Alma's Mail Order Husband (Texas Brides Book 1) (2 page)

“I never said it wasn’t a perfectly
functional house,” Allegra maintained. “I just said there were a
million others just like it, and it’s a dump. I challenge even one
of you to disprove what I just said.”

No one took up her challenge.

Allegra squared her shoulders and led her
horse off to the barn, which was another slouching lump of adobe
next to the house. Amelia followed her.

Alma gazed after her sisters until they
disappeared inside the barn. Then she smiled at her father.

“How did it go today?” he asked.

Alma shrugged. “The same as every other day.
You know how it is.”

Clarence shook his head. “I know how it is.
It’s a quiet business, herding cattle morning, noon, and night. I
only wish I was out there with you. I don’t like not knowing
everything that’s happening.”

“If there was anything happening out there,”
Alma told him. “You would be the first to know about it. We haven’t
kept anything from you. Now, come on around here to the other side
of the house and sit down. I want to talk to you.”

Alma led the way around the house and her
father limped after her, dragging one leg in the dust. Alma sat
down on a tilting wooden bench against the back of the house and
waited for him to join her. The trees clustered more thickly over
the bench, making a canopy of rustling shade.

Clarence sat down heavily on the bench. “What
do you want to talk to me about?”

Alma took another deep breath. “I’ve made a
decision. I’m going to get married.”

The silence that followed sounded more
terrible than all the accusations or recriminations Alma
expected.  She waited for him to say something, but he
didn’t.

In the end, she had no choice but to start
talking herself. “I wrote into that mail-order matrimony service
they have going. They’re matching up men and women all over the
country who want to get married. A cowboy from Amarillo is meeting
me at the church in Eagle Pass at the end of the month. We’ll get
married, and then we’ll come back here to live.”

Her father still didn’t say anything. Had he
heard her? How could he fail to? Alma waited another long time.
Then she saw the weathered old hand resting on the knee of his
pants.

She covered it with her own smooth fingers.
“I know you probably aren’t happy about this, but I wanted to do
it, and I did it. I told Amelia and Allegra today, so now you all
know and we can start making plans.”

He didn’t move a whisker. Did he approve?
Would he ever speak to her again?

He didn’t take his hand out from under hers,
but he didn’t congratulate her, either.

A heavy sigh came out of his dry old lungs.
“Where will you live?”

Alma started in surprise. “Here in the
house.”

“Here?” he asked. “With all the rest of
us?”

“Why not?” she asked.

“You’ll be newly married,” her father
reminded her. “You’ll want privacy.”

“If we want privacy,” Alma told him. “We can
get it. There’s a million miles of empty desert in every direction.
If we want to be alone, we’ll find a way to do it. Don’t you worry
about that.”

“So what did your sisters say when you told
them?” he asked.

Now Alma took her turn to sigh. “Just what
you’d expect. Amelia told me I should have asked your permission
first like a dutiful Mexican daughter. And Allegra laughed at me
and said I’d ordered a new hot water bottle from a catalog.”

That brought a hollow chuckle from Clarence.
“She would say something like that. She’s a wild one, that
girl.”

Alma gladly turned the conversation away from
herself to her sisters. “I’m worried about her. She’s so
thoughtless about everything. She’s really reckless sometimes.”

“You always worry too much about both of
them,” her father reminded her. “You worry about them for opposite
reasons. You worry about Allegra for not thinking enough, and you
worry about Amelia for thinking too much. You should think about
yourself once in a while.”

“I can’t help it,” Alma replied.

“You worry about them,” Clarence continued.
“And your way of handling it is by mothering them.”

“Mothering them?” she repeated. “I don’t
mother them.”

“You do so,” he shot back. “You order them
around, and you take charge of the work around the ranch.”

“Is that so bad?” she asked. “Someone has to
do it. And they don’t seem to mind me taking the lead. Amelia does
whatever I tell her to do without question, and Allegra just goes
along for the ride. I wish they wouldn’t go along so easily. I wish
they’d stand up to me every now and then.”

