Would-Be Wilderness Wife (7 page)

Chapter Seven

D
rew didn't like the way his mother and sister were looking at each other. He didn't think they knew about Simon's idea that one of the Wallin men must marry Miss Stanway. But if the Wallin women had hit on the same notion, he was doomed.

Best to focus them on something else. “So you think our food or water is contaminated,” he challenged Catherine.

For a woman who didn't wear her heart on her sleeve, she could look remarkably determined. Her chin came up, and her blue eyes flashed like lightning.

His mother was nearly as indignant. “Contaminated food?” she sputtered, ribbons on her nightcap dancing about her pale face in her agitation. “What have you all been doing on my stove?”

“Nothing, Ma!” Beth cried. “I promise! It can't be the food. We all eat the same things. You were the only one to get sick.”

Catherine nodded. “Very well, but I imagine you all drink the same water, too.”

“Not entirely,” Drew said. “The hillside above us is littered with springs. Simon has a pipe from one coming in to his cabin. I tapped another for the pump on the side of my cabin. Ma is the only one still drawing from the spring Pa favored. It's closest to the house.”

“But it's closest to the barn, too,” Beth reminded him. “That's how we water the animals. None of them got sick.”

“They wouldn't,” Catherine said. “Some diseases are unique to humans.”

“Well, Levi and I still live here,” Beth pointed out. “Why didn't we get sick?”

“Half the time Levi is out with us,” Drew said. “And you did get sick a while ago.”

Beth sobered.

“It seems we must examine your spring,” Catherine said.

“After you eat,” his mother insisted, leaning back against the head of the bed as if satisfied her cooking had been exonerated. “You can bring water from Drew's spring if you're concerned about mine, but I won't have a guest in my house or any of my children starving.”

“I'll cook them something, Ma,” Beth said, hopping up out of her seat. “Drew can help.”

Although he didn't mind helping, he didn't like the smile that crossed his mother's face or the way she glanced at Catherine. Who knew what the two would get up to if he left them alone for too long?

“We need more wood for the fire,” he said. “I'll be right back.”

His mother's smile widened.

“You're in trouble,” Beth said as he followed her down the stairs. “I know that look on Ma's face. She wants something, and I think it's Miss Stanway as a daughter-in-law.”

“Miss Stanway might have something to say about that,” Drew replied, heading for the door. He glanced back in time to see his sister shake her head.

“It doesn't matter what Miss Stanway says. It doesn't matter what you say. And Simon has the least say of all.”

So she had heard his brother's outrageous demands last night. “Don't start, Beth,” Drew warned.

“Oh, it's far too late,” his sister predicted. “You know that when Ma makes up her mind about something, it's going to happen. If I were you, I'd talk to the Reverend Bagley about a church date.” Humming to herself, she disappeared into the back room.

First his brothers and now his mother. Were they all mad? Drew stepped onto the front porch and glanced around the yard in the cool morning air. A dozen projects called for his attention, from a loose shingle on the barn roof to the field waiting for the plow. Did his family really think he had time for a wife?

Well, they could scheme all they liked. He knew what must be done. Another day to make sure Ma had recovered and to track down this sickness, and Catherine Stanway would be out of his life. All he had to do was hold firm to his convictions.

And try to forget the warmth of her cradled against his chest.

* * *

“He's a good man, you know,” Mrs. Wallin said after Drew and Beth had left the room. “Proved up a hundred and sixty acres all on his own, and raised his brothers and Beth when their father died.”

Catherine kept herself busy tucking the covers around her patient's waist. “Your family is certainly to be commended, making a home in the wilderness.”

Mrs. Wallin caught her hand. “But he doesn't have a home.”

Catherine frowned. “He most certainly does. I slept in it last night.”

Mrs. Wallin shook her head. “He has a house. That's not a home. The Bible says a man is to grow up and start his own family. How can Drew do that when he won't let go of this one?”

From somewhere deep inside her, anger pushed its way out of Catherine's mouth. “Why would you want him to let go? He's trying to protect you all. I wish my father and brother had had that much sense. Maybe I wouldn't be alone now.”

