A Keeper For Christmas (Spinster Mail-Order Brides Book 12) Read online

  A Keeper for Christmas

  Spinster Mail-Order Brides #12

  Marisa Masterson

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Epilogue

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  Available Now

  About Marisa

  Dedication

  Thank you to my ladies who are ready and willing to read rough drafts and first drafts. You make me want to keep writing.

  Chapter 1

  Idyll Wood, Wisconsin, December 1889

  Three men moved toward him. Ralph Stinson lay unmoving on the ground near him. One held Carl while the other two used their fists and a wooden club to beat his friend. At the sound of a gun firing, the men left Ralph and turned on him.

  A figure stood by a wagon. “Shouldn’t hang around with the wrong people, boy.” The voice growled at him from under a hood. Even roughened as it was, he recognized the voice. Carl Sittig knew the person who threatened him.

  He was sure his face revealed his recognition, even in the dark night. The figure stiffened and gave a command. At her word, the thugs grabbed Carl’s arms while he watched fists ever so slowly come at him.

  He braced himself for the pain. When the first blow hit him, he sputtered.

  Water!

  “Wake up. Come on, Carl. Snap out of it!”

  Wet and confused, Carl sat up in bed. Holder was shaking his shoulder. When he realized his brother’s eyes were open, Holder backed away to stand by his wife.

  Myra held a white enamel basin. So she’d thrown the water. Carl was surprised she didn’t have a satisfied grin on her face. He knew he’d caused her no end of trouble.

  But not Myra. She stood by the bed with a sad frown wrinkling her brow. Holder’s wife put every one of them before herself.

  He watched Holder put a hand on her upper arm. “It’s alright, Honey. Try to get some sleep.” He pushed her toward the door just as a cry echoed down the hallway.

  “Oh no!” Myra groaned deeply as she shoved a hand into her lower back. “His nightmare woke Darlene. And I only just got her to sleep.” Myra’s very pregnant belly bumped her husband as she tried to quickly go to her sick daughter.

  Carl felt bad about it. He’d disturbed them all. With his brain still clouded by sleep, he began to speak before he remembered to pretend to be addlepated.

  “Sorry, Holder. Is Myra mad at me? Will she spank me?” The childish voice and a finger up his nose created the image he needed to project.

  Keep everyone believing you’re stupid. Don’t let on that you remember.

  “Get up and change your bedding. Can you do that?” Holder’s tired voice tugged at Carl. His older brother shouldered a lot of burdens. He ran the farm without Carl’s help and provided for a wife and four girls.

  If Carl weren’t afraid for his life, he’d step up and be the man Holder needed to shoulder some of the work. Remembering that cruel voice from his nightmare, Carl knew he wouldn’t be that man any time soon.

  Outside his door, Holder and Myra whispered. Darlene whimpered. Peeking around the edge of the door frame, Carl saw his short, hugely rounded sister-in-law cuddle the two-year-old as she shushed her. Darlene had a bad cold and sniffled as she calmed.

  “We have to do something, Holder. Just today, Carlene complained about him. He’s coming over too often, especially with Mr. Hoffman dying.”

  Holder ran both hands through his blonde hair before groaning. “I can’t get a lick of work from him, sweetheart. I’m too busy to keep him from sneaking away from the fields.”

  Carl saw Myra go into the twins’ bedroom. In his imagination, he saw her lay Darlene next to her twin, Dora. Knowing Myra, she’d lovingly smooth a hand over each girl’s blonde hair. For a stepmother, she did love the children, all four of them.

  Watching Holder, he sighed with guilt as the man leaned wearily against the wall and waited for his wife. Only three months prior, their own mother had died. Holder and Myra nursed Jennie through the illness while keeping the farm, house, and family cared for.

  “Miss McKinley could help us. There’s bound to be a woman needing a home and a cause.”

  Holder pulled away from the wall and stared down at his wife. In the dark hall, Carl couldn’t make out his expression even though his face was turned toward him. “What do you mean cause?”

