Beulah's Brains: A McClain Story (The Alphabet Mail-Order Brides Book 2) Read online

  Chapter Two

  Beulah decided the best course of action would be to pretend that she didn’t realize Jack was a mute. At least for now. So she decided to chatter as they drove, not really giving him time to respond. She’d seen other women do it, and it seemed to work for them. Of course, her chatter would be quite different from theirs. She’d talk about things that really mattered.

  “One of the reasons I wanted to come here was so I could start a school. Do you know if there’s a school in Bagley already?” she asked, looking over at him so she could see if he nodded or shook his head.

  When he shook his head, she realized she wasn’t certain if that meant he didn’t know, or that there was no school. So she asked differently. “Is there a school in Bagley?”

  He shook his head again. Ahh, now they were driving with horses! Beulah smiled. “Good, I would love to start a school. I’ve been teaching biological sciences for several years back in New York. I love literature and history, but I seem to be more suited to teaching the sciences and mathematics. I tend to do well with older children as well, because I sometimes teach over the heads of small children.” She sighed contentedly, suddenly thrilled with her situation. “Do you live with your mother? She was the one who wrote the letter to me.”

  At his nod, she continued. “That will be nice. She can continue taking care of the house, while I teach. Yes, I can see that would be the best situation. I would like to be able to start teaching on September first, so that gives us a month or so to get the schoolhouse built, which shouldn’t be a problem if all the men in the area are willing to pitch in.”

  “My parents will be moving out of the house as soon as we’re married,” he said. His deep voice startled her, and she jumped.

  “You can speak? I thought you were mute!”

  He blinked at her a few times. “Why would you think I was mute?”

  “Well, you didn’t say anything. I was asking you questions at the train station, and all you did was nod and shake your head. What else was I supposed to think?” She glared at him, feeling as if he’d deceived her.

  “Well, I’m not mute. I was just a little stunned to see you carrying an anatomy textbook and actually reading it. I was a little lost for words at first, because I’d expected you to be like the empty-headed women I know around here, and you’re anything but. I hate to say my mother chose well for me, but I really believe she did!”

  Beulah frowned at that. “Does that mean you want a real marriage?”

  He gaped at her for a moment before turning his eyes back to the road in front of him. “Why would you think I didn’t want a real marriage? What other reason would I be sending for a wife?”

  She sighed. “I guess when it was your mother corresponding with me and not you, I jumped to an erroneous conclusion.” Looking straight ahead, she asked him the question that was foremost on her mind. “Would you mind if we waited to consummate the marriage until I was ready?” Like in 1922?

  Jack looked over at her, wondering what was going through her mind. So far, she hadn’t lied to him, and he’d know if she had, but he didn’t feel like she was telling him exactly what she was thinking either. “I wouldn’t mind waiting for a designated period of time that we can both agree upon. I would say, let’s wait until the wedding night.” He couldn’t believe how attractive this woman was to him. She was beautiful, but she also had a brain in her head. For some reason, smart women made his heart beat faster. His first crush had been on a governess his mother had brought in to teach his brothers and him.

  “The wedding night? I was thinking more of a period of a few years.”

  “Years? Have you lost your mind? You want me to live under the same roof with you and sleep in the same bed with you, and not consummate the marriage? Do you think I’m some sort of eunuch who can live that way?” Jack shook his head, more than a little perturbed with her already. What was wrong with her that she’d even ask for such a thing?

  “All right, maybe not years. Shall we propose a getting to know each other period of six months before we consummate the marriage?”

  “No, we shall not. I think a week is long enough. Besides, we’re not even getting married until Saturday. That should give you plenty of time to get to know me.”

  “I don’t think you realize how negotiations work, Mr. McClain.” Beulah couldn’t think of him as Jack. Jack was the kind-hearted mute she’d first met at the train station. This man was nothing like the man she’d first envisioned him to be. “You see, you suggested a period of a few days, and I suggested a few years. I came down to a few months, but you’re still saying the same thing.”

  He sighed, wondering what he’d thought attracted him about intelligent women anyway. “Fine. A week.”

  “Five months,” Beulah responded, folding her arms over her chest. The man was difficult, and she was already starting to feel a great deal of antipathy for him.

  “Ten days.”

  “Four months.”

  “Eleven days.” Jack wasn’t about to give up his rights to the marriage bed. The woman was beautiful and intelligent, and she was about to be his wife. Why would he wait to bed her?

  She groaned aloud. “Three months. And that’s my final offer.”

  “Twelve days, and that’s my final offer.” Jack pulled into the drive that led to his house from the main road.

  “That’s not long enough to get to know you!” Beulah couldn’t believe the man she’d met at the train station was the ogre beside her. For just a moment her life had seemed almost too good to be true. Now she was certain she was never going to be happy married to him.

  “Why did you agree to be a mail-order bride if you thought you needed time to get to know the man you married? Do you have any idea how contradictory that thinking is?”

