Prim (Biides 0f Needful Texas Book 2)
Danni Roan
Prim
Brides of Needful Texas
Danni Roan
The loss of her father has left Primrose Perkins in need of a way to provide not only for herself but also for her mother and sister. It also gives her a new and wonderful sense of freedom to discover who she can be. Will she be able to find a way to ensure that her family will be cared for? Needful Texas is a growing town with growing troubles. Rowdy cowhands, drunken parties, and wealthy ranchers who don’t think they need to become a part of the community. How can Prim find a home and the help she needs in a town with more men than is good for it?
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Copyright © 2019 by Danni Roan All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. FIRST EDITION https://authordanniroan.com
Prologue
“Peri, you have the most ridiculous notions about marriage,” Primrose Perkins said as she shifted her berry pail from one hand to the other.
“You don’t know,” her sister Periwinkle said wrinkling her nose at Prim. “You and me won’t never get to fall in love, anyway. Pa’ll see to it we stay home and tend Ma forever.”
Primrose shook her head of dark brown hair, her blue eyes growing soft. “I don’t mind looking after Ma,” she said. “I know you’d love to have a beau, and think some fancy man is going to come whisk you away to a big house full of cakes, and tea, but that don’t happen in real life.”
Peri stuck her tongue out at her older sister. “You are so serious,” she chided. “I know my dreams are big, but at least I have some.”
Primrose drew in a deep breath reaching across the prickly blackberry stalks to pluck the ripe fruit. “I’m only trying to be practical,” she admitted. “I’m sure real romance would be thrilling, but I don’t think it always works out like people hope. Look at Ma. She’s next thing to a simpleton after that cow kick to the head, and Pa’s not much account hiding from the law up here in the hills.”
“But not everyone is like Pa,” Peri insisted. “Ma must have loved him once, before that nasty cow stepped on her and took her away with the fairies. I can’t imagine Mama would have married him the way he is now.”
“Maybe,” Prim admitted, “but I’m going to keep my head about the whole romance thing, and one day I’ll gonna get a job and do for myself. I don’t need a man to love to be happy.”
Peri dropped a handful of the deep purple berries into her own bucket and moved around the wild bushes, keeping her skirt clear of the clinging thorns. “Well I’m going to marry a fancy man and be happy forever,” she sassed with a giggle. “I’ll even take Ma to live with me, and she can sit in her old rocker and put the dozen or so babies I have to sleep each night.”
Primrose laughed the sound winging across the breeze like bird song. “I hope it happens for you little sister. I want you to be happy.”
“I plan on it,” Periwinkle laughed giving her skirt a swish.
The sound of a shotgun blast made both girls turn toward home, their blue eyes going wide as another blast met their ears.
Grabbing her sister’s hand Primrose dropped her bucket and began racing toward home her heart pounding in her breast.
***
Prim came to a stop at the edge of the bushes that surrounded the small cabin she shared with her family, and she gazed into the brighter light of the tiny clearing.
A sorry kitchen garden at the back of the squat log structure drooped in the warm Tennessee sun as she scanned the area for the commotion or danger.
“Prim,” Peri sobbed covering her mouth with one hand even as she pointed toward the far side of the house with the other to where her father’s moonshine still, sat puffing steam.
“Pa,” Prim groaned stepping out onto the dirt yard and heading toward the two men who stood over her father’s limp body. “What are you doing?” she cried her voice shrill with panic. “That’s my father.”
“He shot at us,” a tall man with a droopy mustache said. “We didn’t mean ta kill ‘em, but he shot at us first.”
“Who, who are you?” Peri asked dropping to her father’s side and rolling him over only to take in his blank eyed stare. “Oh Pa,” the girl moaned as tears spilled down her face.
“He shot first,” the man repeated sadly looking down at Peri who was crying softly over her father.
“Ma,” Prim cried turning and racing toward the door of the tiny cabin. “Mama?” she asked her voice high and shrill as she braced one hand on the door jamb and slid through the open door. “Mama, are you alright?”
Stepping into the darker interior of the cabin, Prim took in the familiar scene as her mother rocked back and forth in her old rocking chair, her slightly drooping lips locked in a half smile.
“Mama,” Prim said walking to the chair and kneeling before the woman in the faded dress. “Mama, Pa’s dead,” Prim said softly studying the other woman’s eyes for understanding. “He’s gone Mama,” Prim repeated until the dark eyes met hers.
As Primrose studied her mother’s vacant face, a soft humming of an old hymn was the only reaction Prim received from her mother as the old woman started rocking once more.
“Prim,” Peri walked into the room still sniffling. “What are we going to do? Those men are revenuers.”
“I don’t know,” Prim said rising and brushing off her skirts. “We’ll have to find Pa’s money and think of where Ma can go. You stay here while I go talk to them men,” she finished stepping back out into the bright sunlight of a summer day.
