That fever must have left Anton brainsick. Jack stepped over a hole, and she rocked with his gait. “You can’t be serious.”
His brows drew together and he scowled at her with a look too dark for such a golden man. “Look, I know I’m not the catch of the county. That’s been pointed out to me recently. I’m not asking you to fall all over yourself with gratitude. I’m simply suggesting that you marry me to protect yourself from Ruiz.”
“That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”
His lips drew into a taut line.
He wanted her physically, he’d made that obvious, but he certainly held no respect for her as wife material. “Did you stop at the saloon?”
“This isn’t a lifetime commitment we’re talking about here. We’d marry, Ruiz would go away, and we’d sign some more papers. The marriage would be annulled. You could go on your way, free and clear.”
“Is there such a thing?”
“Hawkins assured me.”
“Married people just go to a lawyer, sign a paper, and their marriage is over?”
He looked decidedly uncomfortable. “Well, only if they haven’t...”
“Haven’t what?”
“Haven’t—consummated their marriage.” Consummated their marriage. The image of that act with Anton burned an indelible picture in her mind. She stared ahead sightlessly. Married. To Anton? Married to Anton and not consummate? Ridiculous. The entire idea was ridiculous. “Our fathers had this idea?”
“Turn me down if you want. I live for rejection.”
“Oh, Anton, that’s not it at all. Even if marriage did solve my problem, what would you gain?”
“Does everyone need a selfish reason to do things?”
The farm came into view. How would she know? The only man she’d ever trusted besides Two Feathers and Will Cody wasn’t an example of chivalry. “I don’t need your charity.”
“Let go of your pride for once.”
She jerked her gaze to his blazing blue one. “Slade and I don’t need anyone but each other. I’ve gotten by this far.”
“Oh, and you’ve done so well.”
Anger blazed hot in her cheeks. She threw him what she hoped was a shriveling scowl and kicked her heels into Jack’s withers. The contemptible jackass. Who did he think he was? She rode hard, her head lowered over the horse’s neck. Jack seemed to love the exercise, and stayed dexterously ahead of Anton’s much larger bay.
She vaulted from the horse, yanked her bags and the pad she used as a saddle from his back and turned him into the corral. He’d been trained to walk several turns around the enclosure, a means by which he cooled himself, affording her time to get ready for her next performance.
She ignored Anton as he galloped up the drive and dismounted. He led the General around the outbuildings before turning the bay into the corral.
Rain Shadow carried her supplies to her lodge and started a fire.
“Rain Shadow.”
She ignored Anton’s angry voice outside the flap.
“Rain Shadow!” he called again.
She warmed her hands over the flames that sprang up. Anton flung the tent flap aside and crouched through the opening.
“You can’t come in here. I didn’t give you permission.”
He pulled himself up straight, looking taller and broader than ever in his sheepskin coat. He’d left his hat elsewhere. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“An Indian would never commit such a breach of etiquette. I didn’t invite you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not an Indian, am I? And neither are you. Sometimes I’m not sure what you are—except bullheaded.”
“Get out.”
“I’m staying till we talk this out.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Yes, there is. Think of Slade.”
Think of Slade! What else had she done for the last seven years but think of Slade? “Why, you—” She snatched a piece of kindling from the ground at her side and threw it at him.
Neatly, he caught the stick and tossed it on the fire. Standing, she met his glare. He stepped closer, still looming a foot above her. “Why don’t you think of Nikky? Where does he fit into all this lunacy?”
His blue eyes flinched with her words. “Nikolaus would want Slade safe, too.”
“Would we live together?” she asked, keeping her voice even.
His gaze wavered and then narrowed. “Isn’t that the point? Ruiz would have to think we were happily married.” She crossed her arms over her breasts. “How would we explain a temporary marriage to the boys? It wouldn’t be fair to them,” she said, thinking how close the two of them had become, how much closer they’d be in a few more weeks. “It would be a mistake.” She raised her chin. “I know what you’re thinking. I made a mistake once, but I won’t do it again.”