  Myra pulled one of Holder’s arms around her and melted into his side. “He’s hurt and acts confused most of the time. Caring for him would give a woman purpose.”

  Watching Holder shake his head, Carl breathed a sigh of relief. Holder wouldn’t go along with her plan.

  “So we order him a nurse? I don’t think we could afford that.”

  Pulling back from her husband, Myra looked up at him and held up her hands. The pleading gesture gnawed at Carl’s insides. The terror of being killed for what he knew kept him from giving in to the guilt he felt.

  “Not a nurse. We’d order him a wife.”

  Holding his breath, Carl waited for his brother to laugh or dismiss Myra’s suggestion. In the darkness, he made out the hand Holder rubbed across his chin. The gesture surprised Carl. It meant his brother was considering the idea.

  Considering it? How could Holder think to marry an idiot to some poor woman?

  He’d been sure the entire family, as well as all of the people on the surrounding farms and in the town of Idyll Wood, believed he was no better than a child following that beating. They wouldn’t let a child get married. They weren’t that desperate.

  They were that desperate. “Write the letter in the morning. You’re good at finding the right words.”

  What would he do? If a wife arrived, he couldn’t say he didn’t want to get married. That wouldn’t fit with the compliant child he presented to the world. Sure, he ran around and didn’t do his chores. Still, he always did whatever he was told.

  Should he pretend to understand what they were doing? Probably not, though it depended on how they presented the woman to him. He wouldn’t worry. Letters to and from the matchmaker would take a while.

  He steepled his hands behind his head as he leaned against his slightly damp pillow. Yep, there was no way Myra would come up with a woman anytime soon.

  -:¦:--:¦:--:¦:--:¦:--:¦:--:¦:-

  Carl felt a tinge of guilt as he looked into his sister-in-law’s face the next morning. Dark smudges sat below her eyes and her forehead wrinkled whenever she moved. That, along with a hand rubbing at her back, told him she was an angel to put up with him.

  Maybe he should tell them the truth! No, Fred said no one else could know if Carl wanted to stay alive.

  Holder put down his cup and pulled back from the table. With breakfast finished, he would assign Carl jobs to do. Jobs Carl would start and never finish or simply ignore. It was all a part of the act. Still, the guilt ate at him.

  “Carl! Look at me so I know you’re listening.”

  He twisted his mouth into an idiot’s grin and faced his older brother, the one who’d inherited both the farm and all of the responsibility for the family. Though he smiled, inside he twisted with guilt. He would make it up to Holder as soon as the head of the white slaver gang in Idyll Wood was caught. This was about more than just his own life.

  “You’ll take Myra and the girls into town. Be sure you’re watching them good. With the goings-on lately, no telling if someone might try to s
natch Johanna, even if she’s only ten.”

  Carl flopped his head, making the lock of dark hair dance against his forehead. Both of his brothers were fair like their mother. Only Carl was a dark German, with black hair like their father. That was fine as long as he didn’t have a black soul like that man.

  He missed what Holder told him. It didn’t matter. He’d drive the females of his family into town. Last year, Johanna would have stayed with Jennie, Carl’s and Holder’s ill mother. She’d passed in the summer.

  The last time she’d looked at Carl, sadness filled her face. He wanted to tell her the truth. Fred shook his head, telling Carl to keep up the act. So, Jennie had wrung a promise from Holder to care for his poor brother the rest of Carl’s life.

  What kind of man was he to put the family through all of this?

  Holder stood, his movement bringing Carl back to the present. The man moved to his wife and gave her a peck on the lips. “See, Myra. He doesn’t react at all even though I explained it. Chances are, he’ll take to her right off and won’t give us any trouble.”

  She nodded. “I’ll go ahead then. I need help around here.” Carl saw her look apologetically at her oldest step-daughter. “Even if everything Johanna and Berta do for me, another pair of hands in this house would go a long way to making life easier.”

