The Marriage Agreement Read online

  Burt cringed. “I can’t do that. It’s not right. At least out here she has her own place. She doesn’t live in this house with you. You have a bigger home than any of us do, and you’re obviously doing well for yourself on all these acres.”

  Jesse shook his head. “I can’t condemn Laura to this kind of life. Even if Fanny has her own house, you can hear her complaining from a mile away.”

  Laura cleared her throat and waited for the two men to look at her before she spoke. “I’d like to have some say in this since I’m a part of the discussion.”

  When she made eye contact with Jesse, he offered her a nod. She was right. She should be able to do that. He just hoped she wasn’t going to make a horrible mistake. Marriage to him would be like prison. Not only would Fanny be nearby all the time, but he didn’t love her.

  After a moment of silence passed between them, Laura began, “Jesse, I know you’re still mourning Elsie’s death. I’m not trying to take her place. We’d only be married in name. The truth is, there are no suitable prospects around here for a woman my age. I can’t get a job, and I’m stuck with my parents. Sometimes my father talks about some of the older men he works with, but I don’t want to be with a widower twice my age. Men are either too old or too young out here. The few my age are already married. I like you. You’re a friend. I feel comfortable with you. And though I’m not Elliot’s real mother, I love him as if he were my own son. I just think this is something that could benefit us both, even if Mrs. Shaw is going to be a part of it.”

  “There,” Burt said, a pleased smile on his face. “The matter is settled.” He got to his feet as if everything really was, as he put it, settled. “My sister will stay here, and since you got this lovely new bride to be a mother to the boy, she’ll have to leave you alone.”

  Jesse jerked to his feet. “You can’t be serious. You know full well Fanny won’t leave me alone.”

  “If she comes in here uninvited,” Burt began, “give her a peak into a newlywed’s life. That’ll make her stay away.”

  Jesse’s jaw dropped at the man’s suggestion. The man couldn’t be serious!

  “If you don’t want to do that, put locks on the doors and windows,” Burt amended. “I can tell you right now that it’s way too easy for anyone to get in here.”

  Laura slowly rose to her feet after Burt left the room. From the parlor, he could hear Burt talking to Fanny, and though their voices were low, he knew full well Burt was telling her she’d be staying here and Jesse would be marrying Laura.

  “Jesse,” Laura began, her voice soft, “are you mad at me?”

  Jesse finally turned his gaze to her. While they were on the trail heading for Nebraska, she’d been the only person who’d offered him help when he’d needed it most. “No,” he said after a long pause. “I’m not mad at you.”

  He could never be mad at her. She’d gone above and beyond what was expected of her, and never once had she ever asked for anything. But she was asking for something now. More than that, she was offering something in return. It was just like her to be generous to a fault.

  “Are your parents giving you grief?” he asked.

  She lowered her gaze, and in that moment, he knew they were. He barely knew her parents. They’d kept their distance during their time on the trail, and after they reached Omaha, he only saw them when they brought Laura out to his place so she could watch Elliot. Beyond a polite greeting, he hadn’t said anything to them.

  “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I didn’t realize it was that difficult for you.”

  “I just don’t want to marry someone because my parents pick him for me. I’d like to have the choice. If I was a man, it’d be different. I could find a job and live on my own. But being a woman, I’m either going to live with my parents or find a husband to provide for me. I’d like to have a say in who that husband will be.”

  Well, he couldn’t fault her for that. Even if she refused to marry any of the older men they were bringing to her, he wondered if they dictated more of her life than she was telling him.

  “I know what it’s like to live with someone who makes life hard,” he told her. “If it weren’t for you helping with Elliot, I don’t know what would have happened. Burt’s right. I can’t do this alone. Elliot’s getting older, and before I know it, he’ll be running around and getting into everything. It’d be nice if Fanny wasn’t with him so much.”

  Fanny’s constant complaining could very well have a bad effect on his son. If he could have someone like Laura there—all the time—instead, he’d feel a lot better.