“I wasn’t thinking that.”
“What were you thinking?”
The corner of his mouth almost twitched. “That you’re thinking about it.”
“You’re an infuriating man, Anton Neubauer.”
“But you’ll think on it?”
As much as she hated to admit it, the idea held more promise than anything she’d been able to come up with herself.
“Rain Shadow?”
“I’ll think on it.”
Chapter Eleven
She was out her mind to consider such a harebrained scheme. Anton was out of his mind to suggest it! Their fathers were way out of line to think of such a plan. By the end of the week Rain Shadow deemed the plot ludicrous and pushed it from her mind. There was something more to worry over.
Thanksgiving. The Anglo-American holiday lush with family traditions only gave her more cause to realize she did not fit in here.
Annette informed Rain Shadow their family always ate together on holidays, therefore she and Slade were taken in under the familial wing and expected at Franz and Annette’s. Johann and Two Feathers had shot the turkey the day before, and Rain Shadow had dressed the bird, her only contribution to the festivity, since she didn’t know how to do the things Annette and Lydia did. Inactivity had worn her endurance thin. With each passing moment, the Neubauers’ house had grown more and more confining.
A change of atmosphere appealed, but the thought of dinner at Anton’s sister-in-law’s comfortable and solid home pointed out how inept and awkward she really was. The remaining hours passed with dread, until finally Rain Shadow changed into the dress she’d finished hemming that morning.
Franz and Annette’s house was only a few years old, sturdily built, decorated with handmade doilies and sepia-toned daguerreotypes. Annette was everything Rain Shadow wasn’t, capable, domestic, a perfect wife, mother and hostess. She showed Rain Shadow the house and set her to peeling potatoes while she scurried about the kitchen.
Lydia and Jakob arrived, and Lydia knew just what to do and where things were, busying herself between the kitchen and dining room, at the same time pacifying both her and Annette’s youngest children.
“Will you set the table?” Annette asked Rain Shadow while the potatoes boiled.
Rain Shadow nodded and stared hard at the bread crumbs falling to the tabletop as Lydia deftly sliced a crusty loaf. Something hollow ached in her chest, and her hand trembled on her cotton skirt. Annette’s shoes appeared in her line of vision, and she forced her gaze up.
“The plates are in the china closet in the dining room, the silverware and napkins in the top drawer.” Annette turned to the stove.
Rain Shadow wanted to bolt for the door. She didn’t know the first thing about setting a proper table. She felt like a sow in a wren house. Slowly, she stood.
Annette puckered her pretty brow in thought. “I think I counted ten. You’d better count again.”
Rain Shadow stepped into a silent dining room, so spacious her entire lodge would have fit in the area. An ivory lace cloth draped the long table, sheer ruffled curtains swagged across the windows. She opened the glass-inset doors of the cabinet a
nd stared at the delicate rose-patterned china plates. What if she broke one? Her hands might shake so badly she’d drop the entire stack on the floor! Two sizes of plates, assorted platters, endless cups, saucers and other strange pieces were displayed before her distressed gaze. Was she supposed to do something with all of them?
“Need a hand?” The familiar voice came from behind.
She whirled to face Anton, her palm flying to her breast. “Oh!”
“Sorry, I thought you heard me.” He circled her arm with his fingers. “You’re shakin’. What’s wrong?”
She glanced into his eyes and away. “You startled me, that’s all.”
One sandy brow lifted in disbelief. The question hadn’t sounded like one of his digs. Perhaps he was just being courteous.
“Yes, I can use some help,” she replied, aware her acceptance threw him off guard. “Will you lift the plates down for me?” Words Sissy Clanton might have used. Hearing than from her own mouth, Rain Shadow almost blushed.
Anton reached past her, and she caught the scent of his clean hair and shirt. Only days before he’d watched her heft ammunition-laden saddlebags onto Jack’s back, and they both remembered it. There was no logical reason on earth for her to need his assistance. He carried the plates to the table without comment, took the top one and began spacing them around the perimeter.
