A Bride for Harper Read online

  A Bride for Harper

  The Proxy Brides Series

  P. Creeden

  Contents

  A Bride for Harper

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Love Western Romance?

  A Bride for Henry

  A Bride for James

  An Agent for Josie

  An Agent for Opal

  Promise of Home

  Brokken Rising

  Brokken Pursuit

  A Bride for Harper © 2019 P. Creeden

  Cover by Virginia McKevitt

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

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  A Bride for Harper

  Mabel Brown has always been her father’s favorite daughter. She was the son he’d never had. So when he finds that he’s dying, he makes arrangements for each of his three daughters to marry, but struggles to find a good, godly man for Mabel until he virtually falls into Harper’s lap.

  Harper Jones has lived all his life as a trapper and mountain man near Fort Laramie. As half native Crow and half white man, he’s had a hard time fitting in with just about everyone. Gaining a wife is the furthest thing from his mind until Mr. Brown makes him an offer that’s hard to refuse.

  To keep either of them from backing out of the arrangement after his death, Mr. Brown asks both of them to be married by proxy before they ever meet.

  Chapter 1

  March 1861

  Harper Jones grunted as he waded through the icy, thigh-high water from the beaver dam. Another exercise in futility. He’d found nothing in his trap, yet it had been sprung, so he’d had to reset it. His breath fogged around his face as he measured each step carefully, pulling his feet up from the sucking mud and working to keep his balance so he didn’t end up face-first in the water. When he got to shore, the breeze picked up, toying with the water that still clung to his oiled pants. He frowned and pulled off the hides he used as moccasins from his feet. On the sled he’d pulled with him, he found fresh hides to replace them. Jack, his setter, barked at something in the distance he’d taken a mind to chasing after.

  The thick white clouds overhead promised snow. Harper wanted to get to Fort Laramie with the hides he had before the storm hit in earnest. Over ten pounds of hides covered his own body from head to toe just to keep in the heat while he worked to get more. On his sled, he had the hides he’d been collecting all month and decided to check his traps once more before continuing on to the fort.

  It had been an unseasonably warm couple of weeks, making him feel as though spring might actually have come early, but Harper wasn’t optimistic that way. He’d known the whole time that a cold spell was just around the corner. He needed to get these furs traded and stock up on supplies at the general store before heading back to his cabin.

  Besides Jack, determination, strength, and perseverance had been his only stalwart companions in the wilderness. Harper needed little else. His father had lived off the land and had an excellent working relationship with the Crow Indians nearby. His mother had been one of the Crow. Being a blue-eyed half breed had made Harper an outcast to what could have been his tribe, and a pariah among the white men who could only see the darker color of his skin. For a long time after his mother passed on, it was just his father and him. His father had been one of the original mountain men who helped form the Oregon trail. Because of that, his father enjoyed traveling between two cabins—one in the south during the winter months, and one in the north, away from the trail during summer when too many travelers made living near the trail difficult to trap. People didn’t respect property rights. But he’d buried his father four winters ago in the north. Now, at the age of twenty-two, Harper was on his own. He didn’t mind being alone and protected his routine.

  As he stood up in his dry moccasins, he let out a sharp whistle. In the distance, Jack had stopped barking and seconds later, he came bounding up to Harper. He knelt down and roughed up the brown and white dog’s coat with pets and scratches. Then he stood and pulled the sled. Farther up north in the French territories, he’d heard that many men used packs of dogs to pull their sleds. Harper didn’t see the use in keeping so many dogs just for that purpose, when his sled rarely got so heavy he couldn’t pull it himself.

  On a day like this one, he had to keep close watch on how he was dressed. The last thing he needed was to get sweating under his furs. It was difficult to stay warm if he allowed himself to get wet under his layers. He was better off being a little underdressed for the weather while working hard then to let his clothes soak up his sweat. And as he pulled the sled, it wasn’t hard to work up that sweat.

  By the time he got to Laramie, the smallest of flurries had begun to mix in with the breeze. It wasn’t quite falling yet in earnest, but he knew well enough to stay focused on the task at hand and not allow himself to get sidetracked when he still had hours before he’d make it home. The last thing he needed was to spend that time wading through snow.

  He stopped first at the general store. He ordered Jack to sit on the furs and stay, which the setter did, happily. The dog wouldn’t do much in the way of guarding the furs, but he’d still act as a deterrent since most had no idea the dog was probably incapable of actually biting anyone.