Clarence Goodkind closed his eyes. “So they
didn’t mind about you getting married? That’s good. I’d be more
concerned about their reaction than mine, if I was in your
place.”

“I didn’t say they didn’t mind,” Alma
corrected him. “I just said they reacted the way I expected them
to. They reacted—how shall we say? They reacted in character for
both of them.”

“And that should concern you,” her father
told her. “That should concern you more than anything. That they
reacted in character only proves they could be displeased about it.
They’re hiding it below the surface, like they usually do, each in
her own way.”

“I understand that,” Alma replied. “And I
agree with you. A strange man will be joining us on the ranch.
Believe me, I’m as worried as anyone else about how this will
affect all our lives.”

“I’m glad you’re thinking about that,”
Clarence returned. “Because your new husband could be the ruination
of all our plans and hard work.”

“I know, Papa,” Alma assured him. “Believe
me, I know, and I haven’t thought about anything else in all the
time I’ve been writing to him. I told him all about it. He knows
I’ve been working the ranch with my sisters for five years, and we
worked with you for another five years before your accident.”

“And don’t forget,” Clarence reminded her. “I
built this ranch from nothing over fifteen years before that.”

Alma smiled to herself. “I haven’t forgotten,
and I told him that, too.”

“It isn’t just us and the ranch that could be
ruined,” he continued. “This husband of yours—what did you say his
name is?”

“I didn’t say,” Alma replied. “His name is
Jude McCann. He comes from Amarillo.”

“Right,” Clarence snapped. “Jude McCann from
Amarillo. He’s coming out here to live and get married. He’ll have
a stake to defend in this ranch, too, just like the rest of us.
You’re walking a tightrope with this plan of yours.”

“I know I’m walking a tightrope,” Alma
insisted. “And I’m ready to walk it. I know as well as anyone that
this family contains nothing but strong personalities and raging
egos. Just one of them could bring the ranch crashing down.”

“Then why do you want to do this?” Clarence
sighed. “I shouldn’t even ask that.”

“Good,” Alma exclaimed. “Then you understand
that we can’t go on this way forever. You can’t have three adult
daughters without at least one of them getting married sometime. We
won’t stay here, single and childless, for the rest of our lives.
We need husbands and children. Otherwise, all our work to build
this ranch and keep it going will be wasted.”

Clarence took another deep breath and opened
his eyes, but he didn’t see the desert landscape around him. Did he
see anything at all, even when his eyes were open? “I know. The
truth is, I’ve expected this for a long time now. I knew it would
come some day. I just comforted myself with the knowledge that
there weren’t any men around for you to get mixed up with. I didn’t
count on Nature finding a way around that, too.”

Alma patted his hand. “I’m glad you aren’t
upset about it. Now I have to get inside. It’s my turn to cook
supper.” She stood up. “Are you coming in?”

“You go ahead.” He turned his bleary old eyes
to the eastern skyline. “I’ll sit here a little while longer.”

Alma patted him one more time on the shoulder
and vanished around the corner of the house, leaving her father
sitting alone on the bench.

The Goodkind family kept the door of their
house open until the last glimmer of light left the sky. When the
darkness outside matched the darkness in the house, they shut the
door and lit their candles and, occasionally, a lamp.

Alma put a platter of tortillas and roasted
meat on the table. Grilled chiles and chunks of prickly-pear cactus
in another bowl completed their evening meal. The sisters sat down
at the table with their father. After he mumbled a simple blessing,
a storm of reaching arms and hands followed before anyone said
anything.

Each person took a tortilla, scooped meat and
vegetables into it with a spoon, and ate the wrapped package with
bare fingers.

After an interval of chewing, Allegra broke
the silence. “So, what are you going to wear to the church?”

Alma finished the mouthful she was chewing
and swallowed. “I was thinking about Mama’s wedding dress. It’s in
the bottom of that trunk over there. That is, if Papa doesn’t have
any objection.”

Allegra glanced at her father. “Are you sure
it will fit you? You’re taller than Mama by a mile, I’d say.”

“I’ll let it out,” Alma told her.

