A Bride in Store

A Bride in Store is a historical romance by the American writer Melissa Jagears, published in 2014. It is set on the American frontier and concerns a mail-order bride and the business that was the reason for her journey.

Eliza Cantrell has invested everything she has in the arrangement, and her journey west goes wrong almost immediately when her train is held up and the money she was bringing is stolen. She arrives in the town where her intended husband lives to find that he is away and that nobody has been expecting her to turn up alone.

The person who takes responsibility for her is William Stanton, her fiance's business partner, who runs the store with no enthusiasm and would rather be training as a doctor. He lets her help behind the counter, and she turns out to be far better at the work than he is. The novel is about the two of them working together in a small business while everyone concerned knows she is engaged to somebody else, and about what each of them is prepared to give up for the life he or she actually wants.