The Telegraph Proposal

  “Good morning, sir.” Hale sounded nervous.

  “Yancey is almost ready.” Papa sounded like he was holding back a chuckle. “Would you like to come in?”

  Yancey stopped at the edge of the hallway to catch her breath before turning the corner into the parlor. “I’m here, Papa. I know better than to keep Hale waiting.”

  The stunned look on Hale’s face was worth every bit of her considerable effort and constricting corset. “I’ll, uh, I’ll have her home before one this afternoon, sir.”

  Papa nodded at Hale, kissed Yancey’s cheek as she passed, and shut the door. His rich chuckle penetrated the wood.

  To cover her father’s laughter, Yancey said the first thing that came into her head. “I see Windsor loaned you his carriage again.”

  “He needs it back by one. I hope you don’t mind.” Hale turned so they were side by side and extended his elbow.

  Yancey laid her hand on his arm, noting the stark contrast between her white glove and his black jacket. “I don’t mind at all.”

  They descended the steps and, after tucking the box under the seat, he assisted her into the carriage. Once he was settled in the driver’s seat, he said, “I thought we could picnic on the field next to your church. In addition to having a firepit, it’s public, but large enough that our conversation won’t be overheard.”

  Yancey’s stomach somersaulted inside her torso. He wanted to be private, to speak to her and her alone. “That sounds lovely.”

  Oh, so lovely.

  The ride to church never lasted so long or went so fast. Hale pointed out landmarks as though she was new in town. Yancey remarked on the beautiful sunshine and cool autumn breeze. It was an inane conversation—he must be as nervous as she—but between his tour and her weather commentary, they made it to the other side of town and parked the carriage in the dirt lot next to her church.

  The green field was dotted with Aspen leaves and pinecones that had fallen from the bordering trees. An occasional gust of wind sent the leaves dancing in the air before they settled again.

  Hale helped her down from the carriage, took a large wicker basket from under the back bench, then offered her his arm again. How delightful to walk with this man who owned her heart. They reached the center of the clearing, where stones circled the charred remains of last month’s bonfire.

  He stopped, and she reluctantly let go of his arm. He set the wicker basket on the ground and withdrew a blue-and-green-plaid blanket. After flapping it open, he let it float down to cover the grass. “I hope this will protect your lovely dress.”

  His compliment made her giddy with delight.

  Yancey bent her knees, inching closer to the wool blanket while her tightly laced corset kept her from bending sideways. Which, as it turned out, made it quite impossible to gracefully sink to the ground and lean on one arm like the women in paintings. Stuck halfway between sitting and standing, Yancey started to giggle.

  Hale frowned at her. “Is something funny?”

  “I . . . I . . .” Her inability to speak over the giggling made her laugh until she snorted.

  “Do you need some assistance, madam?” Amusement sparkled in Hale’s voice.

  “Hand,” she managed. One appeared. She gripped it, then didn’t know if she wanted it to help her rise or sit, which increased her hilarity until she started to hiccup.

  Oh, what a disaster, but as there wasn’t a thing she could do about it, she might as well make the best of it.

  She balanced herself against Hale’s hand, but it didn’t work for long. She started leaning sideways and—before she could recover—toppled to the ground. It knocked out the small amount of air she’d managed to get into her lungs, but at least her hiccups were gone.

  “Are you all right?”

  Yancey craned her neck to look up at Hale.

  His shoulders were shaking and his face was pinched as though in pain.

  “Go ahead and laugh before you hurt yourself.”

  He obeyed with staccato bursts of mirth, dropping to his knees and flopping sideways in a perfect imitation of her descent.

  Seeing proper, stodgy Hale Adams lying on his back with both hands pressed against his bouncing stomach was worth every bit of embarrassment and her current inability to take a full breath.

  “I . . . I don’t think ... I’ve ever ... laughed this ... hard.”

  He hadn’t. At least not that she’d ever seen. And she’d make a fool of herself every day if it would keep that smile on his face.

  “I’m sorry.” He wiped tears from under his glasses. “I shouldn’t laugh at you.”

  “You most certainly should.” Yancey pushed herself into a respectable lean, the corset digging into her hip. “But I’m warning you now. If you thought getting down was bad, getting up is going to be much worse.”

  That sent him into a fresh round of hilarity.

  She gloried in the sound of it, knowing she had given him the gift of joy.

  Hale slowed his laughter with longer and longer breaths until he drew in a deep one, held it, and let it out in a long exhale. “Tell me honestly, which is going to be more comfortable for you, picnicking here or going to a restaurant?”

  “I’d rather we stay here”—because she wasn’t giving up her private time with him for anything—“but could we move up the hill so I can sit on that tree root?” She pointed with her head because both hands were needed to keep her propped in her current position.

  “Of course.” Hale eyed her. “How do you propose we get you to your feet?”

  “I think you’re going to have to grab me under the arms and hoist.” Not a sentence she’d ever expected to say, but there it was.

  Hale grinned as though he’d read her mind. He stood and came around behind her, fitting his hands under her arms. “Ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  “One, two, three-ee.” He lifted with such strength, her feet left the ground for an instant. As soon as she landed, he let go.

