Rain Shadow (Dutch Country Brides)

by Cheryl St. John

  Anton spun on his heel and stalked to the barn. He found his son holding a board down with his small boot, trying ineffectively to work out a bent nail. Nikolaus turned at the sound of footsteps, revealing a dirty trail of tears streaking his rosy cheeks.

  Immediately contrite, Anton took the hammer from Nikky’s much smaller hand and removed the nail effortlessly.

  “Nikolaus.”

  “Yeah, Pa?”

  “Sorry I yelled at you. After all, you were working at another chore, weren’t ya?”

  “Yeah. That’s all right. Are you sorry you yelled at Rain Shadow, too? Me and her was gonna stack the wood and then make some stew for Slade. She’s good at knowing how to do things. She showed me to be careful with the ax and keep it sharp to keep from hurting myself.”

  Silenced, Anton stroked Nikolaus’ cheek with a long thumb. He had overreacted. He would have reason to be angry if Rain Shadow treated Nikolaus poorly, but just the opposite was true. His jealousy was irrational. For some reason, he couldn’t seem to help how he felt. “How about we do these boards together?”

  “Okay.” They worked silently for a few minutes. “Pa?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Was my mama anything like Rain Shadow?”

  Anton’s grip on the hammer slipped, and the tool fell from his hands, landing harmlessly on his boot. He couldn’t draw a deep breath. “You’ve seen her picture. She had blond hair. Her eyes were green.”

  “I know. I mean, was she like her in other ways? She’s Slade’s mama, and she fixes him special food and kisses his head and things like that. Did my mama do that, too?”

  The hammer might as well have landed smack dab in the middle of Anton’s chest. He picked it up and studied it as if he had never seen such an ingenious device before. Emily had loved Nikolaus. He’d never doubted it. She’d given him all her attention and affection. In fact, when Franz and Annette had lived in the big house, she’d often used her baby as a reason not to help with chores or join the family.

  Later, when Jakob brought Lydia to the farm, Anton had hoped the two would develop a friendship, but Emily had held herself apart from everyone. Nothing Anton had ever said or done had gotten through to her. Even sweet and friendly Annette hadn’t been able to develop a friendship.

  Anton wasn’t perfect himself. These unexplainable feelings proved that. The least provocation had him getting all defensive and mad. He had plenty of other flaws, like his hearing loss. His family had accepted, compensated, even forgot. Sometimes he wondered if Emily had found him too flawed. He touched the spot on his shoulder where he’d been gouged while fencing with barbed wire. A slightly raised, V-shaped scar was imperceptible through his layers of clothing. His nose was a little crooked―too many wrestling matches with his rowdy brothers.

  Emily had been fair and delicate, her gold hair luxurious and shiny, her body lush and warm. She’d been hesitant, but accommodating. But he’d never felt close to her.

  He’d never really known her.

  “Pa?”

  “Your mama was beautiful, Nikky.” Anton knelt and held his son’s shoulders in both hands. “And she loved you very much. She rocked you and kissed your head and washed and pressed your clothes.” He ruffled his boy’s blond hair.

  Nikolaus threw his arms around his father’s neck. “I’m glad. But I miss having a mama like Slade has.”

  His son needed the comfort and security only a mother could give—a gentle touch, a soft voice, a loving smile and most of all, attention and affection. Anton squeezed his eyes tightly shut and hugged the sturdy little boy.

  Chapter Four

  From the open flap of her lodge, Rain Shadow watched Anton and Johann empty an enormous coffin-shaped tub in the dooryard. Saturday night. The Neubauers had finished baths in preparation for the barn dance.

  The evening was warmer than last, but the stream had been icy cold for her bath. Hair nearly dry, she knelt before the fire and plaited it into two long braids, carefully entwining slender lengths of rawhide she’d meticulously fashioned with quills and beads to decorate her hair without the leather showing.

  Her dress was a masterpiece of bead and quill work, geometric designs bordering the calf-length hem and yoke-style neck and running the length of the sleeves. Matching beads swung from the six-inch fringe along the hem. Rain Shadow had worked on the dress while aboard the Nebraska, the ship that had carried the show to France. Taking the garment from the trunk and hanging it out, she had been reminded of the voyage and London, and she almost hadn’t worn it.

