DECEIVED

Wichita Falls, 1881

Perhaps she could learn to love him.

The voice muscled its way past the many troubling ones in her head, fighting for her attention. She felt hopeless, for she understood her future was as uncertain as her marriage to the complete stranger who sat beside her, barely breathing. 

She shifted her attention to the side to steal a glance at the man she was now legally married to.

Tan skin, a working muscle in his jaw, curly brown hair… 

She examined his features. A tense muscle pulsed in his arm as he gripped the reins. His hard gaze remained rooted to the dirt-road before them. Other than a few introductory words at the station and his vows at the courthouse moments ago, his lips remained sealed through their journey home. 

Her gaze shifted to the worn shirt that hung loosely on his thin form. Holes littered the fabric. It was apparent that the brown color of the fabric resulted from weeks—possibly months—of neglected laundry. His rolled-up sleeves exposed hairy arms, and his brown pants hung loosely around his thin waist.

Shrinking back, Lily settled her head on the cold metal of the wagon and closed her eyes. Amidst the cranking noise of the rusty wheels of the old wagon, a war raged within Lily. The past few weeks of her life played out before her. She thought of her mother’s death. If Mama hadn’t died, she never would’ve needed to leave home in New York to answer an ad for a mail-order bride. 

Answering Mr. McAllister’s ad seemed like the best thing to do at the time, but now, she wondered if she made a terrible mistake. Her emotions bounced back and forth as fear buried its fangs in her heart. Tears rushed to the surface. Fighting to contain them, she sat silently for nearly an hour, until a screeching sound forced her to jerk upright as the wagon came to a halt.

Raymond McAllister jumped down the wagon and made his way to the back, where her trunks were. While he worked to offload the wagon, she turned to examine her environment. It was then she saw the house.

A loud gasp stole from her lips at the sight of the two-story building before her. The house was so dilapidated, she feared it might crumble under the impact of the soft breeze. The washed white paint made the exterior appear gray and haunted, and the wooden windows, devoid of glass panes, made the house seem deserted. She stared at the broken-down front porch, certain it housed termites.

Something took hold of her hand, gaining her attention. One look at Raymond, and Lily knew he meant to help her down the wagon. She bobbed her head numbly, taking hold of his shoulders as he gripped her waist and carried her down. Once settled on her wobbly feet, he released her and she went back to gawking at the building.

Raymond hoisted her enormous trunk up the stairs to the porch, then turned back to her. “If the sky is anything to go by,” his voice broke through the barrier of confusion that clouded her mind, “you need to come inside!”

Fighting against her desire to crumble into a pile of emotions, Lily forced her feet forward. When she climbed the first stair, the loud creak of the wood nearly sent her running for the road. She bit down on her lower lip and took the remaining stairs up the porch. She was met by an equally broken down wooden door. Wincing, she mustered what was left of her courage and entered the building.

“Children, say hello to Miss Lily Austin. She’ll be your new mother,” Raymond announced.

Lily gasped, shocked by Raymond’s announcement, and even more shocked by the six sets of eyes that stared back at her. 

Children! She clutched her chest when she saw their malnourished faces, and when her dinner from the inn last evening threatened to spew out of her mouth, she swallowed. 

“We do not need a mother!”

Mother! The word made her lungs constrict as her eyes darted to the child that spoke. The child was likely the eldest. Her eyes, much too large for her face, held disdain as she stared at Lily. Her clothes hung on her skinny body, and Lily suspected her loose brown hair housed lice. 

“Scarlet!” Raymond snapped, startling Lily; causing her heart to beat faster than it already did.

“I’m sorry, Papa,” the child said and glanced down.

“Miss Austin, these are my children,” Raymond said. Lily turned to him, her mouth inevitably falling open. She doubted if he noticed her shock, because he carried on like he didn’t. “Scarlet’s my eldest. There’s James, my eldest son, there’s Josie, Lexie, Leonard and Mirabel,” he finished, then turned to Lily.

Lily tried to breathe but could not. She could only gawk at this complete stranger as an avalanche of emotions washed over her. She was stunned, afraid, miserable! But above them all, she was furious. How could Raymond have deceived her like this? How could he have lured her here without a single mention of his children in his ad? And not just any number of children, six! 

“I have work to do,” Raymond announced, then turned to make his way past her. If eyes could burn holes in human flesh, she would have done exactly that to the back of his head.

