Mail Order Bride and The Mix-up (A Western Romance Book)(COMPLETED)

Chapter 11

Belle spent the next three days going from Anthony's home to Ira's and back again. Caring for them both was a full-time job, and she was grateful that Gertrude had stayed on a few extra days to help her.

Cadence and Austin had left yesterday morning, fearful that if they did not return soon, the women in Angel's Reach might get word of the fire that had taken place in Mellow Pass and grow worried. It had turned out to be a simple accident—a schoolhouse stove whose fire had gotten out of hand when one of the children stoked it too much and a spark flew out and caught on a nearby linen draped on a counter.

Cadence and Austin had already extended their trip by two days, and it was more than Belle could have asked for. She also did not want anyone in Angel's Reach to worry for their safety, so letting them go was the smart thing to do.

Somehow, Ira had been able to work out something with the hotel's owner so that none of them were charged for the extra days. She didn't know how he'd done it, since he'd been confined to bed, but assumed that his boss must have paid him a visit while she'd been with Anthony.

Now that it was just her and Gertrude, Belle felt a sense of loss, but also of relief. She was finally saying goodbye to Angel's Reach. Her last step would be to let Gertrude go as well, though in her heart she knew she wasn't really letting anyone go. As she'd reminded each of them repeatedly, Angel's Reach was no more than a day's journey from Mellow Pass.

Gertrude had agreed to look in on Ira for her this morning so that she could look in on her brother, and in the afternoon, they would switch.

"You sound better today," Belle said to Anthony. He was sitting up in bed, and his color had returned. The town's doctor had been by to see him several times in the last three days and had pronounced him lucky to be alive. One more breath of that thick, black smoke, he'd said, and Anthony might have perished.

As it was, no one had died, thanks in large part due to Anthony, who had gotten all the children out as well as the schoolteacher. Ira had also been a Godsend, seeing as how he was the one who'd had gotten Anthony out. It had turned out that her brother had thought he'd heard the cries of one last child still trapped inside the schoolhouse and had run back in to search for him before waiting to hear from the teacher, who could have told him that all the children had been accounted for.

Belle had been incensed with her brother for his foolishness, but too relieved that he was safe to yell at him about it. A braver man she'd never before met, except, perhaps, for Ira.

"How's Ira?" Anthony asked, as if reading her mind.

"He's better as well," she told him.

"When we're both well enough," Anthony said, "I'd like you both to dine with me."

She lifted an eyebrow at him. "Both of us?"

"That's right. Gertrude too, of course, provided she's still here." The corners of his lips curved up into a grin. "Don't act so surprised. I've seen how you look at him. And if you heard yourself talk about him, you would know that you sounded like a lovestruck schoolgirl."

"I sound no such way," she said but was not at all certain of that truth.

He merely nodded his head, humoring her. "Whatever you say, Sis." She pinched his arm and was delighted when he laughed instead of coughed.

She went to get him some water and prepare his lunch before switching with Gertrude, and when she returned to his bedroom she was surprised to find Anthony still awake. Normally, he fell asleep just before lunch and she had to wake him. She thought that a good sign and passed him his lunch tray.