In a world where silence speaks volumes, she yearns for love, but can she trust a man who may never hear her truth?
Robbed of her hearing and the warmth of a loving family, Cora embarks on a daring journey as a mail-order bride, seeking love in the arms of a stranger who may never accept her truth.
David, a solitary rancher who’s a man of few words, cherishes his son while wrestling with his wife’s loss. When fate thrusts Cora upon his doorstep, his protective instincts clash with guilt, forging an unlikely connection.
Yet, as their love story unfolds, David’s rogue brother and his ruthless outlaws loom, jeopardizing their love and the safety of all they hold dear.
Mobile, Alabama
1852
Silence.
It surrounded her.
Seemed to weigh on her, adding to the constant throbbing that pained her ears.
It was strange. She could remember how things sounded, so she could fill the silence with her thoughts. When she had traveled on the train from New York two months back, she had known the whistle would screech through the air from time to time and that the wheels on the track would rattle and groan, but she had not been able to hear a single sound.
She had only been able to feel the vibrations of the train on the tracks as it had chugged along. Arriving at her new home had been a frightening experience in general, but not being able to hear how the house groaned or the floors creaked made it all the more unnerving. So she imagined the sounds to try and fill the terrible silence that was her now constant companion.
Now more used to the silence, ten-year-old Cora sat by her window and watched the people walking by in the street outside. Occasionally, some of them would stop and talk with each other. She tried to read their lips, but she couldn’t make out a word they were saying. It seemed like an impossible thing to do, and she wondered if she’d ever be able to understand what people said around her ever again.
With a sigh, she leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the window, wishing she could slide through it like water to get outside. Birds fluttered in the sky above, and she envied them. She felt like a bird trapped in a cage, longing for freedom but too weak and too powerless to get it for herself. The window was bolted shut, and her door was locked. She was at the mercy of her aunt and uncle and only able to leave her little room when they allowed it.
It wasn’t fair. She didn’t understand why she had to be locked away all day long. Why she couldn’t go outside and play with the other children she often saw running up and down the street, or why she couldn’t go to school like her cousin, Adele. Since Cora had arrived at her home, her Aunt Matilda had made no secret of her dislike for her young niece. Cora didn’t know what she had done to anger her aunt so much, but no matter how obedient she was, she couldn’t seem to win the woman’s affection.
Suddenly, the bedroom door flew open, and Aunt Matilda marched into the room, as if Cora’s thoughts had summoned her.
Matilda came to a stop in the middle of the room, narrowed her cold, gray eyes, and began speaking. She moved her arms about, her crisp white blouse straining with the motion. Cora couldn’t understand her. When her aunt began pointing at the window with sharp movements, Cora realized her aunt was telling her to get away from the window. She immediately moved away, stepping closer to her aunt, who was continuing to speak at a rapid pace. Cora still had no idea what her aunt was saying, but she knew it couldn’t be nice.
She stared up at Matilda, helpless and increasingly frustrated herself. Why was her aunt so angry with her? What had she done? She treated Cora like an unwelcome guest, yet she’d still agreed to take her in. If she hated Cora so much, why would she let her stay?
As if realizing that Cora couldn’t understand her, Aunt Matilda stopped talking and clenched her jaw before reaching out and snagging the girl’s arm. Her grip was tight, and Cora flinched, instinctively trying to pull away from the older woman. That clearly did not please her aunt, who glared at her and wagged a finger in front of her face.
Turning, Matilda roughly dragged Cora from the room, her long dark skirt billowing around her legs. Cora struggled to keep up with her aunt’s long strides. She knew if she tripped, that would only make her aunt angrier.
Matilda continued to drag her down the stairs. They passed a wall of portraits as they turned to head down a hall toward the back of the house. Cora looked side-to-side, trying to find a means of escape even though she knew it would be a hopeless effort. The house was neat, fashionably decorated, but cold and sterile. The parlor, with its large windows, floral furnishings, and delicate vases of flowers on display, was an area where one could look but never touch.
