Her Unexpected Soulmate (Preview)

Chapter One

Mike Edwards grumbled, “I’m so tired after getting home from the endless hours at the sawmill, cutting railroad tie after railroad tie day after day.” He glanced at his friend, waiting for agreement. “Or planks for houses or barns. Or shingles, for that matter.”

John Williams turned toward him, nodding. “You do look tired.” He meant it this time. “You could use a haircut and a shave, too.” 

Mike’s dark brown hair was shaggy and long enough to tie into a queue at the back of his neck. A three-day growth of whiskers darkened his lean jaw, and dark smudges showed beneath his eyes. 

“You could also use some sleep.” 

Mike nodded, rubbing a hand on his whiskered chin. “Was up late the last couple of nights playing poker at the saloon. Now I’m broke and too tired, and I don’t have any money.”

John shook his head, dug into his pocket, retrieved two coins, and handed them to his friend. “Here. Take a bath, too, while you’re at it. Might help your disposition.”

Mike looked at him and grinned. “I have been in a poor mood lately, haven’t I?”

John nodded. Should stay away from the whiskey and the saloon, he thought but didn’t say. He usually had more patience with his longtime friend and his complaints, which were more habits than actual truth. Well, most of the time. The plain fact of the matter was, John himself was more tired than usual, but springtime in Dakota Territory required a lot of work, from sunup to sundown. The work was always waiting. No matter how much someone got done one day, they’d have another long day ahead of them. The work never seemed to slow down.

Mike chuckled. “Which is the reason why I need to ask you a favor,” 

John turned to Mike as they walked toward the livery stable. John often left his horse there when he knew he’d be in town for a few hours. Today, he’d been busy with bank negotiations, putting in orders at the feed store and replenishing his inventory of dry goods at the mercantile.

“You still thinking of writing to one of those mail-order bride papers? Or placing an ad in a newspaper?” Mike asked.

John nodded. 

Rapid City, Dakota Territory was growing, and growing fast. The unofficial county seat of Pennington County, Rapid City, was located on the eastern edge of the Black Hills along the banks of Rapid Creek, hence its name. John didn’t live in Rapid City proper but on a ranch about ten miles south. Mike lived in a small shack behind the sawmill on the town’s edge. Temporarily, he always claimed, but he’d been there nearly a year, which prompted John to turn to his friend and ask the question.

“You sure you’re wanting to get married, too, Mike? I mean… since I told you I was planning to send an ad to the newspaper, you jumped at the idea. But you can’t expect a bride to want to live in that shack behind the sawmill.”

“I know, I know,” Mike said. He waved his hand as if it didn’t matter. “I got some plans to change my situation. But like I said, I’m so tired, I haven’t been able to come up with anything to write. Besides, you’re better at writing than I am. You always were.”

John knew that he should’ve kept his mouth shut and never mentioned that he was looking for a woman to marry. He should’ve known that the moment he told Mike about it, his friend would also want to follow suit. The problem was, Mike wasn’t really in a position to marry anyone. He had several less-than-savory habits that might not be acceptable to a bride or lead to a smooth marriage. He was a good, decent man, no doubt about it, but at the same time, a little too fond of poker to suit most women’s fancy. As a bachelor, Mike was free to squander away his earnings in any way he wanted, and it certainly wasn’t John’s place to lecture him on what made good husband material.

Come to think of it, would he make good husband material? At thirty years of age, he was pretty well set in his ways. He was used to living alone and running his own small but growing ranch, but at least he could offer a house, some space, and a quiet place to live for a wife. At least better than a one-room shack that wasn’t far from the saloon, where the piano playing, the laughter, and the goings-on would likely keep a woman up well into the night.

John kept his opinion to himself as he strode with his friend toward the stables. “Why don’t you put it off a bit, wait until you’ve got a place of your own, a place where—“

“I don’t want to wait, John. I ain’t getting any younger, you know. Why come fall, I’ll be thirty-two years old! No one’s going to want to marry an old man.”

John chuckled. “You’re not anywhere close to old,” he commented. He wasn’t getting any younger, either. “I just think it’s important to be able to support not only yourself but a woman. Don’t forget, time goes by fast, and you never know a child might soon be on the way after you get married. How are you going to support— “

“You let me worry about the details,” Mike interrupted. “But about this favor…”

John sighed and waited for Mike to ask it. He and Mike had been friends since they were youngsters in school, before both of them had had to stop their schooling to help out on their respective ranches. Mike’s family, the Edwards, had previously owned the farmland next to John’s family, but the drought over the past few years, along with dropping wheat prices, had pushed the family to the brink. They’d had to sell their place. His parents had moved to Kansas, while Mike opted to stay in Rapid City.

Before he’d passed away the year before last, John’s father, Micah, had purchased the Edwards’ property after the bank had repossessed it due to outstanding loans and back taxes. Mike hadn’t gotten upset over that. He said he was glad the land went to John, considering they were practically blood brothers.

