by Karen Kirst
CHAPTER NINE
As soon as Adelaide entered Chris’s apartment she knew that her stay in Peppin would be painful at worst and bittersweet at best. What else could it be when she’d all but stepped into the reality of what her life would have been if she’d married Chris as she’d promised? His apartment over the mercantile was exactly where they would have lived.
She’d expected little more than the quintessential bachelor’s house. Instead, it actually looked and felt like a home. All of the furnishings had to be a bit small to fit, which gave a charming air to the three-bedroom apartment. Rich, amber hardwood floors stretched throughout while large windows filled each room with light. The kitchen was small, but functional with a shiny white stove that contrasted with the china-blue painted cupboard and cabinets.
“Adelaide, please sit down,” Rose said from where she sat on the brown velvet settee in the parlor. “You’re making me nervous.”
Realizing she’d been pacing, Adelaide wrung her hands together. “I can’t sit down.”
A hint of amusement filled her mother’s voice. “We’ve been in this apartment for less than an hour. How can you possibly have cabin fever already?”
“We can leave, right? The apartment, I mean. We don’t have to stay in here all the time, do we?”
“Oh, there is no way that we are staying in here constantly. We would go crazy.”
Relieved that for once she and her mother were on the same page, Adelaide finally sank onto the comfortable white chair across from the settee. “Or we’d kill each other.”
Rose laughed. “Or go crazy, then kill each other.”
“So we can walk about freely?”
“With company,” her mother amended. “There’s safety in numbers, so if you aren’t with me, make sure you’re with someone else you know you can trust.”
A knock sounded at the door that connected the apartment to the mercantile and Adelaide jumped up to answer it. She opened the door slightly to make sure it was Chris before fumbling with the lock and chain. Finally managing to get it open, she sighed and shook her head as Chris stepped inside. “Honestly, these safety precautions are making me more jittery than that abduction ever did.”
“You’ll get the hang of it in a little while.” Chris caught her hand and gave it a little squeeze.
She didn’t want to get the hang of it. Right now she just wanted to get out of there. Fortunately that was why Chris had arrived—to escort them to dinner. “I’m famished. Let’s go.”
“Yes, please.” Her mother seconded as she grabbed her reticule. “Chris, did Everett tell you when our luggage was arriving?”
“It should be here pretty soon. I’ll check on it after we eat.” He guided Adelaide toward the steps so that she preceded him downstairs while he hung back to lock the door and speak with her mother.
Seeing Sophia gathering her reticule and hat in the employees’ back room, Adelaide invited her to join them at the café. Sophia hesitated a moment before falling into step with Adelaide. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to stay long since my break is only twenty minutes, but I’d love to join y’all. Are you and your ma settling in all right upstairs?”
“I have to admit I’ve been a little antsy. The past several days were so busy for me that it’s hard to settle down sometimes.”
Sophia gave her a sympathetic look as they exited the store. “I’m sure. Well, if you ever want to come down to the mercantile, you’re more than welcome. We can always use another hand around the place.”
“I just might do that.” Adelaide laughed. “Other than my nervousness, everything is fine. More than fine, actually. Chris’s apartment is lovely—definitely not what I was expecting from a bachelor.”
“That’s because he wasn’t expecting to…” Sophia’s words stumbled to a halt before continuing more slowly and gently. “When he moved in, he wasn’t expecting to be a bachelor for long.”
“Oh.” They crossed the street while Adelaide went over the string of women he’d said he’d proposed to. “Who was he going to marry?”
Sophia’s brow furrowed in confusion. “You, Adelaide. He was going to marry you. I helped him a little with the decorating, but every choice he made was with you in mind. We were putting the finishing touches on the place when he got that last letter breaking the engagement.”
