Montana Bride

“If I don’t treat you right, my sister will have my hide.” He chose humor and put distance between them, when he wanted to move closer, and lifted a fry pan from a bottom shelf. “Evelyn may be smaller than me, but she can enlist the help of my brothers’ wives and as a combined force, they outnumber me.”

A hint of a smile curved the corners of her mouth. Sagged in the chair, she was wrung out and weak. He set the pan on the stove and cracked an egg on its rim, thinking of Evelyn standing in this very kitchen giving him the what-for on pregnancy.

“A man just can’t understand,” Evelyn had said, one hand on the small bowl of her stomach barely visible beneath her skirts. “The babe wears on you. The sickness takes you over and drains everything from you those first few months. You make sure to let her rest when she needs it and fix on doing for the both of you. At least until she’s back to her strength in around her fourth month.”

“I’ll do my best,” he’d promised.

“Even then, you help out with the housework.” Evelyn gave him a piercing look. “You don’t want her to regret marrying you. You’re lucky she’s settled for the likes of you.”

Remembering her laughter, he shook his head, cracked a final egg and gave the mixture a stir. Scrambled eggs and toast might be nice to go along with Willa’s tea. The kettle whistled, he whisked it off the stove and poured steaming water into Ma’s old teapot.

“I can take over now.” Willa stood at his elbow and took charge of the spatula he’d abandoned in order to pour her tea. She stood so close he could see the soft porcelain texture of her skin, the luxurious curve of her lashes and the contour of her Cupid’s-bow mouth.

A mouth made for kissing.

A bashful rush of desire ebbed into his veins as he watched her, heart pumping. He drank in every movement she made stirring the eggs—the sweep of her arm, the turn of her wrist, the placement of her slender fingers on the wooden handle—and was amazed by the sight of her in the soft gray morning light. Lamplight found her, drawing gleaming ebony highlights in her dark hair and kissing her face with a golden glow.

His bride. He still couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t quite known what to expect when he’d written his proposal to her and enclosed a train ticket in the envelope. All he’d known at the time was a deep abiding commitment to her he couldn’t explain and the soul-deep hope that because she needed him so much, she might love him more than all the rest—the way he wanted to love her.

He swallowed hard, set the kettle on a trivet and debated trying to talk Willa out of possession of that spatula. For a wee bit of a thing, she looked determined to hold her ground and he remembered her words last night, how doing the dishes had been important to her to prove her worth to him.

Darlin’, you don’t need to prove a thing, he thought, a ribbon of tenderness wrapping around his heart. Just being here was enough. He left her at the stove to unwrap the loaf of bread Evelyn had baked for them. As he sliced, bread knife in hand, he had to admit it was fine sharing the morning with Willa. Her presence changed everything. There would be no more empty mornings spent alone in his cabin. When he came home from work tonight, she would be here to greet him. His long span of lonesomeness had come to an end.

“Evelyn said to make sure you had toast in the morning.” He moved to her side to open the oven door. He liked the sound of her petticoats swishing as he knelt to place the slices of bread on the rack. “She also brought ginger tea to help settle your stomach.”

“That was mighty thoughtful of her.” When Willa spoke, her dulcet alto held him like no other voice ever had. “And thoughtful of you. I can smell it steeping.”

“Here, let me hold the plates for you.” He closed the door and stood, intending to whisk around her but something stopped him. The sight of the ridge of bones along her back. Through the thin cotton of her dress he could count her vertebrae, the poke of her shoulder blades and the faint hint of her ribs.

She wasn’t merely too thin, as he’d thought when he’d gotten a good look at her in the church. She hadn’t been only homeless living out of a barn, but she’d been hungry, too. Very hungry. His hands fumbled with the plates, nearly dropping one. He swallowed hard, hating the circumstances Willa had endured.

But no longer, he vowed, as he watched her load one plate with the bulk of the fluffy scrambled eggs. He would move mountains to provide for her. No wonder her big blue eyes shone somberly. Everything he learned about her broke his heart.

“Is that enough for you?” Her gaze found his, and the look on her face asked a deeper question, one he understood somehow without words.

“Just fine,” he said. “Fact is, I hate eating my own cooking. You could be the worst cook in all the world and I would still be grateful for you in my kitchen.”

“If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have taken such care not to burn the eggs.” A hint of humor played along the edges of her lush mouth, just a hint, before a flush of embarrassment crept across her cheeks.

“I highly appreciate that you didn’t.” He winked at her, hoping to make her bashful, hesitant smile bloom into something more.

She lowered her eyes, as if self-conscious, and concentrated overly hard on adding the small remaining portion of eggs onto the second plate. The promise of her smile faded and she seemed to retreat into herself. He tried not to be disappointed. He remembered how hard she shook last night, fearing his touch. The last thing he wanted was to think about what had been done to her by another man, one who’d married her and failed to cherish her.

“Oh. No.” She set the spatula down in the pan with a thunk, covered her mouth with both hands and her eyes widened. She looked a little green around the edges as she spun, racing toward the bedroom. Her skirts swished, her patched shoes beat against the floorboards and the door slammed shut behind her.

He was alone again.

