Once Upon a Mail Order Bride: Mail Order Brides: Book One by Hannah West Read Free Book Online Page A

search of shops and cafes turned up nothing and he was at the end of his line. Heading for Baxter’s mercantile he ran head long into Sheriff Eric.
    “Steady there, friend. What’s the hurry,” Eric asked in greeting.
    “I lost my wife,” Clayton said quickly.
    “Lost your wife?” a confused Eric asked.
    Clayton nodded. “She left me, but didn’t take anything with her. I have no idea of where she could be.”
    Eric frowned. “Well there isn’t much we can do if she only been missing a day. Does she have anywhere in town to go?”
    “I don’t think so. Just the station and maybe some shops but no one has seen her. She has her sister, your wife, but she doesn’t know where you live so she couldn’t have gone there,” Clayton said through grit worried teeth and rubbed the back of his neck.
    “Well in any case I’ll help ya look. I was just doing my rounds anyhow.”
    “Thanks, Sheriff. I am half outta my mind looking for her. We had a fight and I wanted to talk to her about it.”
    Eric crossed his arms with a frown. “And what was this fight about?”
    Clayton colored a dark pink. “Um, well you see…it was more like a fight about us being together like,” he finished lamely.
    “You just got hitched and you are fighting about that?”
    “Well she took my silence as meaning it didn’t want to be married to her and then happened after we were, together together, if you catch my meaning.”
    “So you so how made her misunderstand that you didn’t wanna be married anymore and that you wish you hadn’t slept with her?”
    Clayton nodded slowly.
    “Just how in the world did you do that!” Eric exploded.
    Clayton shook his head. “Well I think she was using me to get money from her family. That she used me as a way to get away from her uncle.”
    Eric shook his head sadly. “You don’t get it do you? The only reason a woman becomes a mail order bride is to run away from something in her old life. Abuse, a life of poverty, and many others. What she did before she got here doesn’t matter. What matters is that she’s here!”
    “She also lied about her age,” he mumbled.
    Eric looked at him weirdly. “You didn’t know she was eighteen?”
    Clayton shook his head.
    “Did she tell you her age in her letters? Did you ask before you married her?”
    Thinking about it she never had told him her age in her letters or before she had said something in bed.
    “No, I didn’t and she never  said anything. But in my letter I asked for a woman who was at least twenty-one! The age difference between us is a huge gap, almost fourteen years!”
    “Well look at your grandma, she was half your Pa’s age when they married each other. If I remember right she was sixteen and he was almost fifty!”
    “Well, I guess you’re right.”
    “Has she been a bad wife to you? Hurt Sadie?” Eric asked as they stepped back onto Main Street.
    “No. Sadie loves her, she will be heart broken when she finds out Carrow left like she did.” He sighed deeply.
    Eric looked at him with a knowing eye. “You’re hurt that she left too. It’s not just about Sadie. You liked the girl. I think that all women when their feelings are hurt they go off trying to find the answers they need. If we don’t find her I’m sure she’ll be back soon. But until then let’s go look.”
    Clayton nodded again with a small smile. Eric was right . He had hurt to realize she would run away from him. And it had been dumb of him to think her problems from before she got here as her using him. Hell with them she never would have been here!
     
    Chapter Nine
     
     
    “Carrow can you watch the pot on the stove with the stew in it? I need to run to the store real quick before Eric gets home for dinner,” Emmy said as she rushed by her sister.
    Not giving her much choice Carrow smiled and nodded as her sister ran for the door with a little wave and left.
    Her sister, no matter how well her feet were stuck to the ground, she was a complete and