Adelaide couldn’t find the words to respond as her heart sank in her chest. An apology rose to her lips, but didn’t escape. Why should she apologize? She was the one who’d been wronged. Yet her anger had deserted her. All she felt in its absence was loss. How was it possible that she was only now starting to truly feel the effects of their long-ago breakup? Perhaps because once she’d heard about him and Amy she had refused to acknowledge that she’d ever cared for him as more than a friend. If she had, then how weak would it have made her to have fallen in love with a man with the same deplorable characteristics as her father?
Now she was faced with a new dilemma. If by some chance Chris didn’t have the same tendencies, then she’d hurt a good man and walked away from the possibility of a happy future with him…and for what? Either way, it hardly mattered now. The damage had been done to both of them. Regardless of how it might feel to live in the apartment he’d prepared for her, there was no going back.
She forced herself to snap back to the present. Meeting Sophia’s concerned blue eyes, a hint of a smile and a nod was the best she could offer the woman who would have been her sister-in-law. “That sounds like something Chris would do.”
“What sounds like something I would do?” Chris asked as he placed a proprietary hand on her back.
Adelaide realized her eyes were a bit misty and avoided his gaze, hoping Sophia would think of something to say. They were distracted instead by Rose’s happy gasp. “Is that Amelia Greene inside the café? Oh, it is.”
Mrs. Greene glanced up from her table on the other side of the café’s large picture window. The woman’s mouth fell open before mouthing Rose. Mrs. Greene gestured wildly for Rose to join them. Rose glanced back at them. “You don’t mind if I join her, do y’all?”
“Of course not,” Adelaide said, knowing that Mrs. Greene had been one of her mother’s closest friends when they lived in Peppin. At the time, Mrs. Greene was known to be the mouthpiece of the town’s grapevine, which was exactly why Rose had started a friendship with her. Rose always believed that gossips were less likely to spread rumors about their friends than they were mere acquaintances. It was a plan Rose implemented in every town they’d lived in, since Hiram had always given people plenty to talk about. Here in Peppin, Rose’s resulting friendship with Mrs. Greene had deepened into something genuine.
Adelaide and Rose agreed to meet back at the apartment later, then split up as soon as they entered the café. Adelaide was afraid that Chris might try to pick up their previous vein of conversation. However, once Adelaide finished catching up with Maddie, Sophia kept the conversation moving until her break was over. By the time Adelaide and Chris finished lunch and walked over to the train station, he seemed to have forgotten all about it.
He waved at one of the railroad men walking into the station. “Hey, Wes. This is Adelaide Harper. We’re looking for some luggage that was supposed to come in by train this afternoon for her and her mother, Rose Holden. Can you help us?”
“Sure thing.” Wes pulled off his gloves and nodded to Adelaide. “Nice to meet you, Miss Harper. I think I know which ones are yours. Two fancy-looking trunks, right? The train dropped them off only a few minutes ago, so I put them in the back. I’ll bring them out to you in just a moment.”
True to his word, Wes returned quickly with the trunks on a wooden pushcart.
“Miss Harper, if I could have you sign something saying you’ve picked up the luggage, I can get you on your way.”
Wes led the way inside the station. He pulled a tablet from behind a counter near the door beneath it and began to make a few notations. “So, you’re from Houston?”
Her eyes
narrowed. “How did you know that?”
He glanced up to grin. “The tags on your luggage gave you away.”
“Oh.” She laughed. “I guess they did. Actually, I used to live in Peppin.”
“You don’t say. When did you move away?”
“About five years ago.”
“That’s right about the time I was getting here. We must have just missed each other.” He turned the tablet around. Pointing to the place for her to sign, he asked, “Are you back here for good or just visiting?”
“I’m just visiting.”
“Well, I hope you have a nice time while you’re here—”
“Excuse me.” A young woman with dark blond hair stepped up to the counter. She offered them an apologetic look before continuing in a demure and heavily accented voice. “I’m sorry to interrupt. I am new. I do not know a lot of English. Can you help me? I’m looking for Johansens.”