  “I don’t want you to make a decision you’re going to regret,” Jesse said. “There could be a young man coming into Omaha in the next month or the next year, and he might offer you more than I can.”

  “But he won’t have Elliot.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, carefully weighing her words and struggling to find a good argument—one that would secure her a better future than the one she was asking from him. He couldn’t come up with one. Yes, there could be a man coming to Omaha. There might be something better waiting for her. But if he’d learned nothing else from Elsie’s untimely death, it was that nothing was a guarantee.

  “You really want to do this?” he asked, giving her one more chance to back out.

  She nodded. “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. I’m sure.”

  Praying he wasn’t making a decision they’d later regret, he said, “Alright. We’ll get married.”

  Chapter Two

  “You can’t be serious,” Laura’s mother nearly shouted later that day.

  Laura glanced from her very upset mother to her equally upset father. The two sat in front of her in the parlor, their eyes wide in shock and their jaws dropped. She’d known they weren’t going to like the news of her betrothal to Jesse, but she’d hoped they weren’t going to react so badly to it.

  Her mother set her needlepoint down and turned to her father. “I told you she’d get scared if you kept bringing those older men over here. This is all your fault.”

  “My fault?” her father asked, looking offended. “Did you want her to remain unmarried her entire life? Girls her age get married. Pretty soon, no one will want to marry her. This isn’t Pennsylvania where there’s lots of men to choose from.”

  “If you had brought someone here who was a good match, she might have taken an interest,” her mother argued.

  “It doesn’t matter if she thinks they were good matches or not,” her father replied.

  Laura’s face warmed from a mixture of anger and embarrassment. “Might I remind you I’m in the room?”

  The two suddenly stopped bickering and turned their attention to her.

  Now that she had their silence, she decided to make the most of it. “I want to marry Jesse. This will be a good match.”

  “A good match?” Her mother huffed. “He’s under Mrs. Shaw’s thumb. You want her telling you what to do for the rest of your life? I’m telling you, if there’s anything that will make you miserable, it’s being stuck with a controlling person.”

  “I’ll only be miserable if I let her make me that way,” Laura said. “I don’t have to let her bother me.”

  “You can’t help but be bothered when she’s nagging you every day. It wasn’t that long ago we were on the wagon trail and had to listen to her bicker and moan over everything Jesse was doing.” Her mother shot her a pointed look. “Don’t think she was all that happy to have you helping with Elliot. Those two often argued over that, too.”

  “I know they did,” Laura replied. “Everyone heard them. But the fact remains, Mrs. Shaw can’t bother me unless I let her. It’s all about how I react to her that matters. I’ll just ignore what she says.”

  Her mother shook her head. “You are too naïve if you believe ignoring her will work. And what’s worse is that marriage can seem like a long time when you’re with someone who doesn’t love you. Jesse loved Elsie. He doesn’t love you.”


  “I understand that,” Laura told her, “and I’m fine with it. I’m doing this because I love Elliot. He needs a mother, and I want to be that for him.”

  “He doesn’t need you to be his mother,” her mother said. “He has Mrs. Shaw to take care of him while Jesse’s in the field.”

  “But Mrs. Shaw is old,” Laura replied. “She can’t take care of him forever.”

  “By the time she’s too old to take care of him, he’ll be old enough to take care of himself,” her mother countered. “Then what will you have?”

  “I don’t want to be a spinster, and I don’t want to marry a man Father’s age,” Laura replied. “I’d like to have some say over what I do with my life, and this is what I’ve decided. Jesse is a friend. We get along fine. I’m not looking for love. I’m looking for a life I can make my own, and I want to be a mother to Elliot.”

  “You’re making a decision based on emotion,” her father spoke up. “We’re your parents, and we know what’s best for you. I’ll go to Jesse and dissolve this engagement. Then we’ll seek out a better marriage for you.”

  Laura’s heart pounded in her ears as she rose to her feet. “This is my decision. Not yours. I’m going to marry Jesse.”

