Mail Order Bride: Mountain Brides - Part 1: Mail Order Brides Of Montana, #1

By Leah Wyett

Life in Denver’s high society was good for the Standish family prior to 1886. Grace Standish was raising her two lovely young daughter’s to be ladies and teaching them what they needed to know to become wives to one of the young gentlemen in Colorado’s elite society. 
Rebecca, an auburn haired beauty and Clarissa her stunning dark-haired sister were living the good life with a father who was one of the most respected bankers in town…or so they thought, and a mother who had dedicated her life to her family. Then it all fell apart…
The day the Sheriff showed up at their door to tell them that their father was dead, shot in a robbery at the bank, everything began to unravel. Suddenly people were telling them things about their father, Grace’s devoted husband that didn’t make sense. He was a gambler and a philanderer…and a thief? 
When facing great odds is when people’s true colors emerge. Grace showed herself to be the strong mother that the girls needed to get them through this crisis. She sold everything and they started over. For Grace, that was enough, but for her daughters she wanted more.
Rebecca was promptly sent to the wilds of Montana to become a bride. At first reluctant, she quickly grew to love the young, handsome Lucas who became her husband and her provider.
Clarissa’s man was not young, and Clarissa would soon find out that although she was willing to give life in the mountains of Montana a go, there were forces working against she and her new husbands happiness in the form of his adult son. 
Can Clarissa stand on the mountain and rise to the challenges that life has thrown in front of her?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gold Crown Publishing
• Release date: Apr 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386731368

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LEAH WYETT

Mail Order Bride: Mountain Brides: Part 1

Mail Order Brides Of Montana: Book 1

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Copyright

Chapter One

FEBRUARY 1888

MONTANA TERRITORY

Clarissa Standish woke up with a start when the train stopped with its usual lack of grace. She had been on this train so long she’d lost count of the days now, and she was still miles and miles away from where she was going. She’d begun to wonder what kind of sickness had overcome her when she’d agreed to do this. She’d heard of love-sickness and maybe that was a real thing that infected your brain as well as your heart. That must be it; she was sitting in the parlor at her home in Denver with her Ma one evening when a parasite came in and before either of them had noticed, it had wiggled its way right up into her brain and it had driven her mad.

You might want to stretch your legs, Miss. It’s an awfully long way to the next stop. The young porter seemed to have taken a special interest in Clarissa, and she was grateful to have someone to talk to occasionally on this long, exhausting trip.

She smiled and thanked him and as she stood up she called after him, What station is this, sir? I think I slept through the announcement.

It’s Great Falls, Miss, he told her. She sighed; still a long, long way from Kalispell. From what the porter told her it was about four hundred miles and all uphill. That part of the trip would likely take as long as the trip this far had taken from Colorado, since he’d also told her that the train would have to go really slow. She wished that she had paid more attention when her tutor tried to get her to learn about geography. Perhaps if she had known just how far on the other side of the world Montana reached, she would have looked harder for a husband closer to Denver... not that her Ma had really given her a choice.

She stepped off the train onto the now familiar dusty deck. They all looked the same and each time she stepped out on one, it felt like she had been there before. The only difference between any of them was a slight change in scenery, and sometimes the deck was muddy instead of covered with dust. The mountains were bigger here than the ones in Denver, and they dominated the countryside. If she had to describe them, the only word that would even come close to doing it would be majestic. It seemed to her that the people who came and went from the train since they’d crossed over into Montana territory did a lot of talking about the mountains, mostly in reference to the weather. To her they looked like sentries, standing there with hands on their hips, looking down on everyone’s business and keeping other unwanted business out. Apparently while they’re doing that, they’re also paying mind to the weather.

With each new stop at each grimy, old station Clarissa had made a habit of taking a walk down to one end of the platform and back to the other. The old stuffy train didn’t have much leg room on it, and if you stood up and walked while it was moving you were taking a great risk with your neck. She tried to stay in her seat as much as possible when the train was moving. She was fairly certain she would need her neck as well as all of the muscles that connected to it when she got to Montana. She’d heard from her sister in the letters she’d sent Clarissa since she came out to Montana with her husband that the life of a homesteader’s wife was no small task, indeed. Her groom had told her the same, but he’d not given her any indication that he would be expecting her to work and sweat alongside him. Maybe it was because he didn’t think a girl who had grown up in the city surrounded by wealth and privilege could handle it. Her mother had read her letters before she sent them, and she had made sure Clarissa hadn’t mentioned anything to him about just how hard she had worked for the past two years.

Clarissa and her sister had grown up in Colorado. Their father had been a banker, running the bank that her mother’s father left him. Like them, their Ma had grown up the daughter of one. The girls had lived a life of privilege, and Clarissa and Rebecca were cultured and educated and everything that well-bred young ladies were supposed to be. They were bound to be two of the most sought after young ladies in Denver society and that’s what they had been groomed for, until tragedy struck and seemed to keep on striking for an entire year afterwards.

Their Papa was murdered in a bank robbery. At that time silver was pouring into the banks and the robbers were pouring into Colorado. Papa always promised Ma that if his bank came under robbery that he would give them whatever they wanted and walk out of there alive, and go home to his girls, as he called the three of them. She would worry every day when he left the house for work, and until that day Clarissa had never understood it. According to the bank clerk who was there that day, Papa had done exactly what he always said he would. He’d given the man the money, and then God, or perhaps it was the Devil, only knew for what reason, the robber shot their Papa in the back.

Clarissa would never forget the agonizing wail her mother had let out upon finding out that her husband was dead. They’d been married for twenty-four years, and Papa had been the only man that her Ma ever loved. Clarissa thought that was the single worst day of her life... until the next one happened.

That one came the day Clarissa, her sister Rebecca, and her mother had gone to the bank a few weeks after their Papa had died. The bills were coming due, and Ma hadn’t a clue how to access their accounts. Clarissa’s Papa had always handled all of their accounts, including the trust that her grandfather set up for both the girls before he’d passed away. Grandpa had wanted them to either have either a good dowry, or a fresh start, he’d always said. When they got to the bank, the manager, a loyal employee of her father’s as well as a very good friend of the family checked the records, and then checked them again and even checked them a third time before he finally told them that there was nothing left... in any of the accounts. The personal accounts were overdrawn and the trust fund accounts were virtually empty.

Clarissa’s mother refused to believe him at first... She had become irate and had made a scene right there in the bank.

You’re lying, why would you do that? Does it please you to humiliate women?

"Mrs. Standish, I assure you that nothing about this pleases me. I’m only giving you the facts, and

Reviews for Mail Order Bride

[Debra Hodo · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It left a lot to the imagination
1- what happened with the father and new bride?
2-what happen with father and son?
3- Rebecca and her family ,did she name the baby Ernie? Did they rebuild are move to town.
4 did Ernie get caught?