A Bride for Adam

was being courted by Miles Tanner. She hurried to greet Martha, wondering what she could possibly want with her all the while.
 “Hello, Martha. What can I do for you?”
“I came to warn you.”
Greta tilted her head in confusion. “Warn me? About what?”
“It’s Miles. He’s been acting strangely. He’s never gotten over the fact that you didn’t get the annulment. I thought I could change his feelings.” Martha sighed. “I really care for Miles, but he’s still stuck on you. That was bad enough to deal with, but now he’s threatening all sorts of craziness.” Martha cringed. “He’s scaring me. First, he threatened to kill Adam.”
Greta felt her heart do a flip-flop, and she let out a gasp.
“Now, he’s threatening to kill you. He said if he can’t have you, no one else will.” Martha wrung her hands. “I don’t know what to do, so I thought it best to warn you that he’s planning something horrible.” Martha cupped her hand to her mouth and whispered, “He said it wouldn’t be the first time he’d killed someone.”
Greta was so stunned, she couldn’t speak for a moment. “Do you think he is just talking...I mean, that his threats are just a way for him to vent his frustration?”
“They could be. I haven’t known him long enough to judge, but his threats scare me.”
Greta said, “Yes, they scare me, too.”
“Just what happened between you two? Had you courted? Kissed? Did you make him promises?”
Greta shook her head slowly. “No. One day he just walked up to me on the walkway and asked if he could court me. I told him I was legally married, but that I was thinking of having the marriage annulled. Then, he saw me coming out of the attorney’s office one day, and I told him I’d filed for the annulment. He asked if he could court me when the annulment was final. I told him he could. Whenever I ran into him after that, he always asked me if I’d gotten the annulment yet. That’s all that went on between us.”
 “And so what happened that you didn’t let him court you?”
“My Proxy husband, Adam, came home, we went on a voyage together, and fell in love. We’d never formally met each other before then, and when we returned from our trip, we cancelled the annulment, and we’re very happy together.”
Martha nodded. “Now, I understand. Miles said he waited all that time. You must have been gone quite a while.”
“Several weeks, yes.” Greta hesitated to ask but curiosity got the best of her. “Did he say whom he’d killed?”
“It was a fair gunfight, he said.”
Martha mounted her horse. “I didn’t know what else to do. Warning you was all I could think of. I tried to talk sense to him, but he won’t listen. He’s obsessed with you, Greta. I’m not going to let him court me anymore. I broke it off with him last night.”
“I’m sorry, but thank you for the warning.” Greta fretted as she watched Martha ride down the lane. Was she telling the truth, or was this some scheme Miles had cooked up to get even with Adam?

Chapter Seventeen
Adam came home from work, kissed and hugged Greta, and they put Bethany to bed. Greta was nervous yet impatient to get Bethany to bed while Adam read her a story, wanting to go downstairs to tell Adam what Martha had told her earlier that day.
Finally, the story ended, and Bethany’s eyes sagged with fatigue. They listened to her prayers, kissed her goodnight, and left the room.
Greta took Adam’s hand and practically dragged him down the stairs and into the sitting room.
“What’s going on?” Adam said with a chuckle. “If the house is on fire, shouldn’t we bring Bethany with us?”
Greta gently pushed Adam onto the settee and sat beside him. “I had a visitor today.” She told Adam exactly what Martha had told her.
As she spoke, Adam’s eyes widened.
When she finished the tale, Adam frowned and brought a fist down on his knee. “Dagnabbit! I’ll call him out before he can hurt anyone.”
“No!” Greta cried. “What if he kills you? Bethany and I need you. Please don’t do that.”
Adam grabbed his wife’s shoulders, “I have no choice. A man has to protect his family. That man is crazy.”
Greta felt tears stream down her face. “No!”
“Sweetheart, there are things a man has to do. No one is going to get away with threatening to kill my wife.” Adam rubbed his chin. “Let’s see…tomorrow is Friday. As soon as I return from work tomorrow, I’m going straight to his place to challenge him to a shoot-out for Saturday morning.”
Greta burst into tears, and he held her in his arms and kissed her head. “Darling, I know what I’m doing. Isaac and I used to have pretend shoot-outs all the time. I’m as fast and accurate with a gun as I am with my cutlass. Don’t worry.”
Greta lifted her head and looked into his eyes. “I couldn’t bear it if—”
“I’ll be fine. And I won’t kill the bully; I’ll just shoot the gun from his hand.”
“Have you done that before?”
“Not for real, but I know I can do it. God will be my shield. I have faith.” Adam stood and pulled Greta up to stand in front of him. He put his hand under her chin and lifted it so he could look into her eyes. “Tomorrow, you’re to stay in the house with Bethany. Don’t go anywhere, and don’t let anyone inside.”
“But your mother promised to take Bethany on a picnic tomorrow.”
“All right then, let my mother come and get her, but tell her to keep Bethany at her house, and I’ll pick her up on my way home. You are not to go anywhere. All right?”
Greta pouted but