Matrimony Mix-up
Hoping for a fresh start, Ann Cromwell travels to New Haven, Ohio, from London, England, as a mail-order bride—and learns she’s not the wife her groom-to-be was looking for. Though handsome farmer James McCann is kindly, he’s made it clear he wants the matchmaking agency to fix their mistake. But if she can’t convince him to give her a chance, she’s not sure where she’ll go.
James can’t imagine why the matchmakers ignored his request for a plain bride. He was burned by a beautiful woman before, and he’s sure someone as stunning as Ann is unsuited for rural living. While the agency sorts out the error, though, Ann quietly works her way into James’s life...but can he ever allow her into his heart?
“This is why I didn’t want a pretty bride,” James muttered.
Ann’s cheeks flushed crimson and she clenched her hands into fists. “You think an ugly girl will make you a better breakfast?”
“I need to eat, Ann. The animals need to eat. The crops need to be planted and harvested. And you can’t even cook an egg.”
“I’m sorry I’m a disappointment to you, Mr. McCann, but why are you berating me? If I’m another man’s intended, you won’t be bothered with me much longer.”
James’s cheeks burned. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way. Forgive me.”
He escaped out the back door before he could say something else he regretted. Despite the disastrous breakfast, in a single morning she’d impressed him with much more than her beauty. She’d risen early to clean the entire kitchen by dawn, made an attempt at breakfast and stood stoically through the dressing of a burn that would have likely made a grown man cry. None of that mattered. The agency intended her for another, and he had to keep reminding himself of that.
Forget for an instant and he risked falling in love.
The setting for this story is very close to my heart. As I write this, sunlight streams into the room through the wavy glass of the 150-year-old window in my office. When writer’s block strikes, I stare out that window toward a barn raised with hand-hewn timbers or out over rows of corn or soybeans growing just beyond.
My husband’s great-great-grandfather built this house, and we are raising the fifth generation to make it their home. Though James and Ann are fictional, I picture Ann scrubbing these same wooden floors as I buzz my vacuum cleaner across them and James toiling in the field as our tractor plows the same expanse with ease. Though life has changed dramatically since these walls were first erected, my one hope is for faith and family to be the focal point of our generation and each generation to come.
Whitney Bailey
WHITNEY BAILEY is a city girl turned farm wife. She makes her home in the Midwest with her husband, four children and an assortment of sociable barn cats who meow at the window when she’s trying to write. A Mistaken Match is her debut novel.
A Mistaken Match
Whitney Bailey
MILLS & BOON
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—Philippians 4:6
For Patrick
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