Page 1 of A Steadfast Heart (Wind River Mail-Order Brides #2)

March, 1893

How on earth did I end up at another socialite’s mansion?

Drew McGraw shifted, the cobblestones foreign beneath his cowboy boots that were far more accustomed to the long prairie grasses back home.

Dread pooled in his stomach as he looked at the three-story building, then compared the address to the letter he held. Maybe Leona Fitzsimmons was a servant here? He checked the mailbox. No name that he could see. His cousin had a better angle, since she stood on the side. “Merritt, do you see a name on the mailbox?”

“It says Fitzsimmons.”

Drew rubbed the back of his neck. What was he even doing here?

His suit coat pinched his shoulders. A decade of ranch work would do that. He resisted the urge to adjust his tie. It felt like it was choking him. He lowered his hand.

Merritt stepped up beside him, her head tilted to the side as she studied the house. “You don’t have to go through with this.”

This being a mail-order marriage he’d arranged over the past months of corresponding with one Miss Leona Fitzsimmons.

“The kids could go to school regularly if they spent weeknights with me,” Merritt went on.

Sure they could . His eyes slid closed briefly. He hadn’t realized how bad things were until he’d seen David struggling with a math problem out of a fifth-grade math book. If he went to school in town, he’d be placed with children three years younger than he was—just because his father had needed every available hand on the ranch and hadn’t noticed the problem developing right before his eyes.

His girls were struggling too. Tillie burst into tears at random moments, and he never knew what would set her off. Or how to comfort her when she cried. And Josephine? Drew rubbed the ache in his chest. Her long, angry silences proved something was wrong in his second child’s life. Bad wrong. What child didn’t want to go to church when church meant seeing the neighboring families?

He loved the ranch his father had started and his brothers shared, but it was too far out of town for the family to attend church every Sunday, much less for the children to go to school regularly. That probably contributed to Jo’s problems. He’d noticed the town girls hanging together and giggling behind their hands when Jo got close, had tried to discuss it with her—if “How was Sunday school?” counted as trying. If her mother were alive, she’d know what to say, might even help Drew know what to do. Then again, if Amanda were alive and things had gone according to her plan, Drew wouldn’t know Jo at all.

He needed help. Had no money to hire a tutor, nanny, or cook. And when Merritt’s mail-order ad had brought her husband Jack into her life, he’d thought for once he had the answer he needed.

He laid a hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “I appreciate the offer, Merritt. I really do. But if I send them to you, I’d only see them a couple of days a week.” Not to mention his cousin was a newlywed. She and Jack didn’t need three kids underfoot. He shook his head. “No, the children need a mother, one who can give them the fundamentals of an education. A few manners wouldn’t hurt either.” If Leona Fitzsimmons lived here, she ought to be qualified.

A sense of misgiving settled over him. He and Leona had exchanged several letters after he’d posted his mail-order bride ad. Why hadn’t she told him she was from a wealthy family? Why did she want to trade this for his Wyoming ranch?

Amanda had certainly thought it a bad bargain. Had told him in plain English she’d made a mistake in marrying him.

He inhaled deeply, but the smoke-laden air of St. Louis did little to brace him. He could still remember the first time he’d stepped onto the front stoop of his former father-in-law’s estate. He’d been naive then, shoulders straight with pride and heart full of determination. The world had been his to conquer.

It had conquered him instead.

He was doing this for the kids. David, Josephine, and Tillie were all that mattered. He crossed the porch and knocked on the door.

The door opened to reveal a man dressed in a black suit. “May I help you?”

Drew didn’t miss the man’s brief perusal nor his quick frown. Too bad. Drew had spent two years dressing to society’s exacting standards. No more. “Mr. McGraw and Mrs. Easton to see Miss Leona Fitzsimmons.”

From somewhere deeper in the house, a few giggles, quickly shushed, reached his ears.

“Won’t you come in, sir? I will see if Miss Fitzsimmons is available.”

If she’s available? They’d settled their plans weeks ago. Wouldn’t she have told her family, the staff, that he was coming? The unsettled feeling in his stomach grew bigger, knotted tighter.

The man led them to a formal room furnished with matching armchairs and sofas. Floral prints abounded, from the upholstery to the wallpaper. A piano stood against the wall, the tiger oak veneer competing for attention with some fancy carved overlay.

“It’s not too late. We can still leave.” Merritt’s gaze widened as she glanced around the room. Drew had once been impressed with displays of wealth like this, back in the early days of his marriage. It’d taken years for him to realize the simpler life on the ranch was better.

“I told her I’d see her today.” He led Merritt toward the sofa and took the seat closest to the main door. He wanted to see his intended as soon as she entered.

A second door in the back of the room opened a crack. Shuffling sounds drifted across the room, but the door opened no farther. Merritt gestured in that direction, and he nodded slightly. With their hearing deadened by life in the city, the spy most likely thought he was being quiet. Probably a servant. No society miss would meet with a man alone, even to accept a proposal.