Not much of anything upset Mike. He was an easy-going man who had never wanted to work his parents’ farmland anyway. They had only owned a few heads of cattle. The Edwards family had mostly grown wheat. After his father passed, John had expanded his crop options, especially with the drop-in wheat prices. He now grew and rotated wheat, alfalfa, and field corn crops. That foresight had kept his ranch going while others throughout the territory had gone out of business.  After the family ranch had passed down to him following his own parent’s death, John wasn’t about to limit his options like that. Besides beef cattle, he also raised dairy cattle, pigs, and some chickens.

Farming and ranching were extremely challenging jobs, and while John had a passion for it, Mike never had. It wasn’t that Mike was lazy. It was just that he didn’t have the desire to, as he put it, ‘spend the rest of his life out in the middle of nowhere.’ But then, he showed no inclination to move, either. At times, John felt a curiosity about what life beyond the territory might offer. After all, the average lifespan of farmers and ranchers in the area was about fifty-five years. Of course, he was determined to exceed that, just like he was determined to exceed just about every other limitation that life out here on the plains set for him.

As they walked to the livery, John gazed toward the west. He admired the rugged Black Hills, the Lakota Sioux’s sacred lands, called in their language the Paha Sapa. It was a wild country, beautiful and green. He understood why the great Indian chiefs like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse had so long defended it. Their struggles had pretty much ended about ten years ago. Gold had been discovered in the Black Hills in 1874, bringing thousands of white settlers, miners, and outlaws into the area. By 1877, the Black Hills had become a part of the Dakota Territory. Indian troubles had increased, coming to a culmination in 1876 with the massacre of Custer and his men at the Little Big Horn.

John loved it out here; the variety of topography, the Black Hills themselves rising high above the plains in the valleys below, so given their name because the pine-covered slopes looked dark blue or blackish in the rising or setting of the sun. In contrast, the land surrounding them encompassed mile after mile of tan-colored prairie grasses. Those prairie grass often grew knee-high and seemed to dip under even the gentlest breeze. Some people who came from back east said that the waves of prairie grass bending in rhythmic motions reminded them of the great Atlantic Ocean. Now that was a sight that John had never seen, although he had seen a painting of it once, some image of a storm-battered ship being tossed on angry waves.

He gazed up at those Black Hills, which he had explored many times, their granite and limestone outcroppings rising like sheer monoliths from the ground, the landscape dramatic, the wildlife plentiful, and the beautiful meadows and valleys, lakes, and streams that were plentiful in the area.

While Mike often complained of wanderlust and seeing places like San Francisco or New York City, John was content here. He enjoyed every season that the territory offered, from cool and pleasant springtime weather to the often-violent thunderstorms that shook the ground from late spring to summer and sometimes even late snows. Summers were hot, sticky, and often unpleasant, but wasn’t it like that everywhere in the summertime? Fall was his favorite time of year. The hunting – antelope, elk, deer, pheasant, and the occasional buffalo – was plentiful, especially up in the Black Hills, the weather mild and the evenings cool. The first freeze generally occurred in early October, although they had had snow earlier a few times. And in the wintertime? Well, you just never knew. One day could be dry and cool, the next below freezing. In fact, during most of the winter, daytime temperatures often remained just above freezing, and the nights dipped well below zero.

Still, if one was prepared, one could deal with the weather and what it brought. A few years ago – and one of the reasons why Mike’s family decided to sell their farm – a terrific thunderstorm, accompanied with hail had devastated crops throughout the region and—

“Are you listening to me?”

John jolted himself from his thoughts and turned once more to his friend. “What?”

“I don’t see why you can’t help me write it,” he said. “Honestly, John, you know me. I don’t have much of a way with words, at least not like you do.”

Well, that much was true. Sometimes people wondered why Mike and John were friends. They were complete opposites. While John loved to learn about new things and read books, Mike preferred less… literary pursuits.

“You gonna help me or not?”

John frowned. “Mike, I don’t think I should be helping you write a letter to a potential bride. That should come completely from you. Your words. Your thoughts.”

“But they will be, John,” Mike said. “It’s just that… well, you can polish them up a bit.”

John glanced at his friend. “Don’t you think that’s like lying?”

“Well, you’re already doing it, so why can’t you just put a little extra effort in for me?”

John held back another sigh. Mike knew he’d been crafting the perfect ad for a wife to send to the newspaper in Bismarck, way up north, hundreds of miles away. He was also considering sending his ad even further to places like Chicago, Cincinnati, and maybe even south toward Atlanta. Fact was, there weren’t many eligible women out here. Most of the unmarried women in Rapid City were either too old for him or too young. 

While he didn’t necessarily know if that was true, he did know that he had yet to meet a woman in Rapid City that prompted the accelerated heartbeat, the desire to stare, and maybe even clammy palms like he had read in some books. Not that he expected a fairytale or anything when it came to marrying someone, but he wanted to feel something.

As they neared the livery stable, Mike continued to badger him gently. He finally turned to his friend. “Mike, again. You’re absolutely sure you want to get married?”

Mike shrugged. “Why not?” 

“But do you want to get married?”

“Why do you want to get married?”

