Christmas Mail Order Bride - A Historical Mail Order Bride Novel (Western Mail Order Brides: Book 1) Read Online Free

man, especially after the passage of such a significant glance between herself and Caleb, repulsed her from her new husband. She loathed the idea of spending a moment more in his company. But the possibility of retreat lay permanently closed behind her, accomplished now with definite finality by the falling of night outside.
    Anders slid aside a panel leading into a nicely furnished parlor, where his parents awaited them in front of a blazing fire. As soon as Anders closed the door behind them, Penelope drifted toward the fire, where she managed to banish the last remnants of cold from her hands and feet. She also slowly—she hoped inconspicuously—removed some of the more garish of Matilda’s additions to her wardrobe.
    Anders stalked to a side board behind his mother’s couch, poured himself a tumbler of something from an etched-glass bottle, and as he gulped the liquid down, assailed his father with complaints about the men who attended them in the barn. “I’m tellin’ you, Dad. I don’t like that Bill Olsen one bit. I think we ought to get rid of him. Him and that weasel Caleb Alexander, too.”
    George gave these remarks only a cursory response. The topic appeared well-worn between the two men. “Now, son, you can’t go around getting rid of everyone. We’d have no hands left, if you had your way. Bill’s the best there is, and he’s been workin’ for me for thirty years.”
    “He’s insolent,” Anders grumbled. “He doesn’t know how to keep his place. He thinks he runs this place.”
    “Well, in a way, he does,” George pointed out. “He manages this place as though it was his own, and he does a damn sight better job than I ever did.”
    “That’s the problem,” Anders griped. “He thinks this place is his own. He doesn’t obey orders, and he sticks his nose in where it isn’t wanted. When I try to discipline Caleb, he butts in and stops me. I don’t know how I’m supposed to maintain any authority around here, if he keeps getting away with it.”
    “I don’t see any problem with Caleb, either,” George pondered. “He works hard and he’s reliable and steady. I don’t understand what objection you can have to him. Has he ever said anything to you other than ‘Yes, sir’? I don’t think so. I’ve never heard him say anything else to anyone—not to you, not to me, not to Bill, and not to any of the others. He’s about the most obedient hand I’ve ever had.”
    “That’s just the problem,” Anders groused. “He says ‘Yes, sir’ with his mouth, but you can see in his eyes there’s more going on. He’s thinkin’ about somethin’, somethin’ other than ‘Yes, sir’.”
    “Now, come on, son,” George chided him. “You can’t control what a man thinks. If he says ‘Yes, sir’, that’s the best you can hope for, and you just have to let him think whatever he wants.”
    “No, I don’t!” Anders retorted. “As long as he’s workin’ for me, I can tell him to think what I want him to think.”
    “Well, he’s not workin’ for you,” George declared. “As long as I’m still alive, he’s workin’ for me. When I’m gone, you can get rid of whoever you want to get rid of, and I hope you can get some hands who work for you the way these men work for me, because a good man is hard to find. When you find one, you have to work to keep him. You have to work to keep him at least as hard as he has to work to keep his job with you, maybe even harder.”
    “That’s all wrong, Dad,” Anders lectured. “All the work should be done by them. You shouldn’t have to work to keep them at all. They should be trembling in their boots every time you set foot outside the door.”
    “No, son, that just won’t do,” George shook his head.
    “Well, that’s the way I operate,” Anders maintained.
    “You want to have it both ways,” George observed. “You want a man to bob his head and say, ‘Yes, sir’, but you don’t want the man who goes along with it. You