The same could be said for the dining room, with its fine china dishes carefully on display in a glass-fronted cabinet, as well as the small library, decorated in a similar fashion to the parlor. It was not a house that appeared to be a home. There was no warmth to be found, not like Cora’s parents’ quaint little cottage back in New York.
Matilda continued pulling Cora along and into the cool basement. A copper tub of warm water sat next to a little stool and a washboard, and a basket of clothes sat on the floor nearby.
Her aunt pushed her down onto the stool, then grabbed the basket of laundry and dumped it into the tub of water. Dropping the basket to the floor, Matilda reached down and took hold of Cora’s chin. She was not gentle as she forced Cora to look at the washtub and then the washboard and back again.
Cora could only blink, but she understood what her aunt was commanding her to do. Matilda’s grip was so tight, she was pinching Cora’s skin.
Parting her lips, Cora tried to whisper, “Please…please let me go…”
Her aunt released her chin and pressed a finger hard against Cora’s lips, silencing her. She didn’t like it when Cora tried to speak. The little girl hadn’t grown up unable to hear, and knew how to talk, but for some reason Matilda seemed offended whenever she tried to and stopped her.
Cora pressed her lips into a thin line, and Matilda dropped her finger. Straightening, Matilda kicked her foot against the tub and gave Cora another stern look before turning and storming away. Cora did not need to hear to know what her aunt wanted of her. Since arriving at the house, Matilda had piled housework onto Cora’s little shoulders, including washing the laundry.
Once she was alone, Cora slowly reached into the tub and pulled out a piece of the laundry. She took the washboard and began scrubbing the linen against it. There was a bar of soap just beside her stool, and she grabbed it to scrub into the cloth.
As Cora slowly and steadily worked through the laundry, her mind wandered. She despaired at how drastically her life had changed. She had been ripped from a home where she was surrounded by love and adoration and forced into a house filled with scorn and loneliness.
The way Matilda treated her made her miss her parents so much, it was like a cinder block settled in her stomach and threatened to drag her into the ground.
Her heart clenched, and tears immediately threatened to fall. She forced them back and swallowed the sob that threatened to rip from her throat. Her life had changed so much in a matter of mere weeks. Some mornings, she woke up believing it had all been a bad dream and that she’d find her mama and papa waiting for her at breakfast with big smiles on their faces. However, she’d quickly realize she was not in her room back at her old house in her own bed, and that she would never again be greeted by her parents’ smiling faces at breakfast.
Instead, every day she was met by the disapproving glare of her aunt. Her Uncle Eddie was not as outwardly cold and cruel to Cora as Matilda was, but he never intervened on her behalf when her aunt was treating her poorly. Cora wasn’t sure which was worse…at least her aunt was honest about her feelings toward her niece. Matilda, though…Matilda looked so much like Cora’s mama, her sister, it had stunned her the first time they’d met.
Her aunt had the same caramel-colored hair that Cora herself shared with her mother, but while her mother had worn her hair in pretty braids or knots, Matilda always had her hair pulled back in a smooth, tight bun. She always wore stiff-collared dresses or blouses, and dark-colored skirts. Cora’s mama had favored colorful dresses and floral-patterned calico. Cora’s mother had seemed to radiate warmth. Her cheeks were always pink and plump, and her green eyes sparkled with mirth. There was no color in Matilda’s sharp cheeks, and it seemed to Cora that she rarely smiled.
At least, she hadn’t seen Matilda’s pale, thin lips curl into a smile since Cora’s arrival.
Cora could hardly believe Matilda and her mama were sisters. Before arriving on their doorstep, she had never met her aunt and uncle, and her mama had not spoken of her sister often. Cora could only remember that her mama always seemed sad whenever she talked about Matilda, but Cora had never really understood why. Now, she was starting to understand. If Matilda had treated her mama the way she treated Cora, the little girl would have kept her distance from her as well.
