Welcome To Wyoming

“Jarrod, please.”

She inhaled a breath of fresh Wyoming air, laden with the scent of fir trees and pines. “Jarrod.”

The man was intimidating.

If she had to say, she’d say he was affected by her, too. She could see it in the heated manner of his gaze, the upturn of his silky lips, and how he slowly dropped his hand and rubbed the back of his neck. And yet he took a step away from her, his stance detached.

Jarrod cleared his throat and then introduced the other two men.

“These are my associates. Kale McKern and Woody Fowler.”

They were all roughly thirty years of age, give or take a couple. Neatly shaven, well dressed, inquisitive.

The thin man in the bowler hat stepped forward to shake her hand.

“Mr. Fowler, how do you do?” she asked.

“Welcome to Wyoming Territory, ma’am.”

Then to the other she added, “Mr. McKern.”

“You arrived on a right beautiful day.” His mustache wiggled as he chewed on a piece of grass. She thought she detected the scent of alcohol. Maybe they’d had dinner while they were waiting for her.

“You all work together in the jewelry business?” she asked politely.

The two men shoved their hands into their pockets and deferred to Jarrod. He was obviously the leader of the group. He likely employed them, judging by the respectful way they looked at him.

“Yes, we do,” Jarrod said boldly, half a head taller than his associates and much more muscled. Goodness, by his letters, she’d never realized he’d be so handsome. “Pay no attention to them,” Jarrod continued. “They just came to say hello. Now they’ll be on their way.” He seemed to give them some sort of signal. “As soon as they pick up your trunk and deliver it to the hotel across the street. Right, fellas?”

“Yes, sir.” Mr. Fowler heaved on one end of the trunk, and his friend the other.

Jarrod was trying to get rid of them, she thought, likely so that he and she could be alone. It made her flush to think she would be alone with her future husband soon. There was only so much they could get across in letters. His had been rather formal and very proper. She was not expecting this bigger-than-life red-blooded male with rather long hair standing in front of her. She wondered what he had in mind for this evening, and when they would be talking to the minister. She had been expecting one final letter from him this week before she left Chicago to clarify those details, but it hadn’t come. He likely hadn’t had the time to write it.

As the men hoisted the trunk, she gripped her satchel. It contained her coin purse, travel documents and derringer.

Jarrod held out his elbow and she took it with an appreciative smile.

He was unexpectedly charming.

They strolled ahead of the other two, making their way down the platform toward the stone-built depot.

Jarrod patted her fingers that encircled his arm. Even though she was still wearing gloves, it was such a tender gesture and made her insides flutter.

Lord, she was going to be sharing her bed with this man. Sharing her body with his. Back home in Chicago at Mrs. Pepik’s Boardinghouse for Desolate Women, she’d met a lot of women from ragged backgrounds, some worse off than her, hearing all sorts of tales about men from different segments of society, rich and poor. All sorts of talk about the pleasures and dangers of intimacy. She hoped that Jarrod was what he appeared to be in his letters: well educated, finely bred, a gentleman in every regard.

She did admit, he looked wilder and more untamed than she’d imagined. Much more physically in shape than someone who spent a lot of time reading books and studying jewelry. And what was it about him that made him seem so distant from her?

“How was your trip?” he asked. “Not too tiresome, I hope.”

“It was a little rough, I’m afraid. We had problems with the locomotive.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You don’t say.”

“Luckily, I took an earlier train from Chicago—one day earlier because train schedules can be so disruptive—so I had time to spare when we broke down yesterday morning outside Omaha. We had to wait an entire day for new parts. The railroad put us up for the night. I nearly didn’t get here.”

He raised an eyebrow. “How unfortunate.”

“Yes, it could have been. My friends in Chicago sometimes tell me I get too worried over fine details, that I’m always expecting trouble, but thank goodness I had the foresight to leave earlier this time. Otherwise you’d still be standing here, thinking I stood you up!”

Jarrod nodded. “Good thing you’re resourceful.”

“I try to be,” she said. “Thank you kindly for noticing.” Her skirts picked up as her enthusiasm bounded.

“Always expecting trouble, you say?” He peered at her oddly.

“It’s in my nature. I don’t trust easily. My friends in Chicago say it’s because I grew up with my grandfather, who was overprotective and worried about every little thing. You know how older folks are.”

He blinked. “Right. And yet here you are.”

“Oh, I know it must seem to you that it’s a contradiction. That I don’t trust easily and yet I traveled a thousand miles to marry a stranger. But as I said in our many letters, I had to get to know you first. That’s why I needed to ask you all those questions.”

“I guess I passed your test.”

“You most certainly did.” She rubbed away a fallen hair from her cheek. “And my friends, of course, helped me pick out the most eligible bachelor from all the responses I got from the ad.”

“And you trust your friends.”

She smiled. “Yes. We help each other. So far, six of us have placed ads as mail-order brides.” It was their way of escaping the tragedy of the Great Chicago Fire two years ago that had charred the city, leaving behind death and destruction and forcing them to make new lives for themselves all across the country. In her heart, it was also to get away from the loss of her grandfather, and the burden of feeling like a wild bird in a cage. She’d always wanted to travel and feel the ripple of adventure in her pulse.

He pulled in a breath that made her wonder what he was thinking.

She added in a whisper, “This is the most daring, craziest thing I’ve ever done, though. Coming to meet you. My grandfather would roll over in his grave.”

“Then I’ll have to take good care of you for the sake of your granddad.” He patted her hand again in a most detached, grandfatherly way, much to her puzzlement. “You likely missed dinner. Are you hungry, darlin’? I thought I might book you a room across the street. The Mountain Hotel has a beautiful view and a fine restaurant.”

She thought she heard a snicker behind her. With a frown, she spun to look, but the men behind her were straight-faced, shuffling the heavy trunk between them.

She tensed over the fact that he wished to book a room. One for her and one for himself? Surely not one for them together, for there didn’t appear to be enough time to wed first. As eager as she was to get to know him intimately, she wasn’t the type of woman to do it before marriage. She’d met lots of women like that at the boardinghouse, though, many who became dear friends. Ladies of a “certain kind” who taught her things about what pleased men in the bedroom—tips she would surely try out on Jarrod. Perhaps he would stay at his home tonight, although she didn’t know the particulars of where he stayed when he traveled. He’d written that he owned a few homes, modest homes little more than cabins that he wished to make bigger and brighter with her as his new bride.

“You didn’t have dinner yet?” she asked him.

“I was waiting for you.”

“How considerate.”

They stopped by the outer stone wall of the depot as he picked up a fine suitcase befitting of a jeweler. She gathered his things were inside. Perhaps they would marry quickly and honeymoon somewhere?

They walked through the crowded station and came out on the other side at street level. The boardwalk was teeming with folks in all directions. Wagons loaded with ranching supplies rolled along the dirt street. Storefronts were strung with banners that read Shovels for Sale, Sandwiches Till Midnight, Gold Nuggets Weighed and Exchanged, Copper and Silver Bought and Sold.