The Beginning (Gold Rush Brides Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  About This Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Acknowledgements

  GOLD RUSH BRIDES:

  The Beginning

  Cassie Hayes

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  ABOUT THIS BOOK

  Who needs a man? Certainly not Miss Delilah Price!

  Abandoned by the man who ordered her as a mail-order bride, Delilah struggles to get by in Gold Rush-era San Francisco. Not willing to return to her father's restrictive home — or face the arduous six-month voyage back to Boston — she hatches a plan to start her own business. She'll never have to trust her future to a man again.

  Jack Dalton struck it rich in the Sierra Nevada and is having a mighty fine time spending his gold at dance halls and saloons in town. He can't for the life of him figure out why so many of his drinking buddies are signing up for ads in the matchmaking paper snooty 'Miss Priss' is starting up. The last thing he wants to do is to settle down.

  When an unscrupulous charlatan threatens to shatter Delilah's dream, Jack takes pity and steps in to lend a helping hand. Then he gets suckered into partnering with the very woman he desperately wants to avoid. Long hours working together force them to face their deepest fears and admit they're drawn toward one another. Can they let go of their pasts and find hope for their future or will they let their fears tear them apart?

  Chapter 1

  JULY, 1850

  “Jack, you’re so bad!”

  The sound of a giggling — and apparently drunk — woman stumbling around the hallway outside her tiny room woke Delilah from a sound sleep, something she had been severely lacking for the last several months. This did not make her happy.

  Ever since her ship had sailed into San Francisco that winter, she’d felt like she was walking the edge of a very sharp Bowie knife and one misstep could cut her world to pieces. It was bad enough that her fiancé had abandoned her for another woman, but that she’d been sailing around Cape Horn on a west-bound ship at the time and had no idea she was now completely and utterly alone made his actions all the more loathsome.

  When she clambered out of the overcrowded dory onto dry — actually, very muddy — land for the first time in many months, expecting to be greeted by her betrothed, Delilah was overcome by relief. Never again would she step foot on a ship.

  Now it was time to become a stranger’s wife.

  Her parents had arranged the match after she had steadfastly refused all suitors in her hometown of Boston. She had bigger plans than to simply be the neglected wife of a rich banker. She wanted more from her life, even if it meant living with less. Her future was limited in Boston, or anywhere on the east coast, and she’d heard word that women had far more freedoms and opportunities out west.

  As word spread of a great Gold Rush in California, Delilah voiced interest in going west. Her father, a well-respected newspaper publisher, immediately found a suitable husband for his 26-year-old daughter through a mutual friend. Leland Kirby was fifteen years her elder, but he came from a good family and his outfitting business was a growing concern in San Francisco. Considering her advanced age, it must have been a huge relief to her parents when she agreed to marry the man.

  Her six-month journey from the East Coast was an adventure in itself — seasickness, raging gales, mind-numbing boredom and crowded, fetid living quarters. She was quite proud of herself to have made the voyage, as frightening as it was for her to be on her own for the first — and probably last — time in her life, but she’d never been so happy to arrive anywhere as when the crew dropped anchor among a forest of masts off San Francisco’s bustling waterfront.

  Delilah and her fiancé corresponded just once before her ship sailed out of Boston harbor. She didn’t even have a dageurreotype to help identify him when she disembarked from the good ship Manilla. All she knew was that he was a 41-year-old gentleman of means, with dark hair and eyes. And all he knew of her was that she was of average height and weight with fine features, chestnut hair and green eyes. But she’d been careful to describe the dress she planned to wear in great detail so he would recognize her.

  But she hadn’t expected such dire conditions aboard the Manilla. The captain refused to bring her large trunk aboard, explaining that he’d sold that space to a paying customer, and that she could have two small suitcases, but no more.

  She and her mother quickly tore the trunk and suitcases apart, repacking only the absolute necessities: the pale blue silk dress she’d so carefully described to Mr. Kirby, a hard-wearing dark brown wool dress, undergarments, two bonnets and sundry toilet items, such as her mother’s tortoise shell hair dressing set. She would have her new husband send for the trunk when they were settled.

  During the course of the six-month voyage to California, she’d been forced to wear her pretty blue dress more frequently than expected and the sun and salty air took a toll on its charm. Long before her arrival, the dress had faded to grungy gray with several careful repairs where it had torn on any one of a dozen snagging hazards aboard ship. She worried that its dull appearance would prevent Mr. Kirby from recognizing her.

  As she scanned the crowd on the busy quay, she found more than one man matching his description. When none approached her, she began inquiring — unsuccessfully — of strangers for Mr. Leland Kirby. For several hours she stood on the wharf, her two small brown suitcases on either side of her dress’s tattered and worn hem, as men and mules hurried past, attending to their business without paying her the slightest attention.

  The wait for her fiancé’s arrival gave her time to take in her surroundings. From her vantage point, she couldn’t see a single paved street or real sidewalk, just what seemed like miles of rough wood planks slapped together haphazardly in a line running down one side of the street. Dozens and dozens of workmen trudged ankle deep through the muck that passed as thoroughfares, while the occasional dandy picked his way across the rickety boardwalk.