“What’s going to happen to us?” Primrose asked lifting her chin as she stared down the two lawmen who still stood over her father’s lifeless body. Perhaps she was only the daughter of a lowly moonshiner, but she wasn’t going to sit by and do nothing.
“I don’t know miss,” the younger of the two men said. “We’ll take him back to town with us,” he said nodding toward her father. “He’ll get a decent burial. I promise.”
“You girls and your ma can come back to town with us if you want,” the older man said looking around at the sad living quarters. “You got kin anywhere?”
Prim clamped her hands together thinking. “I have an aunt in Rockington,” she said. “Maybe she can take us in for a bit until we figure out what to do.”
***
“Do we got everything?” Peri asked looking around the sad little cabin she had called home for the past eight years of her life.
Before her mother had been kicked in the head by a mean old cow, the Perkins family had lived in the little town of Rockington where Mr. Perkins had been employed at a tobacco farm. Unfortunately, without Ma to manage the money and keep her father going to work daily, everything had fallen apart.
“I think so,” Prim replied looking around. Since the lawmen had taken their father away, they had harvested all of the vegetables they could from the garden, loaded the canned goods from
the pantry, and packed up everything they could carry in the rickety buckboard then hitched up the mule.
“I’ll fetch Ma if you want to bring her chair,” Peri offered looking around with a sniff. “I wouldn’t ever have believed I would feel sad leaving this place,” the younger woman said. “It just don’t seem possible that Pa is gone.”
Primrose wrapped an arm around her sister hugging her. “Let’s go fetch the last of the blackberries before we go,” she said, “Mama can rock for a few more minutes. We’ll make more jam when we get to Aunt Betsy’s place.”
Peri looked up with a grin nodding as she fetched the pails from the wagon. One last walk in the forest they loved would be a good way to store up memories of their deep green mountain home.
Chapter 1
“You girls will have to share the upstairs room,” Aunt Betsy said as Prim and Peri began unloading what little they had at their aunt’s home. “Prim you bring your ma inside, and we’ll get her situated,” the little woman with the salt and pepper hair said, ushering her into the small house.
Prim helped her mother down from the wagon shaking her skirts straight as she shuffled toward the front door. Although incapable of independent living, with help Mrs. Perkins could walk, feed herself, and tend to necessities, but even after five years she couldn’t speak, only hum.
“I’ll bring her chair,” Peri called after her aunt reaching up and lifting the battered rocker from the flat bed.
“Set it by the wood stove,” Betsy chirped her dark eyes bright with excitement.
In only a few moments Peri and Prim had their mother seated in her rocking chair. “We’re going to live here now Mama,” Prim said quietly hoping for any indication that her mother understood. “Me and Peri need to bring in our things, but we’ll be right back.”
“Bring the food into the kitchen,” Aunt Betsy said directing the girls as they carried the food stores inside. “We’ll need it with so many to feed now. Things has been tight here in town, but we’ll manage somehow.”
“Thank you for taking us in Aunt Betsy,"Periwinkle said placing the jams and jellies on the scrubbed counter top. “We’ll do our best to be helpful.”
“It’s been too long since I seen you girls and your Ma,” Betsy said. “I see your ma ain’t changed at all,” she finished with a sad shake of her head.
“I don’t think Ma will ever change,” Prim said. “She manages with a little help though, but she’s rather like a small child who can’t do for herself.”
“Well you get your things put up and then we’ll have a bite before we talk about what comes next.”
***
“It’s no good,” Peri said three weeks later as she walked into the house looking irritated and exhausted. “I can’t even get a job cleaning for one of the shops. All anyone sees when I walk in to apply, is a moonshiner’s daughter.”
“I know,” Prim said. “I haven’t been able to find any work either. Aunt Betsy can’t be expected to keep all of us forever. She doesn’t get enough on her tiny pension to provide for three more souls.”
Peri collapsed into a chair, her shoulders sagging in defeat. “You’d think there’d be some work abouts,” she said. “With so many men gone since the war, women have to do more. Some businesses are hiring folks, but they won’t even talk to a Perkins.”
Prim laid her hand on her sister’s shoulder biting her lip as she thought. “There is another way,” she said twisting a handkerchief into her fingers.
“What?” Peri asked looking up hopefully. “I’m not workin’ in no saloon. I’m a Bible Christian, and I’ll not do that.”
Prim smiled slightly patting Peri one more time before she walked to the small bookshelf and pulled out a paper.
“I could become a mail-order bride.”
“What?” Peri stood so quickly the chair teetered. “Where would you go? What about me and Ma?”
Prim walked to the table spreading the paper out and scanning it while Peri looked over her shoulder. “I picked this up a few days ago at the mercantile,” Prim continued. “I’ve looked at it a few times, and there was an ad from a man in Texas that looked promising.”
