Hannah's Mail Order Husband (Montana Prairie Brides Book 3) by Kate Whitsby

Author:Kate Whitsby [Whitsby, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mail Order Bride Dept, Gold Crown Press
Published: 2014-11-04T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

“I told you my first wife died,” he told her. “Afterwards, I was very healthy for a long time—years, in fact. That’s when I decided to remarry. I thought maybe I had come out of this illness after all. I wrote away, and started corresponding with you, and we agreed to marry, all while I was in good shape.”

“So when did you start feeling bad again?” Hannah asked.

He smiled, but the expression didn’t give her a happy feeling. Not at all. “You won’t believe it. It was the very same day I got here. I felt it coming on when we got into the wagon in front of the jail in Sidney. The Sheriff and Jim and Jason were acting all jolly. They were excited about getting to their own weddings. All I could think was, this can’t be happening, not now, not after all this time.”

Hannah nodded. “I see.”

“I thought I’d put the whole thing behind me,” he went on. “I thought I could get on with my life. I hadn’t been sick for years, at least not the way I am now.”

“It must have been a wretched feeling,” she remarked, “to feel yourself getting sick again on your way to get married.”

He took her hand. “I could live with it if it was only me, but it wasn’t fair to you. This should never have happened to you. On the trip out here, I made up my mind to explain the situation to you and ride back to town with the Sheriff. I never should have gotten married, because I knew how it would be for you.”

“So why didn’t you?” she asked. “Why didn’t you back out of it? Why did you go through with the marriage?”

He stopped walking and faced her. “When the wagon stopped in front of Josie’s house and the three of you came out to meet us, I kept looking from one face to another. I kept thinking, which one of them is the one for me? The Sheriff pointed Jason out to Katie, and Jim to Josie, and that left you.”

“I remember you sitting in the back of the wagon,” she recalled. “You didn’t look happy to see me at all. I wondered what was wrong. I thought maybe you were disappointed that I was so old.”

“Quite the opposite,” he replied. “I thought you were the most beautiful of the three, and I just couldn’t bring myself to break it off. I kept thinking I had to get you off to the side, so I could talk to you and tell you the wedding was off. I could barely stand up, and I felt so sick to my stomach I thought I would pass out any second.”

Hannah smiled at the memory. “You looked terrible. You looked ready to pass out.”

“I know I did,” he told her. “Every time I made up my mind to tell you, something would happen, and I would look at you, and I just couldn’t go through with it.

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