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  Ruth

  Brides of the West [5]

  Lori Copeland

  Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. (2012)

  *

  Tags: FICTION Religious, FICTION Christian / Romance

  The continuing story of mail-order brides in the successful Brides of the West series. Spunky, young Ruth Priggish is on the run from an 80-year-old suitor. Her only hope of eluding him is to seek help from an unwilling protector, U.S. Marshall Dylan McCall. Copeland’s readers will delight in this rollicking story of romance and danger.

  Praise for Hope by Lori Copeland

  “Hope is another fun, inspirational outing from seasoned writer Lori Copeland. Who else but Lori would include among her characters an ornery goat, a stolen pig, a mule called Cinder, and a man named Frog? It’s easy to see why romance readers are circling their wagons around the Brides of the West series!” —Liz Curtis Higgs, author of Mixed Signals

  “I just loved this book! Only Lori Copeland could weave a knee-slapping tale with such a beautifully redemptive message. Her characters are delightfully funny and unpredictable, and her plot is full of refreshing twists and turns. I can’t wait for her next book!” —Terri Blackstock, bestselling author

  “Lori Copeland concocts just the right mix of faith, romance, and humor in Hope. I started chuckling right away and didn’t stop till the end. A cheering, uplifting story of God’s wisdom and love.” —Lyn Cote, author of Whispers of Love

  “Lori Copeland’s third book in the Brides of the West series, Hope, is such a delight! I laughed, I cried, but most of all I thrilled to see how spiritual truths could be woven into a rollicking good story! Lori’s light and lively voice makes for good storytelling! This one’s a keeper!” —Angela Elwell Hunt, author of The Silver Sword

  “This tender and funny page-turner will tug at your heart from start to finish. Hope’s journey to love kept me cheering, sighing, and chuckling as I read. Hope is Lori Copeland at her very best!” —Diane Noble, author of When the Far Hills Bloom

  What readers are saying about Brides of the West

  “Faith is one romance that will sit on my limited shelf space and be read over and over.” —L.C.

  “Your new book in the Brides of the West series is wonderful! Keep up the fantastic work!” —P.G.

  “I love stories that are both uplifting and realistic, and Faith and June really fit the bill. God bless you and may you continue to brighten people’s lives with your God-given talent!” —K.L.M.

  “Thanks for a quality story, well-written and uplifting! I’ll spread the word and recommend this book to others.” —J.B.

  “I truly enjoyed your books, Faith and June. I am looking forward to more of your books. My husband (a bookworm) is impressed that I have actually read two books in three weeks!” —S.T.

  “Absolutely magnificent! The stories are fresh and exciting and inspire me to greater faith and service for God. God has anointed you for a mighty work through your wonderful novels.” —K.M.

  Visit Tyndale online at www.tyndale.com.

  TYNDALE and Tyndale’s quill logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

  Ruth

  Copyright © 2002 by Lori Copeland. All rights reserved.

  Cover photograph by Al Navata. Copyright by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Author’s photo copyright © 2004 by Quentin L. Clayton. All rights reserved.

  Cover designed by Beth Sparkman

  Interior designed by Zandrah Maguigad

  Edited by Diane Eble

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.

  Scripture quotation in author’s note is taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

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

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Copeland, Lori.

  Ruth / Lori Copeland.

  p. cm. — (HeartQuest) (Brides of the West ; 5)

  ISBN 0-8423-1937-9

  1. Women pioneers—Fiction. 2. Married women—Fiction. I. Title. II. Series.

  PS3553.O6336 R88 2002

  813′.54—dc21 2002006525

  ISBN 978-1-4143-1538-6

  Build: 2012-12-06 13:35:29

  To three very special Christian young women

  who will someday be brides:

  Brittany King, Kelsey King,

  and Bethany Chambers

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Epilogue

  A Note from the Author

  About the Author

  Prologue

  I’ve survived a lot of things, I’m right proud to say, for someone who grew up in the backwoods of Missouri and all her life thought the whole world consisted of Poppy’s front yard and a one-room shack.

  Glory sat back on the Siddonses’ settee and tapped the tip of the pencil against her teeth. The parsonage hummed as women scurried about preparing for the afternoon celebration. Ruth said that it was important to record special days. Ruth was smart about such things—smart and sassy when the mood hit her. And today couldn’t be more special: Glory was marrying Jackson Lincoln Montgomery.

  She bent and hurriedly scratched out her story… .

  When Poppy died, my life changed overnight. God’s timing, Ruth says. Guess God thought it was about time for me to grow up, but to be honest I’d been real happy where he’d put me. I loved Poppy and the old cow and the few setting hens we had. Our mule, Molasses, died shortly after Poppy went to be with the Lord. The animal just laid down in the middle of the road and went wherever old mules go when they die. I felt empty then. The animals had kept me company after Poppy died.

  My favorite memories are of those winter nights after the chores were done, the animals fed and bedded down. I loved those cold evenings by the fire when Poppy would spin yarns and play the old violin. Those were good times. No matter what you might believe, I know God had seen farther down the road than me, which was right good of him, since before I joined up with the wagon train and Jackson Montgomery, I couldn’t see beyond today and didn’t know enough to come in out of the rain.