  “I didn’t have a choice!” She blurted the words out angrily. “I wanted to stay in New York and teach biology for the rest of my life, but Madame Wigg says she’s dying, though I’m not sure I believe it. She’s offered me a sum of money to start a school here, as long as I follow her principles of inclusion. I’m willing to follow them! But the only way to get here was to be a mail-order bride, and I have no desire to engage in sexual intercourse with you!”

  He stared at her in shock for a moment, and then he threw his head back and laughed. A deep belly laugh. “Sexual intercourse? You make it sound so clinical.” He stroked a finger over her bare arm. “I promise you, there will be nothing clinical about it when we consummate our marriage.”

  She glared at him. “Why won’t you see reason?”

  “Why are you so stubborn?”

  “You’re worse than a goat!”

  He stopped the wagon and set the brake, jumping down to walk around and help her down. Instead of taking her hand to help her down, he caught her around the waist and made sure the front of her brushed the front of him all the way down. “You’re about to meet my mother. You will be sweet and docile and act like I’m the most important man in the world to you.”

  “And in exchange for my deceptive behavior, you’ll wait a month to consummate our marriage?”

  He groaned. “Are you still on that? What if I refuse to wait at all?”

  “Then I’ll be forced to treat you like the randy goat you are.”

  He chuckled, not even sure why. “There’s something about you that’s going to make me absolutely crazy, Beulah soon-to-be McClain.”

  She put her hands on her hips, wishing he’d step back but not willing to lower herself far enough to try to push him away. “You don’t remember my last name, do you? You’re calling me that because you don’t know the full name of the woman you’re supposed to marry in three days. Three days!”

  He decided there was only one way to shut her up, and he found he was excited at the prospect. He gripped her waist with both hands and pulled her even closer toward him. They’d been barely touching, but now they were smashed up against one another.

  He lowered his head to hers and kissed her, bu
t not in a way she’d ever seen anyone kiss. No, his lips were not only pressed against hers, but they were trying to get her to open her mouth. She put her hands on his chest, intending to push him away, but . . . his chest felt so good against her fingertips. Instead, she stood on tiptoe, pressing herself closer against him, and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him back for all she was worth.

  When he finally lifted his head, they were both slightly out of breath. “We’re consummating on our wedding night. There’s no way I’m waiting after that kiss.”

  She stood there, her lips red and plump and moist from their kiss. Her mind—the mind that she prided herself on being her best feature—suddenly didn’t work. Beulah’s brain shut off right there and then. She was the one who was mute.

  “I’m glad to see you have no argument for that. I don’t care if you teach school, but you’ll be in my bed every night, and when our sons start coming, you might have a hard time teaching.”

  “Sons? What about our daughters?” She wasn’t going to let him get the last word. He couldn’t forget that there was as good of a chance for girls as there was for boys.

  “Daughters? You’ll have seven sons. Just like my mother did and my grandmother before her. My family hasn’t had a daughter born of the seventh son in almost a thousand years. Don’t expect to be the first.” He walked to the back of the wagon and picked up her trunk, his arms shaking as he tried to hold it. “What do you have in this thing? Books?”

  “Of course I have books in there! What did you think I brought with me? A different outfit for every day of the week?” With those words, Beulah turned her back on him, walking toward the house. She held the door as he carried the trunk in and stood there rigidly. The man was going to be the death of her. That much was absolutely certain.

  A slim woman with blond hair and green eyes stepped out of what looked to be the kitchen. “Hello. You must be Beulah. I’m Mary McClain. Welcome to the family!” The woman embraced Beulah, shocking her for a moment, but then she hugged her back. Never in her life had she been embraced by a total stranger.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. McClain. Your son has the manners of a goat.”

  Her future mother-in-law laughed. “Yes, he does. I’m sorry, but I have done my absolute best with him.” She linked her arm through Beulah’s. “You need to call me Mary. Now, let’s see about a tour of the house. It’ll be yours as soon as you marry, so you need to know exactly what you’re getting yourself into.”

  Beulah sighed. She couldn’t help but like the petite woman beside her. “That sounds nice, Mary. I appreciate your offer to show me around. Where will you go if the house is to be mine?”

  “There’s a property across the ranch that’s for the parents once the youngest son marries. I knew it would one day be mine the day I married Jack’s father, who does not have the manners of a goat. In fact, none of my other sons have the manners of a goat either. It’s just Jack. You’ll have to work on him.”

  “Do you have an extra bull whip lying around? I’m afraid that might be the only thing that would work on him.” Beulah shook her head. “I’m very sorry. You’re my future mother-in-law, and I do want to get along with you. The way to start out isn’t to criticize the manners of your son.”

  “Well, sometimes his manners need to be criticized.” Mary led her through the house, showing her the sitting area and the parlor, and then they went upstairs. “We have five bedrooms. Then the boys will be able to pair up when all seven are here.”

  “Wait . . . Jack said something about seven sons as well. Why does everyone assume I’ll have seven sons? I always saw myself as the mother of daughters.”

  Mary bit her lip. “I should have explained in one of my letters to you. In the McClain family, the seventh son always has seven sons. No more and no less. And there are never any daughters. Now you’ll get granddaughters. And you’ll have plenty of nephews and nieces. But there will be no daughters. And the seventh son . . .” She trailed off, nodding her head. “Well, I’ll leave it at that.”

