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

Chapter 6

Winter came down hard on Cedar Hollow that year.

The snow started in November and did not let up until March. The valley was buried under drifts that reached the windowsills, and the only light in the afternoons was a pale, diffused gray that made everything look underwater.

The trouble began with Tom Akerly.

He owned the largest spread in the valley—three thousand acres of grazing land that his father had claimed and his grandfather had died defending. He was not used to being told no, and he was not used to being asked to pay what he owed. He came to the forge in a black temper, the snow melting off his coat in puddles on the dirt floor, and he threw a set of wagon repairs onto Eli’s workbench with a clatter that made the horses in the stable shift nervously.

“The price is too high,” he said. “I am not paying it.”

Eli had been expecting this. He had done business with Tom Akerly before. He straightened up from the anvil, still holding his hammer, and said: “The price is the price. Iron costs what it costs, and my time costs what my time costs. I have already discounted it because you are a repeat customer.”

“Repeat customer,” Akerly said, and laughed. “You are the only blacksmith within forty miles, Brennan. You cannot discount what you have a monopoly on. That is not how it works.”

“That is exactly how it works,” Eli said. “I am the only blacksmith. That is why my prices are what they are. If there were another forge in the valley, I would have to compete. There is not. So the price is the price.”

Akerly’s face went red. He was a large man, broad-shouldered and thick-necked, and he was not accustomed to being gainsaid by anyone—least of all by a man he considered beneath him. He stepped forward, close enough that Eli could smell the whiskey on his breath.

“You listen to me, you scarred son of a—”

“Mr. Akerly.”

The voice came from the doorway. Margaret was standing there, wrapped in a wool shawl, her breath clouding in the cold air. She had been at the boarding house, visiting Sadie’s mother. She had heard the shouting from the street.

Akerly turned. His eyes traveled over her slowly, deliberately, the way a man measures an opponent.

“This is not your concern, ma’am.”

“I am making it my concern,” Margaret said. “That is my husband you are speaking to. And I can hear you from the street.”

“Then you heard me tell him his prices are too high.”

“I heard you call him a scarred son of something. The rest was just business.”

Akerly’s jaw tightened. He looked at Eli, then back at Margaret. He was calculating, she could see it—trying to find the angle, the weakness, the place to apply pressure.

He found the only one he knew.

“You must be the Boston woman,” he said, and his voice went oily. “I heard about you. Came all this way to marry a man with half a face. That is loyalty, I suppose. Or desperation. Hard to tell the difference from a distance.”

Margaret did not move. She did not flinch. She had been waiting for this—for the moment when someone used her as a weapon against Eli, because she had known it would come. It was what the world did. It found the thing you were most ashamed of and used it to hurt the people you loved.

She walked past Akerly and stood beside her husband.

“He told you the price,” she said. “Pay it, or do not. But you will not stand in my home and insult the man who built it. You will not call him names in his own forge. You will not use me to wound him because you are too small to argue with him fairly.”

Akerly stared at her. He was not used to being spoken to this way, especially not by a woman, especially not by a woman in a gray dress and a worn wool shawl who had arrived in town three months ago with nothing but a trunk and a dead brother’s horseshoes.

“Pay him,” Margaret said, “or leave. But you will not stay.”

The silence stretched. The forge was warm and dim, lit by the glow of the coals, and the only sound was the hiss of the bellows and the soft stamp of the horses in the stable.

Akerly reached into his coat and pulled out a leather pouch. He counted out the coins—too slowly, making a show of it—and slapped them onto the workbench.

“Fine,” he said. “Keep your thieving prices. But I will remember this, Brennan. I will remember it.”

He turned and walked out, shoving past Margaret as he went. His boots left wet prints across the dirt floor, and the door banged shut behind him, rattling the tools on the walls.

Margaret stood still, her heart hammering, her hands shaking. She had not realized she was shaking until Eli’s hand closed around hers.

“You did not have to do that,” he said, his voice rough. “I have borne worse than Tom Akerly. I am used to it.”

“That’s exactly why I had to do it,” she said. “Because you are used to it. And you should not have to be.”

She looked up at him, at his scarred face half-lit by the forge glow, at the way he was holding his breath as if waiting for her to regret her choice.

“I did not come west to be tolerated, Eli. And I will not have you tolerated either. Not in your own town. Not in front of me.”

He turned his hand over and closed it around hers. It was the first time he had reached for her of his own accord. His palm was rough with calluses, warm from the forge, and his grip was careful—always careful, as if he was afraid of breaking her.

“I am not used to being defended,” he said.

“Then you had better get used to it,” she said. “Because I am not finished.”