  “If you do,” her father began, standing up and looking her in the eye, “then don’t expect us to help you when things go wrong.”

  “I won’t,” Laura replied, her lower lip trembling.

  She’d never taken such a bold stance against her parents before. Yes, her parents hadn’t been all that thrilled when she started caring for Elliot, but it was nothing like the resistance they were putting up now.

  Her father stared at her for a long moment then ordered her mother to follow him out of the parlor. Her mother obeyed, only stopping long enough to shake her head, as if to say Laura wasn’t doing the right thing. But it was her life and she was twenty. She was no longer a child who needed her parents to make decisions for her.

  She stood quietly in the parlor for a good five minutes, acutely aware of the clock ticking above the fireplace. Her parents were in the kitchen, and though she could make out what they were saying if she focused in on their conversation, she chose not to. There was no need to. She already knew they were discussing everything that was wrong with the choice she was making.

  Swallowing the lump in her throat, she went to the front door and grabbed her hat. She didn’t feel like staying here at the moment. She put the hat on her head and made sure it was on securely. Then she left the house.

  ***

  Laura took a walk for an hour before she knocked on the door of Amanda Larson’s apartment. When Amanda answered it, Laura asked, “Is this a bad time?”

  “No.” Amanda moved aside and waved her in. “Come in.”

  “Thank you.” Laura stepped into the apartment and hung her hat on the hook by the door. When she turned to go to the couch, she noticed a few papers spread out across the table in front of it. “Oh, you’re busy.”

  “I’m almost done. Richard hired a new person to help him build houses.”

  “How many people help him?”

  “This will make three. Business has been good, and more people are moving to Omaha.” Amanda sat on the couch and gestured for her to settle down beside her. “I’m going through the papers to double check how much Richard’s spending compared to how much he’s making. Then when I’m done, I’ll order more supplies.”

  Laura knew Amanda helped her husband with his business, but she had no idea Amanda did so much for it. “You sure are smart.”

  “I’m organized. This doesn’t take a lot of intelligence.”

  “Sure, it does,” Laura argued as her gaze swept over the columns and rows that Amanda had been filling in. “You have to be smart in order to juggle all of this. It’s nice you help Richard. Not that I want to see anything bad happen to him, but if it did, you’d probably be able to support yourself.”

  Eyebrows furrowed, Amanda studied Laura. “You seem unusually sad. Is something bothering you?”

  “Well,” Laura shifted and cleared her throat, “I finally got up the nerve to propose to Jesse.”

  “You did?”

  Noting the shock in her friend’s eyes, she said, “You don’t know how it is for me, Amanda. Richard was in love with you since you were children. It was easy for you to find someone. For me, that hasn’t been the case. There’s no one close to my age that I can marry. All the men are my father’s age, and you know how disgusting it would be to marry someone old like that.”

  Amanda cringed. “I didn’t realize it was that bad.”

  “When I left Pennsylvania, I heard there were a lot of young men out West who were looking for brides. What no one told me was that they’re not in Omaha. You wouldn’t believe some of the men my father’s brought home to meet me.” Just thinking about it made her shudder. “Anyway, I can’t stay home for the rest of my life. My parents are difficult. If I could do the kind of work you do, maybe I’d have a chance of being able to live on my own. But if I want to get out of my parents’ home, I need to marry someone who can provide for me. Why not let it be Jesse? He could use a mother for his child, and you know how much I love Elliot.”

  Amanda nodded. “I know. You’ve taken care of him since he was born. It’s natural you grew attached to him.”

  “I figure it’s something that benefits both us, and he agreed. So we’ll be getting married.”

  “It sounds like you gave this a lot of thought.”

  Sensing there was something more her friend wanted to say, Laura asked, “But…?”

  “Do you love Jesse?”

  “No. He doesn’t love me, either. I think it’s safe to say we’re friends. We get along well, and we both want to do what’s best for Elliot. I think a marriage of convenience can be a good thing, don’t you?”