Chapter Five

The house echoed around her as she dragged herself through the kitchen. The tea—lukewarm by the time she’d been able to take a first sip—had calmed her stomach enough for her to finish drying and putting away the breakfast dishes. New ironware dishes and she took the time to appreciate them, running her fingertips around the dark blue rim. She took extra care wiping the counters and the table. There was so little she could do to repay Austin’s kindness. Regardless of how weak she felt, she wanted to be a good wife.

A knock rapped on the front door, a cheery rat-rat-rat that echoed through the silence. Willa turned, the soapy dishcloth fisted in one hand, and spotted a woman waving through the small window next to the door. Her red hair tumbled in ringlet curls from a bright blue wool hood and her button face was round and merry. When she smiled, it was Austin’s smile. Austin’s sister had come to pay a call.

Midmorning. Willa wilted, realizing the house wasn’t swept nor had she washed away the dried smudges on the floor from last night’s falling snow. What a poor impression she would make, but there was nothing to do but to open the door.

“Willa.” Evelyn burst in, hands out to grip Willa’s in a firm welcoming squeeze. The fullness of her skirts tried to hide the small round bump of a growing babe. “Let me look at you. Not at all what I expected. Heavens, you are just breathtaking, but how old are you, dear?”

“I turned eighteen in January.” She watched as the bubbly woman looked her up and down, perhaps taking in the patched shoes and the faded, wash-worn fabric of her calico dress.

“More than a few years separate us, so you must think of me as your older sister. Just think. We’re going through our pregnancies together. I suppose Austin told you I snooped and discovered that information all by myself?” Evelyn closed the door, shrugged out of her coat and hood and gave her red ringlets a toss. She didn’t pause for an answer as she draped her wraps and her reticule on the nearest peg, quite at home. “I know the hour is early, but you’re here all alone, you don’t know a soul and there’s so much to be done setting up your home. Are you queasy, dear? You look a little pale.”

Overwhelmed might be a word. But she’d never had a sister before and nobody could seem friendlier or easier to like. “I’m okay. Let me pour you some tea.”

“No, no, don’t fuss over me.” Merrily, Evelyn tapped into the front room and didn’t seem to notice the unswept floor. “Do you feel up to a trip to town?”

“I was planning on cleaning the house.” She wanted to make everything shiny and nice for Austin when he came home.

“That can wait. My dear brother asked me to take you to the mercantile. We might be a small town, but we have a fine selection of fabric.”

The curtains. Brightness filtered through her as she thought of the charge account Austin had set up for her. “You’re taking me shopping?”

“What are sisters for?” Evelyn’s laughter was contagious and confident. She looked as if she didn’t expect to take no for an answer.

“But what would Austin say?”

“He stopped by on his way to town this morning and asked me to look after you. He’s concerned because you were so sick.”

“It’s passing now. It always begins to fade by midmorning and it’s hardly much through the rest of the day.”

“My morning sickness plagued me constantly. It troubles me some in the evenings still.” A soft glow flushed Evelyn’s oval face as she brushed a gentle hand across the bowl of her stomach. “Other than that, the fourth month has been wonderful. I’m feeling like myself again. Soon, that will be true for you.”

“I hope so.” Encouraged, she managed to push aside her shyness. “I haven’t had anyone to talk with about this.”

“You have us now. Delia and Berry are busy with their little ones this morning. Berry’s youngest has a fever and Delia’s babe is teething, so we thought it best not to expose you to that circus, at least not on your first day.” Evelyn’s cheer filled the room as she made herself at home in the kitchen. The oven door opened. “Go on, pull on your wraps and we’ll get going. It’s a cold one out there. Here we thought spring had come, but no. We had to have one more snowstorm.”

“You shouldn’t go to the trouble of banking the fire.” Willa gripped the fireplace shovel and knelt before the hearth, refusing to let her sister-in-law do all the work. “It’s my job, Evelyn.”

“One thing you’ve got to learn about me right off, Willa, is I’m pushy.” Clatters rang from the kitchen. “Always have been, always will be. You’ll get used to it. Everyone else has.”

“Even your husband?” She couldn’t quite imagine that as she shoveled gray ashes from the fringes of the hearth onto the red-hot coals. Flames sizzled and smoked, the burning wood crumbled and she kept shoveling, wondering what Evelyn might say to that.

“Charlie, most of all. That man knew what he was getting into before he married me, so I don’t feel sorry for him in the least. Not one bit. He has no one to blame but himself for proposing to me.” After one final clank, Evelyn strolled into sight. Something deeper shone in her blue eyes, a light of happiness and caring that was something Willa had never known.

“Charlie was sweet on me since we were young.” Evelyn marched ahead to unhook Willa’s coat from the wall peg by the door and held it out for her. “He and I walked to and from school together every day from the time we were six until we were eighteen.”

“You must know him so well.” Willa thought of all the children she’d watched when she’d been able to attend school, how they laughed and played together, how they developed bonds of friendship and sometimes, more. “I can picture it. How you walked together side by side, talking the whole time.”

“Our siblings were there too, but we were largely able to ignore them. For whenever Charlie spoke, I had to listen. It was an unstoppable force in me. I always had been taken with him.” She handed over the garment and reached for her own much finer, beautifully made coat. “That force turned out to be love and so I married him.”