  Lowering his head, Carl struggled to keep his upset at her words hidden. To help his selfless sister-in-law, he would marry any woman she presented to him. Still, it seemed she needed the help now. The process of getting a bride sent to Wisconsin would take at least a month if not more, wouldn’t it?

  He rose from the table and headed to his room. If they spent any time at all in the Olsens’ store, he would need his ball and jacks. They, of all people, had to believe he hadn’t regained either his memory or his wits. As usual, he planned to hunker down on the floor in their store and play jacks with Berta and Johanna while Myra shopped. The twins, too young to play, would watch with rounded eyes. They loved the motion of the bouncing ball and the quick hand movement to snatch the jacks and the ball.

  When he returned, Myra and the girls had the kitchen cleaned. She and Johanna each watched over a twin on a chamber pot. Good thing those girls were trained. Looked to Carl like Myra would have a new one in diapers any day.

  Moving outside the front door, Carl saw the draft horses standing calmly, hitched to the boxy sleigh. A month ago, after the first deep snow, he and Holder had moved the wagon box from its wheels to the sleigh runners. With the deep snows of northern Wisconsin, they would never get to town without doing that. It did make for an odd-looking sleigh, though.

  Myra hustled Berta out in front of her. She held Dora and Johanna followed with Darlene. Carl helped Berta into the back and then took Darlene from Johanna. He handed the toddler to the sister already in the wagon. Myra passed Dora next and pulled the heavy quilt over the girls. They burrowed into the nest of straw, hiding under the quilt to escape the wind.

  Clucking to the horses, Carl guided them out of the farmyard and down the lane hedged in on either side by cedars, planted years before by his father for a windbreak. The fast-growing trees kept much of the wagon track free of snow during the winter. This year, Johanna had tied a red ribbon to every tree, giving the lane a cheery look.

  Obviously, Myra and Johanna felt the cheeriness because first the girl and then her stepmother sang one carol after another. From the blanket behind him, Carl heard Berta’s young voice join in on verses that she knew. All in all, their joy helped make the cold ride a pleasure.

  In town, he guided the horses toward the mercantile. Myra pointed and told him to keep the horses moving up the street. “I want to wire a friend. Take me to the Western Union office, Carl.”

  Stopping by the train depot north of town, Carl jumped from the sleigh and hurried to Myra. Feeling awkward, he reached past her swollen belly. Somehow, he found her elbows and helped steady her as she left the sleigh.

  “Now, take the girls to Fred while I do this. It’s just a hop and a skip to the jail so I can make my way there. I don’t want my girls out in the cold while I send this telegram.”

  Carl flopped his head in a nod and grinned. She looked at him and gave a tired sigh. “I know you’ll do your best.” With a flutter of her hands, she shooed him back into the sleigh. Then she watched as he directed the team to the nearby jail, about five hundred feet from the telegraph office.

  He felt her watching them. As he lifted Berta, he glanced toward Western Union. Myra still stood there. At his look, she gave a satisfied nod before heading into the building.

  What a mother! She was definitely the best thing that had ever happened to these girls and his brother. Sure, their real mother was great and it had been sad when she sort of faded away after the twins’ birth. However, even she didn’t have the motherly instinct that Myra showed them.

  With Dora and Darlene on each arm, he hustled the kids into the warm jailhouse. The fragrance of coffee and gun oil hit his nostrils as he entered.

  His brother set down the gun he was cleaning and rose from behind his desk. Taking the twins from Carl, he kissed each one’s cheek. “Well, if it isn’t Dearie and Darling.” Sheriff Fred Sittig used the names they’d called the twins when his brother had refused to name them. Another thing to thank Myra for—the girls now had real names.

  Johanna and Berta each kissed Fred’s cheek before the younger smiled sweetly and asked, “May we play checkers, Uncle Fred?”

  He chuckled. “Don’t you always?” He gestured with a nod toward the board next to the stove. “Go on then. Have fun.”

  Moving to stand by the girls, Carl stood Dora and Darlene by their sisters to watch the game. Then he grabbed Fred’s arm and moved him to the opposite corner.