  Beulah couldn’t help but wonder what Mary had been about to say, but she saw Jack standing behind her, and she understood then he was hiding something from her. Well, that was just dandy. The man had the manners of a goat, and he was hiding things. He probably had a mistress and five children somewhere else. Well, that would only leave her to have two children, and that might be for the best. “I plan to break that tradition. I want daughters.”

  Mary sighed. “Be my guest. You can believe anything you want to believe.” She led Beulah to a bedroom that was mostly packed into crates. “This will be the room you share with Jack. There’s a small bedroom that is connected to this one, and that is what I used for the nursery. I had all seven of my sons within ten years, so there was always one in the nursery.”

  “Where do the other sons live?”

  “Most of them have property close to here. One has moved to Austin to be a lawyer there, but the other five are here in Bagley. The ranch and the house are always inherited by the seventh son, which I know is odd, but our family tends to be a bit odd.”

  “You act as if you never had a family before you became a McClain. Is that true?”

  Mary smiled. “No, not at all. I was a Johnson before I married Joseph. I lived just down the road in the town of Nowhere.”

  “Jack said there’s no school here in Bagley. I want to start a school. It’s one of the reasons I moved here.”

  “I think that’s very admirable of you. I’ll see that a site is picked out for the school soon. I believe you could even start a country school here, just outside of Bagley, and then you wouldn’t have to walk so far to get to the schoolhouse.”

  “You don’t mind if I teach?” Beulah asked. She was starting to like Mary a great deal. If only her son was more . . . well, more human. Instead of goat-like.

  “I think it’s a great idea for you to teach. You might need to get a nanny once the children start coming, but no one will complain at all if you want to educate the children in the area.”

  Beulah smiled. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. You know, I think we should donate a small piece of the property to your schoolhouse. You could teach just the McClain children and stay busy.”

  “Are there that many?”

  Mary laughed. “I have sixteen grandchildren and two more on the way. Yes, there are a great deal of children in our family and always have been. Two of the grandchildren live in Austin, though, so you won’t be teaching them.”

  “I feel very strongly about inclusion. If there are Indian children or children of former slaves, they would need to be allowed to attend the school.”

  “Oh, of course they would! We would not have it any other way. I’ll instruct the boys to start building the schoolhouse on Monday. Right after the wedding.”

  For a moment, Beulah considered asking Mary to help her with her argument with Jack about when they should consummate the marriage, but she thought better of it. The woman was obviously all about the propagation of more and more McClain children. How would she feel about putting off those children for a few months? Probably not at all good.

  When they walked back down the stairs, Jack was sitting in the parlor. “I was just waiting until you were finished. Mother, what room should I put Beulah in until after the wedding?”

  “Put her in the room closest to mine. You’re at the far end of the hall, and I think she might need a chaperone who is close to her at night.”

  “Mother!” Jack protested. “You sound like you don’t trust me!”

  Mary laughed, walking over and patting her son on the cheek. “I don’t trust you one whit. Now take the trunk upstairs and get back to work. I’m going to spend some time with my future daughter-in-law.”

  Jack sighed, but he did as he was told. He knew better than to disobey a direct order from his mother.

  Chapter Three

  After supper that night, Jack pulled Beulah’s chair out for her. “Would you care to g
o for a walk?” he asked.

  Beulah wondered if he would always act properly around his mother and act like a goat when she wasn’t there. “I need to help your mother with the dishes first.”

  Mary shook her head. “Tomorrow night is soon enough for that. You’ve been traveling for more than a week. Go for a walk with Jack, and you two get to know each other.” Her eyes met Jack’s. “Act like you were raised by humans and not by goats, please.”

  Jack stared at his mother in shock. “Why would you think I’d act like a goat?”

  “Beulah told me you have the manners of a goat.”

  “Lovely. What a wonderful way for my future bride to meet my mother.” He offered Beulah his arm. “Let’s walk. I’ll show you around the ranch a bit.”

  Beulah wasn’t sure she cared to see the ranch or get to know Jack better, but she wasn’t about to act like a fishwife in front of her future mother-in-law. She liked the woman too much to show her bad side. “All right.”

  She took Jack’s arm and walked toward the front door with him, having little interest in the ranch. “What I want to know is where my school will be. Your mother told me the family would donate some land for me to start a country school.”

  Jack sighed. “You do know the babies will start coming soon and you won’t be able to teach any longer.”

  “Why won’t I? And the babies won’t come if we wait to consummate the marriage. I think five years should be long enough.”

  “Not happening. I felt you up against me, and I felt you return my kiss. You don’t care any more than I do if we get to know one another better. We’re having a wedding night on our wedding night. No reason for you to be difficult about it.”

  She didn’t look at him as she walked with him. “This ranch is huge.”

  “It is. It’s one of the largest ranches in Texas.” He didn’t add that they were one of the wealthiest families, because they tried to keep that low-key. “We have a bunkhouse across the ranch. You won’t be expected to cook for the men, because there’s a cook already, but there will be times you’ll come into contact with the men who work for us. Will that bother you?”