  She’d met Slade’s father aboard the ship. He was one of the vaqueros, then a new addition to the show. She was young. Sixteen. And blinded to wisdom by the handsome South American who’d swept her off her adolescent feet.

  He’d professed love. Promised marriage. And then, before they’d returned to America, he’d met a French heiress and married her, instead.

  On the voyage home, Rain Shadow had lost every breakfast, lunch and supper into the Atlantic, clinging to the heaving rails of the Nebraska and accepting two well-taught lessons: The need to guard her heart more closely and the need to find her own people. Miguel de Ruiz had seen her as less than worthy of his respect. She’d taken the agonizing experience to heart and kept Slade a secret from his undeserving father. She hadn’t been Miguel’s first choice. He’d chosen a Frenchwoman with a heritage. There was esteem in knowing one’s origins.

  She placed her hairbrush in the drawer of a trunk and slipped into her moccasins. She carried a threefold stigma now—orphan, Indian and unmarried mother.

  For seven years she had searched cities and counties for her family from one performance to the next, relying on the gold locket to trigger a response, hoping that someone somewhere would recognize it or the tintype inside. When that had proved fruitless, she’d come up with the idea of fame as a lure. Slade was going to be treated decently in this white man’s land if it was the only thing she ever accomplished in her lifetime.

  Rain Shadow stepped from her lodge. She would sit with Slade as long as she could. Perhaps Johann would forget his insistence that she and Two Feathers attend the barn dance and meet the members of Butler County’s farming community. It wasn’t the dancing, she had danced with the crowned heads of Europe and performed Lakota ceremonial dances in the show since she was a child. No, it was fear. Fear of her inability to fit in with whites when she wanted to so badly.

  Slade seemed more restless than usual and begged her to carry him out to the barn for the festivities.

  “I would love to, Slade, but you know what the doctor said.”

  “Does that mean we have to stay here a long time?”

  Her gaze flickered around the room. None of Anton Neubauer’s possessions remained in sight since he’d temporarily moved into the bedroom across the hall. Nikolaus’ wooden horses lined the chest of drawers, and Slade’s books and soldiers were piled haphazardly on the bedside table where the boys had discarded than. She was pleased that Slade had a friend his own age, but concerned that if they formed a meaningful bond, it would make leaving difficult for him. What troubled her most, though, was Anton’s resentment toward her for befriending Nikolaus, when Anton had obviously formed his own subtle bond with Slade.

  “It means we stay here until your leg is mended.”

  Standing, the daguerreotype on the wall drew her, though she’d studied it a dozen times over the past week. This Anton was younger, his face thinner, less intense, his hair longer. Although the image was sepia-toned, his commanding eyes intrigued her. In a dark suit and stark white shirt, a carnation pinned to his lapel, he stood behind and to the right of the woman. The long fingers of one hand gripped a spindle on the back of her chair.

  She was beautiful. Soft and fair, a vision of femininity in a shiny, tucked and ruffled, low-necked dress that displayed her luminous white skin and the swells of generous breasts. Rain Shadow unconsciously smoothed the velvety doeskin of her dress across her hips and wondered what had happened to the angelic
-faced woman in the picture.

  Perhaps she had died in childbirth, not uncommon for a young woman. Poor Nikolaus. Anton’s intent gaze compelled her to think of him as a husband...a lover. Warmth suffused her chest. How he must have loved such a woman.

  Perhaps he still grieved. Maybe that was why he was particularly unpleasant at times. No one knew better than Rain Shadow how difficult it was to raise a child alone. At least he had his father, his brothers and sisters-in-law. It was obvious how Annette, in particular, doted on her nephew though she had two children of her own.

  “She’s pretty, ain’t she?”

  Rain Shadow realized she hadn’t spoken to Slade for several minutes. “Isn’t she, and yes, she’s pretty.”

  “She died a long time ago.”

  Turning to her son, she feigned disinterest. “Oh.”