Gratefully, she followed his unconscious lead.
“Been thinking?” he asked.
She watched his dark hand rest on the ivory tablecloth, and suddenly the sight became intimate. From nowhere came the image of him striding shirtless into the room he’d turned over to Slade, the planes and curves of his tanned and muscular torso defined by the gas lamp. Rain Shadow remembered watching him brush his unruly hair, slip his tie over his head and adjust it before the mirror. She’d wondered then about the intimacy between a husband and wife, wondered what it would be like to share a house...a room...a bed. Had she been thinking about his offer?
“Yes.”
“And?”
She pulled open the top drawer and withdrew a neatly ironed and folded stack of linen napkins. “And I wonder what you have to gain.”
“You insult me.”
She turned, met his blue gaze and stifled an unconscious shiver. “I didn’t mean to. It’s just that...I don’t see how you can make such an offer. You’ve made it plain that I’m a nuisance.”
“Consider it something I need to do for Slade.”
The immediate bond he’d developed with her son had always been a bit of a mystery to her. “You have a son of your own. Why do you have such an attachment to mine?”
He took the napkins from her hand, his fingers brushing hers. A long and knowing look passed between them. He drew his gaze away first and placed each delicately hemmed piece of linen on the left of the plates. “Maybe because I have a son of my own. Maybe because I was a boy once myself. I didn’t have a ma. Nikolaus doesn’t have a ma, and Slade doesn’t have a pa. Not one worth a plug nickel, anyway.”
She dragged her attention from his long fingers wrapped around a white napkin and searched his face. He’d said it dryly, a comment a person made to another when both agreed on a subject. How did he see her? Did he think less of her because she’d never married Miguel, or because she’d consorted with him in the first place? “Anton, I was very young...”
She’d seen him in physical pain, and the expression that now crossed his golden features was the same.
“You don’t have to explain,” he said. “You don’t owe me anything.”
“Don’t I?”
He looked up sharply. “No.”
“You rescued Slade from that railcar, sacrificed your room for weeks, got yourself stabbed in the shoulder over my—my—” She faltered. “Over me.”
“You paid me back by nursing me through it. You’ve put in your share of work around the place.” He laid the last napkin in place and grinned. “All of Nikolaus’ dungarees and shirts are mended.”
Warmth crept into her cheeks. She hadn’t realized he’d noticed. “But, if we—well, if you did this thing for me—”
“Got married.”
“Then I would owe you something.”
He shrugged noncommittally. “Mend my shirts.”
Mend his shirts.
Annette appeared in the doorway with a tray.
Anton turned to leave, pausing at Rain Shadow’s side. “Keep thinking,” he murmured in her ear.
She sat across from him at dinner, Two Feathers and Slade flanking her. The Neubauers joined hands and lowered their heads, Rain Shadow and her family following suit. Franz prayed, thanking his God for their food, health and children, and asking Him to protect and guide them. “Amens” echoed around the room, and the bowls and platters circulated with enthusiasm.
The Neubauer brothers told amusing tales about one another during dinner. Slade and Nikolaus absorbed each word, listening in wide-eyed fascination to Johann’s stories of his childhood, of growing up with brothers and sisters and parents. Johann knew where his parents had been born, he even had a Bible with his entire family’s births and deaths recorded.
Rain Shadow met Anton’s gaze. This family knew each and every ancestor, shared their stories like the Indians. Everyone at the table had memories of families...everyone, that was, except her.
A chasm opened in her chest, an unexplainable hurt and inferiority, a gnawing, insatiable hunger that had nothing to do with the feast spread before her on the table. Rain Shadow swallowed the ache and focused on the man across from her. “Your grandfather taught you to fix clocks?”
Anton nodded. “I have a shop in town that belonged to him.”
Annette pushed her chair back. “Did you fellas say you were going to wash the dishes?”
Franz took his wife’s hand and pressed it to his lips. “Did you say you wanted your grandma’s china entrusted to these delicate hands?” He and his brothers raised enormous palms toward her.