  Unfortunately.

  “Are you all right?” He came alongside her, the amusement in his eyes replaced by genuine concern. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  “No. I’m fine.” She stepped off the blanket so he could gather it up again.

  They set off for the small rise where a large tree stood, its roots visible. When they got there, Hale folded the blanket into a square and set it on the largest root. “Allow me to help you down.”

  Yancey took his proffered hand and, with great effort, managed to sit with respectable grace.

  By the time he’d unpacked pork pies, pickled asparagus, golden brown rolls, slices of three different cheeses, potato salad, lemonade, meringues filled with sugared berries, and custard tarts, Yancey suspected he’d enlisted Zoe Gunderson’s help.

  There was a time to enjoy the company of the person you loved and there was a time to eat. If the book of Ecclesiastes didn’t include that bit of wisdom, it should.

  Hale seemed to agree. They enjoyed the wonderful food while conversing about a variety of topics—how he was beginning to fear approaching strangers less, her decreasing fear over the anonymous notes now that Marshal Valentine had ruled out any foul play in the Popes’ carriage accident, Luanne safely delivering a baby girl, Emilia’s pregnancy, and Carline and Windsor’s progressing romance. They were two people in love talking about the people they loved. It was more delicious than the custard tarts.

  “Yancey . . .” Hale brushed a crumb from his trousers. “I believe the time has come for me to . . .”

  Her heart sped up. Was this the moment? Was he about to ask if she’d consent to be his wife? “Yes?”

  “What I’m trying to say is, I think it’s important that I share a bit more about my family with you.”

  She ducked her head to hide her disappointment. “Please do.” She’d always been curious, because the only thing she’d heard—when she was ten years old—was that there was some unpleasant business between his father and mother.

 
; Hale continued brushing at his pant leg, his eyes not meeting hers. “On my eighteenth birthday, my father announced that he could no longer live a lie. He had a second family, and now that I was grown and off to college, he needed to spend more time with his sons who were five and three.”

  Yancey covered her mouth with her hand. What could she possibly say to counter the hurt of something so terrible? Nothing. There were no words to make it better. And while she ached for him, she also realized that by sharing this incredibly intimate secret with her he’d given her a gift as rare as his earlier laughter.

  If only a box could contain such a treasure.

  He peeked up at her for an instant before dropping his gaze again. “It wasn’t until several weeks later, when Uncle Jonas came to support my mother, that we found out my father had, in point of fact, illegally married this other woman.”

  “He was a bigamist?” She barely got the words out of her covered mouth.

  But he heard and nodded.

  She lowered her arm. “You must have been livid.”

  “I was, but mostly because my mother refused to let me stay and help her. She and my uncle—”

  “—sent you to Helena,” Yancey finished, then gasped at her interruption of his story. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I was just fitting the pieces together.”

  He smiled at her, but his eyes remained serious.

  “So when you punched Bruno Carson in the nose, you weren’t defending me as much as you were taking out your anger on the nearest target.”

  He nodded and looked down again. “It was unforgivable of me.”

  And she’d praised him from one end of Helena to the other, spreading the tale of an incident he regretted. More than that, was mortified by. She wished she could lean forward and place a hand on his arm in a gesture of support, but her corset wouldn’t allow it. “I’m so sorry, Hale. I had no idea.”

  “No one did, which was what I wanted. I still want it, but I thought it only fair that you know the truth.” He took out his pocket watch and clicked open the lid.

  “What happened next?”

  Hale frowned. Did he not expect her to ask questions? “With my mother?”

  “Well . . . yes. I’d like to hear about her, too, but I was asking about your father.”

  “He and my mother divorced, and he legally married his other woman.” He snapped his watch closed and stuffed it into his vest pocket.

  “What’s she like?”

  Hale tipped his head to the left, his eyes narrow. “Who?”

  “Your stepmother.”

  “Don’t call her that.”

  Yancey blinked, shocked at the harsh tone of his voice. “What else should I call her?”

  Hale looked away. After a long moment, he said, “Her name is Jeanette. I’ve never met her.”

  Yancey’s mouth fell open. “Never?”

  Hale shot her a perturbed glance. “That’s what I said.”

  “What about your ... ?” Should she call them stepbrothers? Hale would hate it, but was there anything else to call them? “Your stepbrothers? Have you met them?”

  “I don’t understand why you want to know about them.”

  “Because they are your—”

  “What? My family?” Resentment filled each syllable. “They most certainly are not. At best, they are my father’s wife and sons. I want no part of them.”

  Yancey snapped her teeth together with a clink. “Do they want a part of you?”

  “I think it’s time we burn those letters.” He pointed his chin toward the carriage where they had agreed to leave the letters until after their picnic.

  But Yancey wasn’t ready to give up on the conversation just yet. “After you tell me how your mother died.”

  Hale jerked back. “What makes you think she’s dead?”

  “You mean she isn’t?”

  “Of course not.”

  “But you never talk about her.”

  His squint said, Why does that matter?

  “When’s the last time you visited her? Because in the five years you’ve lived in Helena, the only time you left town was for that conference in Denver almost a year ago.” Yancey brightened. “Wait. Does she live in Denver now?”

