The Unlikely Wife. Debra Ullrick

They shuffled their way back toward the train depot.

       “Where’s your luggage?” he asked without looking at her, his mind and body numb. Dead, even.

       “I only have the one bag.” She headed toward a patched-up gunnysack, picked it up and faced him.

       He stared at the bag, shocked by her obvious poverty. “Here, let me take that for you.” His focus trailed to her face.

       She raised her head and jutted her chin before shifting her bag away from his reach. “Thank you kindly, but I can carry it myself.”

       He didn’t mean to hurt her pride. He nodded, then pointed to his wagon, the only one left at the station now.

       She slipped her hat back on, strode to the back of the buckboard, laid her rifle and sack down, then leaped onto the tail of the wagon, leaving her legs dangling.

       That wasn’t what he had in mind when he pictured taking his bride home. And what if his family was around when he got back to the ranch? What would they think if they saw her sitting back there and not up front with him?

       Indecision tugged him in several directions as he debated what to do. Embarrassed by her appearance, he preferred she stay back there. But then again, if she did, his family would wonder what was wrong and he certainly didn’t want to tell them he’d made the biggest mistake of his life. They already thought he was crazy because of some of the poor choices he’d made in the past.

       Like the goats he’d bought on a whim.

       The little brats had destroyed his mother’s garden, chewed up some of the laundry and had even wreaked havoc at some of their neighbors’ places. It had taken him a long time to make amends and to get rid of them. No one wanted the goats. He finally had to give them away. His family still gave him a hard time for that one. They’d have a field day with this one.

       “Selina.” He scuffed at the dirt with his boot. “Would you mind sitting up front with me?”

       She frowned. “Why?”

       “Because… Whether we like it or not, we are man and wife, and I think it would be best if we acted like it.”

       She tilted her head and studied him. “I see what you’re sayin’, and I won’t shame ya by not sittin’ next to you.” Before he had a chance to help her, she hopped down and seated herself up front, leaving the sweet scent of field flowers in her wake.

       He stared, shaking his head. He wasn’t sure he would ever get used to a woman who acted and dressed like a man. And yet, what choice did he have? For better or worse, she was now his wife. And he had a bad feeling it was going to be for the worse.

      Chapter Two

      Selina scooted as close to the side of the wagon seat as possible. Touching Michael was something she didn’t want to do. Her heart ached something fierce knowing Michael didn’t love her and that she’d pretty much come all this way for nothing.

       If only she’d known all of this back home, she would’ve never gotten hitched then. She’d seen the ugliness of what a marriage without love could do to folks, to the whole family, and it wasn’t a pretty sight.

       Long ago she had made a promise to herself to never get married unless the man truly loved her and she loved him. When she’d said yes to Michael’s proposal, she believed she was honoring that promise.

       Why did she ever let Aimee talk her into answering that stupid ad? If she hadn’t, then neither she nor Michael would be in this mess.

       Poor Michael. What he must be going through. “Michael.”

       “Yes?”

       “I’m really sorry for what my friend did. I had no idea she wrote those things and lied to you. Iffen I’d known, I would never have come.”

       “What’s done is done, Selina. We’ll just make the best of it.”

       He sure seemed to be taking it a lot easier than she was. Either that or he was mighty good at hiding it.

       Silence followed them the rest of the way home. That was fine with Selina. Gave her time to take in the scenery.

       Layers of green rolling hills stretched before her, ending at the base of a mountain covered with trees. Well, if a body could call these here mountains. They weren’t nearly as big as the ones back home. In Kentucky, these mountains would be called nothing more than hills.

       One thing for certain, this place was nothing like where she’d come from. But then again, nowhere on God’s green earth ever would be to her. Born and raised in the Appalachian Mountains, she loved Kentucky and all its beauty. Before she left, she had fastened every little detail of them and her home into her memory so she’d never forget what they looked like.

       The sun bore down on her back, heating her body something awful. She sure could use a drink. She licked her lips.

       Michael twisted in the seat and reached for something behind him. He handed a canteen to her.

       “How’d you know I was thirsty?”

       His only response was a hike of his shoulder.

       Wasn’t long before they rounded a bend in the trees.

       “Whoa, girls.” Michael pulled the horses to a halt in front of a house five times bigger than the shack she grew up in.

       Selina turned to Michael. “Why we stoppin’ here?” She gawked at the large two-story house with rocking chairs, small tables and a big wooden swing on the porch that went clear around the place.

       “I live here.”

       “This is yours?”

       “Yes. It is.”

       “Well, I’ll be hanged. You told me you were a pig farmer. Or did Aimee lie about that, too?”

       “No. She didn’t. I am a pig farmer. But I said that I also raise cattle.”

       “Oh, no,” she groaned. “I can’t believe I up and married myself a rich man.”

       Michael turned his head her direction. “You sound like that’s a bad thing.”

       “It is. Iffen I’d a known you was rich, I’d never have answered that ad.”

       “What do you have against rich people?”

       “Lots of things. Folks who have money think they’re better than poor folk. Treatin’ us like we’re lower than dirt. Like we have no feelin’s at all.”

       “Hey, now just you wait a minute. You can’t go judging all rich people by the ones where you come from. My family and I do not turn up our noses at poor folks or treat them like dirt, either. Nor are we mean. I resent you clumping us into some category when you don’t even know us.”

       “You might resent it, but the truth is you’re just like them rich folks back home. Back at the train station I saw you turn your nose down at me and how I look. My whole life people been judgin’ me by the way I dress. All I can say is, I’m mighty glad the good Lord looks at the heart and not the outside like some folks do.”

       His cheeks turned the color of a rusty-pink sunset.

       “Aimee was rich, too. And look what she did to us.” Selina spoke under her breath, still in shock at what her friend had done. She didn’t want to think about that right now though. It hurt too much.

       She hopped down from the wagon and grabbed her bag. Good thing she’d found a flour sack and put it to rights the best way she could, or she wouldn’t have had anything to put her few belongings in.

       Her eyes trailed to the huge house again and she wondered how many people lived here.

       Michael was waiting for her at the end of the steps, looking uncomfortable.

       Well, he wasn’t the