John paused, eyeing the horses in the corral, watching them from the other side of the railing, tails swishing, ears tucked forward with interest. What, did they want to know, too? “Well, as you said, we’re not getting any younger. And I’m alone out there on the ranch. It’s too big for just one person. So, I was thinking, maybe if I had a wife and eventually a family, it wouldn’t be so empty anymore.”

Mike nodded. “I know I live behind a sawmill, but I make decent enough money. Maybe I could even build a small place for a bride and myself back there.” He thought about it a moment and then shrugged. “You know, a wife could be useful to me, and I wouldn’t have to spend money eating out of a can or going to the saloon for Darby’s and paying two bits for his lousy stew. Or having old Missus Banks out at the boarding house fix me something. That costs a lot, you know.” He grew more enthusiastic. “I wouldn’t have to take my clothes to old widow Devers anymore so that I can save even more.”

John frowned. “But what about companionship? What about having someone to talk to, someone to share the things you like with?”

Mike looked at him as if he were crazy. “Aw, that’s just foolish. I need someone to help out, not someone to get all lovey-dovey with.” He winked. “Well, maybe once in a while.”

John gave up and held out his hand. “Fine. Show me what you’ve got.”

John watched as Mike dug into his trousers pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. He extended it. “See, I wrote down a quick note. When you place your ad, can you place one for me, too?”

John wasn’t at all sure this was a good idea. Mike was a good man, no doubt about it, but he had some wild ways. He could overdo the drinking and the gambling, which was pretty much the reason why he lived in a shack behind a sawmill. He couldn’t afford to build or buy a house on his own. Still, when he had to work, he worked hard, and John knew that running the sawmill wasn’t easy. New orders came in almost every day, not only from the railroad but also from all the people moving into the territory.

Grumbling under his breath, John reluctantly took the note.

“Thanks, John. Maybe sometime soon we’ll both have a nice woman waiting for us at home, dinner on the table.”

John shook his head. “I sure hope you know that there’s a lot more to marriage than that, Mike.”

“Course I do.” He shrugged, then glanced toward the saloon. “I think I’ll go have a drink to celebrate my upcoming nuptials. Care to join me?”

“No,” John said. He glanced over Mike’s shoulder toward the saloon across Main Street and down a couple of buildings. “I’ve got chores to do.”

“Your loss,” Mike said, then turned and strode across the dirt street.

Shaking his head, John entered the livery, waving a greeting to Jonas Baker, presently busy mucking out stalls. “Hey, Jonas,” he called out.

Jonas muttered a grumbled reply, and John went through a doorway. He stepped to his horse, who nickered softly as he approached. He rubbed the gelding’s neck. “How you doing, Samson?” The horse tossed its head and snorted.

John mounted and then rode out of the corral, heading south out of town toward his ranch, his thoughts occupied with the kind of woman he hoped to marry. A kind and compassionate woman, one who understood the harshness of life out here in the west, and one willing to work hard with him. At the same time, John was determined to provide any such woman with a good home, some sense of security, and kindness in return. He knew better than to expect that he would fall in love at first sight. That never happened. But maybe, given time and patience, he and his future bride would become accustomed to one another and, if he were fortunate, they would fall in love with each other.

Someday, John wanted children, someone to pass his ranch down to. He was saving up enough money to buy another hundred acres by the end of the summer, but he also knew that providing for a wife would cost money. He needed to buy a cooking stove, maybe a couple of new furniture pieces. A lovely horsehair sofa would fit his house’s main room. Perhaps he could even squeeze in a small glass-fronted cabinet in the kitchen area for a nice set of dishware. Women appreciated things like that.

Though he had inherited the ranch from his parents, the house itself was still relatively new. For the first thirty-five years of their marriage, his father and mother had lived in a large, one-room shoddy house with two sleeping spaces – one for his parents and one for himself, separated by blankets hung from the ceiling. It had two fireplaces, one at each end, one primarily for heating, the other for cooking. John had helped his father build the new house a short distance from the shoddy, and it was a fine house indeed.

The house had a main room, a kitchen alcove, and two small bedrooms. It had genuine glass windows and brass knobs on the doors. Unfortunately, his mother had passed away a mere six months after the family had moved into the new house. His father had taken her death hard and had never been the same. He, too, had passed away not long ago.

By the time John rode into the ranch yard, the sun was descending low in the sky, casting the Black Hills into a remarkable study in light and shadow. He saw twilight creating casting its soft, dark blue shadow over the sky to the east. He paused in front of the house before dismounting and taking care of Samson, trying to imagine what the house would be like, filled with laughter and maybe, someday, the patter of tiny feet.

*

Two days later, John rode to the western edge of Rapid City, heading for the post office. He had spent a lot of his spare time making several copies of Mike’s ad to send off to different newspapers. It was only after he had read Mike’s ad that he had changed his mind about writing his own. For now. Mike’s ad was just terrible. He owed it to his friend to help him out a little. And so, he had decided to replace Mike’s two-sentence ad that had simply stated: “Looking for a wife to take care of me. Will provide room and board.”