Her mama had always seemed to be smiling. Her papa as well. They had been so in love and had built a home brimming with that love. Cora’s days were spent playing out in the meadow behind their little cottage, the wildflowers tickling her bare feet as she ran through the grass. Her mama would play with her and make her flower wreaths to wear in her hair. Her papa would sit on their back porch and draw pictures of the two of them as they played.
Cora would go to bed at night with her skin warmed from the sun and flower petals in her hair.
Everything had changed one summer day when she stepped into the sun and still felt cold. None of them had known, when she’d first fallen ill, just how terrible the sickness would be. At first, Cora had merely had a burning throat and a slight cough. The fever had come later but left the most devastation behind. Cora couldn’t remember much about the days she’d been burning with the fever. It was all a blur, and then her ears had hurt so badly that she’d thought her head might crack open.
Cora blinked as tears broke free and began sliding down her cheeks. She’d been so sick…the world had seemed like a confusing blur, and every part of her body had hurt. She’d been so overwhelmed with her own pain, she hadn’t realized her parents had gotten sick as well. She hated to think about it.
Hated to remember the cold loneliness that had taken hold of her when she had woken up one day and realized her parents were no longer at her bedside. Her mama was not next to her, running a cool cloth along her forehead, and her papa had not been there to stoke the little fire keeping her warm. What she had not realized at the time was that her mama and papa had taken care of her…until they simply couldn’t anymore.
For all she knew, they may have already been dead by the time her fever broke. Cora shuddered and shook her head as nausea rolled in her stomach. A neighbor had found the three of them. She’d been rescued and whisked away to the hospital. She wasn’t sure what had happened to her mama and papa, and no one could tell her…she couldn’t understand them.
She hadn’t just lost her parents to the fever. She’d lost her hearing as well.
Now, her world was one of loneliness and silence. Whatever love and care she’d hoped to find with her aunt and uncle had turned out to be nothing but a fantasy. A dream. One among the endless nightmares she’d had since finding out she was an orphan three long months ago.
With the realization that her aunt hated her came the knowledge that she was truly alone. She’d lost everything and everyone that ever mattered to her. Her mama and papa, her home, and her hearing. It was all gone, and she was left without anyone to protect her or love her.
Cora scrubbed each piece of laundry until her hands were red and wrinkly. She wrung them out and placed them back in the basket. Picking the basket up, she made her way back up the stairs and to the house’s back door but stopped before going outside. She wasn’t allowed outside, even to hang the laundry. Cora set the basket down beside the door. Her aunt would come along and take the laundry out to the line herself. Once it was dry, she’d bring it back in for Cora to iron, fold, and put away. Matilda had wasted no time in teaching Cora this routine when she had arrived, in addition to all her other chores.
That seemed to be the only value Matilda found in Cora.
That was the life Cora had to look forward to. She would remain locked up in the house until her aunt decided she could go outside. Until she decided Cora wouldn’t embarrass the family with her pain and struggles. When that time would come, Cora had no idea. There wasn’t much she could do other than be obedient and try to please her aunt, even if she couldn’t understand what it was Matilda wanted from her.
Cora resolved to be a good girl and to learn. She would figure out how to understand when people spoke to her. She would figure out how to be useful until she could figure out a way to escape from her aunt. She would learn to use the silence to help her, and someday, she’d leave this house. She’d find a way to be happy again. To be loved again.
Cora wouldn’t let this lonely life be her fate.
Her mama and papa would have wanted her to find herself a new family and people to care for her, and she swore to herself that that was exactly what she would do.
Mobile, Alabama
1860
One moment she was in a deep, dreamless sleep. The next, she was being abruptly woken by insistent shaking. Startled, Cora blinked open her eyes and found herself gazing up into the deep blue stare of her cousin, Adele. Adele was wearing her nightgown and robe, and her dark brown hair was loose and fell in waves around her shoulders. She was beautiful, like an angel.
