Her Montana Man

“I love you, Liza.” Jenny hadn’t opened her eyes, for which Eliza was grateful. Pain was sure to be evident on her face.

“I love you, Jenny.”

Once she was sure her sister slept comfortably, she slipped out of the room. In the hall, she stood with her back against the wall, a great weight crushing her heart, and the pull of tears threatening her last shreds of composure. As sorrow washed over her in cresting waves, she clasped both hands to her breast, and pressed her fingers to her lips to hold back sobs. If she started now, she would never stop.

After several minutes, she took a deep breath, collected herself and made her way downstairs. She found Tyler working on his arithmetic assignments in the kitchen. She stoked the oven and checked the temperature to bake the bread. “I remember sitting here doing my schoolwork when I was your age.”

Jenny’s talk had kindled memories, and Eliza ached for happy carefree times. Jenny Lee had never been strong, not even then, but the seriousness of her heart condition hadn’t been apparent. They’d simply been two young girls with two parents, sharing the comfortable home their father had built for them and that their mother ran with aplomb.

“And Mama, too? Did she do her arithmetic right here?”

“That she did.” She cut him a wedge of cheese and poured him a cup of milk.

“Is she as good at numbers as you are, Aunt Eliza?”

Eliza put on a kettle of water for tea and sat across from him. “Her strengths tend to lie in word studies, subjects like spelling and English. As I recall she was very good at geography, as well. We always dreamed about the faraway places we would see one day.”

“Did you ever?”

She studied his fingers on the pencil. “No. We never traveled farther than Denver.”

“Maybe we could all go.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. He had confirmed his understanding that Jenny Lee would not get better, but did he truly comprehend that she was going to die?

A stab of pity snatched her breath and formed an aching knot in her chest. He was too young to learn this particular life lesson. “Tyler,” she said, approaching the subject cautiously. “You understand that Mama is very, very sick, don’t you?”

He nodded, keeping his gaze on his paper.

“And you know that…” She pursed her lips to keep them from trembling. “You know she won’t be with us much longer.”

He didn’t look up. “She’s gonna die.”

“Yes.” She barely managed a whisper.

“She told me.”

Eliza studied the curve of his cheek, the delicate sweep of his pale eyelashes and experienced a swell of love. Of course her sister had prepared him. Jenny Lee loved him more than life. Again, she blinked back the sting of tears.

At last he raised those bright blue eyes to hers. Eyes as earnest and clear as Jenny Lee’s had once been. “She said not to be afraid ’cause you’d take care of me always. Will you?”

Nothing could stop her. Nothing. And no one. She got up and placed her cheek against his. “Of course I will. Always. I promise.”

Jenny Lee didn’t have much appetite, but that evening Eliza managed to get her to sip a cup of broth and take some tea before giving her the medicine and making her comfortable.

She had tucked Tyler into bed and returned downstairs where she sorted laundry in the washroom beyond the kitchen. She sent out bedding and most of the clothing, but she washed her own and Jenny’s Lee’s delicate garments herself. She packed the laundry into bags, which would be picked up the following morning, and set her wash load aside.

A sound alerted her to her brother-in-law’s presence, and her senses went on alert. Alarm prickled along the skin on her arms and neck. She stepped to the doorway.

Royce stood on the far side of the kitchen. His shrewd gaze crawled over her. He was dressed as impeccably as always in a dark coat and white shirt, his brown hair parted so that it waved away from his forehead. “I’ll take my supper now.”

“I’ll get your plate from the oven.” She walked around the opposite side of the table and grabbed one of the flour sacks Nora had layered and sewn for protection from hot pot handles.

Royce’s boot heels struck the wood floor in a rapid cadence a split second before he reached her.

She whirled to face him, her body stiff.

He stopped inches from her. He wore closely trimmed sideburns and a ribbon-thin mustache on the very edge of his upper lip.

Eliza turned her face to the side to avoid his unbearable nearness and drilling gaze. His breath touched her chin. Hairs rose on her neck and arm.

“You’re looking lovely tonight.”

“You’re married to my sister.”

“A tenuous bond at the very least.”

Her heart thundered against her rib cage. “How can you treat her death so callously?”

He leaned forward without actually touching her until his heat scorched her cheek and seared her body. “It’s business, my dear.”

The sensation of being trapped sent a shudder of revulsion along her spine. She closed her eyes in the futile hope that she’d open them to find this encounter had only been another menacing nightmare.

“Don’t be so priggish, Eliza Jane. You’re no unblemished paragon of virtue.” She started at the touch of his finger as he ran it along her jaw. “I expect you’ll be quite an enthusiastic partner once you’ve resigned yourself to the next phase of our relationship.”

“We don’t have a relationship.”

“Ah, but we will.” His hand circled her wrist, and she spun away from him then, escaping from the heat of the oven behind her and his menacing overtures.

She darted to the opposite side of the table and stood with her hands on the spindles of the chair back, bile rising in her throat. “You disgust me.”

“I find the chase quite titillating, actually.” With a swagger, he moved to a chair and seated himself before the place setting she’d prepared. He adjusted the cutlery in precise alignment before leveling a warning gaze on her.

“Don’t get carried away, however. There’s a time and a place for everything, and soon your time for coy resistance will run out. Once Jenny Lee is gone and we’ve served a respectable mourning period, you will become my wife.”

Eliza stood with her heart in her throat, trapped in this house and under this man’s rule for the time being. She couldn’t leave Jenny Lee or Tyler. They needed her. He knew it. And he used her love for them to his advantage.

“It’s the natural course of things in anyone’s eyes,” he added.

A hundred nights she’d lain awake into the wee hours of morning, listening for him, dreading his next move, imagining endless scenarios of telling Jenny Lee the ugly truth, of going to the marshal, yet always coming to the same hopeless conclusion: she could not break Jenny Lee’s heart. She would never let her sister know that Royce had married her for a percent of the brickyard…and that he was awaiting her death to amass the final ownership.

Once that happened, he would have control. All Eliza could do was bide her time and endure. Shelter her sister. Protect Tyler. And avoid this deplorable excuse for a human being until—until their situation changed.

She moved to the oven, took out the hot plate and set it in front of him while guardedly keeping her distance. Sometimes she was so angry with her father for allowing this to happen that she didn’t know what to do with those feelings.

“You’re quite transparent, Eliza Jane,” he said. “But resenting me isn’t going to do any good.” He picked up his fork and knife and sliced the roast. “We both know why you’ll comply.” He took a bite and chewed before looking up at her again. “But you’ve already figured that out, haven’t you?”

Her heart skipped a beat.