She turned away from the bed and went to stand by the fire. Her breath shuddered, and she forced herself to draw in the air, then let it out slowly. What was wrong with her? Mrs. Wallin had every right to be concerned for her son's future. That was what families did—care for each other.

But why didn't my father think about me, Lord? Was it really so important that he and Nathan had to go and fight? Or was I such a termagant of a daughter and sister they couldn't wait to escape me?

She heard the bedclothes rustle, and then the creak of the floor as feet padded toward her. Turning, she found Mrs. Wallin beside her. A tall woman, she gazed down at Catherine, face twisted as if she were in pain or feeling Catherine's.

“Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry,” she said. She drew Catherine close and held her gently. “It's terrible to lose a loved one. Why, it cuts the heart right out of you.”

Tears burned Catherine's eyes. As if of their own volition, her arms came up and she hugged the woman closer. “It's all right,” she said. “I'll be fine.”

Mrs. Wallin held her out and met her gaze, her face now stern. “Of course you will. Things will never be quite the same, though. Tragedy changes a body. How long has your family been gone?”

Catherine counted the months and was surprised by the answer. “Just over a year.” That seemed like such a short time when it felt as if she'd been grieving forever.

“Well, then.” Mrs. Wallin squeezed her shoulders. “Give yourself more time to accustom yourself to the changes. You left everything you knew to come to a strange place, with no friends or family waiting for you. That takes some adjusting, I know. And there will always be a part of you that misses them, no matter what else happens.”

She glanced up at the mantel, and Catherine saw a daguerreotype there of a sturdy-looking man. He had Drew's eyes, Simon's rock of a chin and Levi's cocky grin. Mrs. Wallin rubbed a hand down the worn silver frame, and Catherine felt her sigh.

That was entirely enough of this sentimentality. She had to remember her purpose for being here, and it wasn't to wallow in the pain of her past. She turned her patient toward the bed with a smile.

“Thank you. I needed that reminder. Now, let's get you back under the covers. Despite what I told Beth, sudden changes in temperature aren't good for someone recovering from an illness. I want you cozy again.”

Mrs. Wallin allowed herself to be tucked back into bed, but the smile on her face told Catherine that the older woman was humoring her. Catherine suspected Drew's mother was feeling far better than she let on. But for all the lady wanted to be up and back to her usual routine, Catherine didn't want her to do too much and suffer a relapse. Nor did she want the illness to affect anyone else. And that meant she had work to do.

So after a breakfast of eggs, biscuits with honey and apple cider, she directed Beth on the types of food that would help her mother convalesce—beef tea, calf's foot jelly and honeysuckle conserve. Then she convinced Drew to accompany her on a survey of the Landing.

Between the dim light last night when she'd arrived and the need to appease the deputy sheriff this morning, she hadn't taken a good look at the Wallin property until now. The main house sat facing west, with its back to the lake. Now she could see the water, sparkling through the trees in the spring sunlight. It was the same deep shade of blue as Beth's and Levi's eyes. Hills rose sharply on the three sides, thick with dense stands of deep green fir and the reddish bark of cedar.

“There's a good-size stream north of us,” Drew said as if he'd noticed the direction of her gaze as they stood between his cabin and his parents'. “That's where Pa got the name for the property. The ground slopes, making it a good place to land canoes or start logs on their way to the Sound.”

“But you don't drink from that stream,” Catherine surmised, turning for the barn.

“Only when we're working out that way,” Drew admitted, long legs moving him past her. “It's too far to carry the water for the house or the stock.” The shadows of the barn swallowed up his tall frame.

Catherine followed him inside. The barn was of weathered wood, with a pitched roof of silvered cedar shingles turning green with moss. The upper part was open at each end, and as she looked, swallows darted past the triangle of sky.

Stalls and pens lined up along the packed-earth aisle, many with hinged doors allowing access to fenced pasture.