“You’d really go?” Peri asked looking at her sister.
“Yes. Perhaps once I’m settled, my husband would allow you and Ma to join us. In the mean time, we could find a place for you to stay that isn’t change so far away.”
Periwinkle paced the room letting the idea sift through her brain. “What if he doesn’t want you? What if he’s a terrible man, and he can’t find a wife because he’s hideously ugly?”
Prim smiled at her excitable sister. “It doesn’t matter if he’s ugly as long as he’s a decent man with a good job,” Prim said. “I’m going to write him a letter and see what happens. We can’t stay the winter with Aunt Betsy. She won’t be able to keep us.”
Peri studied her sister’s face then nodded. “I’ll look for a likely fellow as well,” she said. “Then if things don’t work out for you, I’ll give it a try.”
“Here,” Prim said tapping on the paper with a finger. “Needful, Texas. That’s the place I’m thinking of.”
Chapter 2
Needful, Texas 1869
“We got a letter,” Mrs. Hampton said hurrying into the Hampton house and calling to her husband. “Orville, we got a letter,” she continued. “I’ll need to get Alice, so we can organize.”
“I still say you’re crazy doing this,” Orville said walking into the kitchen where his wife was laying out the mail. “What if the whole thing backfires, and you end up bringing some girl all the way out here for nothing?”
“She can work for us if that happens,” Olive said. “Heaven knows we’re busy enough most days being the only decent eatery in town. Poor Rosa is hoppin’ all day long.”
The sound of gunfire outside and the thunder of racing horses made her scowl at her husband, shaking her head of gray hair. “We have to do something if this place is ever going to calm down. These men around here are simply too wild.”
Orville Hampton ran his hands through his white hair. When they had arrived in the no-name town last year to help the ranchers in the area, build the place into something to be proud of, it seemed that most folks wanted to make the town, Olive had dubbed Needful, into something good. Since then more riders for outlying ranches had been making there way to town, and they were more interested in drinking, gambling and tearing up the place than civilization so building and behavior had suffered.
“I suppose we need to do something,” Orville admitted. “Spence threw three more of them Double B riders in the jail this week. They’re getting worse not better.” He thought fondly of the younger man who had brought them all to Needful and was now the Sheriff instead of trail boss.
“Well we’ll deal with them soon enough,” Olive said. “For now we need to find a wife for Spencer’s brother Dan. As Mayor he should have a good woman to help him run Needful. At least he tries to keep his riders under control. I know some of them come into town for a drink or two, but I haven’t seen any of them shooting up the place, or scaring the decent women of this town. Maybe he’ll take one look at this girl and be finished.”
“I’ll fetch Alice,” Orville said taking his hat from a place by the door. “You should check and see if Rosa needs any more help in the kitchen.”
“Stop and tell Daliah and Spencer to come for dinner as well,” Olive called after her husband with a smile thinking of the happy match their one time border had made with the Sheriff and his young son.
“Now who are you?” the old woman asked carefully opening the letter and scanning the page. “We’ll have this town sorted out before you know it if I have any say in the matter,” she continued talking to herself.
“Who do you talk to,” a petite black haired woman asked walking into the room from an adjacent kitchen, with a little girl, of not quite two, on her hip.
“I’m talking to myself, Rosa,” Olive said her dark eyes twinkling. “Sometimes I need to t
alk to someone who will speak sense. I think we’ll be having a new girl coming to work with us soon,” she finished waving the letter with glee.
“That would be very good,” the younger woman said. “It is very busy here at the Hampton House. I am grateful for the job and this place, especially when Raul is gone, but it is too busy,” she finished with a shake of her glossy head.
“I’m sorry, I should come help you,” Olive said, her voice echoing with compassion. “Is it getting busy?”
“Not terrible,” Rosa said, “but Christina was hungry, and I needed to get her something she could eat. At the moment Mrs. Smith is helping in the dining room.”
“Mrs. Scripts is coming over soon as well,” Olive said. “We’ll have a little tea party when the dining room clears out a bit; just us women.”
Rosa had been living in a tent in the small town when Olive had come to what was now known as Needful. Rosa and her tiny Christina were waiting for her husband to return from a cattle drive, and to make ends meet, she cooked for the single men in the area. When the wagon train from Smithfield had arrived, trail weary, bringing with it Olive and Orville Hampton, her whole life had changed. Rosa now lived in her own quarters with her daughter Christina her husband, Raul, joining them when he was home or riding out to the Bar-D or other ranch each day to work until another venture would lead him back to his home country.
Daliah, the young woman who had been traveling with the Hamptons, had saved Rosa’s tiny Christina and Olive had taken them both into her home, letting her work at the Hampton house until Raul returned. Since then Rosa, and an excellent cook, had been working for the Hampton House dining-room as head cook.