  When he reached the shop, he held the door open for a lady who was leaving, but instead of thanking Harper, the woman had shied away from him, eyes wide with fear. Harper nodded toward the woman anyway and then headed inside. The tall, thin man in glasses, Mr. Howard, stood behind the counter when Harper walked in. “Mr. Jones, I hope the weather has been treating you kindly. What can I get for you today?”

  “I brought you a list of supplies,” Harper said. “But I’m going to need to stop at the trading post before I can pay. If you can get the supplies ready for me though? Storm’s coming.”

  Mr. Howard peered out the window as though he didn’t believe what Harper was saying. Then the man lifted a brow. “It’s just a mess of flurries. I wouldn’t quite call that a storm.”

  Harper nodded. One thing that his father had instilled in him at a very young age was that it never behooved a man to argue with a fool. If someone disagrees with what he knows to be right, Harper had gotten in the habit of just nodding and not correcting them. “I’ll be back momentarily, then, if you can have the supplies ready for me?”

  Mr. Howard eyed the list; which Harper knew had perfect penmanship. His father had taught him to read and write like a gentleman during the months they were holed up in the cabin without any contact with the outside world, and the old man had been unnecess
arily strict about it with Harper when he was young. Then Mr. Howard nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you,” Harper said as he headed back toward the door. A pretty young woman with dark red curls and green eyes stepped up toward the door as he stepped out. He held it open for her.

  With a smile that made Harper’s heart flutter, she met eyes with him and thanked him. He gaped at her when she did, and then frowned at her retreating form. She saw him but didn’t treat him any differently than any other gentleman at the fort. He swallowed hard and let the door slip through his fingers and shut, putting a physical barrier between himself and the young girl before he headed back inside to talk to her. He had no idea what he might say to her, but part of him just wanted to see if she would do it again. If she would speak to him as she would any other man, if she would look at him still as anyone else, if he could move her heart as any other man could.

  His jaw tensed so hard that he thought he might break a back tooth. What a foolish thought. His hands fisted as he forced himself to back up a step and leave the covered porch in front of the general store.

  Mabel Brown’s heart picked up speed the moment she met eyes with the blue-eyed stranger. He was taller than most men, taller even then her father. His face was dark and hard and rough, like leather, but there was a softness in his eyes, a vulnerability that said that he still had hope that the world had good in it. At least, that’s what Mabel read in his eyes. She watched him through the general store window until he returned to the sled where the dog sat. A smile tugged at her lip. She’d pet the dog on the head as she passed because he had stood and wagged his tail at her. She even reminded the dog to stay. And it was a good thing, since his owner had obviously put him there for a reason. Her heart swelled in her chest. Any man who could be that kind to a dog had to have a good heart.

  “Miss,” the clerk at the general store called from behind the counter. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  As she turned away from the window, Mabel put on her most charming smile. “Do you happen to have any licorice?”

  The man lifted a brow. “The candy?”

  She nodded, her smile unwavering. “My father has had a bit of a cough lately, and I know licorice is just the thing to help him with it.”

  “I do have both elixir and cough syrup,” he said with a tilt of his head as though he’s speaking to a child.

  And that was okay with Mabel—people often treated her as a child. Maybe it was her defensive smile, or the fact that she tended to look younger than her seventeen years. She shook her head. “My father won’t touch the stuff. He practices temperance and eschews any use of either of those bottled spirits.”

  The man shrugged, released a sigh and then asked, “How much licorice can I get you then?”

  “Two pennys’ worth.” Why did people always have to sigh when she finally got them to agree with her? It was her nature to convince others that her ways were right, especially since they often discounted that she didn’t know what she was asking for because of her age.

  After putting several whips of licorice into a paper sack, the man took her money and gave her what she’d wanted. She thanked him and then headed toward the door. Her eyes betrayed her and immediately started looking through the window for the sled and the dog that sat upon it. Did she want to see the dog again or the blue-eyed man who owned him? She frowned at herself and pushed open the door to head outside. A cold rush of air greeted her, and the flurries were larger and more frequent than they’d been on her way in. Her frown deepened. She’d need to head back to the hotel and hoped her father was already there. He’d rented a horse from the livery to get his business done. The only problem was that he’d been developing a cough ever since the stagecoach ride up from their home near Fort Kearny. The stage had been overcrowded, a rough ride on the well-worn leather seats and overly hot because of the unseasonably warm weather they’d been having. Now the weather had taken a turn, but she didn’t like the timing.

  Once she got to the inn, she rushed up the stairs to the rooms she was sharing with her father. When she entered in, she’d already begun speaking, “Father, I bought you something for your cough—”

  But when she looked around, she found nobody in the rooms.