He could wait, write an ad for himself later. Besides, he owed Mike. Last winter, he’d been out riding the range, checking on the few heads of cattle and horses that he’d sheltered in the back forty acres in the northwest corner of his property, protected from the worst of the bitterly cold winds by pine-tree-studded hills. He hadn’t been riding sure-footed Samson that day but another of his horses. John hunkered deep into his coat with the winds blowing snow, a woolen scarf tying his hat to his head. He had been on his way back to the ranch when his horse was startled by a mountain lion. The horse panicked and threw the startled John off its back.

The horse had taken off, leaving John on foot in the middle of a snowstorm, tracked by the mountain lion. He hadn’t had time to retrieve his rifle from the saddle scabbard, but he did have his Colt. The mountain lion had attacked, considering him easy prey, but two bullets had taken care of that danger. Unfortunately, that left him a good seven or eight miles from the ranch, on foot, in a snowstorm, the temperature below freezing.

He’d started back, stumbling through nearly a foot of snow. He had fallen more than once. Though he wore gloves and kept his hands tucked into his armpits, they, too, were freezing, his body temperature dropping and lethargy tugging at his senses. He tried to find shelter, but there just wasn’t any, not out here. Flat planes, snowdrifts piling up here and there. And then, out of nowhere, appeared Mike, hunkered under a buffalo robe atop his horse, holding the reins of John’s horse as well.

Yes, he owed Mike. If it hadn’t been for his friend, he would’ve died. So, if the least he could do was write an ad for a mail-order bride, he would do it. Yet, he also knew that if a woman replied to the ad, he couldn’t leave it to Mike to respond. While it was a bit disingenuous, maybe even dishonest, John decided that he would write any replies to any woman who showed any interest whatsoever in Mike. Besides, he wanted to get to know any woman coming out west to marry his friend before Mike or the woman committed.

Once the commitment was made, there would be no changing of minds, no turning back.

 Chapter Two

Twenty-two-year-old Rue Griffin stepped out of the front door of the row house, dreading yet another day of exhausting work at a restaurant owned by the Andrews family, not far from the ever-increasing area of downtown Chicago, the central business district exploding with manufacturing. Still, she should be grateful she had a job, as menial as it was. Of course, there were the factories in town, and those hundreds of factories did employ women and children, although with abysmal working hours and even more abysmal pay. She was lucky to have gotten the job at the restaurant working with the Andrews family.

The row house had already been rather cramped before Rue moved in. The house stood barely twenty feet wide but had three floors of accommodations. The parlor floor, located on the first floor when one walked in the door, was for receiving guests and special occasions. Along the right-side wall of the house, a stairway rose to the upper floors. Farther down the hallway behind it was the small kitchen. The floor above offered a less formal place for the family to gather, while down the hallway toward the rear of that floor was the master bedroom. The upper floor, the attic really, was where Rue shared the room with Evelyn Andrews, her friend since childhood.

After her parents’ death in a buggy accident on North Western Avenue a few years ago, when Rue was seventeen years old, Rue had stayed with relatives. First, she had spent some time with a spinster aunt in Gary, Indiana. Until her aunt stated, rather baldly, that her meager income could not support both of them. From there, she had been sent to live with a cousin in Joliet, but then that cousin got engaged.

Rue hadn’t known what to do. Still grieving the loss of her parents, who had died when their buggy slid on ice and overturned, throwing both her parents into the frigid waters of the canal that ran through the center of the city, she didn’t have many options. Working in a factory would not give her enough money to even rent a room in a boarding house. The cost of living everywhere in the state of Indiana seemed to keep on rising.

Rue had found herself a twenty-year-old woman with few prospects, no home, no way to earn her keep, and at her wit’s end. A letter from her friend, Evelyn, whom she had grown up with in Chicago, offered a much-appreciated invitation for her to come live with them for a while until she could get on her feet. She could work in the family’s small restaurant to help pay room and board, scanty though it was. Times were hard everywhere. And so, it was that Rue had come to live with the Andrews family. She and Evelyn shared a small room in the attic of the narrow, wood-frame row house on North Halsted, not far from where the Chicago River drained into Lake Michigan.

She enjoyed living with her best friend, and her family. The home itself was already crowded with shaker-style furniture in dark maple and cherry wood. As it was, Rue slept on a narrow cot in Evelyn’s room, most of her few belongings crammed into the space underneath. A maple wash stand stood in the corner, equipped with three drawers that held Evelyn’s belongings. Her friend’s brass bed took up most of the remainder of the room. Rue never complained. Not about the lack of privacy, nor the lack of space, nor having to sleep on a narrow cot. Over the past year of living with Evelyn and her family in the row house, not once had anyone complained about the extra person to feed nor the extra person taking up space in an already crowded home. 

She worked hard at the restaurant owned by Evelyn’s father and was grateful for the work. Though still early morning, Rue gazed at the busy streets, the myriad of pedestrians, horses, and wagons pulled by four-horse teams clogging the street. She emerged from the row house with the aromas of frying potatoes, hardy vegetable soup, and fresh-baked bread traded for the odors of sewers, horse manure, and of course, the ever-present scent of the surrounding bogs in the area, bringing forth mosquitoes and other insects.

