him brainless and sent jolts to his lower region. But he had to get their roles straightened out.
“Minding the store is my job.” He’d likely be working like a fiend through the next few hours, which would help him keep his mind off her and their wedding night.
Her brow crinkled, but her dark eyes seemed sincere. “It seems like I should help, since there are so many customers.”
He couldn’t breathe deeply enough. He tugged her farther into the storeroom, out of Olsen’s view. John could watch the store and the cashbox through the doorway. He definitely should be watching the cashbox, because watching her made him wish all the people who bought his goods and paid his way in life to perdition. “Your job is to keep the house. You don’t need to help in the store.”
Her eyes flashed as if he’d wounded her. She twisted her new wedding ring. “Unpacking won’t take me long and if I don’t need to cook...” Her brow furrowed. “I’d like to be a helpmate in the store. Besides, we haven’t had much of a chance to talk.”
“We won’t have a chance until later.” His spine tightened. The last thing he wanted was to talk, especially if she was going to pester him about how he came by his name. As if it weren’t obvious he’d been left on a park bench. For the first time since he’d kissed her at the altar, his randy urges eased. He knew he’d have to talk to her, be gentle with her, seduce her properly, but she didn’t need to go digging at his sorest spots right away. “The store will be too busy today.”
She twisted to look over her shoulder. “Then won’t we be able to take care of everyone faster if I help you?”
“It won’t get us alone any sooner.”
For a second she just stared at him, her smile frozen. Her smile cracked and fell from her face. She clasped her hands in front of her, holding the fingers of one hand tightly.
His collar tightened on his neck. No, he didn’t expect she wanted to be alone faster or for the same reason. He would just have to keep his eagerness in check.
Her eyes dipped, but then her chin firmed and tilted up. “Come now, it can’t be that hard compared to the work I did in the mill.” She tilted her head and her voice turned cajoling. “I could sort the mail for you.”
A couple of other men stepped up to the counter. No doubt they wanted to know if they had any mail. Trying to convince her to go upstairs delayed helping them even longer.
“Have no fear, I won’t expect you to cook or clean just because I spend time in the store,” she stage-whispered conspiratorially. “Truly, I just want to help.”
Why in the world would she want to take on more work when he’d said she didn’t need to? He scuttled a half-dozen reasons almost as fast as they popped into his mind. Rather than wanting to be with him, or get onto the business of marriage, she most likely just didn’t want to be alone. She had been through a horrific experience earlier in the day with the stage holdup and shooting. Had Selina been terrorized? “Are you all right?”
Her gaze darted down and away. His heart kicked hard. If she wasn’t all right, he had no idea what to do. He could make conversation with strangers all day long, even offer sympathy for a plight—but he had no knowledge about how to comfort a wife.
He could kiss her, but that could make matters much worse. Especially since it was broad daylight and his store was full. And while he’d take a great deal of comfort from kissing, he didn’t expect she’d see it in the same light.
“I’m fine,” she said in a way that left him skeptical. “Thank you for being so protective of me. I do appreciate it.”
But he didn’t want to dig too deeply into her state of mind. When she’d looked over his shoulder as if searching for someone else after he’d stepped forward to introduce himself, he hadn’t been surprised. No one had ever chosen him. But if she’d hoped for a better man, he didn’t want to know. He sure as hell didn’t want to see her toss aside his apron if some superior specimen came into his store to woo her.
“All right. If you want to sort the mail, I suppose that will help.” He guided her back into the store, showed her the eighteen cubbyholes for the mail and explained his system.
“Mr. Bench,” nagged one of the customers. “I need half a pound of lard, five pounds of flour and a pound of salt.”
“I’ll be right with you.”
Selina pulled a handful of letters from the canvas mailbag and began reading the names.
John stared at the white stripe of skin under the heavy bun on the back of her head. Would she like kisses there? It would be hours before he could find out. Having her so close would be torture.
“If you come across anything for Pete Olsen, that would be me,” said the miner still leaning against the counter.
“I’ll let you know, Mr. Olsen,” she said in an even, pleasant tone. “But I better get to sorting so it gets done.”
She turned her back on the leering man.
Breathing a sigh of relief that she sounded normal and seemed to understand there was a fine line between discouraging attention and being rude, John spread out a length of paper and scooped flour onto it. Hell, he was just glad she was not encouraging the miner. She could have been a hussy or worse. Did he dare to hope that their marriage might be more congenial than he’d envisioned? That they might do more than come to like each other?
As he lifted the paper onto the scale, Selina bent for another handful of letters. Her backside bumped him. He nearly jumped right out of his Sunday-best suit. Flour showered over the floor and counter.
She swiveled and said, “Excuse me.”
Heat pounded through him. His response to the brush of their bodies was worse than spilling a bit of flour. He fought for control. Breathing hard, he scooped out more flour to replace what littered the floor.
Grasping at the ordinary and normal motions of running his store, he reached to put the paper on the scale and very nearly dropped the flour bundle as Selina darted under his arm and scraped the counter clean.
“Damn it,” he muttered, and then winced. He shouldn’t curse around his wife. Usually he didn’t around ladies.
Her face pinked. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right,” he managed to reply between gritted teeth. He only hoped his response to their backsides touching was hidden by his apron. He wasn’t used to having anyone behind the counter with him, let alone a beautiful woman. Who was his wife.
Her scent flooded his brain. He forgot how much flour he was supposed to be packaging.
In just a few hours he could touch her and kiss her more thoroughly than the entirely unsatisfactory kiss after their wedding. But he couldn’t function while he practically vibrated with need because she was so close.
Her head ducked. “I’ll sweep it up.”
“Go unpack.” He pointed. “Now.”
Her eyebrows drew together, and her mouth flattened. For a second he thought she might protest, but she cast a glance toward Olsen, gave a shake of her head and then moved through the door to the back room. Her spine was stiff and her chin high.
“Now you’ve done it,” said Olsen.
Yeah, John rather suspected he’d not gotten off to the best start with his new wife.