  “Well, yes. My marriage started out that way. But since then, I learned there’s a difference between a marriage based on convenience and a marriage based on love.”

  “Maybe Jesse and I will love each other someday.” Before Amanda could get the wrong idea, she amended, “Not the kind of love you and Richard have now. I mean the kind of love friends share. Even when you didn’t love Richard as a wife loves her husband, I could tell you loved him as a friend. You two shared a special closeness even back then. I bet you two could tell each other things you never tell anyone else. Am I right?”

  Amanda hesitated but nodded. “Yes. There’s no one else I’m closer to than him.”

  “That’s what I mean about Jesse. What we have is a cordial relationship, but I think it could lead to the kind of friendship you and Richard had.”

  “Well, you’re the most perceptive person I’ve ever met. If you believe this is the right decision, then I do, too.”

  Laura relaxed and smiled. “Thank you.”

  “For what?” Her friend laughed. “All I did was agree with you.”

  “That’s exactly why I’m thanking you. You aren’t trying to change my mind. You’re letting me make this decision.”

  “I can’t blame you for not wanting to marry a man your father’s age, and I can understand why you want your own home.” Amanda paused then, in a surprisingly expressive gesture, gave Laura a hug. “If you need someone to talk to at any time, you can talk to me.”

  Laura returned her hug. “You’ve changed since I first met you.”

  “Have I?”

  Laura nodded. “You’re more willing to open up to people. It’s nice.”

  “I don’t open up to people easily. I never have. I still don’t. But in some ways, you remind me of Richard. He never gave up on me, no matter what, and when I needed him, he was there. In fact, if anyone ever needed anything, he was the first to offer help. That’s what you did for Jesse when he needed someone to step in and help with Elliot. Maybe this marriage will be the thing he needs as much as you do.”

  “I know it will be. He’ll finally have someone besides Mrs. Shaw to take care of Elliot.”

 
“That’s not what I meant.”

  Laura’s eyebrows furrowed. “Then what did you mean?”

  “I mean that you’ll be to Jesse what Richard was to me.”

  Laura still wasn’t sure what Amanda could be referring to. Hadn’t they already discussed how Laura wanted to be Jesse’s closest friend?

  “Would you like some coffee?” Amanda asked.

  Coffee was one of those things Laura’s parents refused to let her have, so Laura said she would. It wasn’t that she hadn’t had coffee before. There were times she had a cup while at Jesse’s. But this time, she was going to drink it as a sign of her independence from her parents. She was no longer a little girl. They weren’t going to be able to tell her what to do anymore. She’d marry Jesse and be an adult. It would be nice to be the one in control of her life for a change.

  ***

  “Boy, I hadn’t pegged you for stupid, but stupid is what you are,” Fanny told Jesse that evening as he fed the animals in the barn.

  Jesse resisted the urge to whack her with his rake. So many times he had the fantasy of doing it, but he managed to keep his emotions in check, which was no easy feat with the way she constantly nagged him.

  “You should have let me take Elliot to my family,” Fanny continued with a huff as she went around him so he had no choice but to look at her. “Elliot needs to be with Elsie’s kin. You got no right to separate him from them.”

  Irritated, he shoved the hay into the trough and then stuck the rake on the ground, just nearly missing her feet. She jerked back, but the satisfaction of startling her only lasted for a few seconds.

  “Why don’t you go on back to New York?” he snapped. “I don’t want you here any more than you want to be here.”

  She crossed her arms. “I can’t very well go back there and leave poor Elliot with you and that whore.”

  It took him a moment to realize she was talking about Laura. “Whore?” Even for Fanny, this was outrageous.

  “You can’t tell me you haven’t seen the way she’s been looking at you.”

  “We’re not having this conversation.” Of all the people he’d ever talk to about a personal topic, she was the last on the list. He pitched the last of the hay into the trough then turned to hang up the rake. “Look, Laura’s going to be moving out here, whether you like it or not. The decision isn’t yours. You’re not my mother, and you’re not hers. You have no say in this. Your days of telling me what to do are over.”