Since 1850, nearly thirty railway lines had entered the city from the east. Starting in 1860, expansion westward had begun, just before the War Between the States had broken out. As it was, Chicago was growing and growing faster by the day.

With a grimace, she turned away from the view of nearby Lake Michigan and walked toward Twelfth Street. Since the original incorporation of Chicago in 1835, the town had expanded multiple times and had reached its fourth extension by 1869. A couple of years later, in 1871, the great fire had swept through the city, literally destroying the central business district. Still, native Chicagoans were a stubborn lot, and the new Chicago was now a center of finance, commerce, and of course, an attractive magnet for immigrants from all over the world.

Rue shook her head, thinking about her future here. While there were growing numbers of jobs, there weren’t many for a young woman. Hundreds of men found jobs in gas fitting and plumbing firms, but there was no place for women in those jobs. There were thousands of men working in the meatpacking district, in the slaughterhouses and the butcher shops, where beef and other meats were shipped throughout the country and even across the ocean to Europe, but again not for her. She had grown up in the city, as had her parents, and while she knew nothing different, she also knew that the crowds, the activity, and the constant growth left her feeling constrained and overwhelmed.

By the time she approached the restaurant, she felt depressed, unsettled, and worried. She couldn’t impose on the Andrews family forever. Yet she didn’t make enough at the restaurant as a waitress, sometimes cook, and sometimes dishwasher, to afford a place of her own.

She strode inside, greeted with a cheery good morning by the cook, Giuseppe, a relatively recent immigrant from Italy who spoke broken English. Here she was feeling sorry for herself when things could be a lot worse. Nearly sixty years old, poor Giuseppe had come to America with his wife of forty years, hoping to start a new life, a better life. Just weeks after he landed, his wife passed away from an illness she had picked up on the ship crossing the Atlantic.

She felt guilty for feeling sorry for herself. She should be grateful for the roof over her head and the job that at least kept her from becoming destitute. There were many people who were in a worse predicament than she. Still, she yearned for something different. She didn’t know exactly what it was she was looking for, but she did know one thing: she had to fend for herself and make her own way in the world. How she was going to do that, she didn’t know.

She got to work in the small but popular eatery. Maybe thirty feet by thirty feet, it held nearly fifteen tables. A chalkboard menu hung on one wall, the front wall of multi-paned windows covered by white linen and lace curtains made by Evelyn’s mother, Leah. A pot-bellied stove sat in one corner, the black stovepipe disappearing into the ceiling and rising through the floor above. A small family rented the room upstairs. A swinging door near the back of the main dining room led to the kitchen, modernized with two large cast-iron stoves, a deep porcelain sink for dish-washing, and several shelves holding cooking supplies and dishware.

The hours passed, and Rue no longer had time to feel sorry for herself as she took care of customers, pouring water, taking orders, rushing back and forth through the swinging door to the kitchen and back to tables. Occasionally, she dealt with mild complaints, but for the most part, people enjoyed the atmosphere, the cooking, and, most of all, the prices at the Andrews Family Restaurant.

She was grateful for the job, and she worked hard. She took care of regulars who came to the restaurant for either an early lunch or a weekly night out, and her customers seemed to enjoy seeing her. Rue had no qualms about her position. Most of the time, she did enjoy her job. Soon, through hard work and scrimping and saving, she might be able to afford a small place of her own in one of the rooms above the other shops along the block. That was still a couple of months away, but at least it was something.

She emerged from the kitchen, carrying a plate of fried fish and hot cornbread toward a table in the corner of the room, where a young man sat staring morosely into a cup of coffee, steam still rising from the liquid. He glanced up at her as she set the plate in front of them.

“I’m sorry, miss, I forgot to look at the prices. Can you tell me how much this is going to be?”

Rue glanced at his plate. “Ten cents, sir, and the coffee is free.”

“Thank you.” The young man looked back down at the plate, staring at the fish.

Rue had just started to turn around but changed her mind and glanced down at the plate and then at the young man. “Is something wrong? This is not what you ordered?”

“No, this is what I ordered.” The man looked up at her and tried to smile. “Thank you.”

Rue started to say something but then paused. She tended to sometimes chat with the patrons, which often prompted Mister Malachi Andrews to raise an eyebrow. However, the restaurant was nearly empty, at least for a little while, and she wondered if she could help.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, thank you. It’s just that… well, I’ve just come from the cemetery and…”

Rue nodded with understanding. She snatched her hand back just before she placed it comfortingly on the stranger’s shoulder. She knew what it was like to “come from the cemetery. “She knew what it was like to grieve loved ones. Thank goodness she hadn’t seen the aftermath of her parents’ accident. Thank heaven she hadn’t seen her mother pulled from the waters of the canal, nor the broken body of her father, half-in, half-out of the water. She hadn’t had to see or hear what happened. She had heard later and rushed to the site, where neighbors and friends had gathered around, their expressions horror-stricken as Rue had run up the street to stare at the remains of the buggy in gut-wrenching dismay.

