Last Chance Bride

Silence.

Jacob watched the fight slide from the rigid line of her shoulders. Fragile. She was so fine-boned, so small. He suspected most women were fragile, tenderhearted and easily hurt.

“Jacob, I’ve hurt her, haven’t I? By coming here, letting her think we would marry and I would be her mother.” Tears stood in her eyes. She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth.

His breath caught. “No, she understood all along this might not work out. I prepared her. I wanted to make sure she wouldn’t end up with a broken heart.”

“She’s just a child. She doesn’t understand....”

Their gazes met. He saw anguish in her morning-sky gaze, remorse, and guilt. But her heart was there, too, pure and good.

She wasn’t a bad, deceitful woman. Deep down, he knew it. Jacob’s heart twisted in his chest. “Emma will be disappointed,” he said at last. “I will make sure she understands. She won’t show up here trying to matchmake again.”

It wasn’t Elizabeth’s fault. He knew Emma had motives of her own and needed a talking to.

“Jane left the basket of food.” Elizabeth’s voice quavered as she turned away, her pink dress shivering around her slender form. “Here. You should take it home with you.”

The sight of her hands curling around the woven handle—red and rough from years of work—stabbed him with a sad knowledge. Life for her had been hard. She’d never said it, never hinted at it, but he sensed it now.

“No.” He said, too gruff. “Jane left it here, she meant for you to keep it.”

“The basket is mighty fine. And there are plates inside.”

“Then return the plates and basket. Keep the food.”

She stared hard at the basket. “So much good food. Thank you.”

More silence. They continued to stand there. Questions and the explanations he owed her knotted in his throat. He wanted to tell her why. He wanted to make her understand it had nothing to do with her. And everything to do with the fragile hold he had on survival.

Mary had been pretty and kind, gentle and honest. And those qualities hadn’t spared her from a painful, frightening death. He was fortunate Emma had been spared.

“Cedar Rock isn’t so small a town, I suppose we will probably see one another now and then.” She spoke softly, as if she trusted him enough with her confidences.

Jacob leaned closer. The scent of her rose water tickled his nose, made his stomach twist. Sunlight filtered through the window, casting gold shimmers in her light hair.

“Are you staying?” The idea neither frightened nor pleased him.

“I’ve let a room in Maude Baker’s boarding house. That’s not too far away from your livery stable.” Uncertainty flickered in her eyes. “I didn’t plan it that way. The man at the hotel’s desk said it was the only respectable place for women.”

“He told you correctly. Baker’s is the best place. I’m glad you’re there. It’s safe. Maude boards her gelding at my stable.”

“Then you’re not angry I’m staying in town?”

He wanted to be. “What I think doesn’t matter.” He watched regret shape her mouth. “You insisted on paying your passage here, so I have little to say.”

“I wanted to come.”

“Do you want to leave? I’m guessing you can’t afford your way home.” He felt like a jackass. At the time he hadn’t argued over the money. “I always intended to reimburse you for the journey.”

“I don’t want your money, Jacob.”

Just my name and my home. Bitterness soured his mouth, then shame. He knew those accusations weren’t true. Elizabeth could have lied to him. Chances were, he would have married her without knowledge of her pregnancy—and it would have forced him to relive fears and memories of Mary he couldn’t face.

“It isn’t right, you coming all this way for no reason after all.” Jacob tugged his billfold from his shirt pocket.

“I had every reason to come.” Shyly averting her eyes, Elizabeth brushed at her plain cotton skirts.

The truth hit him. She’d wanted to love him. She came because he’d unintentionally led her to believe... He couldn’t think about it. Angry at himself, Jacob counted out the crisp bills.

“Let me do this for you.” He looked up. “Please. You gave up your job and left your home to come here.”

“But I owe you money.”

“That can’t be right, Elizabeth.”

She withdrew a thin collection of bills and coins from her skirt pocket and pressed it into his shirt pocket “I won’t be staying here in the hotel any longer. I feel as if I should reimburse you for last night, too.”

Jacob’s stomach twisted. He stared down at the money in his hands, not so much at that, and realized what Elizabeth was giving him. She was letting him know this wasn’t about money, but about respect.

He wouldn’t argue. He would find a way to give her what he owed her. “You don’t need to be so fair.”

“I have to. Your letters changed my life.” She smiled in memory. “I can’t tell you how nervous I was when I held your first envelope in my hand. You could have been any kind of man, but I had to meet you. I had to know if I could have what I saw in your advertisement.”

“What did you see?”

“Everything missing from my life.” She looked hard at the window. “From your first sentence, I wanted to love you. You seemed so gallant and educated. And with each letter, you made me want to believe men could be good to their wives, good to their children. You seemed to care so much for your Emma. How I wanted you.”

He heard what she did not say. The loneliness that prompted a single woman without family to answer a newspaper advertisement. The pain behind the man who’d made her pregnant.

Tears brimmed her eyes. “Coming here to meet you felt like a dream come true. I haven’t had many dreams.”

He would have married her. She would have been so right for Emma—for him. “You knew you were pregnant when you left Omaha.”

“No. I honestly didn’t.” She clasped her hands. “I’m so sorry, Jacob. I never m-meant...I n-never w-wanted t-to hurt you.”

Sobs tore through her, strong enough to break her in two. He reached out, and before he knew it she was in his arms, crying against his chest. He wanted to comfort her. He wanted to push her away.

“I’ve hurt Emma,” she sobbed. “I don’t know how I can live with that.”

Perhaps it was the luminous depth of her eyes or the attraction he’d felt buzz through him the first moment he’d seen her in the street. Jacob didn’t know. He didn’t care. Acting on impulse, he touched a callused finger to her gently rounded chin and tilted her face upward.

Her mouth looked soft and ripe. Jacob brushed her lips delicately, tenderly. She tasted of sweet berries. She felt like fine velvet. At the explosion of feeling, his pulse leaped.

What was he doing? He would not give his heart a second time. And not to a woman who could die the way Mary did.

Jacob stepped back, his hand falling away from her chin. She gazed up at him with startled eyes, her goodness shining there like a constant light.

She needed him. She wanted him.