The woman pronounced the J in Johansen with a soft Y sound, so it took Adelaide a moment to figure out what she meant. “Johansen’s? The mercantile?”
“No. Um…Chris or Olan? Marta?”
“Oh, the Johansen family,” Wes said. “Chris is right outside.”
“Chris is here?” Somehow the girl seemed to pale and flush at the same time. “Where?”
Wes rounded the counter to point out the window. “There he is, moving that luggage into a little wagon. See him?”
“That is Chris Johansen?”
Adelaide glanced out the window and decided the awe in the girl’s voice was more than a little justified by the sight of Chris hefting the last piece of luggage. However, the squeal that followed seemed a bit excessive. Chris turned to look toward the station, almost as if he’d heard the sound. He was probably looking for Adelaide. She, however, stayed inside watching from a safe distance as the other girl hurried toward him. The girl said something. He nodded hesitantly. That was enough for the girl to launch herself into his arms.
Chris caught her, which was probably a good thing, since she would have ended up facedown in the dirt if he hadn’t. He set her down and began to step back but she went in for a kiss. Adelaide felt her eyebrows lift as she counted the seconds it took him to disentangle himself. Precisely three. A little too long for her liking.
Wes leaned forward for a better look. “How does he get all of these girls to kiss him out of the blue?”
She spared a quick glance over her shoulder at him. “Exactly how many times has this happened?”
“This is the second that I know about. The first one was last week. Some woman walked into the mercantile and kissed him—”
“He kissed me, thank you very much.”
“Oh. Uh…sorry. I’ll be sure to clear that up next time I hear the rumor. Meanwhile, don’t you want to go out there and break that up? Or at least find out who that is?”
Adelaide bit her lip. She was pretty sure she knew exactly who that was. Well, not exactly. Chris never had told her the name of his Norwegian mail-order bride-to-be. A smart woman, a woman who wasn’t trying to relive the past, would take this opportunity to concede defeat and bow out gracefully. Of course, to do that she would have had to have been fighting for something—which she most certainly wasn’t. Chris’s panicked gaze seemed to find hers despite the distance as he kept his hands on the mail-order bride’s shoulders to hold her off. Helping him out was the least she could do after everything he’d done for her and her family for the over the past several days. Adelaide heaved a sigh. “I guess I’d better. Are you coming?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
“I figured.”
“That’s what friends are for.”
He didn’t seem to notice the startled look she gave him. He was too busy trying to explain the correct form for a right uppercut punch just in case she needed to defend herself or Chris from the “mystery woman” as he called her. Meanwhile, Adelaide marveled at the fact that she’d made a friend in less than five minutes. That was something she hadn’t been able to do in five years while living in Houston.
*
Keeping the woman who’d kissed him at arm’s length, Chris glanced desperately over her shoulder in time to see Adelaide and Wes exit the station. They walked toward him as though completely oblivious to his situation, even though he’d seen them watching from inside. They kept jabbing the air. Finally, they laughed together and an unfamiliar feeling coiled in his stomach.
Why had he never considered that Adelaide might meet someone else and fall in love? Just because she didn’t want to marry him or the men her mother had picked out for her, didn’t mean she never wanted to get married to someone of her own choosing. Wasn’t that what Chris wanted for himself? Adelaide could do a lot worse than Wesley Brice…
But that was not the point. They had a deal. There was no way he was letting her out of it now. He forced himself to refocus on what the woman in front of him was saying in rapid Norwegian. She sounded exhausted and overexcited, which made all her words run together in an incomprehensible babble.
“Slow down,” he said. “I can’t understand you. Who are you?”
“I told you,” she responded. “I am Britta Solberg. Your bride-to-be.”
Chris shook his head. “There has been a mistake.”
“You are Chris Johansen. I am Britta Solberg. Your parents arranged a marriage between us. I know that I am here earlier than they planned, but I could not wait a moment longer. You are more handsome than I thought you would be.”