  “Nikolaus says she had yellow hair and green eyes and she went to college.”

  College. “Hmm.” She perched on the bed’s edge. “He must miss her a lot.”

  “He don’t remember her.”

  “I see.”

  “Just like me and my pa, huh?”

  She ran her fingers through his thick black hair, combing it away from his forehead. “Yes.”

  “Want to play checkers?”

  “If you let me win.” She groped under the bed and came up with the board.

  She’d lost five times when a rap sounded on the door and it swung open. “Excuse me, Slade. I need a—oh.”

  Anton Neubauer appeared taller and broader than ever without a shirt. Golden hair matted his muscled chest, and his shoulders were wide and dark from hours in the sun. Long, corded forearms were dusted with more gold hair. She’d never seen a man as fair-haired and golden-skinned as Anton. Most men she’d seen had been dark, and Indians were smooth-skinned.

  “Sorry. I thought you were still outside.” Midnight-blue denims covered his strong legs, and polished leather boots sounded on the floorboards as he crossed the room. “I need a shirt and tie.”

  Definitely, a matter of opinion.

  He shrugged into a stark white shirt and buttoned it beneath their transfixed stares. With crisp, precise movements, he rolled the cuffs over his forearms.

  “Gosh!” Slade hiked himself up higher on the pillows. “You look fancy. Don’t my mama look pretty?”

  Anton plucked something from a hook on the inside of his closet door and turned slowly. Heat suffused her cheeks, and she wanted to fling aside the checkers she held and bolt from the room. Instead, she tilted her chin and met his ambiguous gaze.

  A red string tie dangled from his tanned fingers, fingers she’d just studied with considerable interest in his daguerreotype. He gazed at her from head to foot, lingering on various places in between until her heart beat like a Sioux war drum in those same places. At last he cleared his throat.

  “Your mama will have all the fellas begging for dances.” His tone had not been sarcastic. She dropped her gaze.

  “Really?” Slade bounced on the bed.

  “Easy, Slade,” she said to her son.

  “Really.” Anton stepped to the mirror above the wash-stand and slipped the tie over his head. Rain Shadow allowed herself the adventure of watching. Feet planted apart, he jutted out his chin and adjusted the ornamental stone at his throat. The purely masculine gesture struck a peculiar chord deep inside her, its resonant hum pumping liquid fire through her veins.

  He opened a drawer, located a comb and tamed his straw-colored hair. She found herself wondering if his wife had watched him with this same fascination, if all women were charmed by the mystique of a handsome man performing his perfunctory grooming ritual.

  Immediately, she grew pensive. She had never watched a man like this. The sight provoked, stimulated. The sight was...intimate. Did husbands and wives grow accustomed to such familiarity? She hadn’t realized she craved such a companionable experience until that moment. She took in his broad shoulders and narrow waist, trailed her gaze over his compact buttocks and well-defined thighs, much as he’d looked at her moments before.

  Slade let a stack of checkers shuffle through his fingers, and Rain Shadow dragged her admiring gaze to the mirror. In the glass, Anton watched her reflection with the same, intense expression she had seen in the portrait. Something almost painfully warm seared deep into her flesh, quickened her breath and delivered a lambent hum in her ears. She couldn’t look away.

  “You coming now?” he asked, his voice low.

  She wiped her palms on her dress. He’d caught her studying him. Exactly what had he seen? What had just passed between them? “I don’t know.”

  Anton turned.

  “Go on, Ma,” Slade piped up.

  “We weren’t finished with our game.” She balked, more confused than ever at their silent exchange.

  “You weren’t trying. I’m getting tired, anyhow.”

  Out of excuses, she shrugged and simulated poise. “You win again.”

  Anton gestured toward the door, the first gentlemanly act she’d observed in days. She responded, as she did to everything about this man, with an immediate and unsettled feeling of deficiency. She’d go, but she would leave and return to her lodge early. The Neubauers and their neighbors belonged here, rooted to this land. They and their descendants would be here long after she was gone. She didn’t belong. She was the autumn wind, a puff of smoke, a fleeting shadow.