  Boxy, clapboard buildings that looked as if they’d been erected overnight were crowded together along the harborside avenues. At least two ships had been turned into buildings along the waterfront, which was eye-catching and a little surreal. Mountains of dry goods, from tinned oysters to barrels of flour to crates of whiskey, were piled everywhere — and in some places, men were using them as a makeshift boardwalk.

  Delilah’s world swayed back and forth — as much a response to her primitive surroundings as being at sea for so long. She felt that familiar queasy feeling bubbling up inside her but she was able to force it down. It didn’t help that dusk was near and she was starting to wonder if Mr. Kirby would make an appearance at all. What would she do then?

  A tug on her skirts drew her attention from the heaving and muddy landscape down to a small, filthy boy holding a note.

  “You Miss Prize?”

  “I am Miss Price. Who might you be?”

  The boy thrust a dirty envelope into her hands and ran away, slopping through the muddy streets as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Wasting no time, she tore into the envelope and pulled out a neatly folded note on luxurious stationery.

  My dearest Miss Price,

  I regret to inform you that our arrangement is no longer i
n effect. Your arrival in California has taken substantially longer than my lonely heart could bear and I have since elected to marry someone else. Being as there is no lack of unattached men desperately looking for unattached women, I have no doubt you will soon make yourself a suitable match. I have enclosed $20 in gold coins to assist you in finding accommodations.

  Cordially,

  Mr. Leland Kirby

  The note rattled in her shaking hands as she read and re-read it, trying to understand. He’d reneged on their agreement, found someone else, and left her in the lurch! Now she was standing alone in the middle of a muddy city with nowhere to go. Her stomach couldn’t take the strain and she bent over just in time to avoid splashing the contents of her stomach onto her shoes. Not that it mattered; they were already caked in mud.

  Several men gave her sideways glances as they hurried past but one older man approached her cautiously.

  “You sick, miss?”

  Her throat was locked up, preventing her from speaking, but she managed a weak shake of the head. The chestnut locks she’d carefully pinned to frame her face shook loose and tumbled into her teary eyes. She just wanted to be left alone, but her strong common sense reminded her that it would be dark soon, and there was no doubt in her mind that was no place for a lady at night.

  Swallowing her tears, Delilah met the man’s concerned gaze. “Do you know where I might find accommodations for the evening? It seems the party who was to meet me here is…unable to.”

  Comprehension dawned on the man’s face immediately. A lady fresh off a ship, crying alone in the middle of the street with her belongings at her feet? It didn’t take a banker to put two and two together to see she’d been jilted.

  “Miss, I knowed jest the place. I’ll take your bags, jest follow me. And watch yer step!”

  She was in a daze as she followed the man, who introduced himself as Sam Arbuckle, and barely registered the approaching horse and cart rolling down on them. Sam pulled her out of its path at the last moment and, as the cart whizzed by, they were both thoroughly splashed with mud. Any thought of somehow managing to restore her pretty dress back to its glory days were dashed. Not normally a vain woman, Delilah crumbled into Sam’s arms sobbing about her ruined dress — and so much more.

  “There, there, miss. It ain’t that bad. ‘Sides, did you get a look at that poor hoss? Hooey, ugly!”

  For some reason, this struck Delilah as the height of hilarity. In fact, her whole situation was funny. Her sobs turned to giggles then outright guffaws. Sam gave her a crooked smile and patted her shoulder as he set her back on her feet, this time on the dubious boardwalk.

  “That’s right, miss, laugh it off. Ain’t nothin’ fer it.”

  Sam had to have been in his early 50s with greying hair and a bushy, unkempt beard. He was the very image of a grizzled gold miner, except for his portly belly. That testified to healthy meals, not hard labor in the diggings. As he led her around corners and down more streets than she would ever be able to remember, he struck up a conversation. “Beggin’ yer pardon, miss, but what’s yer name anyhow?”

  “My apologies, sir. My name is Delilah Price and I hail from Boston.”

  “Now Dell, I ain’t no sir, so you’ll kindly lay off’n callin’ me that, y’hear?”

  Delilah smiled at the nickname. Her best friend growing up had called her Dell when they played but never in front of adults. Adults were so snooty about using proper names. As Sam led her into one of the town’s many hastily-built boarding houses, Delilah decided that a new start would require a new name.

  Henceforth, at least if she remained in California, she would introduce herself as Dell. With that decision came a sense of power. She may have been stranded in a gold-crazed city, but this one little thing she had control over.

  “Okay, Dell,” said Sam, stepping behind a rickety little table. “Sign in here. Room’s twenty dollars a night and includes breakfast and dinner.”

  Any sense of peace she might have been feeling vanished. Her parents had spent two hundred dollars for her ticket west and had little leftover for pocket money. After all, she was going to be isolated on a ship for the entire trip and then wed almost immediately upon arrival, so she wouldn’t need any.

  No one had imagined this scenario.

  Her jaw must have dropped in shock at the outrageously expensive price for a room because Sam hurriedly added, “Don’t cry, Dell, we’ll figger out something.”

