A Bride in the Bargain (20 page)

She drew her knees up against her chest, her eyes widening. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to ask you again, Anna. What do you have against marriage?”

She didn’t pretend to misunderstand his motive for asking. “You are betrothed.”

“I’m not wed.”

“It is practically the same.”

“It is not at all the same. What do you have against marriage?”

She glanced around, as if searching for a way to escape, but she couldn’t get off this stump. Not without his help. And they both knew it.

“Oh my,” she said. “Look how low the sun is. Shouldn’t we head back?”

He gently clasped her calves through her skirt. “What do you have against marriage?”

She started. “I told you. I’m simply not interested, that’s all.”

“Why not?”

“Can we go now?”

“I’ll have an answer.”

“It’s a long story.”

“I have time.”

A slight glistening of moisture touched her eyes. Whatever her reasons, they were deep and they were very personal.

Stroking her calf with his thumb, he gentled his voice. “You can tell me.”

She wrenched her legs away and stood.

Her skirts caught on his calluses. Anna yanked harder than necessary, giving him a glimpse of ankle before her hem settled into place.

“I’d like to leave now,” she said. “I will go down those springboards by myself if you make me. But I’d rather have your help.”

He slowly came to his feet. “I will let you fly the coop for now, little robin. But we are not done with this. Not by a long shot.”

She squared her shoulders, but wasn’t able to mask the vulnerability in her eyes.

She was trying to kill him. He’d asked the woman a few personal questions and she decided to do him in. He stopped milking to spit again, but it did no good. His mouth continued to froth.

She’d fried up some of the veal with the mushrooms she’d collected and served it to him for supper. But if she were trying to poison him, why did she eat it, too? He paused. Was she frothing?

He rushed through his chore, then jogged to the house, milk sloshing over the edge of the pails he carried. It was eerily quiet inside. He laid a cloth over the pails, then hurried from the milk room to the kitchen and lit a lantern. She wasn’t there.

He checked the back parlor. The book she’d been reading was exactly as she’d left it. The parlor and dining room were empty and still. He took barely a moment to register the smell of beeswax and notice the furniture shone from a recent polishing. Taking the stairs two at a time, he knocked on her bedroom door.

“Anna? Are you in there?”

“Joe.” Her voice was thin, weak.

He shoved open the door. She stood bent over the washbasin, foam spilling from her mouth.

“I don’t know what’s wrong.” She looked up, her eyes widening. “Oh no! You too?”

He spit into the basin. “Must have been the mushrooms. I know the meat is good.”

“But they were coral mushrooms.” Grabbing a towel, she wiped the saliva from her mouth. “Aren’t they edible here? They look exactly like the ones at home.”

“I don’t know. I’m not a big mushroom eater.”

“You don’t like mushrooms?” She looked stricken.

“I can eat them. I just don’t seek them out or anything.” He spit.

Her breath caught. “Are we going to die?”

He took a moment to catalog the rest of his body. “I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t even feel sick. Do you?”

She shook her head.

“Well, then. We’ll probably be fine.”

Her eyes filled. “I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged. “It could have been worse. You could have served them to the whole crew.”

“You don’t understand.” She crinkled the cloth in her fists. “If you die, I’ll not be able to stand it.”

He pulled the towel from her grip and blotted her mouth. “Nobody’s going to die, Anna.”

Giving her a chance to regain her composure, he looked about her room. It offered no evidence of anyone even staying in it. No personal articles. No clothes lying about. No books being read.

As far as he could tell, other than the clothes on her back, the watch pin and seashells were the only possessions she owned.

He returned his attention to her. “Why don’t you go on to bed. The boys will have had nothing but whiskey since hitting town. They’ll come to the breakfast table tomorrow either weak as babes or ravenous as wolves. Either way, it’s sure to be a trying morning.”

Her pillow was saturated when dawn arrived, but her mouth had quit foaming. Joe didn’t look any worse for the wear, either. Still, he could have just as easily been dead.

And if nothing else, her foolishness validated the concerns she held deep inside. She wasn’t good enough, careful enough, or smart enough to be a man’s wife or a child’s mother, for everyone put into her care had come to a bad end. Her mother, her father, her brother.

After drying the last of the breakfast dishes, she returned to her room and pulled up short. On her bed lay three different lengths of cloth. A blue gingham. A yellow calico. And a maroon cotton with tiny white dots.

Confused, she fingered them, then noticed a brown package with a note scrawled across it.

The wool you wear is too hot for our summers. Please make some dresses out of this cotton. I provide my crew with the things they need. I would do no less for my cook.—JD

She opened the package with trembling fingers. How long had it been since she’d had a new dress? She swallowed. A long, long time. Thread, buttons, trim, and notions spilled from the stiff paper and onto the bed.

For many minutes she stood perfectly still, just looking. Absorbing. Digesting. When had he picked all this out? During his trip to town? And had he done it himself or had the merchant helped him?