  I learned many a new thing on the trail to Denver City. Some folks lie, like my uncle Amos, who tried to say the gold Poppy gave me was rightfully his. That was a big windy. The kind of lie you go to the burning place for telling.

  Uncle Amos was mean and wouldn’t know the truth if it spat on him. But some men are just plain despicable. Tom Wyatt is such a man. He tricked Jackson Montgomery into bringing a wagonload of mail-order brides clear from Westport, Missouri, to Denver City, Colorado. We were young orphaned women between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, who were expecting to have fine, strong, God-fearing husbands waiting for us. Instead, Patience, Harper, Ruth, Lily, Mary, and I found an evil, greedy disgrace of a man who wanted girls with strong backs and ample resilience to work the gold mines of Colorado. There were no matrimony-minded men awaiting us—only a gold mine and years of hard work. When wagon master Jackson Montgomery discovered the
swindle, he helped us get away, with the aid of his friend Marshall McCall.

  Anyways, everything turned out fine for me. Jackson Montgomery asked me to be his bride. If you’d hit me with a two-by-four and called me stupid, I couldn’t have been more surprised, what with me not knowing how to cook or sew or do any of those things Jackson deserves in a wife. ’Course, when he whispered in my ear that sewing and cooking was all right, but a man could live a lot longer on true love, well, I wasn’t about to argue.

  My only concern now is what will happen to Ruth, Patience, Harper, Lily, and Mary. The girls are like sisters to me; we’re all one big family now. Winter’s coming on and before the snow sets in, Jackson and I will leave for California, where we’ll make our new home. The other girls can’t leave because they have nowhere to go. They are approaching the age when the orphanage where they lived most of their lives will insist they find jobs and support themselves. Not a girl wants to go back to Westport. The kind pastor in Denver City, Arthur Siddons, and his wife had given them a home until spring, so they will be all right for a while.

  I’m marrying Jackson today. This seventh day of November, eighteen hundred and seventy-three, is the happiest day of my life. Mary and Harper made my gown out of bleached muslin that the preacher’s wife supplied. Simple but pretty, though it wouldn’t matter to me if I wore duck feathers. I’ll bet when Jackson sees me, he won’t be able to take his eyes off me, nor will I take mine off him. He’ll be dressed in black pants and a shirt with a string tie, and I bet he’ll smell better than sunshine on a spring day. These past days, I have to say I’ve never seen him looking more handsome or seen love shining more clearly in his eyes—and that’s saying a whole bunch.

  Everyone is here for the ceremony—the girls and Marshall McCall, who joined up with us for the last fifty miles on the trail. Much to Ruth’s dismay, the marshall is staying around for the ceremony, but he has to leave in the morning. He’s been chasing an outlaw for over a year, and the trail’s getting hotter.

  Now, mind you, Dylan McCall isn’t hard to look at either. He’s almost as handsome as Jackson, but he carries a bucketful of stubbornness. Jackson can be ornery when it suits him, but Dylan can be charming and ornery at the same time—a dangerous combination in a man, Ruth says. She has all the learnin’ in the bunch. Serious Ruth doesn’t care for the cocky marshall, though the other girls titter, blush, and squeal at his harmless bantering.

  Ruth and Dylan mix like wheat and hail. Ruth is serious, focused on the task. Unless I miss my guess, Dylan rides life lassoed to a cyclone. Those two can look at each other and have eye battles that make you duck for cover. Yet, it seems to me they do look at each other more often than they look at anyone else.

  Ruth is every bit as ornery as Dylan, only she doesn’t recognize it. I said to Jackson just yesterday, while snuggled in his powerful arms, that it would be pretty funny if Ruth and Dylan fell in love.

  “Funny as stepping on a tack barefoot,” Jackson murmured, and then he kissed me long and thoroughly.

  I wasn’t so sure he was right, though by then my thoughts weren’t entirely focused on Ruth and Dylan. Jackson and I started out at odds with each other, too, and look where we landed—we’re so much in love, we can’t talk without our tongues tying in a knot. It wouldn’t surprise me if Ruth and Dylan discovered they have a lot more in common than mulish pride, and they’ve each got a wagonload of that. But as I wrapped my arms around my honey’s neck and closed my eyes, happiness warmed me like a new Christmas blanket. In this new, exciting world God’s allowed me, I believe most anything is possible.

  Chapter One

  On November 7, 1873, Denver City sat under a crystal blue dome. Ruth took a deep breath of crisp mountain air and fixed her gaze on the faultless sky. It was a truly remarkable day—beautiful in every way.

  Sunshine warmed her shoulders as she listened to Glory and Jackson Montgomery repeat their marriage vows. Marrying outdoors was Jackson’s idea. He was an outdoorsman; he wanted to be as close to God as he and Glory could get when they became man and wife. The audible tremor this afternoon in the wagon master’s otherwise strong voice amused Ruth, but she supposed the quiver was natural for a man accustomed to being on his own and about to commit the rest of his life to one woman.

