The Proposition

“How do you know when it’s not visible on the mare?”

“A good breeder keeps track of dates when his mares are bred. And I also did a thorough manual examination.”

He nodded, lowering his eyes to the saddle.

Her hand fell to rest on the horse’s neck. With a moan of empathy, Jessica recalled her own months of confinement in the Montreal house, stepping out for fresh air to trim the backyard hedges, watching her figure grow while in a torrent of mixed emotions. Then feeling the first tiny kick in excited anticipation with no one to share it with, only to have lost it all.

Chapter Four

“The last time you were in Calgary, you were rumored to be engaged to that Englishman. Victor Sterling, was that his name?”

The personal nature of Travis’s question and the sudden vibrancy to his voice unnerved Jessica.

Standing in an ocean of green prairie grass and dwarfed by her horse, she tried to untangle the leather straps from her saddle. As they made camp, last remnants of fading light silhouetted the mountain peaks and gushing river waters behind Travis. The sky was twilight blue, on the verge of turning black.

In the distance, Mr. Merriweather limped between the trees. He hummed a cowboy tune while collecting firewood.

She dug her boots into parched soil. “That was his name.”

The moon, a glowing yellow ball, skimmed the straight lines of Travis’s shoulders. The quality of lighting was changing on their journey. The general lighting of the vast prairies had washed everything equally but in the rugged foothills, the enclosures cast shadows across his body and face, highlighting his unique stance and the outline of his lips.

He tied a rope between two evergreens, forming a hitching line for the horses.

Irritated by her gloves’ bulkiness, she removed them, turning her back on Travis and hopefully his curiosity.

“What happened to your engagement?”

“It was never really official,” she said with begrudging frankness. “He had to…Victor had to return to England.”

“But I thought—”

“Victor never made it.”

“What do you mean?”

Resentful of the questions and the raw emotions they evoked, she pulled her arms tighter to her chest. Last year when Jessica wrote to his parents to enquire about his whereabouts, thinking that maybe Victor, the natural father of her child, might help her look for their baby, she’d been informed of the horrible news.

She avoided Travis’s cold stare. “Victor’s ship never reached London. It went down in the tail end of a hurricane.” Her despair intensified. “Victor drowned.”

His large hands stopped working on the rope.

Slowly, he turned to face her. His stern attitude dissolved. “I’m sorry.”

Quietness consumed them.

She nodded, looking down at her pack, wishing he’d leave. Then she heard him walk away, leading two mares in the direction of the river. Dry leaves and pine needles crackled beneath the horses’ hooves, while Travis’s spurs echoed between the foliage.

She untied the metal pots from her saddlebags. It bothered her that he apparently assumed it was Victor’s death that’d stopped their marriage. But their relationship had been nothing like Travis and Caroline’s; Travis had cared deeply for his wife.

Victor had been a youthful English professor at Oxford. He’d come to Canada to discuss the possibility of setting up an affiliated university, possibly choosing Toronto, Vancouver or Calgary. As mayor, Jessica’s father was eager for Victor to choose their town, for it would bring financial and social gains to the community. Her father had introduced them. Jessica, an insatiable reader, had shared with Victor her adoration for the romantic poems of William Wordsworth, the travelogues of Mark Twain and the adventures of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.

She’d fallen in love for the first time. He’d never actually proposed, but he’d fed her imagination, telling her how much she’d adore Oxford when she saw it and the joy he’d find in showing her London. She thought it meant he loved her, that he was assuring her of their future. In hopes of showing the depth of her feelings, she’d succumbed to his advances. They’d made love three times, but Victor had turned ashen when Jessica had informed him she was late in her cycle.

He was a man who’d simply been in love with poetry and words. A far cry from Travis’s practical nature.

Later, she’d discovered from Victor’s valet that he’d been engaged all along to another woman in England, a richer one with three London homes who was paying his traveling bills. At the news of Victor’s death, Jessica felt a deep sorrow for her child for the loss of his father, but not for herself.

Are you a close friend? Victor’s father had written in his letter. Jessica had never answered.

And her father had never received his university.

She flinched as she untied a small shovel. Her anger returned—at the way she’d been treated by Victor, and then her father. She understood the scandalous way she’d behaved and how the town would look down on her if the truth was known, but to blazes with her shame, and her father’s.

Jessica was furious at her own vulnerabilities and shortcomings, but it was pointless to look back. She’d look ahead to the promise of a future with her child. She was saving every penny she earned, for if and when she found her son, she’d make her own way. A seventeen-month-old child needed her.

If she let herself dwell for a moment on the harm that may have come to him, or the uncertainty of her claim against Dr. Finch, she wouldn’t have the strength to carry forward. So she pushed the pain out of her mind.

“Here, let me help you with those.” Mr. Merriweather removed her saddlebags.

One was filled with her clothing, the other with food supplies Travis had packed. As the elderly man lifted the weight to his side, his face strained beneath his sombrero.

“My dear old friend, you’re in discomfort. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“It’s nothing to worry about. As soon as we’ve unpacked and I’ve started dinner, I’m going to slip out that bottle of medicinal tonic, sit back and relax.”

“You need medicine?”

“A simple brew bought from Dr. Finch three years ago. I bought three bottles and there’s still an ounce or so left.”

She brushed the hair from her eyes, upset that even her dear old butler had a cure from the charlatan. “What’s the tonic for?”

Mr. Merriweather removed his sombrero and combated flies. “General pains. Gentlemen’s problems,” he said with an embarrassed laugh.

Uncomfortable with the topic, she collected the small utensils and carried them to the flat part of the site. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

Walking back and forth between the horses and the campsite, she unloaded what she could. Ill at ease, she crossed her arms against her white blouse and looked around, waiting for Travis to return with the second set of horses. She wondered what she was supposed to do to help.

Mr. Merriweather struggled on his feet to put dinner together while Travis tied the horses to the hitching rope. Jessica settled onto a log by the burning fire. It warmed her face while they ate sausages and biscuits.

“It’s not what I normally prepare for dinner,” Mr. Merriweather apologized. “This is Sunday, and on Sunday evenings we usually have roast fish and baked potatoes, my special recipe from Plymouth. The ones the pilgrims brought to America, you know.”

“This is delicious anyway,” remarked Jessica. “And seeing how you cooked and Travis took care of setting up camp, I’ll wash the dishes.”

Mr. Merriweather floundered for something in the pack beside him, a shadowy figure in blue denim. “My word,” he gasped in the semidarkness, face glued to the side of an ancient maple tree.

Travis looked up from his plate and stopped chewing.

Jessica craned her neck in alarm. “What is it?”