Darcie Desires a Drover: A Historical Western Romance (Brides with Grit Book 7) Read online

  Darcie Desires a Drover

  A Historical Western Romance

  Brides with Grit Series: Book 7

  Copyright © 2016 by Linda K. Hubalek

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015918253

  Published by Butterfield Books Inc.

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting this hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Except for the history of Kansas that has been mentioned in the book, the names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A sweet wholesome romance set in 1873.

  Darcie Robbins fled St. Louis to protect her two children from their bad father. Now divorced, she’s temporarily working on the Bar E Ranch in central Kansas. She needs a permanent job—or a trustworthy husband—to help provide for her family.

  Reuben Shepard went home to his family in New York after the Civil War, to find his wife had declared him dead—so she could wed another. In shock, Reuben didn’t contest her claim and wandered south, spending years as a cattle drover on western trails until settling down to work on the Bar E Ranch.

  Spending time with Darcie’s toddler, Tate, makes Reuben miss his own son, Gabe. Reuben travels to New York, hoping to visit his son, and ends up bringing Gabe back to the Kansas because the boy’s step-father had just died.

  When Reuben proposes marriage to Darcie for their children’s sake, the couple falls in love as they learn to trust and support each other while planning for their future. But their wedding is stalled when Reuben’s former wife arrives, stating she and Reuben are still married.

  What’s the truth and what’s best for the children is their concern now instead of a wedding date. How can they clear the past so they can have a future together?

  Dedication

  To women, past and present—thank you for giving loving homes to children in need.

  Prologue

  June, 1865

  Rochester, New York

  Reuben Shepard slowly made his way up four steps to stand on the porch of the brick house. The War Between the States was finally settled and Reuben had spent weeks getting home from Georgia, catching rides with whoever would give him one, walking the rest of the way. His body was very thin and malnourished, thanks to the horrific conditions of the Confederate prison camp where he spent almost a year. He may look like an old, sick man instead of a young man in his prime at age twenty-eight, but at least he made it home alive. Over a third of the prisoners in the Andersonville Prison died from disease, hunger or fights in the overcrowded place. Reuben drew in a breath of clean air where he stood, relishing the air wasn’t full of humidity, stench and rotten food anymore. I’m finally home!

  Reuben lifted his hand to raise the knocker on the front door to announce his arrival. He didn’t want to shock his wife and son by walking into the house unannounced in his condition. They’d think he was a beggar breaking into the house to scrounge for food.

  He listened as steps made their way from the foyer to the front door. Reuben held his breath, so anxious to see his family again.

  But instead of Mattie, a tall man, probably in his mid-thirties opened the door. Reuben stared at him, at a loss of what to say. He held a baby girl against his chest with one arm.

  “Father, who is that scary man?” A young boy popped his head underneath the man’s arm to stare at him. Then a little girl moved around the man, wrapping their little arms around his knees and stared at Reuben.

  Confused, Reuben asked, “Does…Mattie Shepard still live here?”

  The man hesitated before he gave a quick nod, but he stayed in the doorway preventing Reuben from entering the house.

  “Matilda? Could you come to the foyer for a minute please?” he said over his shoulder, never taking his eye from Reuben.

  Reuben tried in vain to peer around the man to see his wife. He wanted to see her, hold her, and tell her how much he’d missed her all these years.

  Mattie came to the door, looking over the arm the man still had across the door frame. He may have looked like a ragged, dirty scarecrow, but after a few seconds Mattie recognized him. Her blue eyes grew wide and she put her hand over her mouth while she sucked in her breath.

  But before Reuben could get over the shock of seeing her, she shook her head instead of pushing aside the man’s arm to get to Reuben. Mattie drew a deep breath, placed her hand to rest on the man’s arm, and plainly stated, “If you’re looking for my first husband, he was killed early in the War. This is my husband, Reginald Ringwald and our three children. Shut the door, Reginald, I don’t want the children catching a disease from the filthy beggar.”

  Then the man shut the door in his face, while he stood there with his mouth open, staring at the brass knocker.

  “What? What did you say?!” Panic raced through his heart as her statement rolled through his mind. Mattie had said I was dead, and she’d remarried? Three children…it had to be his son Gabriel, and the little girl looked to be around four years of age.

  He was killed early in the war… and must have been declared dead almost immediately for Mattie to have a daughter that old. Was the girl his child, too, instead of…what was his name, Ringwald’s?

  Adrenaline pumped through his body as Reuben repeatedly pounded on the door. He waited for someone to open the door, but no one did. Reuben pounded again, then tried to open the door. It was locked.

  He put his hands around his face as he peered into the window on the porch but saw no one. Reuben wobbled around the side of the house to get to the back door and found it, too, was locked. Pounding on it didn’t get any results there either.

  Reuben wandered the backyard for a while, taking in the change of the shrubs and flowers and the swing he didn’t put up in the oak tree. I’ll sit on the porch a bit, surely Mattie will come out to talk to me.

  Hours passed before he finally left his house, hoping he could find food and shelter somewhere, because his wife had turned him away.