She remembered screaming, calling for her parents, only to be told by a neighbor that her parents had perished. After that, she didn’t remember much of anything. But that didn’t mean her imagination didn’t sometimes run wild. In her worst nightmares, she heard their screams. In her dreams, she saw her mother tossed from the buggy, flailing in the air…

“I’m so sorry,” she said, meaning it. “I know what it’s like. I lost my parents a few years ago. It was one of the worst experiences in my life.”

The young man looked up at her, his short-cropped hair parted neatly, his expression earnest. “How did you get over it?”

The question startled Rue. She gently shook her head and offered a kind smile. “I’m not sure the death of a loved one is something we ever get over. But moving on, it does get a little bit easier to bear.”

“Do you still miss them?”

She nodded. “I do. It’s hard not to think of the would-have-beens, but you must keep moving forward. We must continually try to honor them through our actions. It’s all right to grieve. Actually, it’s necessary. But you need to try your best to get through every single day, one day at a time, and to keep putting one foot in front of the other and moving forward.”

“I will, but it’s hard.”

Again, Rue smiled. “That it is, but here I am today, stronger and working hard to make a better life for myself. I hope I succeed and honor my upbringing. Even though my parents are gone, I would like to think that I’ve made them proud of me.”

The man nodded, staring down once more at his plate, and Rue placed a gentle hand on his shoulder for just a moment. “You’ll be fine. Just remember that— “

“Rue!”

She turned quickly to find Mister Andrews frowning at her. He gestured her over toward the kitchen door. “Excuse me. You’d better eat before that fish gets cold.”

With that, she left the table and hurried toward the owner, weaving her way among the tables, glancing at a middle-aged couple at one, an older woman staring out the window, sipping a hot cup of tea at another. Neither of them gestured toward her or otherwise indicated they needed anything.

“Yes, Mister Andrews?” She turned toward her boss, Evelyn’s father. Malachi Andrews was a man who barely managed to eke out a living of his own with this small restaurant. He didn’t suffer fools gladly, was firm and direct, but she knew from experience that he had a soft spot deep inside. A soft spot that rarely displayed itself, but a soft spot nevertheless.

“Rue, I’m not paying you to stand around and gossip with our patrons. You know that.”

“Yes, of course, Mister Andrews. But the gentleman looked so sad and I just wanted to make sure that he was all right.”

Malachi stared at her a moment, then slowly shook his head. “Just see that you don’t leave any customers waiting for service as you take up your missions of mercy.”

For a moment, she wasn’t sure if Malachi was angry with her. Then she saw the quirk of a smile on his lips. “I won’t, Mister Andrews.”

He nodded and glanced at the gentleman, now slowly lifting a forkful of fish to his mouth. “Well? What was it?”

Rue frowned. “What was what?”

“What was the matter with him?”

“Oh. He said he’d just came from the cemetery.”

Knowing Rue’s history with death and grief, Malachi nodded in understanding. “While it’s still slow, why don’t you go and help Giuseppe with the inventory? I’m going to make a supply run later this afternoon.”

*

Later that evening, after darkness had fallen, Rue finally left the restaurant, her feet tired and throbbing, her muscles exhausted, a headache forming once more behind her eyes. She looked forward to climbing into her bed, such as it was, grateful for the respite.

She walked a few blocks away from the restaurant, her thoughts occupied with tomorrow, her day off. She and Evelyn were going shopping for produce for the restaurant, a typical weekly excursion. As she walked, she noticed several people looking past her in the direction from which she’d come, their brows furrowed in curiosity. A couple had even hurried their steps, one man abruptly brushing against her shoulder, muttering a soft apology over his shoulder as he continued.

She frowned. What was the rush? What was… she glanced back over her shoulder and paused, her eyes wide as she saw a cloud of blackish-brown smoke rising in the near distance. Oh no, not another fire! She had been just a child when the great Chicago fire had broken out. The devastation had been horrifying. While some buildings throughout the city were now constructed of brick, their roofs slate, there were still plenty of wood-framed structures in the area. Fire in any of these neighborhoods would spread quickly and—

“It’s the restaurant! The Andrews Family Restaurant!”

She glanced at another pair of men rushing past her, running now. Her heart dropped to the bottom of her stomach. Fear sent a chill down her spine. No, it couldn’t be. She had just left there! Nevertheless, she turned around and quickly hurried back to the restaurant, hoping against hope that there had been a mistake, that the restaurant wasn’t on fire, that, Heaven forbid, it was another business, maybe on the same block. 

And yet… as she grew closer, maybe two blocks away from the restaurant, she saw flames. The cloud of smoke had grown higher and thicker. With a cry of alarm, she broke into a run. Where was Mister Andrews? Where was the cook, Giuseppe? They had both been inside when she left, Mister Andrews in his office going over the books, the cook completing the last of his chores, cleaning the kitchen.

She heard the sound of crackling. The cries of bystanders. She smelled and then inhaled smoke, provoking a cough. A heavy, boiling cloud of smoke filled the street in front of the restaurant. It seeped around the edges of the windows that faced the street. Behind the windows, the inside of the restaurant glowed with flickering yellowish-orange colors, confusing her until her brain caught up with what she was seeing.