When the main door opened again, a young lady sailed in, her dress dripping with lace and her sleeves puffed all the way to the elbow. A river of blonde curls flowed from under her ribbon- and feather-decked bonnet that wouldn’t last ten seconds in the Wyoming wind. She was young. The youthful look of her face hit him hard in the solar plexus and made him feel older than his thirty-three years.

This was Leona?

Drew rose to his feet. “Leona.” He moved toward her, but she held up a hand to stop him.

His pulse pounded in his temples at the gesture. They’d never met before, but he’d expected a warmer welcome than this.

She stood there, and he did too. He could feel a muscle ticking in his cheek. “Is there a problem?”

“I didn’t think you would actually show up, thought surely when you saw my house you’d turn around and leave.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He could feel his temper sparking like flint against tinder. They had an agreement. Surely she wasn’t backing out now. He’d come hundreds of miles. He’d spent time writing her those letters. Told the kids he was bringing home a wife.

The society miss looked past him to that cracked back door. “You can come out now.” Several young ladies dressed just as lavishly entered the room, smothering their giggles behind pristine white gloves. Their stares and obvious amusement pricked his skin with heat.

Miss Fitzsimmons turned back to him. “Your letters have provided the best entertainment of the year for myself and my friends.”

His temper flashed so hot it robbed him of words. Maybe Merritt sensed it. She sidled close, hovering behind his elbow. “That’s a very cruel trick to play on another.” She sounded like the schoolmarm she was, her voice snappy and commanding.

“You didn’t really think that someone in my position would accept a proposal from some two-bit rancher, did you?”

The longer he looked at her, the more she came to resemble his late wife. The disdain in the curl of her lip. The glittering ugliness in her eyes, judging him.

He felt sick. “I didn’t think much on it, as you didn’t tell me of your position.”

Her blue eyes widened in exaggerated shock. “Didn’t I? How careless of me. Here, take your letter with you. And a word of advice, if you should try this again. Next time, put a little romance in your proposal. Not that it would have mattered in this case, of course, but no woman wants to be married just to look after a bunch of brats.”

He opened his mouth to respond, to blast her with words she surely deserved. Miss Fitzsimmons had played a vicious joke. He should speak to her father, should?—

He forced his whirling thoughts to steady. He didn’t want one more thing to do with this young woman who played with the emotions of others. Jagged breaths cut like glass inside him. There was nothing left for him here. He left the house to echoes of laughter, Merritt beside him.

It was cooler outside, but the fresh air did nothing to dampen his anger.

They crossed the park before they sank onto a bench out of sight from the house. Merritt reached for his hand. “If you ask me, this was a lucky escape. Imagine. Some poor man is going to end up married to her.”

Drew laughed bitterly. “I pity him.”

“You have other replies to your ad.”

“I do.” And he’d burn them just as soon as he got home. There had to be some other way to get his kids some schooling. He’d rather they grow up ignorant than be exposed to what that “lady” would teach them. Or any city woman like her. He should’ve known better. Hadn’t his doomed marriage to Amanda taught him anything?

The brightness of Merritt’s joy with her new husband had blinded him. Convinced him that a mail-order relationship might work. That and the feeling he was failing his children.

“It would take a while to choose another candidate though.” Merritt bit her lip. “Meanwhile, Nick can help with the kids’ schooling. It’s worked okay so far.”

Sure it had. If you defined okay as Nick spending an hour or so each evening tutoring his nephew and nieces after putting in a full day on his own homestead. An hour divided between three kids, no less. Drew’s youngest brother looked more tired every day.

Ed tried to pick up some of Nick’s work, but the land agent would be inspecting his property at the end of May to make sure he had complied with the Homestead Act. If he didn’t meet the requirements to prove up his land—namely, build a structure to live in—he would lose it.

And Isaac. Drew’s chest tightened. Isaac had returned to the ranch months ago without his badge and without the confidence that had been such a part of him since they were kids. If it hadn’t been for the McGraw jawline, Drew almost wouldn’t have recognized him.

And their neighbor, Heath Quade, was waiting in the wings, ready to snatch their land out from under them.

Drew swallowed the bitter taste of failure. Some job he was doing of keeping the family ranch going. If they didn’t prove up the homesteads, he might even lose the land that Pa left him.

And now he’d failed in finding his kids a new ma.

They made their way back to the cable car, then to the train station. He left Merritt in the waiting area, then approached the ticket counter. Changing his tickets to an earlier departure date only required a minor fee, but the station agent refused to refund his money for the ticket that his bride would have used. He crumpled the useless piece of paper in with his final letter and his ad, then left the wadded-up mass on the counter. A gust of wind picked it up and carried it away.

Pointless. This entire trip had been pointless. He and his brothers had three homesteads to prove up, and he had wasted a full week.

If only he hadn’t told the kids the purpose of this trip. Tillie was going to be heartbroken when he returned without the new ma he’d promised her.

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