Chris felt his cheeks redden. What was it with women and his looks lately? This was getting uncomfortable and not just because she’d already kissed him. Britta was pretty with her dark blond hair and gray eyes, but she looked young—really young. “How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
Chris frowned.
“Eighteen.”
He lifted a brow.
“Seventeen.” She held up a hand to stop him from narrowing his eyes. “I am seventeen. I promise. That is more than old enough to get married.”
He would have said the same thing once. Now, standing face-to-face with a seventeen-year-old who did want to marry him, he realized that Adelaide had been a little young to become a bride back when he’d proposed. And back then, he’d been seventeen about to turn eighteen. Now he was twenty-four. The six-year difference between him and Britta seemed huge. To be honest, the way she stared at him now with such adoration reminded him of a younger version of Sophia. He found himself slipping into overprotective brother mode. “Did you travel here alone? Where is your chaperone?”
“She went on to Clifton—the Norwegian settlement to the north. She left me here. I have my bags. Where is your family? When do we get married?” She shifted from one foot to the other with nervous energy until she appeared to be wagging like an overzealous puppy. How was it, then, that he was the one who felt like whimpering? The sound of a throat clearing behind Britta shifted the girl’s focus from him to Adelaide. Chris took advantage of Britta’s distraction to catch Adelaide’s arm and guide her to his side. Britta smiled at her. “Sophia?”
Adelaide gave her a sympathetic if guarded smile in return. “No, I’m afraid not.”
It almost seemed as if Britta understood her, for both women looked to him. Adelaide was giving him a choice. He recognized that. He was going to try to go about this the honest way if he could. “Britta, I can’t marry you.”
Her smiled dimmed. “We are promised.”
“I did not promise anything.”
“Your parents did. That is enough.”
Adelaide leaned closer to whisper. “She speaks English, Chris, and I’d prefer to know what y’all are saying.”
He tested it out. “I know what my parents promised, but I made a promise to Adelaide many years ago that I’d marry her.”
“Chris…” Adelaide began, no doubt protesting their sudden jump from a courtship back to an implied engagement. However, one pointed glance at her lips was enough to silence her.
Bri
tta frowned and proved that she could speak English with two words. “Speak Norwegian.”
He repeated himself.
“This is the Adelaide to whom you have promised yourself?” At his nod, Britta’s gaze surveyed Adelaide as though thoroughly unimpressed and unthreatened. “I will speak to your parents, then we will marry.” Chris didn’t even realize Wes was still standing there until Britta switched to English to speak to the man. “I want to see Olan and Marta Johansen. Will you take me there and help me with my things?”
Chris shrugged. “I’ll take you. It’s the least I can do. Which bags are yours?”
She pointed them out. He hefted them into the pushcart next to Adelaide’s and Rose’s trunks. Looking at their luggage all mingled together, he realized that Britta was going to need someplace to stay. She probably didn’t have money for a hotel. She could hardly stay with his parents—in the same house as him. That meant there was only one place for her to stay. He sent Adelaide an apologetic look even though she didn’t seem to realize her fate yet. Wes kept Britta distracted while Adelaide joined Chris beside the cart.
“You do know that no one can make you marry a woman against your will,” she whispered to him. “Engaged to me or not. You have to stand up for yourself and tell your father no.”
“Says the woman who refuses to tell her mother that exact same word.”
“Hey, I’ve told her no plenty of times. She just completely ignores me. It’s annoying as all get-out, but you don’t see me about to walk down the aisle with someone I don’t want to marry. Do you?”
“Well, you are engaged to me so…” He caught her hand before she could poke his stomach. “None of that. I’ve been manhandled by enough women today. I’ve reached my quota.” Her gaze fell to his lips and lingered there long enough to make his thinking go a little haywire. Why else would he be considering suggesting that he and Adelaide put this whole issue to rest by simply getting married to each other? It was a logical solution that would solve both their problems.