His jaw line kicked again. But then he glanced back at her, and the plains of his cheeks softened, his lips curved up just a tad.
“Made coffee. Want some?”
She nodded and tried so hard to temper her smile so she didn’t beam at him.
After a couple seconds he returned with two mugs of the steaming brew, and he’d taken off his duster. Today, he wore black woolen trousers with suspenders over his broad shoulders, a white cotton button up shirt where he’d left the collar open. She liked that he usually didn’t wear a cravat or tie. She liked the way he wore his clothes, a bit on the casual side, but so rugged and masculine. Swallowing her intense desire for him, she looked down at the bed and the space between them.
The coffee had a touch of milk and honey in it. After taking a sip, she had to look at him again. “Did you milk my cow?”
He nodded.
“How long have you been awake?”
He shrugged, but that didn’t fool her. He knew but wasn’t telling. He stretched his shoulders a little with a tiny, half-hidden smile. “I need to get into town soon.”
His change of subject jolted her, but once she followed him, she understood. He needed to get to his job.
“But I’ll wait until Chen and Laura arrive.”
She smiled, but, like him, tried to hide it. Nearly going to ask about his job and all his guns, she stopped when he sniffed.
“So,” Jake said casually, “am I understanding it correctly that ye have three men of God who come to town to preach? A priest every other week and a Lutheran pastor on the weeks the priest doesn’t come, and sometimes there’s a Baptist preacher who comes too?”
Meredith shrugged. “I don’t think the Baptist preacher comes as much as the Methodist minister. But I’m not sure. I haven’t attended church here, although, Laura keeps asking me to go with her. She’s Methodist.”
He grunted. “So, ye’re Methodist too, eh?”
She looked down at her black and pink blanket, not sure how to answer. She was an academic. Or had been. Sure, there were fellow academics who were religious, but it seemed the majority were—well, not. And she wasn’t. She hadn’t been in a church since she’d lost her parents and aunt when she was nineteen. It had been a horrible car accident, losing all her guardians in one fell swoop. Although, guardians might be an odd word, for her parents and aunt had all ignored her for their research. Ironically, after that elaborate funeral, she’d turned studying into her church.
“I’m not exactly Methodist or anything.”
He grunted again, and she peeked up at him through her eyelashes. He was nodding.
“I’m not exactly anything myself.” He sniffed again, which seemed to be a sign he was thinking and about to talk. “So there’s no Justice of the Peace close by either, eh?”
His switch in conversation jarred her once more, but she thought she caught on, since it was his job to send anyone who needed jail time to a Justice. “The closest one is in Great Falls, twenty miles away. If you have prisoners that are in a carriage or wagon, it would take about six hours to get there.” Then she wanted to kick herself, because he probably knew much better than she at guessing a horse’s speed or the speed of a horse-drawn wagon.
He kept nodding, not quite looking at her, but when he did, he had a small smile—the kind he tried to hide. “So, ifn we rode on our horses, the ride wouldn’t take too long. Mayhap more like four hours or so, aye?”
She nodded. The horse in her barn, she’d come to find out, was a Quarter horse, built for quickness. Talk about learning the cliché breakneck speeds in an altogether frightening way. Somehow, she’d figured out how to ride it in the last few months. Well, it was a mare, so she supposed she should call her a girl, and her girl was named Dorothy, because when Meredith had landed here she’d felt so similar to Dorothy in Oz. Meredith had had a few riding lessons when she was a teenager, but after nineteen...well, after her parents had died, she didn’t do a lot other than continue with her studies. Now, she knew her horse could run faster than any other within Plateau. But Dorothy wasn’t great at cantering for long distances.
She wondered about Jake’s horse. Thinking it might be a Thoroughbred, she almost asked, when Jake glanced at her again, tiny smile, then sniffed.
“So not too long a ride to Great Falls?”
She nodded. “Not too long.”
“I was wonderin’ if ye’d—” He spoke so quickly and with his accent unchecked, Meredith wasn’t too sure what he’d said.