She screamed. “Fire!” 

As she ran closer, the heat grew hotter, and the smoke thicker, billowing now. Fingers of black smoke curled around window frames, and behind it, the sound of hissing. Already a small fire brigade of neighbors and bystanders had formed, men and women carrying buckets of sloshing water taken from their own businesses or watering troughs to help dampen the flames. All of them would have memories of the Great Fire racing through their minds.

Rue stared at the restaurant in blank horror, gaping at the flames as they shot from the attic and second-floor windows. The family who lived up there! Had they gotten out? What about the older man who lived alone up in the attic? The popping and hissing of flames grew louder as they found fuel. Even standing across the street, Rue felt the heat of the flames. She wanted to think the restaurant could be saved, yet she knew from the heat and the spread of the voracious flames that the restaurant would be lost.

Suddenly, she saw Malachi emerge from the front door, hunched over. She screamed and darted forward as she watched him turn into the narrow alley between his restaurant and the building next door. He was hurrying toward the set of stairs that led to the second floor and the restaurant’s attic space.

“Malachi, no!” she shouted.

Rue stood frozen for several seconds, watching as a bystander raced after Malachi, also trying to stop him. She started to hurry after them, but a hand grabbed her arm. She tried to shake it off but failed. Her heart pounded, and despite the heat, a horrified chill swept down her spine. She turned to find a police officer staring at her, wide-eyed and face smudged with soot.

“Stay back, lady!”

She tried to pull herself free. “No, let me go! I have to help Mister Andrews!” 

After a dry spring, the wooden structure was dry, ripe for the flames. It took only a few seconds for the attic’s window to burst and flames to shoot out. A garbled cry escaped her lips. Shouts of alarms and screams of horror erupted around her as the crowd that had gathered in the street broke apart, and a fire engine approached.

Rue knew it was too late. The restaurant was engulfed in flames. They shot out the windows and licked at their frames of the structure. Tendrils of smoke surged upward toward windows and door thresholds, seeking fuel to feed the flames. A breeze tugged at her hair, and she watched in horror as embers floated in the air to neighboring structures. Rue cried out, then cast a frantic gaze toward the door into which Malachi had disappeared. She yanked her arm from the policeman’s grasp and ran toward that door, ignoring shouts of warning behind her.

As she darted forward, she saw the smoke now curled from the eaves beneath the roof. That smoke crept grayish-black fingers through the seams between eaves and support frames. She shouted for Malachi, pushing through the door, almost immediately doubling over, the acrid smoke stinging her eyes and choking the breath from her lungs. Heat surrounded her, hotter than anything she’d ever felt before. Greedy flames shot upward from the floor. She heard shelving crashing down from upstairs, and then a deeper, rumbling crash shook the building. From above, timbers groaned, strained to their limit, weakened by the heat.

She squinted against the smoke, the acrid stench filling her nostrils and choking her throat, seeping into her lungs. Lifting a hand to cover her mouth and nose, she pushed open the swinging door between the kitchen and the dining room. It was filled with smoke, flames roaring above.

“Malachi!” She doubled over in a fit of coughing. Her heart pounded hard. The fire moved quickly, the dry tinder of the wood frame building hissing, popping, and smoking one moment and erupting into flame the next. Fighting the nearly unbearable heat, she stumbled into the dining room and saw only broken tables, broken timbers, and broken shards of glass. Flames licked up the far wall of the restaurant. When that collapsed, the entire structure would fall upon them. She stumbled and went down on her knees, crying out at the sharp pain as her knee collided with glass. 

A crash from above prompted her to freeze. She looked upward. A second later, the rear portion of the ceiling caved in, sending showers of sparks and flame, and embers throughout the restaurant tables. She could no longer see much. Smoke filled the room, thick and cloying. Arms outstretched, she tried to make her way back out, fighting against panic.

She felt the edge of a counter and then found the swinging door between the dining room and the kitchen. She headed back that way, past the cooking stoves and the sink. She choked back sobs, fearing the worst, that the flames had consumed Malachi. She had failed. 

Her throat scorched, her lungs on fire, her eyes burned… she could hardly breathe. She struggled forward, moving blindly, trying to ignore the intense heat, the lack of air. She tripped over something and fell. She landed hard, the side of her head banging into a sharp edge.

She forced herself up to her knees, the fire whooshing around her with a life of its own. The flames would soon consume everything.

 “Rue!”

Hope-filled her when she heard the voice. Malachi! 

She prayed that the neighbors and the firemen had made some headway with their bucket brigade but knew their efforts could not save the restaurant. The flames were too hot, the wood too dry.

Above the pounding of her heart and the crackling of the flames, she heard a sound. She froze, squinting through the smoke, seeking the origin of the source. For a moment, she could have sworn she saw the image of her mother in the flames, reaching a hand out toward her. “Mama,” she groaned. Just then, a scream from above rose, even over the snapping and crackling of the flames. Then, they abruptly stopped.

The fire glowed around her like it was alive, pulsing with life, hissing, and popping. She felt hands reach for her. She tried to ignore the pain, the heat, the cloying, choking scent of charred and burning wood. 

