Free Mail Order Bride: Captured Hearts: a Clean Western Historical Romance (Mail Order Brides of Gold Creek Book 6) by Emily Woods

Chapter 1
     

    Mollie Hughes sighed deeply as she watched her mother bustle around the kitchen like she didn’t have a care in the world, humming a lively tune to herself.
    “Ma, I wish you would sit down and let me fix dinner,” Mollie said. “You’ve got to get your rest.”
    “Nonsense,” Nell replied, swatting her, not all that gently, with a wooden spoon. “I’ve got to stay active and keep moving. I’m not going to my grave yet.
    “But Doctor Gordon said—“
    “Doctor Gordon says a lot of things,” Nell said scornfully.
    “Yes,” Mollie pressed, “like you’ll need to stay in bed.”
    “And that I’ll need $200 for surgery,” said Nell. “Neither of which is going to happen.”
    Mollie felt that the frustration of it all would bring her to tears again. How on earth would they ever raise that kind of money? With her needing to quit work to look after her mother and Silas, her stepfather, working reduced hours in the factory, money was the tightest it had ever been. She tossed her dishcloth on the kitchen table and put her head in her hands.
    “Why couldn’t Todd have at least sent us some of his money? To just go West and make a fortune and never come back? How selfish can you get?”
    Her mother looked at her kindly.
    “Don’t go down this road again, Mollie,” she said. “No, your father has certainly not been ideal—“
    “You can say that again.”
    “—but you’re blessed with a wonderful stepfather who considers you his own.”
    “I know,” Mollie said. “And I am glad for that.”
    “Well, good,” her mother said. “Things will work out, don’t you worry.”
    Mollie had no idea how her mother could have such a casual attitude about the whole thing. She had a tumor in her side that grew by the day, but never seemed to let it get her down. She carried her rosary beads around and graced everyone with a genuine, compassionate smile. Mollie marveled at her mother’s ability to handle stress, feeling her own pulse quicken and muscles tighten whenever she thought of their desperate situation.
    “I’ll just have to go back to work,” said Mollie, as if her determination would make a job appear out of nowhere.
    “If you think that’s best, dear,” said Nell breezily.
    “Of course, I’ve looked and looked and there seems there’s nothing available,” Mollie said.
    She was probably the best educated young person in their poor neighborhood in Virginia, Nell and Silas having scrimped and saved every last penny to make sure she could complete school and learn how to read and write. She had quickly become the neighborhood scribe, filling out forms and reading letters, by the age of nine. Everyone had said that she would be the most successful girl their neighborhood ever produced, but with her mother’s illness she had barely had any time to work.
    Mollie felt tears stinging in her eyes. It was too much for her to handle and she rushed out of the room, not wanting to burden her mother with her tears.
    Running up the stairs, she threw herself on the bed and sobbed as her heart broke with the hopelessness of their situation. How would they ever come up with the money they needed for the surgery?
    She thought about her biological father and wondered if he was still in Gold Creek. He had sent them a single letter, over ten years ago, with some money tucked into the envelope. They had written him back to the Gold Creek post office address he provided but received no reply. There was no way of telling whether he was dead or had moved on, or was simply ignoring them. It was a mystery. It had ended up the same way for many other families in the neighborhood, having watched the men of their households mount up on the wagon heading West but never having the relief of seeing them return. Only one came back, Henry Glasser, full to the brim with money that he threw about indiscriminately trying to keep the neighborhood afloat. It was gone before the year was out.
    As she lay on the bed, a