“Excuse me?”
“—do me the honor of—” he halted, taking a huge breath, then wiped the palms of his hands down his long thighs.
“What?”
He suddenly couldn’t look at her. He kept swallowing and wiping his hands on his pant legs as if he were sweating profusely. He did glisten a bit around his forehead. Maybe he was trying to think of some scrap of a conversation before he relented and had sex with her again.
The heartbreaking thought crossed her mind that maybe sex was all they had. Sure, they’d talked a lot last night. But it had always ended with sex. He’d realize that soon and throw her away. She swallowed, trying so hard to brace herself for the impact.
He stood suddenly and strode close to her window. She really should have lowered the curtains, what with all the sex she and Jake had all over her tiny cabin. But without having any neighbors close by, she’d gotten used to not safeguarding her privacy for the last few months. And with Jake obviously trying to gain distance, she needn’t worry about having sex in public ever again.
“Ye have a lot of land, Meredith.”
Again, she felt rattled by his ever-shifting conversation. But she nodded.
He kept his narrowed eyes focused on the woods surrounding her cabin. “I—I made the assumption ye’re a widow, what with all this land and no man of yer own.”
Ouch. She knew he wasn’t asking questions like that to hurt her, but it did nonetheless. Because it was a source of shame for her that David had promised to marry her, but she’d never been good enough for it apparently.
“I’m not a widow.” Her voice sounded gritty and far off.
Now she couldn’t look at him as he turned back toward her.
“Then—how’d ye—” He stopped himself from saying more.
Still, she wouldn’t meet him in the eye. Something inside her was bleeding when he’d assumed she had been married, as if he’d ripped out stitches on a not healed wound.
He stepped a bit closer. “Oh, Lord, I took yer—did I take yer—was I yer first lover, Meredith? And our first time was so rushed. I’m so sorry ‘bout that. I should have—”
“You weren’t my first.”
He was silent for so long. It was agonizing. But she refused to look at him. He’d see straight through her then. He’d know how worthless she was if he gazed into her eyes.
“Did yer husband run off on ye?”
David
was
Peter Pan, and she had been the idiotic girl who chased after him. No, not Wendy. Well, maybe at first she’d had David’s attention, as Wendy had had Peter’s. But after a time, she knew she didn’t have David’s attention, and so the chase had begun. He promised a life she wanted, and he kept pulling it out of her grasp just when she’d thought she’d made some kind of progress, until her life was nothing but empty promises and the chase.
Did David run off on her?
Truthfully, no. She’d run away from herself long before. She’d been too tempted by those promises to notice when she’d left herself, when she no longer was the woman she had once known.
Here in Montana, she’d had to contend with that daily and had made progress about whom she was without that chase, without those broken promises. Oh, but how it hurt being reminded of all she couldn’t have, simply because she wasn’t worth it.
Meredith shook her head.
Jake made a soft laughing noise. “Woman, ye surely are wealthy then, eh? Owning all this land yerself. But ye need someone to tend to it, farm it. Ye thinkin’ of growing wheat?”
She couldn’t seem to pay attention to Jake any longer. The zigzag conversation was taking its toll, and she wasn’t sure if she would curl up in a ball under the covers and hide from him. Of course, she wouldn’t. She’d control herself, but she knew she was close to tears. Her throat was too tight, her heart demolished beneath her ribs.
“...the miners will need some convincin’ to settle down,” Jake was saying, “but what with Hogmanay, er, New Year’s, I’m hopin’ they’d be peaceful for a spell. Then we could venture to Great Falls.”
“What?” She finally glanced at him when he’d mentioned something about the both of them going to Great Falls.
He swallowed and held that small smile. “What do ye think it would take to bring peace to the Finnish and Slavic miners? They argue over the most petty of things, like when the priest and pastor are to be in town.”
Oh, she could talk about this. This had nothing to do with her worthlessness, and everything to do with social history, er, what in her time was considered cultural history.
