Wanderlust: A Pair Of Mail Order Bride Romances

By Beth Overton

Mail Order Bride: A Bit Of The Lucky Blood & The Fisherman In New Orleans - A woman from Ireland goes to New York and works for a year at a menial factory job and faces much discrimination towards the Irish. A notice in a church leads her to correspond with a fisherman in New Orleans, Louisiana and finally, she takes that leap of faith and starts the three-week journey towards her future life.

Mail Order Bride: Stolen Dreams, One Night At A Time - A man who fought in the civil war and knowing that his family died in a fire, returns to his ranch after a long period of wandering. It is almost gone to dust now and so he goes to nearby Tucson and checks in with the family lawyer and is surprised to learn that funds from the sale of cattle and other things have been put into a trust for him. He is a wealthy and now he realizes that all he lacks is a family. His closest neighbor has a cousin that needs a home, as she has been a nanny to three children, but they are growing fast and his neighbors feel like she’d be a good candidate for the lonely cowboy. When the woman arrives at the train station the only emotion that the cowboy feels is shock.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beth Overton
• Release date: Feb 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310971914

Beth Overton

Beth Overton lives in Northern California with her husband and three cats. Besides writing romances, she loves to read everything she can get her hands on, as well as cooking up gourmet delights for her entire family.

Book preview

Wanderlust: A Pair Of Mail Order Bride Romances

By

Beth Overton

Copyright 2016 Quietly Blessed & Loved Press

Mail Order Bride: A Bit Of The Lucky Blood & The Fisherman In New Orleans

Mail Order Bride: Stolen Dreams, One Night At A Time

Mail Order Bride: A Bit Of The Lucky Blood & The Fisherman In New Orleans

Synopsis: Mail Order Bride: A Bit Of The Lucky Blood & The Fisherman In New Orleans - A woman from Ireland goes to New York and works for a year at a menial factory job and faces much discrimination towards the Irish. A notice in a church leads her to correspond with a fisherman in New Orleans, Louisiana and finally, she takes that leap of faith and starts the three-week journey towards her future life.

Aileen’s fingers were red and raw from a day of factory work. She walked home slowly, because after a long day of running the textile machines, that was the only speed she could manage. As she walked with her head hung tiredly, she realized her dress was the same color as the street: A muted, dirty gray and brown. She tried to save any money she earned—only spending it on things that were absolutely necessary. Besides this dress, she had another exactly like it. She had only one hat, which she did not like to wear because she had fixed it up so often that it was almost all patches and mismatched thread.

No one on the street seemed to notice her as they passed her by. She was just another worn out worker walking home at the end of the day. If anyone had stopped to look, they would only note her plain face, rough hands and badly scuffed shoes. The only thing vibrant about Aileen Cleary was her long mane of bright orange hair. While she worked, she kept her hair piled atop of her head in a utilitarian bun, or a knot in which she might have stuck a flower if she’d been able to afford one.

New York City, she had learned, was a rough place full of haggard, dirty people. Occasionally she would catch a glimpse of someone from that other world—the world in which people dressed in three piece suits and tall hats, in which ladies wore colorful day dresses and exquisite night dresses. However, such people as that infrequently visited the area in which Aileen lived and worked. The working class, or the unemployed populated her domain.

A carriage drove past quickly and splashed her dress with mud. It made no difference to Aileen, because no one else would notice the stain, anyway. She merely continued to slowly march her way to Kingsbridge where she rented half a tiny room in a boarding house.

She stopped along the way and purchased a bit of bread from a baker. Sitting on the stoop of a building and gnawing at the hard crust, Aileen knew what a pitiful sight she must make. She told herself, as she did every day, that this would not last forever; that there was no way this life would merely go on. Something would happen to change it. Either she would finally have enough savings to move on, or she would find less physically demanding work. Soon, she told herself, things would be different.

She finished her bread and was gathering her strength to rise, when a large man walked past her and, looking her in the eye, muttered, Stinking lazy Irish ape. He said it with contempt in his voice and kept on walking.

Aileen almost didn’t hear the slurs anymore and normally when she did, she could simply ignore it; however, not today. Today had been too hard on her and after working twelve hours only to be called lazy by a stranger…it was too much for her.

She put her head in her hands and cried.

She had been in America for nearly a year now. In all that time she had never left New York City. When she thought about the rest of the country, two visions appeared in her mind, depending on her mood. If she were in a good mood, she would picture America as a sprawling land of farms and wilderness, not unlike her own native country. If she were in a bad mood, then the America she saw in her head was all one big, tangled city, covered in soot and only traceable by long, winding streets.

When she had left Ireland she had been so optimistic. She figured anything had to be better than the famine sweeping her home. Her parents, who lived outside of Dublin, had refused to leave their home. They told Aileen that they were too old to make the journey across the ocean. They said they had spent too much of their lives in Ireland to leave now. They said it would kill them to abandon the country of their birth.

But they had supported her decision to go to America. You’re young, her mother had said. You can adapt to a new life there, unlike us. You’ll do fine. Behind her words was another truth. If Aileen left she would be one less mouth to feed. It was a horrible thing, watching one’s family go hungry night after night. In the end, Aileen had decided to roll the dice. She took what few possessions she had, received a blessing from her parents and boarded a ship headed for New York. Before she got aboard, her mother gave her a small, silver crucifix.

It still hung from Aileen’s neck to this day.

When she had arrived in America, sick from being tossed around at sea and still hungry—for there had been little food aboard the ship—she had stumbled down the gangplank like one waking from a bad dream. Along the dock, boys were throwing rocks at the Irish people getting off the ship. They shouted curse words at the immigrants in a harsh accent Aileen had never heard before. She avoided the rocks and escaped into the city. A year had passed since then, but it often felt like one long, waking nightmare.

She had found a job quickly, though it paid almost nothing and the working conditions were highly dangerous. After a twelve-hour shift, girls would often fall asleep still at work and sometimes they injured themselves on the equipment. Aileen had tried to sing once to keep herself from falling asleep, but the foreman had told her to be quiet.

She engaged half a room at the cheapest rate she could find and found herself sharing with another Irish girl. Her name was Kaitlin and she was from Belfast. Like Aileen, she worked twelve hours a day and so they never talked much. If they were at home, they were likely asleep.

It was to this drab, dirty apartment that Aileen returned after crying on the front stoop. She treaded up the stairs with heavy footsteps, knelt on the floor, and kissed her crucifix. She crawled onto the lumpy bed mat and fell asleep almost instantly.

The next day was Sunday, thankfully, which meant she only worked half the day. At eight o’clock, she and Kaitlin rose, washed their faces in a ceramic basin, and walked together to the neighborhood’s catholic church. In Kingsbridge they felt the racism of the city less, for it was a sort of bastion for the Irish immigrants. They kept to themselves as much as possible.

Sunday was Aileen’s favorite day of the week. Going to church reminded