  The next morning, after sleeping in an alley and scrounging in a barrel behind a restaurant for food scraps, Reuben went to the courthouse. There, Reuben found the record of his “death” two months after he’d enlisted. He also found record that Reginald Ringwald bought his way out of military duty and married the “widow” Matilda Shepard four months after his “death”.

  Reuben walked out of the courthouse and walked south out of town. There was no use trying to connect with any of his other family members now. Besides being legally dead, Reuben really did feel like he was dead to the world, and decided to leave it that way.

  Chapter 1

  Eight years later, August, 1873

  Rochester, New York

  Reuben stood on the porch of the Rochester home where he, his wife and son had lived before he enlisted in the war. Not much had changed in the neighborhood. The two-story brick house sat on a quiet street, lined with mature trees. Wrought-iron fences surrounded each neatly trimmed lawn in the block of houses. The marigolds in the front window sill
flower boxes were starting to wane as the summer came quicker in New York than Kansas.

  He hesitated to knock, not because he didn’t want to see Gabe, but because there was a black ribbon wreath on the door, showing an adult had died in the house not long ago. A white wreath would have meant a child’s death, and a mixed wreath of black and white ribbons would have signified an older child’s death. So was it Reginald, Mattie or possibly one of their aged parents living with them who had died?

  After taking a deep breath, Reuben firmly knocked on the front door. It was time to connect with his son again.

  “The door crept open and an older lady, dressed in a maid’s uniform questioned Reuben, “May I help you, sir?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’m here to see Mrs. Ringwald. Is she available?” Reuben held his breath, hoping the woman wouldn’t tearfully reply the mistress of the house had died.

  “May I ask your business with Mrs. Ringwald? She just lost her husband earlier this week.” The woman’s mouth was pursed, probably wondering why a man in western clothes was standing on the rich widow’s porch.

  “I’m an old acquaintance of the family wanting to give her my condolence, ma’am. I’m from out of state, visiting family nearby and I heard the news,” Reuben sighed in relief knowing it wasn’t Mattie who had died; but this visit may be harder because of Ringwald’s death.

  Reuben wondered if there was a black wreath on the front door for him when he “died”. Mattie certainly hadn’t worn black mourning clothes for a year before she remarried, according to the courthouse records he’d seen eight years ago.

  “Very well, if you’d wait in the parlor, I’ll let Mrs. Ringwald know that Mr.…what was your name, sir?”

  “No need to tell her. She’ll see me,” Reuben said, while stepping forward so the woman would move out of his way. He turned to the left, knowing exactly where the parlor was in his former house.

  Besides the change in curtains, the parlor room looked the same. Memories bounced through his head as he looked around the room. The settee where he and Mattie had cuddled and kissed many evenings was still in the same spot. So was the overstuffed chair he sat in, holding Gabriel the first months of his life, watching his tiny rosebud mouth pucker a few times before finally falling asleep. Reuben remembered both he and Mattie sitting on the floor, Gabriel walking his very first steps from her arms to his, and feeling the sense of overwhelming pride of what his little man had just accomplished.

  Reuben walked to the fireplace mantel to study the framed portraits of Mattie’s family carefully lined up on the top of the stone surface. Mattie and her husband. Mattie and her daughters when they were infants. Mattie’s parents. His son was in a family portrait taken probably a year or so ago, but only one daughter was in the photo. Apparently they had lost their youngest daughter sometime in the past eight years.

  Of course, Gabriel’s baby picture wasn’t up here, because it would have shown Reuben proudly holding Gabriel sitting in the studio chair, with Mattie standing beside him with her hand on his shoulder.

  It was the summer of 1859 when Miss Mattie Vanderwig took a fancy to him while he had been driving a carriage for hire in the area. She came up with reasons to hire Reuben and they spent the summer conversing, with him in the front seat and Mattie chatting away in the seat behind him. Before Reuben knew it, he was smitten with her attention…and her plan. She dressed him up, presented him to her family and announced they were getting married, never mind that Reuben hadn’t asked her father’s permission for them to marry. Her family had lots of money and Reuben thought he was set for life.

  He and Mattie moved into this house, owned and furnished by her parents. Reuben was shocked by the balance in Mattie’s new bank account for their living expenses, but it was in her name only. Looking back as a mature adult now, rather than a young man of twenty-one, he knew her parents intended to control the money.

  But, at the time, Reuben was excited to be chosen by the beautiful girl, not realizing Mattie had chosen him to rebel against her parents. Instead of making a living driving a carriage, he spent his days wishing he had something to do, besides occasionally ride a horse, or take Mattie to dinner parties.

  But the birth of Gabe changed everything and made the marriage worthwhile. He had a son to carry on his name. And because he didn’t have to work, he spent the next two years doting on his son.

  Then southern states started to secede from the Union and formed the Confederacy. When the Confederates attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina in April of ‘61, it was news in the paper, but not something they thought would last long, or affect them in New York.

  Everyone thought it would take a month or so to end the war and get the Union back together. Reuben was caught up in the excitement of traveling down the eastern coast to help finish the war that fall. He wouldn’t be gone long enough for Gabe to miss him.