“Hello!” someone chirped, pulling Lily’s attention from the lying bastard as he walked out of the door.

She spun around, still dazed by Raymond’s revelation. The youngest child stood waving and smiling, her big brown eyes filled with awe.

Forcing a smile to her lips, Lily said, “Hello, there.”

“You’re pretty, like my dolly,” the child noted, holding up a dirty rag doll.

“Oh.” Lily touched her cheek, uncertain whether to accept the little girl’s words as a compliment or an insult, considering the state of the dolly she referred to. “What’s your name?” Lily had been too blinded by rage to pay attention when Raymond introduced the children.

“Mirabel.” A beautiful smile settled on the child’s thin lips. “And you’re Miss Austin!”

Lily found the child’s enthusiasm quite adorable. She offered her what she hoped was a warm smile. “You can call me Lily. Miss Austin makes me sound really old.”

Mirabel nodded. “And you can call me Millie.”

“Millie!” Scarlet hissed, turning to Mirabel, as if to scold her. Mirabel turned to Scarlet, stuck out her tongue, then turned back to smile at Lily.

“Can you cook?” Lily followed the unfamiliar voice to one of the boys. She raised a brow in question. “I’m Leonard, or Lenny. Mama used to call me Lenny.”

Sweat pricked Lily’s skin as she stared at all six children before her. They were young—really young. Scarlet seemed to be between the ages of eleven and twelve, or perhaps even older. Her figure was thin, but in her accusing eyes was wisdom far beyond an eleven-year-old. The boy who stood beside Scarlet seemed to be the next in age. Lily suspected he was ten. He resembled his father with uneven brown hair that was likely trimmed by Scarlet. 

Standing next to the boy was a girl. She stood quietly beside her brother, her brown eyes observing Lily with curiosity. She was thin, but her skin seemed more alive than the others. She was eight, or perhaps nine. A younger girl stood beside her, her gaze fixed on the dirty floorboards as Lily watched her. As if sensing Lily’s eyes on her, she raised her gaze, fierce green eyes settling on Lily.

Lily turned from her to Lenny, the one who wanted to know if she could cook. The little boy struck her as a six-year-old, and next to him was Millie, who was likely five or four.

Four girls and two boys. Just what Lily needed—a husband and children! She groaned loudly.

She turned from the children to the rest of the room. It was nothing fancy, but it was manageable with sparse furnishing that comprised an old, worn-out gray sofa, a rocking chair and a dirty rug sprawled on the center of the dirty floorboards. Behind the children was a space that opened up to a kitchen with a wooden table and a stove that was visible from where she stood. There was a staircase to her right, one she suspected led to the rooms.

“Can you?” Lenny called, bouncing on his heels.

Lily returned her attention back to Lenny and nodded, deciding she wouldn’t take her frustration out on the children. However, she was irritated, and she needed to let it out. “Give me a second, children.” She forced a smile before turning around and stumbling out of the door.

The second the door slammed close behind her, she hurried down the squeaky stairs in search of her unruly husband. It was a vast piece of land, she noted as she stomped through the property. Vast, but mostly covered with weeds. She couldn’t spot a single crop. 

Moments later, she found Raymond hard at work in the barn with the animals. “The nerves of you!” she began, her face catching fire with rage.

He turned to her, and for the first time, she saw his face properly. Two hard lines creased his forehead as he frowned; his fierce green eyes dimming at the sight of her. His parched lips parted slightly, and his muscles flexed as he leaned down and placed the bucket in his hand on the pile of hay by his dirty boots. When he straightened to his full height, she guessed he was in his mid-thirties; much older than her twenty-three years.

“Excuse me?”

“Children?!” She yelled, and he folded his arms. “You have children?”

“I didn’t think it would be a problem,” he answered matter-of-factly, then returned his attention to his work of feeding the horse.

Lily clenched her fists, fighting the urge to yell in frustration. “Let me guess,” she said sarcastically, “you forgot to include that in your ad.”

“An honest mistake.”

She glared at him. The vile man deceived her! He practically lured her into this marriage to be a mother to his six children; to feed, clean and mend their clothes. Then, she’d be forced to serve him as his wife and to keep his bed warm through the winter!

She bit down on her lower lip, afraid she’d curse again. With one last glare at him, she decided she was too tired to come up with a way out of her predicament today. She’d sleep on it and wake up with a solution by the next morning. And as it was, an annulment seemed to be a likely solution.