  Ruth cast a sideways glance at the man standing next to her. Marshall Dylan McCall stood stiff as a poker, his face expressionless as he witnessed the ceremony. What could he be thinking? The egotistical man was surely commiserating with Jackson, thinking that he was glad it was the wagon master and not he about to be saddled for life.

  Well, no matter. She was not like some women she’d noticed, inexplicably drawn to the marshall. Besides, it must be God’s will that she never marry. True, her head still reeled and her heart ached from the unexpected news she received from the doctor yesterday—news that she would never be able to bear children. Perhaps it was just as well that the mail-order bride thing hadn’t worked out for her. Wouldn’t her new husband have been dismayed to learn that Ruth had no uterus. “A rare defect,” the doctor had said, “but it does happen sometimes.”

  Ruth lifted her chin and glanced again at the handsome marshall with eyes as blue as the color of today’s sky. If it was God’s will that she never marry, then she would accept it as another one of life’s injustices that God allowed for his own purposes. Getting married and having children wasn’t the have-all-or-end-all of life. At least not for her. She’d make a good life for herself, especially now that Tom Wyatt’s spiteful trick had been discovered.

  Ruth understood why a man needed a wife who could give birth to children, someone to give him strapping heirs to help with the work. Knowing this didn’t lessen her desire to be loved. But then most men were like Glory’s uncle Amos. They made promises they never intended to keep and blamed other folks for their own shortcomings. The chances of her finding a man who would love her regardless of her barrenness were about as remote as her hitting the mother lode the local prospectors fantasized about. She had no such fantasies. Life was real, and sometimes hard, but it was the living of it in God’s will that was important to Ruth, certainly not the finding of a husband.

  With a mental sigh, Ruth shifted her gaze back to the happy couple. Glory was different. She loved Jackson and would give him a whole passel of kids. Ruth tried to imagine the feisty Glory as a mother. When the wagon train had first come across the homeless waif, they’d thought she was a boy—a young man very much in need of a good bath. It had taken several days for Glory to convince Lily, Patience, Harper, and Mary that Glory wasn’t going to oblige. She was oblivious to her malodorous state, though how she missed them holding their noses Ruth would never know. The happy-go-lucky, will-o’-the-wisp Glory had no idea she wasn’t socially fit. Finally the women took it upon themselves to throw her into the river, then determinedly waded in after her, wielding a bar of soap. Glory’s squeals of outrage had not deterred them. When the boylike child had been scrubbed from head to toe, the transformation was amazing.

  A smile hovered at the corners of Ruth’s mouth. During those days on the trail, Glory had become like a sister, and Ruth wished her nothing but happiness. Still, it was hard to imagine Glory married, nursing a child—Ruth’s thoughts cut off and she forced down a tinge of remorse. She could accept God’s will for her life; she really could.

  The preacher concluded the ceremony. As Jackson swept his bride into his arms and kissed her breathless, the small crowd clapped and whistled. There wasn’t a doubt in Ruth’s mind that the two were made for each other, although for a brief and unreasonable time Ruth herself had suffered her own attraction to the handsome wagon master. She enjoyed Jackson’s friendship, but Glory truly had his love and that was only right. Ruth felt not a twinge of regret about the match.

  Everyone had helped to prepare the after-wedding festivities. Tables covered in lace tablecloths and adorned with bouquets of dried fall flowers had been set up in front of the church. A large wedding cake festooned with a ti
ny bride and groom stood amidst the decorations. An air of festivity blanketed Denver City as fiddlers tuned up.

  Well-wishers descended on the happy couple as Ruth drifted away from the confusion. She’d be back to extend her best to the new Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery when things settled down a bit.

  Oscar Fleming caught her eye, and she smiled back distantly. For the last few days the crusty widower had been on her trail. There had to be fifty years’ difference in their ages if there was a day, but that hadn’t stopped Oscar. He smiled, winked, and showed a set of brown teeth worn to the gum every time he could catch her attention.

  Ruth stiffened as the old codger sprinted in her direction.

  “Afternoon, Ruthie!” he called.

  Ruth mustered a polite smile, her eyes darting to the marshall, who was watching the exchange with a self-satisfied grin. “Good afternoon, Oscar. Lovely ceremony.” She tried to sidestep the old coot.

  “Hit was, hit was.” Grinning, he blocked her path. “Thought maybe I’d have me th’ first dance.”

  “Oh,” she said, her gaze swinging toward Patience and Mary, but they were both helping a group of women set food on the tables. They were too busy to pay heed to her silent plea for help.

  Oscar held out his scrawny arms. “How ’bout it, Ruthie? You and me cut a jig?”

  Jig, indeed. Ruth swallowed, drawing her wrap tighter as she tried to manufacture a plausible excuse. She glanced up when a hand wrapped around her left arm and Dylan McCall politely interrupted. “Now, Ruthie, I believe you promised me the first dance.”

  Though weak with relief, Ruth seethed. Ruthie. How dare he call her that! Still, it was a chance to escape. She stiffly accepted his proffered arm and mustered a friendly smile. Anything was better than dancing with the old miner. “Why, I believe I did, Marshall.” She smiled her regrets to Oscar. “Will you excuse us?”