Annette laughed and waved her apron at them. “Oh, shoo, you bunch of conniving sluggards!”
The men stood and headed toward the parlor. Annette threaded her fingers through her husband’s and leaned toward him. “My mother warned me about you.”
Franz bobbed his head and kissed her quickly. “Aren’t you glad she was right?”
Rain Shadow met Anton’s gaze where he stood in the doorway watching her. He’d had a wife. A proper wife just like his brothers’, and he’d lost her.
He had a family. He didn’t need Rain Shadow.
He wanted her.
She needed him.
* * *
The following morning Jakob rode up the long drive to the barn and called out. From the barn, Rain Shadow watched Anton and Johann meet him. They spoke briefly, and Jakob galloped toward Franz and Annette’s.
“What’s wrong?” Rain Shadow asked Anton when he stepped through the doorway.
“Have to dig a new well on Jakob’s land.” He strode to the back and returned with shovels.
Instinctively sensing trouble, she watched him carry harnesses from the tack room. “What’s wrong with their well?”
“Salt in it.”
“Someone poured salt in their well?”
“Probably yesterday while we were all at Franz’s.” Horror prickled at her scalp. “Is the stock sick?”
“Nah. They’re too smart to drink it. We’ll need to carry water until the new well’s dug. Good thing the ground’s not frozen solid yet.”
“I’ll help,” she said quickly, knowing she was responsible for the Neubauers’ misfortune.
“You have to stay with Slade.” He stared at her pointedly. “We all know who did this.”
She wiped her palms on her trousers. Miguel. And he’d been bold enough, certain enough of their whereabouts to know just when and where to cause trouble. A tremor began in her chest and radiated outward until her shoulders shook. The Neubauers! This warm, wonderful family was under siege because of her.
As soon as Mi
guel appeared, she should have run as fast and far as she could. If only Slade had been able to travel. Was it safe to go now? Maybe she should bundle up her son and father and run. Anger and frustration welled within her until she could easily burst.
She wanted to scream. She wanted to hit someone or something. She needed to cry and hated herself for the weakness.
“Rain Shadow.”
Anton’s hand rested on her shoulder, and she realized she’d turned her back on him and stood shaking. She found her voice. “I’ll stay with the boys and look after the stock. You go dig.”
From behind, he roped her braid around his fist, forced her head around, shoulders and body following, until she curled into the curve of his arm. It was easy, then, to lay her forehead against the warmth of his broad chest and fold her arms around his waist. She turned her cheek, and his heart beat steadily beneath it.
Warm. Solid. Safe.
Too easy. Too easy to let herself grow soft and comfortable. Too easy to open a small door of trust and cleave to this immovable man. He was a boulder in a raging river, but she could cling only temporarily until the current carried her downstream.
She recognized his smell—horses and leather, soap and his own musky scent. From that day on, whenever she thought of Pennsylvania, she would smell sunshine and warm growing things, hear the steady beat of his heart and see a golden man, feet firmly planted on his own soil.
Sissy Clanton was a fool. A prim and proper, pale and freckled fool.
Anton released her hair, his thumb sliding along her jaw, caressing the sensitive skin behind her ear. Rain Shadow sensed the subtle change in his body. Her thoughts, turned inward until now, flowered out until she recognized the hard length of his body along hers, noticed her breasts crushed against the front of his jacket.
Her nipples grew sensitive to the brush of her flannel shirt, and she remembered another day she’d turned into his arms for comfort. He’d kissed her the way she’d never dreamed anyone would kiss her, pressed his face into her shirt and opened it, exposing her to his heated blue gaze and the sunlight filtering through the window.
She would remember each moment with him as long as she lived. Memories of expectant sunshine, golden hair and lashes, vivid blue eyes. She could carry the reminders with her anywhere, keep them to cheer endless train rides, savor them on lonely nights by a fire, fold them away for the years ahead.
Rain Shadow (Dutch Country Brides) Page 16