  * * *

  Sissy Clanton’s dress was a simple yellow calico. An ivory shawl draped her slender shoulders. Gathered from her oval face, her nutmeg tresses hung in gentle waves between her shoulder blades. The toes of shiny brown boots peeked from beneath her demure hemline.

  Anton handed her a jar of lemonade, and she smiled in thanks, her unpainted lips parting to reveal small white teeth. She had a girlish sprinkling of freckles across her nose that reminded him of Emily. How his wife had hated those freckles. She had squeezed lemons, mixed the juice with glycerin and lactic acid and applied it morning and night to prevent them from appearing.

  Sissy was nothing like Emily, though. She smiled often, spoke in a friendly manner and studied him with caramel-colored eyes. This was an accepting woman, he thought with certainty. A woman who already belonged in the community and would fit in with his family.

  “Do you like it?”

  “What?” Anton realized he’d been lost in thought.

  “I said the lemonade is good.”

  He’d been thinking about the beer. “Yep.”

  They watched the musicians return to the corner of the barn where the floor had been raised. Jakob, always in demand at festivities, tucked a fiddle under his chin and led them in the Virginia reel.

  Anton gestured toward the couples gathering a short distance away. “Want to dance?”

  “I’d like that.”

  He took her empty jar and led her among the throng of dancers, her cold hand thin and pliant in his. They found their place in a quadrille and matched their steps to the caller’s instructions. He bowed. She curtsied and blushed wildly.

  He had to ask her tonight. He’d stalled and planned and stalled and considered. What else could he do? He had to make his decision. Nikolaus needed a mother and Sissy was the best choice he had available. She could cook and clean and sew and she was in her twenties—on the shelf in this community. Sure, he was older, but not enough to make much difference to either one of them.

  His attention was arrested by the woman in the next quadrille, her elbow linked with that of Lydia’s younger brother, Nathan Beker. It was obvious Nathan was enamored of Rain Shadow, and Anton would agree that she filled out that white beaded dress in a way that set a man’s heart to pumping. Her figure was small, but curved and hollowed in all the right places. She was a graceful dancer, too.

  And then she smiled at Nathan, an illuminating smile that would coax the sun up at midnight, and her amethyst eyes flashed with delight. Sissy’s shy smile came to mind, and he struggled not to make a comparison. The woman in the deerskin dr
ess was vibrant, alive and endowed with indomitable energy. Allowing himself to be drawn to her in any way would be a mistake. He wasn’t about to let his resolve scatter in the wind because of his attraction to a woman who would be gone in a few weeks.

  Her expression when he’d entered his room earlier had surprised him. He’d self-consciously thought of the scar on his shoulder, but she hadn’t seemed to notice. When their gazes had locked in the mirror, a velvet blaze had smoldered within the depths of her violet eyes, measuring, branding, igniting sparks between them. He’d recognized the searing heat in his belly for what it was immediately.

  He couldn’t remember wanting a woman the way he wanted Rain Shadow.

  He’d given himself a mental warning. She was alluringly beautiful, but so what? Beauty was skin deep. It shouldn’t matter that the air became difficult to breathe when she looked at him like that, because he had no business looking back. The fact that she hadn’t seemed put off by his partial nudity or the scar was of no importance. He’d allowed himself to become vulnerable once before, and his singular concern was to never let it happen again. He couldn’t afford to have feelings—any kind of feelings—for a woman again. He’d be playing it safe from here on out.

  Rain Shadow was enjoying herself immensely, and he didn’t know why he should be bothered. He’d encouraged her to come. Sissy collided with his broad back, a half completed do-si-do nearly sending her sprawling. He caught her before she fell and righted her with a profuse apology.

  “It’s all right,” she stammered. He could almost feel her attention focus on his hands at her waist. A crimson blush spread upward from her prim collar and suffused her cheeks.

  Thankfully the music wound to an end. Guiding Sissy toward the refreshments, he caught sight of Rain Shadow and Nathan in conversation. Though the evening held a chill, the interior of the barn combined the warmth of dozens of dancers with a continuously stoked stove.