The Calling Birds_The Fourth Day Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  About the Series

  Dedication & Acknowledments

  Dear Reader

  Book List

  About the Author

  Copyright

  The Twelve Days of Christmas

  Mail-Order Brides series

  The Calling Birds

  The Fourth Day

  by

  Jacqui Nelson

  BOOK BLURB

  Many years have passed since Bernadette Bellamy fled the Cariboo Gold Rush and her reputation as the sister of a French-Canadian gang of thieves. Armed with only an honest talent for sewing and a willingness to lead a solitary life on the run, she stays one step ahead of everyone seeking her brothers’ last—and now lost—heist. Until a craving to settle down makes her reinvent herself as Birdie Bell, a dress shop owner. The arrival of an old foe combined with her desire to hold onto her treasure trove of fabrics has Birdie joining a wagonload of brides bound for a remote town.

  After losing his leg and his wife, Jack Peregrine buries his pain under a mountain-high pile of work. He only agrees to sign up for a mail-order bride to save the town of Noelle, keep his freighting business, and care for his absentminded grandfather. But Jack’s request for a sturdy bride who won’t crumble under his burdens brings him a woman as tiny as she is troubled. Can two mismatched people band together to become the perfect match?

  A wanted woman's flight,

  a man in pursuit of honesty, not stolen gold...

  and only nine days left to save the town.

  COPYRIGHT

  Copyright © 2017 Jacqui Nelson, All Rights Reserved.

  Cover design by Erin Dameron-Hill.

  ISBN eBook: 978-0-9958596-3-0

  ISBN Print: 978-0-9958596-2-3

  BONUS CONTENT

  To receive a free story (featuring Lachlan Bravery and Élodie Rousseau) and updates on my new releases and more, sign up for my newsletter on my website www.JacquiNelson.com

  ABOUT THE SERIES

  Twelve men. Twelve brides. Twelve days to save a town.

  Christmas, 1876: Noelle, Colorado is in danger of becoming a ghost town if the railroad decides to bypass the mountaintop mining community. Determined to prove their town is thriving, twelve men commit to ordering brides before the railroad’s deadline six days into the New Year. Each of the twelve women has her own reason for signing up to become a mail-order bride. But after they arrive in the uncivilized settlement, they aren’t so sure they’ve made the right decision. Neither are the grooms.

  Will the marriages happen in time to save Noelle?

  Twelve Days of Christmas Mail-Order Brides series

  Join the Twelve Days of Christmas Mail-Order Brides series

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  CHAPTER 1

  Christmas Eve

  December 24, 1876

  Birdie Bell scanned the inside of Noelle’s Golden Nugget Saloon searching for a man she’d never met but had agreed to marry in order to escape every lawman, outlaw, and fortune hunter in Colorado and beyond. She’d once again made a mess of her life, this time in an unprecedented string of impulsive decisions.

  She shouldn’t have opened her dress shop in Denver and bought all of those gorgeous fabrics. She shouldn’t have ducked into Mrs. Walters’ Benevolent Society of Lost Lambs after she’d glimpsed the legendary fugitive hunter, Lachlan Bravery, and his wife, Yellow Feather, on the street. She shouldn’t have expressed a desire to not only relocate towns but change her life.

  But most of all, she should not have agreed to Mrs. Walters’ suggestion that if Birdie wished to marry, then the matchmaker knew a man who ran a freighting business and who needed a wife. Jack Peregrine could easily arrange to transport Birdie’s treasure trove of fabrics and partially made dresses to his home in the remote town of Noelle.

  Genevieve Walters’ raised voice filled the saloon as she continued to berate the town’s reverend. Noelle was not the place he’d assured the woman it would be. Birdie wasn’t surprised. Her family had moved to a mining town when she was fifteen. Every town was the same but different—always disappointing but usually when you least expected it.

  Still, Noelle had already delivered one much-appreciated gift.

  Despite a grueling journey up a mountain in a snowstorm—that had only been possible in wagons specially fitted with sleigh runners, Birdie’s possessions had arrived safely in Noelle. As had she and the eleven other brides under Mrs. Walters’ care.

  The matchmaker wanted to save the women. The men wanted to save their town.

  Not for the first time, Birdie questioned her wants. Had she really agreed to come here and marry a man she knew only from a few letters? Just to hold onto a wagonload of cloth sitting outside the saloon?

  She was trading one form of bondage for another. Freedom only came from a willingness to leave every place she’d ever lived in a heartbeat. Drop everything. Run with only the clothes on her back and two essentials: her father’s compass on a chain beneath her bodice and her mother’s scissors on the sewing chatelaine around her waist. As long as she could chart a fast course with her compass and mend her life later with her sewing—which had always paid for food and shelter—she could outrun her past and start over.

  And over. And over.

  She stifled a sigh. No freedom there either. Would she ever break the cycle? Fourteen years had passed. Lives had ended. Memories had faded. Unfortunately, a lost shipment of stolen gold was hard to forget.