With a tentative hand, she fingered a corner of the calico. She would not feel guilty about this. The war was over. There was nothing untoward or inappropriate about an employer seeing to the clothing of his servants. And though Anna was not a servant, exactly, she was working off a debt. And for all intents and purposes, that was close enough.

Still, she was on shaky ground as far as Joe was concerned. He’d made his interest in her very plain yesterday. She had no doubt he would cry off of any attachments he had with Mrs. Wrenne were Anna to encourage him at all.

And the more she came to know him, the more she was drawn to him. He had but to walk into a room for her senses to come alive.

She could not picture him married to Mrs. Wrenne. He needed a young woman. A vibrant woman. A woman he could grow old with. He needed her.

But even if she was willing to risk it—which she wasn’t—she would not be disloyal to Mrs. Wrenne.

So she would accept Joe’s note at face value and make herself some gowns. She would also do everything in her power to keep her relationship with him as impersonal as possible.

She knew he wouldn’t be mentioning marriage to her if his land weren’t in jeopardy. And after seeing his operation yesterday—including that chute—she had a much better appreciation of all he stood to lose.

Picking up the gingham, she held one end to her shoulder and the other in her extended hand. Were it Hoke in this predicament, he would court anything in skirts to save his land. A woman like Mrs. Wrenne. A woman like Anna. A half dozen women if need be.

She bit the insides of her cheeks. She didn’t want to think that of Joe. He was as different from Hoke as the sun was from the moon.

Nevertheless, she didn’t want Mrs. Wrenne to come to her new home and suspect that Joe had anything other than the most platonic feelings for his cook.

And the responsibility for that rested completely on Anna’s shoulders. The female set the tone of these things. Always had. Always would.

Gathering the cloth and notions, she began a search for a pair of scissors.

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

Joe and Red spent the day arranging a long, soft bed of boughs to cushion the fall of a redwood they’d prepared. Though they displaced some playful squirrels and a few robins looking for worms, the work didn’t require the power and endurance chopping did, thus allowing for quiet conversation.

“Town’s all abuzz about Mrs. Wrenne’s husband coming back to life,” Red said.

Joe nodded. “I imagine it is.”

Red tossed several branches into the middle of their layout. “Tillney’s making some disparaging remarks about your relationship with her—not within my hearing, of course.”

Dangling his ax at his side, Joe sighed. “You know, if he’d have put half the effort into logging as he has in trying to bring me down, I’d have never chopped his tail loose.”

“You did the right thing. A lazy man is a careless one. There’s no safe place in camp for a careless jack.”

“Maybe so, but at some point you’d think he’d turn his attention elsewhere. It isn’t as if the stigma of being let go is going to follow him all the way to the hereafter.”

“He thinks it will, and there are a lot who’d agree with him.”

Joe hefted his ax and searched out more rubble.

“What was Miss Ivey’s reaction to the canceling of your nuptials?” Red asked.

“She doesn’t know about it.” Joe cut off a stub sticking out of a snag, bringing a network of limbs to the ground with a thud.

“You didn’t tell her?”

“Nope. She doesn’t know about Bertha’s husband, nor that I am no longer betrothed.”

Red glanced up the hill, noting the boys were stopping for lunch. “Well, isn’t she going to think something’s amiss when you don’t get married at the end of the month?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“I told her things had been delayed.” Squinting at their bed, Joe rearranged some of their debris. “We need to angle the layout a little more to the east.”

“No we don’t.”

“Yes we do.”

After a slight hesitation, Red did as he was told. “Well? What did she have to say about the delay?”

“Said she was sorry, since she knew how anxious I was about the whole affair.”

Scratching his neck, Red shook his head. “You’re not going to be able to hide it from her forever. The moment she sets foot in town, she’ll learn of it.”

“That’s why I’m seeing to it that she doesn’t go to town anytime soon.” Joe pointed to the branches Red had just laid. “The tree’s going to fall more to the east.”

Red studied their tree. “I don’t think so.”

“I know so.”

“Want to make a wager on it?”

“You bet I do.” Whisking up a skinny log, Joe began shaving one end of it into a point.

“You can’t keep her hidden forever.”

“All I need is a few weeks. Once I convince her to marry me, I’ll have the preacher come up here to do the ceremony. After we’ve said the words and signed the papers, then I’ll tell her.” He glanced at the tree, their bed, then back at the tree. Walking to the eastern side of the layout, he began hammering his newly fashioned stake into the ground.

“You really think Miss Ivey will marry you when you’re supposedly betrothed to another?”

“It’ll all work out. You’ll see.” Stepping back, Joe nodded toward the stake. “When our giant falls, she’s going to knock this stake clear into the ground.”

Red stuck out his hand. “You’re on.”

Joe clasped it.

A commotion at the top of the hill captured their attention. “What’s got Thirsty all riled up, do you suppose?”

They tried to make out the words being shouted.

“I don’t know. Something about Ronny’s dessert.” Joe buried his ax in a nearby tree. “We better get up there before Thirsty starts talking with his hands.”