“Simon and the others took the oxen out this morning to clear away some brush,” Drew told her. “And Beth turned out the goats, horses and pigs.” He glanced around at the harnesses and tools hanging from the walls, the rough-hewn troughs of fresh water.

Catherine opened the lid on the large bin near a square of planked floor that somehow seemed out of place. The bin was empty, but it smelled of something dry, nutty.

“That's the grain bin,” he told her. “And the threshing floor beyond it. But Simon and the others help with that. With all of us around, Ma generally doesn't need to come out here anymore. I can't see how anything in the barn could have made her sick.”

He sounded puzzled again, but something else simmered behind the words. Frustration? She was certain he wanted to learn what had caused his mother's illness. Did he disapprove of Catherine's methods?

“I don't see anything dangerous in here, either,” she agreed, closing the lid, “but it's wise to check all possibilities when it comes to your family's health.”

He snapped a nod and stalked deeper into the barn.

Mystified, Catherine lifted her skirts out of the dirt and followed. “Really, Mr. Wallin, this search is important.” She detoured around a suspicious-looking clump on the floor. “Do you want one of your brothers to sicken? Beth to grow ill?”

“Of course not.” The words sounded as if they had been bitten off. “But I've been keeping them safe for years. I don't know what's changed.”

He'd stopped at the end of the barn, where another set of wide doors led out into the forest. The breeze carried the scent of damp wood and new growth. She could hear birds calling from the shadows. Yet Drew stood a silhouette against the light, neck stiff, shoulders braced.

Catherine lay a hand on his arm. “Forgive me, Mr. Wallin. I never meant to imply any of this was your fault. You cannot know everything about medical science. It's constantly changing! What we were certain of last month will be challenged as folklore tomorrow. I merely wish to help.”

His hand came down on hers. “Thank you.”

The two simple words, said with conviction, warmed her more than she'd thought possible. Or perhaps it was the feel of his calloused palm pressed against her skin. She couldn't help remembering the scars she'd seen yesterday. This was a man who had earned his place, whose physical efforts kept his family fed and clothed and housed. A man who took the health of his loved ones as seriously as she did as a nurse.

She traced the vein of puckered skin across the back of one hand. “How did this happen?”

He did not pull away from her touch. “A saw snapped. The end whipped free and caught me. I was just glad it missed my face.”

So was she. She swallowed at the thought and dropped her hand.

He was gazing down at her, face in the shadow, hair a golden nimbus of light. She waited, expecting a word, a movement.

The touch of his lips to hers.

“Do you hear that?” he asked.

She didn't think he meant the birds outside. Now that she wasn't so focused on him, she did hear something else—a rumble and a snort that sounded somehow familiar.

Drew grabbed a long iron pole from the wall and poked it up into the hay stored loosely above their heads in the mow. Someone yelped, and a moment later, Levi's curly-haired head popped into sight.

“What are you doing up there?” Drew demanded. “I thought you were with Simon.”

Levi slung a leg over the nearby ladder and clambered down to drop beside his brother and Catherine. Hay stuck out at odd angles from his curls, clung to his flannel shirt and poked from the suspenders holding up his rumpled trousers. “Simon thought you might need help with Ma.”

Drew towered over him, voice deepening. “And you thought the best way to help Ma was to sleep in the hay?” He pointed out the door. “Git!”

Levi dashed out of the barn.

Drew shook his head as he and Catherine followed. “Can't turn my back for a minute.”

“It was only a lark,” Catherine said. “But if you're concerned, you can always find better things for him to do.”

Drew cast her a glance. “Good idea. Levi! Show Miss Stanway to the spring.”

Levi led her to where the ground sloped upward between the barn and the main house. A deep, stone-lined basin followed the curve of the hill; a wall of mortared stone about three feet high enclosing the water filling it. At the back of the pool, overshadowed by the firs, water bubbled, cool and clear. A wooden weir on the west side allowed the spring to overflow in a stream that ran away from the house down to the lake. Just inside the pool, a stone lip provided space for cooling food like milk and cider. Iron rings driven into the ground around it served as anchors for the ropes that held several wooden buckets for accessing the water.