Dorothy Garlock (3 page)

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“Thank you.” Ana smiled at the boatman who set her small trunk on the boardwalk in front of the steamship office.

The boat trip from Dubuque to Lansing had been exciting. The boat had tied up for the night at a place near Harper’s Ferry and she had slept in a dormitory room with five other women. The morning had been spent standing at the railing with the other passengers watching the shoreline and waving at the people in the small villages they passed.

The fact that she was a lone woman disembarking caused raised brows among a few of the men who also left the boat at Lansing, but they tipped their hats as they passed her and headed for one of the weathered plank buildings that made up the little port town on the Mississippi River.

Ana’s self-contained demeanor was discouraging enough that only the most brazen men would attempt to approach her with an intimate suggestion. Today none of them were brave enough, and she stood alone. She was not as self-assured as she appeared to be, here in this new place more than a hundred miles from home, waiting for a stranger to take her to Harriet. What would she do if no one came for her? Her heart sank. It was down-right scary.

Faint lines of strain that had appeared lately between Ana’s brows deepened as minutes passed. Her head was high, however, and her shoulders straight, despite the pensive look on her face and the shadows of worry beneath her eyes. She turned to watch goods being unloaded from the boat onto a large dray. The friendly young riverman who had carried her trunk to the street, waved and ran back up the plank to the deck as the steamer prepared to lift anchor.

Standing alone on the street, Ana was unaware of the picture she made—handsome, willow thin, with a thick rope of blond hair twisted and pinned to the back of her head. The brim of her hat shaded her smooth skin and large, luminous golden-brown eyes which she considered her only singular claim to beauty in a face that was usually intensely serious.

She went into the stuffy, smoke-filled steamboat office and approached the clerk behind a glassed enclosure. He wore a visor cap and was busy scribbling on a paper with a stub of a pencil.

“Sir?” Ana tapped on the glass to get the man’s attention.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I’m Mrs. Ana Fairfax. Someone was to meet me here. Has anyone inquired?”

“No, ma’am. But likely they’ll show up. You can wait in here if you like.”

“Thank you. I’ll wait outside for now.”

Across the street, a man in a dark red flannel shirt watched Ana come out of the steamship office. He leaned against a building whose painted sign proclaimed in bold black letters that it was the billiard parlor. One knee was bent, and the sole of a heavy boot rested against the weathered boards of the building. His thumbs were hooked in the wide straps that held up his duck britches.

He studied the slender woman with hair the color of honey from bees that had fed on a clover field. It was rich and golden, and from what he could see, there was plenty of it. The hat atop her head was serviceable rather than one of the frivolous things he’d seen women wearing on his infrequent trips to Dubuque. At least it had a small brim for shade. It also kept him from seeing her eyes. Not that it mattered; she wasn’t the one he was waiting for. He was waiting for a woman old enough to have a grown daughter. This one was mature and pleasant to look at, but she wasn’t old enough to be the mother of a girl expecting a baby.

The man ran his thumbs up and down his suspenders and watched her, enjoying the way she moved, the way her skirt swished around her ankles. She was sure-footed as a cat even in her new, shiny black shoes with their high heels and bowstraps. She was trying to appear perfectly confident, but she was nervous. Otherwise why had she checked her hatpin three times during the past five minutes?

The blast of the whistle made the man aware that the boat was leaving and that this was the only woman who had gotten off the boat.

“What the hell?” he swore as he pushed himself away from the building. He had given up two days planting time to come get the woman and she hadn’t shown up. Unless—

Ana scanned the street with anxious, worried eyes. The only vehicle on the street was a loaded farm wagon. The horses with blinders attached to the bridles waited patiently, swishing their tails and occasionally stamping their feet to discourage the pesky river flies that appeared as if by magic each spring. Ana heard the chug of the powerful engines as the steamer pulled away from the dock and headed upriver once again. The crowd that had gathered to watch the lumbering craft arrive and depart was dispersing, leaving the street almost empty.

Ana’s hands shook with something between anger and despair as she poked loose strands of hair into the knot on the back of her head with her forefinger. Surely Harriet had received her letter. It was sent almost two weeks ago as soon as she purchased her ticket and was sure of the day she would arrive in Lansing.

She began to walk restlessly up and down. The group of men who had gathered in front of the livery down the street were now examining a horse. One was holding a snub on its nose to control the frightened animal while another carefully lifted a hind foot. A few fishermen worked on boats at the water’s edge.

A man, who looked to be either drunk or asleep, leaned against the building housing the billiard parlor. He was the only person within sight who wasn’t doing something. Ana’s glance honed in on him. He was tall and broad of shoulder with a straw hat pulled down low on his forehead. He lounged against the building as if he had all the time in the world.

With a sudden quickening of her heart, she realized that this stranger was looking at her and had been for some time. His gaze was so intense that it pulled her eyes back to him, and she looked at him for several seconds longer than propriety allowed even though it was impossible to see his eyes. The distance between them was too great for her to see anything of his face except that it was clean-shaven. She tilted her chin up as she turned her head away and continued her pacing. When she looked at him again, she found him staring at her as brazenly as before. He was no longer leaning against the building but standing away from it, his booted feet spread, his hands resting on his hips.

Ana looked toward the river trying to pull her scattered thoughts together. She smoothed her skirt down over her hips for the tenth time and adjusted the hatpin that held her felt hat in place. Her stomach had not enjoyed the rolling motion of the boat and now it was tight with nervous tension. If the man by the billiard parlor was the one who had come to meet her, why had he stood there all this time watching her? She slanted a quick look at him and took a shallow, jerky breath.