At least, Cora could imagine Adele looked like an angel. She certainly acted like one, and her kind smiles and rosy cheeks reminded Cora of the little images of cherubs in some of the paintings her aunt had hanging on the walls downstairs.
Cora frowned and quickly sat up. She could see by Adele’s expression that something was troubling her. Glancing outside her window, she saw that it was pitch black out yet, which confused her even more.
As she looked back at Adele, her cousin said, “It’s midnight, Cora. I’m sorry for waking you, but I couldn’t sneak in here during the day. It was like Mama knew I wanted to talk to you. She was practically guarding your door like a hound dog.”
Adele was speaking quickly, but Cora was able to keep up and understand her. She’d mastered the art of reading lips long ago. Adele was usually more intentional about speaking slowly and with emphasis when with Cora, though, so she was clearly quite upset if she wasn’t able to control herself.
Cora grabbed Adele’s hands, giving them a squeeze.
“I have something I have to tell you,” Adele explained. “Mama and Papa are sending me to France for finishing school! I’m to leave by the end of the summer…nearly three months’ time.”
Cora’s lips parted in shock, and her heart sank. Adele was being sent away? No…no, that couldn’t be! Cora shook her head and squeezed her cousin’s hands again as tears gathered in her eyes. Adele appeared as distressed as Cora felt.
“I’m sorry,” Adele said. “I’m so very sorry, Cora. I don’t know when I will see you again once I’m gone. I’ve no idea when I’ll be able to return home.”
Cora stomach twisted at that. In the eight years she’d been living with her aunt and uncle, Adele had become her only source of true comfort. Unlike her mother, Adele had only ever loved and cared for Cora. The two had been forbidden from interacting with each other, but Adele had taken to sneaking into Cora’s room whenever she’d been home from her Boston boarding school. She was a single ray of light in the otherwise bleak existence that had become Cora’s life.
If she didn’t have Adele, Cora would have no one. Adele was her only true family…the only person who loved Cora and actually cared for her wellbeing. Without her cousin, Cora would be all alone again, and she couldn’t stand the thought. She didn’t think she could survive it—the loneliness would be too terrible. She’d already all but forgotten how to speak because there was never anyone around to actually talk to when Adele was at school. Matilda never let her talk, and Uncle Eddie didn’t bother to try.
The thought of losing Adele devastated and terrified her. She remembered the terrible loneliness she had felt when she had first arrived at her aunt’s and uncle’s home, and she felt panic begin to seize her at the thought of suffering that unending solitude again.
“I know you are upset,” Adele told her. “I’m upset too, but I don’t want you to worry. I have a plan!”
Cora arched a brow. What sort of plan do you have, Adele? How could I possibly be free of this place?
As if her cousin could read her thoughts, Adele said, “We need to get you out of here, and I know just how to do it.”
She reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She quickly unfolded it and flattened it out on the bed between them.
“Here,” she said, pointing to the paper. “This is how you can get away!”
Cora glanced down at the paper and was surprised to find an advertisement for mail-order-brides.
FRONTIER BACHELORS SEEKING MAIL-ORDER-BRIDES
Young, strong women wanted as brides for bachelors living on the frontier. Letters of interest can be submitted to this newspaper.
Cora reread the advertisement, somewhat confused. She looked back up at her cousin with a frown.
“You understand, don’t you?” Adele said, her eyes going wide. “You can’t go out into the world on your own, Cora, but if you were married…”
Realization suddenly struck Cora, and she let out a gasp.
If she applied to be a mail-order bride and was chosen, she could escape from under her aunt’s iron fist. Adele was right. Cora couldn’t leave the house without a secure place to go where she could be supported. She had no education or way of supporting herself. The only reason she was able to read and write was because of Adele. When she would sneak into Cora’s room, she would often teach her the things she was learning in school herself. She’d even taught Cora how to draw, a skill Cora had taken to with a natural affinity.
Going West could give Cora the freedom she had craved for so long. She imagined wide open skies and a quaint little house on an open plain, similar to her parents’ house. Maybe she would live on a farm with sheep and chickens, and she’d never be forced to stay inside.