“Well, yeah, the priest and pastor being here are a big deal to them. Most of the Slavs are Catholic. The Finnish are Lutheran. It’s important to have mass at certain times for the Slavic people, as it is to go to church for the Fins.”
“Why don’t they share the church? I’ve heard from Tom that the priest and pastor are willin’ to share.”
She blinked. “I guess, because the miners feel their own traditions are too important to share. I don’t know.”
Jake scoffed. “I’ll have a talk with the priest and the Lutheran preacher when we’re in Great Falls. I’m sure I can convince them to say something to their congregation. There’s got to be a way for them to share, make peace.”
She smiled. “That’s a lovely thought.”
His smile grew, as if feeling a sense of pride from what she’d said. “Besides, ye taught that young couple to get along, didn’t ye?”
“Dorothy Eskola and Alexandr Dusek? Well, they were easy to teach a little English and history, since they’re in love. It was a perfect excuse to tell their parents, so they could have a little time together—me being their tutor.”
“They’re truly in love?”
She nodded. “In that young-love kind of way.”
His eyes narrowed for a moment, but he sucked in a breath and continued. “Young love...” Slowly, while gazing deeply into her eyes, he knelt in front of her, one knee down, the other he seemed to nervously balance on. “I’m sorry. I should have done this more romantic. But I hope to make up for that when we get to Great Falls.”
“What? Why are we going to Great Falls?” Then she remembered. “Oh! Laura had said something about Mr. Bruisner staying there. You want me to come with you to question him?”
He blinked and reached out for her hand. Holding it gently, he swept in to kiss the top, then looked up at her with that same adorable small smile. “I figure we’ll see if Mr. Bruisner is still there or not, but we’ll find the Justice of the Peace first.”
She blinked. “Did you arrest someone for something other than drunkenness? Did someone actually commit a crime here?”
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing dramatically. “Nay.”
She shook her head, not understanding.
“I’ll have to get a ring too. Do ye like diamonds?”
Now, she held her breath, panic searing through her skin, making her too hot instantly. What was he talking about? He couldn’t be talking about what she thought he might be talking about. Oh, oh, oh, oh, God. What was this? What was he doing?
“We’ll go to Great Falls, get a ring, then the Justice of the Peace, and get married.”
No. He didn’t just say that. Why would he say that?
Her heart beat in her skull too loudly. Her skin felt as though it might peel off.
He kissed her hand again, his smile widening. “Then, I’ll move in here with ye and order the wheat for the spring to plant. I figure I’ll farm when I’m not holding down the law for the town. I’ll make yer land rich, my love. I’ll work hard for ye. I’ll do everything to make sure ye never be for needin’.”
She couldn’t talk. Words were far beyond her use. Emotions. She was just raw sentiment.
Why would he tease her like this? Why would he...Oh, God. Was he teasing her?
“What?” She finally asked.
His smiled waned just a tad and something flashed through his eyes. Was that fear? “I’m going to marry ye.”
Shocked, she jerked her hand from his. “D-don’t. This is mean. Don’t be cruel.”
It was his turn to look surprised. “Cruel to ask for ye to be my wife?”
“You’re teasing me.”
“Nay. I’m goin’ to marry ye.” This time the cover over his accent fell. He rolled his R a lot.
She closed her eyes, trying to figure out his angle, why he would say what he was. When she realized what was what, she almost smacked her forehead, the panic subsiding a bit.
This time she reached out for his broad shoulders and tried to pat him in a friendly way. “I—I understand that society might talk about us, and you might think we
have
to marry, but—”
“Are you patronizing me?” He stood tall, towering over her.
“What?”
“That tone ye have when ye talked just now. Are you patronizing me? Ye think me too young to marry ye? Well, I’ll argue against that. I’d make ye fine husband. Men often die sooner anyway, and I figure we’ll have a long life together and die together, what with me bein’ younger and all. And don’t patronize me. I might be younger than ye, but I’m not daft.”