Smoke River Bride

While the minister waited for Leah’s response, a woman’s shrill voice cut through the quiet. “God save us, she’s a Celestial!”

Jeanne Halliday reached out and quietly touched Leah’s arm. Reverend Pollock looked up from his Bible with a frown and repeated the question. “Do you, Leah, take Thaddeus for your lawful wedded husband?”

“I—” Her throat clogged. “I do,” Leah choked out.

Reverend Pollock cleared his own throat. “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” In finishing, he raised his voice to cover the whispers from the congregation behind them. “May God bless you both and keep you safe in the shelter of His love. You may kiss the bride,” he added in a lower tone.

Leah waited in an agony of nerves for Thad to touch her. Instead, he suddenly dug in his vest pocket and produced a wide gold band. “Forgot the ring,” he murmured. He slid it onto her finger. “This was my grandmother MacAllister’s.”

Then he placed his hands on Leah’s shoulders and turned her to face him. She could feel his fingers tremble.

He drew her toward him, and for some reason tears flooded into her eyes. She wasn’t frightened. Or unhappy. She was moved by something deep inside that she could not explain. She blinked hard and then Thad’s mouth settled gently over hers, his lips warm and firm. It lasted but an instant, but Leah’s breath knotted beneath her breastbone. She opened her eyes and smiled into his face.

He looked surprised, but she was too giddy to wonder at it. Jeanne Halliday hugged her, and Reverend Pollock shook Thad’s hand, then Leah’s, then Thad’s again, and turned them around to face the swelling congregation.

It was over. Thad’s still-shaking hand held hers just tight enough to keep her feet anchored to the earth. If she skipped down the aisle, as she felt like doing, she would float away.

Together they started toward the church door, and only then did Leah become aware of the heavy, disapproving silence that greeted them. She kept her head up and tried to smile at the sea of stony faces. Not one person would meet her eyes.

A shard of disquiet knifed into her belly. They disliked her, but why? Because she was Chinese? Because Thad’s son, Teddy, sat outside on the church steps, sulking in obvious displeasure? Because some other woman had wanted to be Thad MacAllister’s wife?

She began to count the steps to the last pew. The women glared at her with animosity, and some of the men ogled her with undisguised interest. Only when she was safely outside the church could she regain her equilibrium. At least she would try.

They emerged into the crisp midmorning sunshine to find Teddy still slumped on the bottom step, a sullen scowl on his face. A dark, cold shadow spread over Leah’s entire being, carrying with it an odd sense of foreboding. She had never expected to feel such disapproval on her wedding day.

Thad kept her hand in his, and with the other he ruffled Teddy’s hair and grasped his shoulder. “Come on, son. Let’s go home.”

Teddy shrugged off his father’s hand and trailed behind them, dragging his feet until they reached the wagon. Thad lifted Leah onto the bench. Teddy clambered up, but scooted his small body as far away from her as he could get without toppling off.

Thad cracked the whip over the mare’s head, then had to wonder at his action. He’d never used the whip before, but he’d explode if he didn’t do something to dispel the tension gripping his belly.

“Why’d you do that, Pa?” Teddy accused.

“Dunno, son.” He glanced at the boy. “Just felt like it.”

“Is it ’cuz you got married?”

“Well, kinda. I guess I’m feeling a little nervous.”

“How come?”

Thad chuckled. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

“No, I won’t,” Teddy yelled. “I won’t ever, ever understand.”

Leah said nothing. To Thad’s dismay she uttered not one single word the six miles out to the ranch, just studied every tree, every grassy meadow and cultivated field, even the shallow spot in Swine Creek where they forded. Was she homesick for China?

Or maybe she was wondering what she’d gotten herself into? Given the frosty reception of the townspeople at the church, maybe she regretted marrying him.

Thad was surprised in a way that he did not regret it. He knew it was the right thing. He had given her his name and his protection, and by God, he would give her a home and all the comforts he could afford in this lean year, starting with the boy’s trousers and shirts and work boots he’d purchased yesterday at the mercantile. She sure couldn’t do housework in that silky red outfit.

Ah, hell, maybe it would work out just fine. He was respected in Smoke River, known as a steady and resourceful man, and she seemed to be good-natured. And—he felt his face grow hot—she sure was pretty.

What could go wrong?

He drew rein at the front porch and watched Leah study the small house he’d built, the barn, and the barely sprouted three-acre field of winter wheat he’d gambled his savings to plant. He’d put his whole life into this farm; he hoped to goodness she liked what she saw.

The minute she walked into the cabin and gazed at what was to be her home, his heart shriveled.

Leah stared at the plank floor, sticky with something that had spilled but never been mopped up. A tower of pots and skillets and egg-encrusted plates teetered in the dry sink. The bare log walls were chinked with brown mud and a grimy, uncurtained window over the sink looked out on the withered remains of what had apparently been a kitchen garden. Another bare window beside the front door suddenly resembled a yawning face, laughing at her.

Were all the houses in Oregon like this, so carelessly kept? Or was it only this house?

The room smelled of dust, wood smoke, stale coffee and rotting food, the latter odor drifting from a slop jar that she fervently hoped was intended for a pig. She closed her eyes and tried not to breathe in.

“Guess it could use some cleaning up,” Thad said with a catch in his voice. “Hattie always said…” He left the thought unfinished.

“I am sure she was right,” Leah said evenly. She could not imagine how difficult living here must have been for Thad’s wife. She could also not imagine how she herself could manage to live in this filth and clutter.

Thad lifted her valise. “I’ll just put this in the bedroom.”

Bedroom! Heaven help her, she had avoided thinking about what marriage would mean at night. “Is…is there—How many bedrooms are there?”

“Just the one,” Thad muttered.

“Where does Teddy sleep?”

“In the loft up there, over the front room. Says it’s warmer at night. I planned to sleep up there, too.”

Thad lifted his head. “Oh, I almost forgot. Yesterday I bought you some work clothes. Should make do until you can get to the dressmaker’s in town.”

“The dressmaker’s?”

“Sure. Don’t you want some dresses like the other women wear?”

No, she did not. Having a Western dressmaker poke at her and criticize her comfortable silk trousers and tunics made her stomach heave. But she was starting a new life in America, and she knew she must fit in.

“Could I not make my clothes myself? Did Hatt—” At the stricken look on his face, Leah couldn’t bring herself to speak her name. “Did your wife own a sewing machine?”

Thad ducked his head and started toward the closed door of what she assumed was the bedroom. “Yeah, she did have a sewing machine,” he said over his shoulder. “Brought her mother’s fancy Singer with her from Virginia. But she never learned to sew on it.”

“Perhaps I could use it?”

The puzzled look in his eyes almost made her laugh out loud.

“Uh, well, sure, I guess so. It’s probably out in the barn somewhere. I’ll—I’ll have to find it.”

He flung open the bedroom door, plopped her valise in front of a tall chest of drawers and motioned to a square paper package on the bed. “I brought some duds from the mercantile for you.”