Free Mail Order Bride: Bitter & Pregnant, An English Widow Heads Off to Her Cowboy Rancher In California (A Clean & Wholesome Historical Romance) by Doreen Milstead

Mail Order Bride: Bitter & Pregnant, An
English Widow Heads Off to Her Cowboy Rancher In California
    (A Clean & Wholesome Historical
Romance)
     
    By
     
    Doreen Milstead
     
    Copyright 2015 Enduring Hope & Love
Press
     
     
    Synopsis: A stubborn and pregnant English
widow makes the long journey to California in the hopes of safe
haven for she and her child, and intent on not marrying her mail
order fiancé because he is merely a means to an end. Her companions
are a young married couple – the man is one that her husband saved
before he fell into the ocean and drowned, so she has a hatred for
him at first. When they all arrive they are met by a far different
man that the woman had come to know through a couple of letters,
and she is quick to try and figure out, if she can, what on earth
is happening.
     
     
     
    Jeanne Harrow had been feeling ill for weeks,
she couldn't figure out why, and the worst part of it was that her
husband was nowhere to be seen. He worked for a shipping company
and was usually gone for long periods of time, but he had simply
gone over to France to try to set up a new partnership with a
company based there. He should have been back by now and perhaps
even off on another task. This concerned Jeanne and as she lay on
her bed to wait for her stomach to settle, she heard a knock on the
door.
    She groaned, stood up, waited for her head to
stop spinning and went to answer the door. A young man was standing
there, hat in his hands and a frown on his face. She recognized him
from the shipping company's warehouse and she recognized the face
as one that was ready to deliver some bad news.
    "Oh no," said Jeanne. "What's wrong?"
    "Your husband didn't make it home," said the
young man. "Mister Harrow went down on a ship that was crossing the
Channel. I'm sorry."
    "He could swim," said Jeanne, angrily. "What
do you mean he went down? He could swim!"
    "He couldn't swim enough I guess," said the
young man. "He might have gotten dragged down."
    Jeanne felt that she should be sad, but all
she felt angry. "Did anyone even try to save him?"
    "Yes, and Mister Harrow saved me," said the
young man.
    "So it's your fault that my husband is dead,"
said Jeanne, and she slammed the door in his face. He tried to say
something, but Jeanne couldn't hear him through the door and her
heavy sobbing. She slid down to the floor, her head swimming with
sadness and nausea, and she spent the rest of the night there.
     
     
    The next few weeks were especially hard on
her, with the sickness coming and going without warning and people
coming from her husband's company to try to make some sort of
amends. After some time insisting that they simply bring her
husband back, she acceded to their request to at least give him a
proper memorial service. She went to the ceremony, her eyes dry and
as she looked around at all the people who had come to see her
husband off she felt a deep loathing for each one of them.
    It wasn't their fault she knew, but each one
was a reminder of what she had once had and was now lost to her.
She needed to leave the country and she needed to do it quickly.
The only problem was that she had no place to go and no desire to
deal with the rest of Europe. That only really left the Americas
and she didn't have nearly enough money to get over there. She
could only see one solution, and so she walked up to her husband's
old boss and slapped him.
    "You killed my husband," she said. "You're
the one who sent him to France!"
    "Missus Harrow, we couldn't have known that
your husband was going to die," said the boss. "If there's anything
we can do to help you through this time, please let us know."
    "I want to go to America," said Jeanne. "I
want to forget all of this."
    "I emphasize with your situation but I can't
just send you over there without a plan," said the boss. "That'd be
akin to homicide, leaving you there without any idea of what you're
doing."
    "Fine," said Jeanne. "I'll figure out what
I'm going to do and then I'll