It sounded almost too good to be true. If it hadn’t been Adele’s suggestion, Cora would never have thought such a thing even possible.
“Do you want to do it?” Adele asked.
Cora nodded and scrambled out of her little bed to cross to the table sitting on the other side of the room. There was a small stack of paper Adele had given her and a charcoal pencil. She grabbed a sheet and the pencil and hurried back to the bed, sitting next to Adele and presenting her with her supplies.
“I’ll help you, all right?” Adele said.
Cora nodded and grabbed a book resting on the floor next to her bed. She laid the paper on it and then gave Adele a thoughtful look.
“Well, you should start with your name and age,” Adele told her.
Cora nodded.
My name is Cora Potts. I am eighteen years old and live in Mobile, Alabama.
She looked back up at Adele, who grinned at her.
“All right, good. Now, you should describe what you look like.”
Cora frowned and shrugged. She had no idea what to write. She knew she needed to make herself sound desirable, but she didn’t think much of her looks. As she tried to think of what to say about herself, she began combing her fingers through her long hair, a nervous gesture she often indulged in when she was feeling particularly stressed or uncertain. It didn’t help her confidence that her aunt always critiqued her appearance and more than once had called her plain.
She had no mirror in her room and so did not get to see her reflection unless she accidentally caught sight of it in the glass of her window. Over the years, she had begun to believe Matilda’s cruel words. How could she not when those were the only comments she received? Cora remembered that her mama had been beautiful, and she had always hoped she would grow to take after her. However, if she were plain, then perhaps there was not so much of her mother in her as she had thought…
Seeing her hesitation and perhaps sensing her belittling thoughts, Adele took the pencil from Cora.
“I’ll write this part.”
Cora didn’t object and sat back to watch her cousin scribble along the paper. She was a faster writer, and her letters were neater, and Cora admired the way she wrote with such confidence.
After several moments, Adele looked up with a smile and handed Cora the paper for her to read.
I’m tall with a graceful, willowy figure. I have long hair the color of caramel. I’m told I have a very expressive face that gives away what I’m thinking and feeling, but the most fascinating of my features are my eyes. One is blue and one is green. The green is from my mother, and the blue from my father.
Cora looked up from the writing and gave Adele an incredulous look. What she had written seemed a bit overflattering.
Adele arched a brow and pursed her lips a moment before saying, “Don’t give me that look. You are beautiful, Cora, and I won’t let you say otherwise. I don’t care what my mama might have said to you before.”
Cora released a long breath and gave her cousin a small smile. She wanted to believe her, and a small part of her did, but it was difficult for her to push aside the years of vicious words and cutting barbs that Aunt Matilda had lashed her with.
“You’re not changing it,” Adele insisted, holding up a finger and wagging it in front of Cora’s face.
Cora rolled her eyes but grinned, shrugged, and nodded.
“Good.” Adele smiled. “Now, what else should we write? Oh! You need to include that you’re an artist!”
Cora wasn’t certain if that was the type of attribute that would really attract a potential husband, but there wasn’t much else she could say about herself.
I am an experienced housekeeper and cook. I am also a bit of an artist. I enjoy drawing and painting and would love to decorate a home with my work.
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Very interesting beginning; I can hardly wait to see what awaits Cora. I cannot imagine what it is like to live in a silent world.
Thank you! Can’t wait for you to read it 💞
Unique beginning and I am looking forward to reading the entire book.
Thank you so much for your lovely support 💞💕
Hi Nora!
I’m from Brasil and loved this book! Cora and David are the cutest! I’d like receving The Extended Epilogue. Would you send it to me, please?
Thank you!!!
Luciana M M Argentino
Email: [email protected]
Thank you for your lovely message!💖To read the extended epilogue, just click the link at the end of the book. It will take you to my Rubedia account, where you can subscribe and explore more of my romance stories. Happy reading!🥰