  If anyone discovered her real identity, she’d lose not only her liberty but possibly her life. The law would lock her up and demand she tell them where her brothers had hidden their last heist. Others would just press a knife to her throat or a gun to her head and take a more direct path in their questioning.

  It had happened before.

  Luckily her small size, her scissors, and once even a needle had helped her escape until she got savvy enough to never be captured again.

  Mrs. Walters clutched a stack of letters she’d pulled from her bag and continued to rail at Reverend Hammond. “You described the pristine buildings, homey atmosphere and well-appointed rooms where we would be able to rest before the weddings!”

  A wedding might lead to a family. The thought kept resurrecting memories.

  I miss you, Maman et Papa, and our lives in Montreal. Before the Cariboo Gold Rush lured them west and destroyed everything. She exhaled a slow breath, hoping to expel her resentment. It was exhausting carrying around this much anger for dead men and their deeds.

  She should’ve been able to shout to the heavens that she was proud to be Bernadette Bellamy and the sister of two admirable brothers. I miss you as well, mes frères, even though you fell so low. You ruined so much more than your lives and mine.

  She wouldn’t repeat their mistakes. She’d only lead a life where hard work built a person’s fortune. She was not a thief.

  Mrs. Walters addressed the brides now. Birdie stood on the edge of their group, trying to listen while she continued watching the men.

  Mayor Hardt had departed after wringing the rever
end’s neck and calling him a backstabbing skunk for writing letters on his behalf to Felicity Partridge. Felicity was no stranger to creating disturbances. In Denver, Birdie had heard rumors that the woman had been arrested for leading a women’s rights rally.

  Silas, the groom who’d claimed the mayor had written his letters to his bride, Penny Jackson, was still bellyaching about his tooth. It’d broke when the arguing men bumped into Penny who’d then had the bad luck to stumble against her betrothed as he took a drink of whiskey. Et alors! The poor woman was unlucky.

  Would her luck be any better? Her husband-to-be hadn’t made himself known, and no one had mentioned his name. However, in a town as small as this, most of the men probably knew him.

  She could ask one to point out Mr. Peregrine. She could but she wouldn’t. A person often learned more by watching and waiting for revelations.

  A man with a limp approached Reverend Hammond.

  Her interest perked. The businessman she’d promised to marry had written that he’d lost his leg in the war. This man also had a badly scarred face and only one eye. Her groom hadn’t mentioned those injuries. Her gaze moved to the bar. Maybe Mr. Peregrine was there.

  The reverend’s voice was nearly too low to hear, but his words chilled her blood. “Sheriff, I have a job for you, and it isn’t going to be pleasant.”

  Disbelief then fear clenched her heart. This town had a lawman? What was the unpleasant job? Was it her?

  She spun toward the door and froze. Too many people stood in her way. She’d create a spectacle running through them. From the corner of her eye, she studied the sheriff. How had she missed the man’s deadly looking revolvers and expression to match?

  She strained to hear what the reverend was telling him. She only caught bits. “Mayor Hardt...owns the lease on La Maison des Chats...get his permission to have the girls moved.”

  The lawman nodded, said something she couldn’t decipher, and left the saloon.

  Her heart started beating properly again. She was still safe. But for how long?

  Slowly, so as not to draw attention, she threaded her way through the throng. She only stopped when she stood with her back against the wall by the door. Ready to race out and disappear in the blizzard if need be.

  When Mrs. Walters announced that their accommodations were ready, Birdie was out the door first. She made a beeline for the wagons. She’d ask the driver of the one carrying her bundles of fabrics to follow her wherever Mrs. Walters was now taking them.

  The street was empty. Only the grooves made by the sleigh runners remained in the snow, and not for long. The storm was quickly filling them. The rig carrying everything she owned had vanished.

  Panic ripped the air from her lungs. She spun in a circle, searching. She nearly cried out when the driver trudged out of a snow flurry. He halted by the saloon door, waiting for the brides to file out so he could go in.

  She jumped in front of him. “Where’s your wagon?”

  He yelped in surprise, then laughed. “You startled me, miss. Your group appears to be leaving without you. You might want to—”

  “No.” She crossed her arms. “I’m not going anywhere. Not until you tell me what you’ve done with my belongings.”

  He gulped and said in a rush, “I couldn’t leave the mules standing in a snowstorm. So, I took ’em to Mr. Burnside’s barn. I dropped your baggage inside Peregrines’ Post and Freight before I did.” He gestured in the direction he’d come. The opposite way that Mrs. Walters was headed with the brides.

  “That won’t do. It won’t do at all. My inventory must stay with me.”

  The man rubbed the back of his neck and frowned at the snow falling around them. He’d done his job and got them to town. She couldn’t ask him to do more.

  But she also couldn’t stop herself from asking, “How safe is the freight office? Are there many thefts in Noelle?”

  He shook his head vigorously. “Not since Sheriff Draven came to town.”

  Her stomach plummeted to her boots. Noelle’s lawman was the fearsome bounty hunter, Draven? She’d never have come to Noelle if she’d known he was here. The minute she’d heard the stories about Draven, she’d added his name to the top of the list of men she never wanted to meet. Had he retired from the hunt? It didn’t matter. He was now a sheriff, and she had a history with a band of notorious outlaws.