“Get up, Rue!”

Hands grasped her arms then and pulled, tugging her through the black smoke, and she could do nothing but allow herself to be dragged. She dimly realized what had happened. Someone, maybe that policeman on the street, had come into the building after her.

“No…” she tried to shout, but no sound came from her swollen throat. Tears flooded her eyes at the thought of Malachi trapped in the building, in dire straits, desperate to save himself or some of the tenants from upstairs. She tried to fight but lacked the strength. She was dragged out of the burning restaurant, away from the smoke, the fear, the pain, all of it. Darkness overtook her, and she sank into unconsciousness.

Rue wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but when she woke, she realized she lay on the sidewalk of the building across the street and down a couple of doors from the restaurant. She struggled to make sense of what had happened. Her chest hurt, and her eyes burned. Even trying to open them prompted tears. She inhaled a deep breath of fresh air, coughed, and then turned to look at the restaurant. Her heart sank, and new tears filled her eyes, not just from the smoke but from despair. The restaurant was nothing but a shell of its former self. Black smoke still rose from what remained of the structure, but the flames were gone. Even so, glowing reddish-orange embers still glowed throughout the ruins.

Her heart clenched tightly at the thought of Malachi lying in those ruins, his body burned beyond recognition, the suffering he must have felt before—

“Oh, thank goodness, Rue.” She felt arms wrapped around her, helping her sit up. She turned to find Evelyn staring down at her, her hair askew, her face smudged with soot and streaked with tears. Her lips trembled.

“Evelyn… Evelyn, your father, is he all right? And Giuseppe?”

“Rue, what were you thinking, running into a burning building like that!”

Once more, Rue felt Evelyn’s arms tighten around her, hugging her almost desperately. She stared at the ruins of the family restaurant. The upper two stories were in ruins, blackened timbers were all that remained of the structure, jutting broken and tilted. It was obvious that the roof of the building, as well as the ceilings of the upper two floors, had collapsed down onto the first floor. The restaurant. Short timbers of the outer façade remained but gave off wisps of black smoke. The glow of still-hot embers inside told her that she hadn’t been out on the sidewalk for long. The fire brigade squirted water from a hose attached to their fire engine, four men pumping the water out, all eyes turned toward the structure.

The businesses and upper floors of the buildings on either side of the restaurant had been scorched, and windows were broken, but they remained intact. The air, filled with the acrid stench of burned wood, grease, and other unidentifiable odors, filled the air around her. Once more, she turned to look at Evelyn.

“Is your father all right? Is he— “

“Father is all right,” Evelyn said, a tear dropping from her eye. “His hands and arms have been burned, though. He pulled you out, Rue.” Her voice broke. “He pulled you out.”

Evelyn started to cry, and Rue felt a heavy burden of guilt settle like a shroud around her shoulders. She had rushed in so recklessly. If she hadn’t, maybe Mister Andrews would not have been injured. Maybe… she glanced at Evelyn. “Giuseppe?”

Evelyn’s shoulders heaved, and she shook her head. “He was trapped in the kitchen.”

A moan erupted from Rue’s throat, and then she turned once more toward the ruins. What was going to happen now? Mister Andrews was injured and might be unable to work for a while. Of course, she no longer had a job, and Mister Andrews no longer had a business, as his restaurant was in ruins. Added to the tragedy was the fact that Giuseppe was dead… poor Giuseppe. And with that, Rue laid her head back onto Evelyn’s shoulder as, together, they wept.

---

“Her Unexpected Soulmate” is an Amazon Best-Selling novel, check it out here!

Rue Griffin’s life falls apart when a fire destroys her place of work and the only home she has known since she lost her parents. With no prospects in the city and unwilling to be a burden on others, she does something she never imagined herself doing… she answers an ad for a mail-order bride. However, tragedy strikes when Rue arrives in the west, only to learn that her betrothed has been killed. Devastated, she worries for her future, until she meets her fiance’s best friend, John. Before long, she finds herself drawn to him… only for her dreams of happiness to be dashed again by a shocking secret. Will Rue be able to overcome the echoes of John’s mistakes and trust him with her heart?

John Williams is set on getting married, but in a town with no single women his only choice is to seek a mail-order bride. After his best friend convinces him to place an ad for him too though, he somehow ends up exchanging letters with Miss Rue Griffin on his behalf. To complicate matters further, he soon finds himself falling hopelessly in love with her… When the unthinkable happens and Rue is left reeling, John decides he must help her, still guilt-ridden over his secret. Yet the more they get to know each other, the more he feels he must find a way to be honest… no matter the cost. Will the truth tear them apart forever or could it be the beginning of something special?

As the two grow closer over their shared grief, their emotions deepen and become impossible to ignore. When every hidden truth is illuminated though, their trust in each other will be tested like never before. Meanwhile, a threat no one will see coming is about to change everything… Can these two wounded souls ever leave their troubles behind and open their hearts to an undeniable love?

“Her Unexpected Soulmate” is a historical western romance novel of approximately 80,000 words. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.

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