They Said No Woman Would Wed the Scarred Blacksmith — Then His Mail-Order Bride Arrived

Chapter 4

Gideon Mercer stepped forward.

He removed his hat.

The afternoon light fell without mercy on his face — the twisted, melted terrain of it, the clouded eye with its heavy lid, the ruined groove of his jawline. He walked through the crowd and the crowd parted for him because he was six foot four and moving with the specific purposefulness of a man who has decided not to stop for anything.

Josie’s hand flew to her mouth.

She had expected a scar. A notable scar, yes — he had been honest about that — but a scar like a dueling cut or a mining injury. Not a face so violently rearranged by catastrophe that you had to look a moment before you could find the original man underneath.

For one suspended, terrifying second, the two of them looked at each other across the width of the platform.

The scarred giant with his wilting wildflowers. The large woman with her tears not quite falling.

The town waited for disaster.

Gideon looked at her — her heavy frame, the true weight of what substantial girth had meant in her letter, the wide frightened eyes — and saw in those eyes the exact same terror that lived inside his own chest every time he walked down a public street. The terror of being seen as a monster. The terror of being seen only for the thing you cannot change.

He walked to the step-box and looked up at her.

His voice came out the way it always did — low, gravelly, like stones moving in a riverbed. But quiet. Only for her.

Miss Bennett. I’m Gideon. Welcome to Oak Haven.

He extended his hand. It was burned, heavily calloused, the tip of the pinky finger absent — taken by the same blast that had taken his face. But it was steady.

Josie looked at it for a moment that lasted a long time.

Then she placed her soft, plump hand into his.

Thank you, Mr. Mercer, she whispered.

He supported her weight as she came down the steps, steady as a dock piling, and when her feet hit the platform boards he did not release her hand. He offered her the wildflowers. She took them, though they were half-crushed from his nervous grip.

They are beautiful, she said.

They were not, particularly. But she meant it.

Gideon turned his back on the crowd and escorted his bride through the gathered townspeople. His sheer size and the fierce, cold set of his ruined jaw moved people out of the way without a word being spoken. Nobody laughed again. Nobody said anything at all.

Reverend Finch hurried through the vows in the manner of a man who wanted to conclude his part in a situation he found unsettling, his eyes moving from Gideon’s face to Josie’s frame and back to his scripture with something that was either prayer or panic.

By sunset they were in the cabin.

The silence between them was the specific silence of two strangers who have just made an irrevocable commitment and are now confronting what that actually means. The fire in the wood stove popped. Buster, the three-legged hound, assessed Josie from a distance of six feet with the serious expression of an animal doing due diligence, then apparently reached a satisfactory conclusion and settled down against the wall.

Josie sat on the edge of the wooden bed. The mattress announced her weight with a groan that echoed in the small room. She flushed violently and stared at her hands in her lap, her whole large body rigid with mortification.

Gideon stood at the stove, poking at the embers with unnecessary attention.

What right did I have to bring her here, he was thinking. What did I think was going to happen.

I reckon the bed is sturdy enough, he said finally, still not looking at her. I built the frame from solid oak.

I am sorry, Mr. Mercer. Her voice was very quiet. A tear broke loose and ran down the curve of her flushed cheek. I warned you in my letter, but I know it is a shock. If you wish to send me back, I will understand. I am—