  “She lives in England. It’s not an easy journey.”

  Yancey stared at Hale, trying to mold the resentful man before her into the model of perfection she’d made him out to be.

  He didn’t fit.

  She tried one more time, hoping to squeeze him back into the Hale Adams of her dreams. “Then I presume you write to her often.”

  “Not since she remarried and started her own second family.” The vein at his temple pulsed. “I’m an orphan, you see, left behind by both my father and my mother.”

  Wanting to pull him into a hug and also punch him, Yancey crossed her arms to keep from doing either. “I can understand why you’re upset with your father but not your mother.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I didn’t ask for your opinion.” He stood and held out his hand. “It’s time for us to go.”

  Yancey remained seated. “I’m not going anywhere until you and I finish this discussion.”

  “I’ve no wish to continue.”

  “Too bad, because I do.”

  Hale blinked, as if he didn’t recognize her.

  Yes, well, she didn’t recognize him either. And his harsh description of his family didn’t sound the same as the one he’d described in his letters. He’d written about trips to New York City, Niagara Falls, and Toronto. He hadn’t sounded bitter about them, so either he’d lied—which wasn’t like him—or he was blinded by his hurt. “When you were seventeen, how would you have described your family?”

  “Ideal.” Spoken with a resentment at odds with his declaration.

  “And now?”

  He withdrew his hand and raked it through his hair. “It was all a sham. None of it was real.”

  “Wrong.”

  He blinked and stared at her again. “My father ruined everything.”

  “No.” She gripped her hands in her lap. “He ruined the ideal picture you had of your life. That isn’t the same thing.”

  “Close enough.”

  “Wrong,” she repeated, infusing it with as much gentleness as her mounting frustration at his thick-headedness allowed. “Do you know what Carline’s uncle keeps telling her about the death of her parents? That she must take the good with the bad. Now, it’s no secret that Mr. Eugene Nordstrom and I have some serious disagreements, but he’s absolutely right in this instance. If Carline sees her life before July of this year only through the glasses of grief, she will lose twenty years of happy memories with wonderful parents who loved her.”

  “My father never loved me. Or my mother.”

  She shook her head. “Are you so committed to seeing only the bad that you cannot—you will not—see the good?”

  He looked away.

  “I’m not blind to what is happening between us, Hale. I know you wanted to kiss me last week, and you certainly know I wanted you to.”

  He crossed his right arm over his chest to rub his left bicep. “I concede your point.”

  He’d reverted to being a lawyer, so she matched his logical word choice. “You must also concede that I’ve made no secret of my desire to be your wife since I was ten years old.”

  He nodded.

  “Then I hope you understand how difficult it is for me to say these next words.” She took several shaky breaths while gathering her courage. “I cannot bind my future to a man who may at some point decide that I or our children have disappointed him so deeply that he sees us as lost causes.”

  He jerked his attention to her. “I would never—”

  “You’ve already done it to me once. When I was fifteen and came between you and the happy future you wanted. I will not be the nearest woman at hand to help write over the first eighteen years of your life with your new, ideal family. No family will ever be ideal, Hale. You must find a way to for
give yours if you ever want to forge a happy—not ideal, but happy—one in the future.”

  “What should I do?” He stared at some point over her left shoulder. “Pat my father on the back and congratulate him on his lovely wife and delightful children? Thank my mother for moving to an entirely different continent to start a new life without me?”

  “I don’t know. But I do know you need to figure out what forgiveness looks like, regardless of what happens between the two of us.” Yancey held out her hand so he could assist her to stand. When they were eye to eye, she added, “Please learn how to take the good with the bad, Hale. More than just your future is dependent upon it.”

  * * *

  Jonas shifted in the saddle. He was getting too old to ride for weeks on end covering his quarter of the Montana Territory. If only the train lines ran where he needed to go and the government reimbursed him for travel. When he became senator, the first bill he’d sponsor would allot funds to cover the necessary expenses required for his job.

  At least the weather was cool and his saddlebags were full of the last counterfeits printed before Smith destroyed the press. They’d met up in Deer Lodge at Jonas’s mine. It was a shame to let a good employee like Smith go, but he’d served his purpose and was off to another job somewhere in Wyoming. With the printing press gone, Jonas needed to conserve every penny anyway.

  He plodded through the valley east of Helena, his eye catching on the cabin where Marilyn Svenson Pawlikowski once lived. After she and David married, they’d used the place to shelter less fortunate souls. Currently, it was inhabited by Mrs. Mitzi Oren, a middle-aged widow with four children, who did housekeeping duties for various families around town. As he hoped, she was home working in her yard. He lifted a hand in greeting. She pushed her shovel into the dirt and waved back, calling, “Welcome home, Judge Forsythe.”

  He laid the reins on his black stallion’s neck. As much as Jonas wanted to hurry home and kiss his wife, the reason for detouring so many miles out of the direct route between Deer Lodge and here was so Mrs. Oren or someone else would see him. The horse picked up his sedate pace, perhaps because the tall, scrawny widow had fed him a carrot the last time Jonas stopped to chat. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Oren. I see your pumpkins are coming in nicely.”