  But instead, Reuben was forced to fight four long years of battles—states away from home—worrying whether he’d still be alive at the end of the day, swallow any halfway decent food to satisfy his constant hunger, worrying whether his family was safe in New York.

  And all that time, Mattie was living with another man.

  After not being permitted to reunite with his wife and son after the Civil War, Reuben had wandered out of New York, going from job to job until he ended up in Kansas. Then Reuben signed on as a chuck wagon cook and saw a lot of country between Kansas and Montana as cowboys drove livestock to the new ranches starting up in the West. He’d become proficient working with cattle and horses over the years and enjoyed the physical work, the challenges of the weather, the simpler life.

  For the last two years he’d stayed in one place, at the Bar E Ranch near Clear Creek, Kansas. His main job was taking care of the bunkhouse and the young ranch hands who watched the longhorn cattle roaming over the six thousand-acre ranch. He cooked, cleaned, performed first aid and gave advice to the ranch hands, who were barely out of their teenage years. Reuben was only thirty-six, but he secretly enjoyed the boys thinking he was wise in his old age. He also drove the chuck wagon and cooked along the trail when his employer sold and delivered cattle to other ranches.

  The Bar E owners, Cora and Dagmar Hamner, were good employers and Reuben was satisfied with calling the place his permanent home.

  Or he had been, until Darcie Robbins, Millie Wilerson’s sister from Chicago, came out to help at the ranch house when Cora’s family, the Elisons, traveled from Boston to Kansas for Cora’s wedding.

  Darcie and her two children, a toddler, Tate, and a baby, Amelia, were living in the ranch house now. Much to Darcie’s chagrin, her two-year old boy had immediately taken to Reuben, wanting to be with him constantly. And Tate’s attention made Reuben’s heart ache for the two-year old boy he last held before the War.

  Reuben knew it would be hard to go back East to see his family, but it was time. He was older and wiser, believing his family would want to know he was alive after all. Reuben asked for a month off to travel to New York, and Darcie would take care of the cooking and cleaning of the bunkhouse while he was gone.

  His first order of business was to see if his parents or siblings still lived in the area. It turned out Reuben’s two brothers, Lowell and Elton, actually did die during the War, and his parents had passed on since then, as well. But, he was reunited with his two sisters, Betty and Louise, and their families, catching up on the last dozen years.

  “Mother, I want my letter from the lawyer!”

  “Hush, Gabriel, Flossy said we have a guest in the parlor. He’ll hear you!” Reuben heard Mattie say as mother and son walked down the hallway toward the parlor.

  Reuben turned to the double door entrance of the room, waiting for the first glance of his son. Would Gabriel’s hair still be dark brown like his, or have changed to match his mother’s lighter-brown hair?

  “The letter was addressed to me personally, and the lawyer said it was about my real father. I have a right to know who he was and where he�
��s buried!”

  Reuben stared at the teenager walking sideways into the room as he continued to argue with his mother. He was as tall as his mother now, but skinny and pale, like he’d never physically worked or been outside a day in his life. Mattie was dressed in an expensive black silk gown, fitting for the widow of rich man.

  Reuben turned his attention to Mattie when she said, “We’ll talk about this later, Gabriel.”

  “Why don’t we talk about it now, Mattie?” Reuben challenged her. He watched as she gave him a baffling look, and then gave the same to Gabriel.

  “Excuse me, sir, but what did you just say?” Mattie said, not recognizing Reuben.

  “I said, why don’t we tell Gabriel his father’s name—is, not was—Reuben Shepard, and that I’m very much alive…”

  Eleven days later, Clear Creek, Kansas

  Reuben Shepard glanced over at Gabe again. It had been a long trip from Rochester, New York to Clear Creek, Kansas. As each day passed of their week-long train ride heading west to the frontier, the boy looked more out of place in his fancy white shirt, suit coat, trousers and polished leather shoes. Not that his clothes were clean now, and the same could be said of Reuben’s clothes. Reuben rubbed a hand through his dark brown hair, staring at the boy sitting on the bench facing him as he did so, seeing the same color hair, his stormy gray eyes, his face starting to change the way teenagers do, along with his squawky voice.

  Gabe and his mother exchanged terrible accusations after Reuben made his surprise appearance at their house. His son was upset because he thought Reginald was his father until the lawyer announced “and to my stepson, Gabriel, I leave a letter about your real father.” Why hadn’t they told Gabe about him? Why no one had ever slipped and told Gabe before now was a surprise.

  The final blow was Mattie screaming that now Reuben was here, he was in charge of his son because she didn’t want to see him again. The maid helped them pack Gabe’s things in a trunk and a carriage was conveniently parked out front of the house to get them off of Mattie’s property. Another staff member must have taken Gabe’s sister, Mary, out the back door while they were packing, so Gabe didn’t get a chance to speak with her before they left. Reuben returned the next day to see if Mattie had calmed down and changed her mind, but she had refused to see him. Reuben had no choice but to take Gabe home with him.