He was coming toward her.

M
y
goodness, he was big.

If this was the one who had come to fetch her, he certainly had made no effort to impress her by dressing up. He was tall and broad, looked to be strong as an ox, and watched her the way a hawk watches a rattlesnake.

“Mrs. Fairfax?” The voice was deep, strong and without hesitation even if it was a question.

Ana lifted her brows. He was only an arm’s length away, and she did her best not to be intimidated by his size or the scowl on his face. She felt positively dwarfed and fought to resist the urge to lift a hand to ward him away.

“Yes. I’m Ana Fairfax.”

“You’re . . . Harriet’s mother?”

“Yes. I’m—”

“Good Lord!”—he snorted with disapproval—“it’s no wonder—”

No wonder what?
Ana felt the blood rush to her face and was mindful of the thudding of her heart in her chest. But with chin up, shoulders straight, she gathered her splintered composure, locked her gaze with his, and refused to look away.

His frown deepened.

Cobalt blue eyes, fenced with thick brown lashes and topped with brows that were drawn together with displeasure, looked into hers. As they stared at each other, his eyelids drooped to half-mast and a muscle in one lean cheek jumped in response to clenched teeth. She was aware of the exasperation lurking in the depths of the bluest eyes she had ever seen. He pushed his hat back, and she saw the small white strip near his hair line that had been protected from the sun and the glint of gray strands among the dark clipped hair at his temples. His open-necked shirt revealed a strong sun-browned throat and nicks along his jaw line were evidence that he had shaved with a dull razor within the last few hours. By the grim set of his firm, wide mouth and cold eyes, he was obviously not happy.

Ana lifted her chin another inch and forced herself to look more confident than she felt, hoping the man would not notice that insecurity made the hands clutching her reticule tremble.

“Are you from the Jamison farm?” she asked crisply.

“I am.”

“How is Harriet?”

“She hadn’t had the youngun as of yesterday morning.” The curt sentence was slapped at her. His gaze fell from her eyes to the soft and vulnerable curve of her lips, lingered long enough to send an unwelcome tremor through her, and then passed down the length of her. He made no attempt to conceal a look of savage impatience that twisted his face.

“Is she all right?”

He answered her question with one of his own. “How would I know?” He jerked up her trunk and set it on his shoulder. “Come on,” he said and started off down the street as if the heavy trunk were no burden at all.

Ana felt nothing but shock as she followed him.

They reached the farm wagon parked in the street in front of the general store before she noticed that he favored his right leg. He placed her trunk atop a stack of sawed lumber, went around to the other side, and climbed up the wheel to the seat without offering to assist her. His stabbing eyes searched her face while Ana’s amber ones stared up at him from beneath dark lashes and straight dark brows.

“Well? Are you coming or not?” His brows lowered and drew together until they almost met over his high-bridged nose. “It’ll be dark by the time we get there as it is.”

She shrugged her shoulders in exasperation, lifted her skirts, and put her foot on the hub of the wheel. She soon realized that she would have to accept his hand when he held it out to her, but was not prepared for the strength that hauled her up and onto the spring seat, or for the hard eyes that stared at her. There was no friendliness in their depths, only cold, quiet resignation.

An icy hand clutched Ana’s heart and a knot of apprehension twisted her stomach.

As soon as she was settled, he stung the horses’ rumps with a whip and the wagon moved over the ruts with a jarring jolt. Ana held onto the side of the narrow, low-backed seat and pulled away when her shoulder bumped into the rock-hard arm of the man beside her.

Ana had dressed in her best for the trip, wanting to make a good impression on Harriet’s new family. Her dark serge suit was still unwrinkled. She nervously fingered one of the large pearl buttons on the tight-fitting jacket and adjusted the broach on the black ribbon around her throat. There would be dust on the hem of her skirt and on the shiny black shoes she had bought two days ago, but there was nothing she could do about that now.

The big-footed horses picked up speed as they left town and turned west. The trail climbed steadily to the bluff overlooking the town and veered off through spruce and pine that stood amid the early greening of the grasses lining the trail. They came down out of the hills amid huge oak trees whose leaves were the size of squirrel’s ears this last week of April.

Flocks of robins rose as the wagon approached. Birds were a source of delight for Ana. She loved to watch them migrating, following the great river south in the fall, and she looked forward to their return in the spring. She would have been delighted with the journey through the lush meadows if not for the worry about Harriet and having to endure this cold, uncommunicative man beside her.

An hour went by without a word passing between Ana and the driver of the wagon. Ana wondered who he was. It was certain that he was not Harriet’s dancing, laughing man. The
grump
sitting beside her was probably one of the farm hands or a neighbor. He had said he was from the Jamison farm. Did that mean he was a member of the family? If so, which one? He wasn’t old enough to be Harriet’s father-in-law. A brother-in-law maybe? Or an uncle? Whoever he was, he needed to be taught some manners.

Ana turned her head to look at him and found him looking at her as if she were something wet and slimy he had dragged out of the river. She had a strange desire to stick out her tongue and bare her teeth. He stared at her from beneath furrowed brows; silent and disapproving. She stared back. He was not as old as she had first believed him to be. He was not much older than her own twenty-six years. His face was free of lines except for a few that fanned out from the corners of his eyes from squinting against the sun. Creases bracketed his wide mouth and his big square chin had an indention big enough to hold her little finger.

Unexpectedly, she wondered if his face would crack if he smiled. The thought made her want to giggle and amusement lit her amber eyes. As if he knew she was laughing at him, his expression changed from extreme disapproval to anger, and he stubbornly refused to break eye contact with her.