  Standing by the door that led to the cells, he hissed his news. “Holder and Myra are ordering a bride for me. A keeper, actually. Myra needs help, and my nightmares are keeping them awake.”

  With a shrug, Fred kept a straight face as he responded. “Sounds like a good idea. It’s been a tough year for Myra, what with nursing Ma and now the new baby on the way.” His eyes gleamed with wicked amusement as he teased his brother. “Maybe they’ll find a stout, strict old maid for you, little brother.”

  Releasing a frustrated breath, Carl pounded a fist into his palm. “Get serious! I think I should tell Holder. It’s been almost six months now since my mind’s done its healing. Most of the headaches are gone now that I’m back to being, well, me.”

  Shaking his head, Fred met Carl’s eyes. “You can’t say anything. Seems that woman you named is real interested in whether you got your memory back. Expect she’d have you killed if she thought you weren’t an idiot.”

  “Why don’t you just arrest her? After all, the Pinkertons hauled Halderson away last summer. And I told you what I heard.”

  Fred stiffened. “I told you it doesn’t work like that. I have to have more evidence, not just the word of a drunkard who suffered a terrible head wound. No one confessed in front of you that night. You only think those people were part of this prostitution scheme.”

  Pushing a hand roughly through his hair, Fred sighed heavily. “Besides, the prosecutor won’t go along with that, sorry son of a gun that he is. Remember, he’s the one who pushed for Ram Strong to go free, even after the man tried to rape Zelly Fuller.”

  Disgust thickened Fred’s words, causing Carl to more closely study his brother’s face. Dark smudges betrayed the late hours his brother worked. The set to Fred’s lips hinted at cynicism. “You think the Pinkerton agents caught everyone who was involved with the white slavery scheme? After what they almost did to Carlene Strong when she arrived, I’d like every one of them punished.”

  Fred raised an eyebrow. “What about what they did to you that night? They beat you and killed Ralph Stinson.”

  Carl’s lips thinned. “Somehow murder and a beating don’t seem as evil as promising a girl work in the hotel but imprisoning her in a brothel.” His friend Carle
ne’s story and also what he’d read in the paper about poor Minnie Pine, the girl who escaped to tell the world about a white slavery ring in Iron Mountain, Michigan, had convinced Carl. He believed with all his heart that what was done to those girls was much worse than a beating or murder. It had to be stopped.

  At a shake to his shoulder, Carl’s wandering mind returned to the conversation at hand. He watched Fred drop his hand away from him and shake his head. “You’ll have to step up your game. Maybe act as if you are remembering things. See if you can get any other names from her or that gossip of a husband.”

  Carl nodded. He’d take the risk. “But what about that wife they’re bringing me?”

  Fred punched his shoulder playfully, lightening the mood. “Maybe no woman will come. After all, who would be desperate enough to marry you?”

  Chapter 2

  Merrilee Rollins was desperate. William Cummings had arrived that day. Disgusting William, her stepfather’s nephew. Even worse, the worm had the nerve to propose marriage the minute he walked in the door.

  Remembering it caused a shudder to ripple through her, and her hands crumpled the note she held. In her mind, she remembered him dropping one knee to the floor while the front door hung open. A crowd gathered on the busy street in front of her home to watch.

  The shock kept her pinned to her spot in the foyer. William had grabbed one of her hands in his bony one and placed his protruding, wet lips to the back of it. “Do conthent to marry me, dear couthin! Make me the happieth man by being mine.” His high voice lisped the words.

  Yanking her hand away, she’d wiped it against her black velvet mourning gown. Marry him? At his proposal, Merrilee’s mouth hung open for a moment. Closing it, she gathered her thoughts before speaking.

  “Certainly you know I can’t marry so soon after my mother’s passing. It just isn’t done.”

  Flitting her gaze from the smarmy swain to her stepfather, she looked to him for help. Reginald Dyer steepled his hands and rubbed his pudgy pointer fingers together. Staring back at her, he spoke words that started a ripple of desperation to race through her.