  With a frown, she put down her procured licorice and returned to the hall, closing the door behind her. She started down the stairs, going first to the dining area to be sure her father wasn’t warming himself from the cold with a cup of tea. But no one in the dining room looked like her father. Then she stepped up to the front desk and asked the inn keeper. “Sir, have you seen Mr. Brown, my father, return this afternoon?”

  Slowly the innkeeper looked up from his writing, pushed his glasses farther up his nose and lifted a brow. “I’m not one to pay much attention to the comings and goings of our patrons, but no, Miss. I haven’t seen Mr. Brown since he left this morning.”

  She frowned as he went back to his writing. For one who wasn’t paying attention, he certainly seemed to know about her father’s goings. Pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders, she started for the door, but when she got there, she found the snow had begun to fall in earnest.

  “No,” she whispered to herself as her heart sank. Then she pressed on and continued out the door. Large snowflakes stuck to her eyelashes, forcing her to blink several times and swipe at them with her gloves to rid herself of them. But the streets were nearly empty, making it easy to make her way to the livery without anything slowing her down. When she reached the stables, she found the owner giving the horses a warm bran mash.

  “Excuse me,” she called as she neared him.

  The man looked up and smiled. “What can I do for you, Miss?”

  “My father, Mr. Brown, rented a horse this morning. I’ve come to see if he’s perhaps returned it?”

  The man’s lips thinned as he shook his head. “I’m sorry, Miss. Mr. Brown hasn’t yet returned.

  Chapter 2

  Once Harper had finished trading in the beaver and fox furs he’d been drying for the month, he pulled his now, empty sled back to the general store. His pockets flush with cash, he headed inside and purchased the supplies he’d needed for the storm.

  “It seemed you were right about the weather,” Mr. Howard said as he entered. “Looks like I’ll be closing up shop early. No one’s going to come out in this. They’d be a fool to.”

  Harper got the distinct feeling that the owner of the general store was trying to call him a fool indirectly, since the man knew full well that Harper would have to traverse the three miles back to his cabin in this weather, which would likely take him longer than the hour it normally would to trek. But instead of saying a word about it, Harper only asked, “How much do I owe you for the supplies?”

  “Four-fifty,” the man answered.

  Harper’s gut twisted. That was nearly half of the money he’d collected on the furs. It was getting harder to earn a living through trapping anymore. He pushed the money across the counter and then took his bundles. Once he got out to the sled, he wrapped his bundles in the oiled skin he’d brought specifically for the purpose of keeping the parcels from getting wet in the snow. On his body, he wore several furs, and had oiled the ones he used for shoes as well has his pants to keep them as waterproof as possible. His father had taught him to use the furs that the trading post would reject—ones with damage, injury, or discoloration. Or if the animal had been older and unhealthy, its fur might be rougher or missing patches. Those where the ones he would either remove the fur from and use the skins, or just wear them to keep himself warm.

  He piled on as many of the furs as he could upon his body, no longer worrying if he was going to work up a sweat or not. And then he set an extra fur over Jack for the trip home. Though the setter would likely have loved to bound along the trail on his own feet, Harper wouldn’t have the dog getting himself wet and freezing before they could even make it home. By the time he made it out of the town and started on the trail back t
o his cabin, the snow was beginning to stick to the ground. With a frown, he wiped the snow from his lashes and trudged forward. His only saving grace was that the wind was blowing to his back.

  A riderless horse rushed passed him, its reins flapping in the wind, and it’s chestnut-red body looking like fire. Jack barked, but remained on the sled. Harper’s heart skipped in his chest and he swallowed. The wild eyes of the beast had looked frantic and feverish, and very much like the horse War might ride as one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. The thought of it made Harper shudder, but he didn’t let the animal deter him from continuing forward. Several marching steps later, his heart had settled back down as much as it was going to do while working on getting home.

  The snow continued to fall. He was halfway home when the snow had become over ankle deep. Even though the trek had become slow for him, he trudged forward, his calves and thighs burning from the exertion. When he finally reached the turn for the trail to his cabin, a wide grin spread across his lips. He was nearly home. It was a bittersweet moment, since the snow was now over a foot deep in areas with drifts even higher. And unfortunately, one of those drifts had piled up right in front of the path he’d need to take. When he got there, he frowned and began pulling the snow to the sides with his gloved hands, clearing it from the pile. Then he frowned. There was something solid beneath the drift. He continued to push the snow out of the way until a brown tweed coat came into view. A human?