“You—let it out!” Allegra snorted. “I haven’t
seen you with a needle and thread in your hand since…well, since
before Papa had his accident.”

“That’s only because I haven’t had time to
sew,” Alma replied. “It doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how to do it. I
know how to do it, and it will be a lot easier to let out Mama’s
dress than to buy or make another one.” She looked at her father.
“You don’t mind, do you, Papa?”

Clarence disguised his hesitation behind
chewing his food. “I don’t mind. It’s been sitting in the bottom of
that trunk since your mother died. Someone might as well wear it. I
think she would be very happy if Alma was married in it.”

Alma choked back the urge to sigh with
relief. She hadn’t actually thought about what she’d wear to the
church until Allegra asked her. “We’ll get it out after supper and
have a look at it. I’ll try it on and see what it needs to make it
fit me. I might get lucky and only need to lengthen the skirts a
little bit”

The family chewed a while longer.

“I thought you would want a dress all of your
own,” Amelia remarked. “I don’t think I could get married in a dead
woman’s dress, even if she was my own mother. That would be more
like going to a funeral than a wedding.”

“I thought about that,” Alma replied. “But
just think how much it would cost to buy a new dress. And then
there’s the problem of having it fitted for me. I don’t even know
anyone in town who could make one. We aren’t going into Eagle Pass
before the wedding. Even if someone had one ready-made, I’d have to
buy it, put it on, pray to heaven it fit me properly, and then
scoot off to the church in time to meet Jude. It wouldn’t
work.”

“If I was going to get married,” Amelia
announced. “I would plan in advance to have a dress made. I’d order
it from San Antonio, if I had to.”

“You would?” Allegra put in. “You’d get a
dress made—with what money? How would you pay for it? And how would
you pay the money to travel up to San Antonio to get measured and
fitted for the dress? Alma’s right. It wouldn’t work.”

“I’d find a way to make it work,” Amelia
insisted. “I’d find a way to get myself a wedding dress. You don’t
want to play fast and loose with your own wedding.”

“I’m not playing fast and loose,” Alma shot
back. “There’s nothing fast and loose about wearing your mother’s
wedding dress. It makes the dress into a tradition handed down from
mother to daughter. I could hand the dress down to my own daughter
when she gets old enough to get married.”

“I think it’s wonderful that you’re all
thinking about getting married,” Clarence told them.

“I’m not thinking about getting married,”
Allegra shot back.

“Fine,” Clarence snapped. “You’re not
thinking about getting married. You’re just talking about it. And
it’s wonderful that you all have different ideas about how to do
it. You can each do it in your own way. There’s no right or wrong
way to get married.”

“Except when you don’t,” Allegra persisted.
“I’m not getting married.”

Clarence Goodkind let out an exasperated
gasp. He threw up him hands and slapped them down flat on the
table. “Yeah, you said that already. You’re not getting married.”
He kicked his chair out from under him and stalked away from the
table to his chair by the fire.

Alma exchanged glances with her sisters. They
continued eating in silence until Alma wiped the juice from the
meat platter with the last tortilla. “Let’s go get Mama’s dress out
and have a look at it.”

Allegra gathered up the dishes from the table
and washed them in the kettle of water boiling on the fire as Alma
and Amelia slid the heavy wooden trunk away from the wall and threw
back the lid.

Amelia sat on the nearest bed, which just
happened to be Allegra’s, while Alma unpacked the trunk. She laid
one wrinkled article of clothing after another on the bed next to
Amelia until she reached the very bottom.

“Here it is,” she announced.

She reached all the way down to the bottom
and lifted out a faded white gown with lace around the bodice and
ribbon ruffles on the front of the skirt. She hung it from a nail
in the rafter and smoothed it down. Amelia watched her, studying
the dress. “You’re right. It’s a beautiful dress. I’d forgotten
what it really looked like.”

Alma measured it with her eye. “I think it
will be long enough, too. I’ll try it on, just to make sure.”

“You’ll be stunning in it,” Amelia told her.
“I’m sorry for what I said about playing fast and loose. Now that I
look at it, I wouldn’t mind getting married in it myself.”