  “Sam, I…I don’t know what to do.” She explained her predicament and that she had the twenty dollars in coins her miserable excuse for a fiancé had sent along, plus the thirty dollars she’d squirreled away over the years. “I had no idea things were so expensive in California.”

  Sam chuckled. “Yup, what you got will get ya a coupla nights and a bottle of milk, if you’re lucky.”

  Delilah gaped at him. “Truly?”

  He bobbed his head, his bushy gray beard bobbing right along with it.

  “But you’re luckier ’n most, Dell.”

  He cast his eyes sideways, looking for eavesdroppers.

  “You got an in with the proprietor of this here ‘stablishment.” He gave her a wink and closed the registration book.

  “Come on, now, don’t dawdle.”

  She followed him upstairs and past a row of narrow doors until they reached the second to last one. Opening it with a flourish, he announced, “Ta da!”

  She’d never seen a tinier bedroom in her life. It was the size of her closet back home. The narrow bed just barely fit the width of the space, which couldn’t have been more than three feet, and a lone straight-back chair was wedged up between the foot of the bed and the wall. The ceiling was some kind of cloth that billowed around as wind whipped through the attic space, and the walls appeared to be nothing more than canvas tacked onto framing for a bit of privacy.

  “Sam, pardon me for being so blunt, but…this costs twenty dollars per night?”

  “Oh, not for you, Dell,” he laughed, “but the argonauts are happy to get a room so cheap, I’ll tell ya that. Some places ‘round here charge a hundred dollars in gold for not much better ’n this.”

  A thrill ran down Delilah’s spine at the mention of argonauts, the gold miners who’d traveled by sea to reach the diggings. The tales of their adventures fueled her desire for adventures of her own. The idea of striking it rich in the mountains was certainly appealing but she also knew that life in the mining camps was far from easy.

  So when her father found her a match that was a well-respected store owner in San Francisco, Delilah had been excited. She would get to hear all of the miners’ tales while living a relatively comfortable life in town. She’d fantasized that she would fall desperately in love with her new husband, and he with her, but the heartbreak she was suffering was for the loss of what she envisioned her future might be, not for him specifically. Now what would become of her?

  Bolstering herself against the answer, Delilah dared ask, “How much?”

  Sam had a twinkle in his eye. “No charge.”

  The thrill that had tingled her spine a moment before was replaced by a chilling cold. This man was a stranger and now he was offering her a room for free? What exactly did he expect in return? Her nostrils flared and her eyes flashed.

  “I’ll have you know, sir, that I am a respectable lady! I have no intention—“

  “Whoa! Hold on there, little missy,” he said as she grabbed her bags and turned to leave in a huff. “Ya don’t gotta worry ‘bout ol’ Sam wantin’ nothin’ like that from ya, so simmer down.”

  She gave him a hard, appraising look and was satisfied that he was telling her the truth. Setting her bags down again, she asked, “Then why?”

  Sam buried his fingers in his beard and scratched his chin, then ran his hands over his scalp, sending his hair into disarray. He was clearly uncomfortable but she wasn’t about to back down. If he wanted to give her a room for free, she needed to know why before accepting.

  “Aw, geez,
you’re not makin’ this easy, are ya? Okay, if ya must know, I lost my wife going on six months ago now. Cholera.”

  He sniffed and Delilah’s heart broke for sweet, sad Sam.

  “See, she was the heart of this place. Ain’t been the same without her and I jest thought…well, I thought it could do with a woman’s touch, ya know?”

  “Oh, Sam…”

  He turned away but not before she saw tears welling in his doleful eyes. Clearing his throat and squaring his shoulders, he turned back.

  “Well? Best offer you’re gonna get, so take it or leave it.”

  After such a touching display, he couldn’t get rid of her if he tried.

  “I’ll take it, but under one condition. I must insist on pulling my weight, so I will clean for you. I can’t say I hold a great amount of talent at the skill, but it should be satisfactory.”

  Sam nodded. “Fair ‘nuff, but only the common rooms. Miners’ rooms ain’t no place for a lady such as yerself. ‘Sides, what you’d see in there might curdle yer blood. I know it has mine!”

  With that deal struck, Delilah spent several weeks working hard to bring some sense of order and cleanliness to the ruins of the boarding house. Sam’s wife, Mabel, had undoubtedly been a wonderful housekeeper but her absence was evidenced by dried mud caked over nearly every place a foot could land and dust so thick she could write her name in it.

  The work was hard but it gave her time to think. She pondered her options, immediately ruling out the very notion of returning to Boston. Nor would she consider marrying any one of the hundreds of unattached men in the quickly-growing town. No, if she were to ever marry, it would be to a man she knew and trusted. Never again would she entertain the thought of promising herself to a stranger, and all the men in this town were strangers.

  Even the men in the boarding house were strangers, though they all treated her with respect. Some had hinted at pursuing her but she gently refused their advances. Most were very nice men, but they were only drifting through San Francisco, either on their way to the diggings or on their way back home. They all stayed for a few days and then left.