  But he hadn’t recognized her, and why should he? As long as her real name remained secret, she was safe. Draven’s presence in town might help keep her treasures safe, as well. But even that formidable man couldn’t control the weather.

  She observed the wagon driver closely. “What about leaks and drafts?” She didn’t want her fabrics getting wet. “How sturdy is the office’s construction?”

  “It’s top notch. Mr. Peregrine built it and he doesn’t do things half-measure.”

  “Why didn’t he—?”

  “Don’t dawdle, Birdie.” Mrs. Walters cut her off before she could finally ask why her groom hadn’t come to meet her. “Stay close to me and the ladies.”

  The driver seized his opportunity and fled into the saloon.

  “We need to get out of this snow,” Mrs. Walters added, “and into our accommodations.”

  Birdie gazed longingly in the opposite direction that the reverend was leading the brides. She had no idea where he was taking them. Mrs. Walters probably didn’t either. It might be as bad as the saloon.

  The reverend’s words came back to her. La Maison des Chats. The House of Cats. A house of prostitution.

  The driver’s description of the freight office as “top notch” sounded much better. She’d have to trust that her belongings would be safer away from her than with her—for now.

  She fell into step with the brides and raised the hood of her long coat when the wind whipped the snow in their faces. The sting didn’t stop her from scanning her surroundings. Not that there was much to see. The women trudged through a world shrouded in white.

  Even at seventy-five years of age, Agatha Boonesbury’s spunky nature and youthful agility kept her at the front of the pack where she hovered close to Kezia Mirga, the gypsy widow. Kezia’s tall stature put her a head above the other brides. Her vibrant purple cloak edged in embroidered gold thread made her stand out even more while at the same time it concealed the bundle of her darling baby daughter.

  Molly Norris’ not-so-darling goose kept wiggling out of his owner’s embrace and biting anyone who came too close. The brides had learned the hard way to give Molly’s protective pet as wide a berth as possible. Free of the close confines of the wagons, most of the women continued clumping together, forming friendships as well as sharing their body heat.

  On the journey up the mountain, Birdie had handed out her warmest fabric to some who hadn’t anything more than a shawl. Still, the women shivered. Not for the first time, guilt pricked her for being snug inside her coat while others suffered.

  She’d painstakingly tailored the garment to fit her size and needs exactly. She wore the finest wool cut the perfect length to shield her entire body but also allow for easy movement—including running.

  Why hadn’t her groom come running to meet her?

  She’d read his letter so many times she’d committed the first paragraphs to memory.

  Miss Bell, I have limitations you should be aware of before you agree to be my wife and come to Noelle. My life is not for the faint-hearted. I was married once. While the union was long, it was not fruitful. Nevertheless, I bear the weight of family commitments.

  Hard work and hard choices must be accepted for our family business to prosper in Noelle even if I cannot. I lost my leg in a mule train freighting accident in the war. I am no longer a whole man.

  Was her groom bedridden? The startling question made her stumble and nearly fall in the snow. She’d written to him that she was thirty, but he hadn’t shared his age. Why hadn’t Mr. Peregrine been clearer?

  Suddenly, she saw his letter for what it was: a warning written unde
r duress. His conscience and the town were forcing his hand. Jack Peregrine needed a wife, but deep down he didn’t believe Birdie should come to Noelle and marry him.

  CHAPTER 2

  Jack limped out of the Golden Nugget Saloon and half-ran, half-hopped down the street. He gritted his teeth against the jarring of his stump against his wooden leg and the pull of the deepening drifts slowing him down. He squinted through the pelting snow. He couldn’t see a solitary person. Where was Gus?

  His grandfather’s growing absentmindedness and bouts of disorientation made wandering off in the winter distressingly dangerous. What if he fell in the snow and froze to death before Jack could find him?

  Gus hadn’t been inside the saloon or any of the businesses he’d stopped at after racing out of the freight office in search of him. Half of the buildings had been empty.

  He’d found out why in the saloon. The brides had arrived. Could his luck get any worse? He’d lost Gus again and he’d missed meeting his bride and his first chance to make a good impression with her.

  The men in the saloon had told him that the matchmaker, Mrs. Walters, had demanded that her brides be housed in the best building in town. Reverend Hammond had left mere minutes ago to escort them to La Maison des Chats, the town whorehouse.

  Had everyone lost their minds?

  As he rounded the corner and came in sight of La Maison, a grand two-story structure that was indeed the best construction in Noelle, he saw a thin man with red hair disappear inside the front door.

  Hallelujah! He’d found Gus. Or at least he’d cornered him.

  Running in the frigid air had burned his lungs raw by the time he reached La Maison and slipped inside. A crowd of women filled the front hall. One of them was his bride, Birdie Bell.

  A hard-working woman who’d formed her own dressmaking business in Denver. A mature woman of thirty. A strong woman who wouldn’t break under life’s hardships.