He checked the clock on the dresser, rose, and put his hands on her shoulders to stop her bustling. She flinched, but he kept a gentle hold on her.
“Jane.”
He lifted her chin to look into her eyes.
“You know this is going to be a real marriage, right?”
Though her eyes widened, she nodded, staring at his chin as if unable to look him in the eye. A tremble rippled through her.
“It’s going to be all right.”
An adorable blush started at her neck and crept upward, and she tried to lower her face, but he resisted gently. He brushed a tendril of hair off her temple, reveling in the soft strands that tangled around his fingers. “I know you’re nervous, but everything will work out. We’re married. Nothing that’s going to happen tonight is wrong between a husband and wife.”
“I know. I don’t—” She swallowed and closed her eyes as if summoning her courage. “I don’t know—”
Slowly drawing her into his arms, he rested his chin on her head, hiding his smile. She fit his embrace perfectly. He waited, and after a moment her arms came up to wrap around his waist, tentative and shy, but courageous, too, since he could feel her tremors and could only imagine how difficult this must be for her.
She was so strong and yet fragile, so tender, and yet he sensed the steel in her. She was everything he could’ve asked for in a wife, and so sweet his heart pounded, and he cautioned himself to go slowly, to not scare her. He brushed a kiss across the top of her head, said a prayer for wisdom, and led her to their marriage bed.
“How long will you be gone?” Jane folded a shirt and two extra pairs of socks together, and Harrison took them to stuff into his saddlebags. They’d been married less than a week, and already she couldn’t imagine her life without him—though he spent nearly every daylight hour working. All the love she’d been holding on to for such a long time had found a place. Her whole world now revolved around her husband.
He shook his head. “Depends on how much the cattle have drifted. I could only afford to hire a handful of extra riders, so roundup might take a month or better.” He glanced up from his list. “We’ll be as quick as we can.”
Reed Foster knocked on the open soddy door. “Boss, we’re all set.” Sunshine flashed on his reddish-yellow hair and made every one of his hundreds of freckles stand out. Barely out of his teens, he was Harrison’s other fulltime ranch hand. The three lounging beside the packhorses in front of the soddy were temporary hires, men who had ridden in together looking for work.
Harrison hoisted his bedroll and saddlebags and strode out into the sunshine. Though Jane wanted to sag onto the side of the bed and wallow in her sorrow, she forced herself to smile and follow him. She wouldn’t make a spectacle of herself, especially not in front of his men. If only their good-bye wasn’t so public, she might be able to do more than just wave and ask him to take care.
Lem tightened the ropes on one of the packs and stepped back, rubbing his chin. “Sure wish I were going with you, boss.”
Harrison secured his belongings behind his saddle. “I do, too, but I’ll feel better if you’re here looking after things. There’s plenty that needs doing.”
Jane felt the scrutiny of the men. Reed, who had returned safely from Fort Laramie with laden packhorses, was no trouble, frank, open, and sunny. But the other three were older, harder men, unlike any she’d encountered in Massachusetts. She wouldn’t mind at all when they left for the roundup. She only wished Harrison didn’t have to go with them.
“Let’s move out.” Harrison swung aboard his saddle and waited while the men followed suit. Saddles creaked, horses sidled, and bits jingled. They formed up with Harrison in the lead, and Jane swallowed against the lump in her throat, blinking hard. She would not cry.
Turning away, she entered the soddy. She needed to get to work, her favorite outward antidote for inward turmoil. Clacking dishes and cutlery together, she barely registered the sound of hoofbeats. A shadow blocked the light from the open door, and she whirled.
Harrison. He crossed the room in two strides and swept her into his arms. “I forgot to kiss you good-bye.” He suited actions to words, crushing the breath out of her while filling her heart brim full.
He was gone as abruptly as he’d come, and she sagged onto a chair, sighing. Surely he must care for her at least a little. Perhaps eventually, he might even come to love her as she longed to be loved. As she loved him.
Everything was perfect. She only hoped her sisters were as blissfully happy as she was right now.
Chapter 4
The first order of the day was to get the soddy thoroughly cleaned and organized, which entailed enlisting Lem’s help and moving everything out onto the grass.
“I’m not spending another night in this gloomy place until I have something between me and the dirt.” Jane stood on one of the chairs and held the stretched canvas so Lem could nail it to the rafters. “Dirt sifts down onto everything, and this morning, a spider dropped smack on the table.” She shuddered. “The canvas should stop a lot of that, and it brightens the place up. This afternoon, I’ll need you to bring me the ash bucket from the bunkhouse and a couple of wheelbarrows of that clay you used on the chimneys.”
“What do you want that for?” He spoke around the nails clamped between his teeth.
“I’m going to plaster the walls in here. Clay, ashes, and a little hay for a binder. That will lighten things up and seal out the dirt.” She grappled with another fold of tough fabric. “If it works, maybe we can do the same in the bunkhouse.”
“I wouldn’t mind something between me and the dirt wall, that’s for sure, but it seems like an awful lot of work. You’re going to tucker yourself out.”
“One of my mother’s favorite expressions was ‘Nobody ever died of tired.’” Jane smiled. “I want everything as nice as I can make it before Harrison gets back.”
The plastering took two days of backbreaking toil. Every muscle ached from mixing the clay, toting the buckets, and slapping the mixture on the walls, but when she had finished applying two coats, the inside of the soddy looked fresh and clean. Even Lem had to agree it sure spruced the place up. He helped her haul things back in, following her orders as to where to place the furniture.
“Glad you’ll be sleeping inside tonight. I don’t know why you wouldn’t use the bunkhouse. I offered to sleep in the barn.” He grappled with the bed frame.
“I didn’t mind. I’ve never slept outside before, and besides being a little chilly, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. The stars were amazing.” She pushed the table under the window beside the door, where it would get the most light. “Would you nail together a few crates to make some storage cupboards?” She set the chairs under the table, lining them up just so. “I want to unpack my books, and I’d dearly love to get the foodstuff up off the floor.”
“Harrison won’t know the place when he gets home.”
She certainly hoped not. Making their bed, spreading her patchwork quilt over the mattress, and plumping the feather pillows before tucking them into linen shams, her thoughts returned again to her husband. Where was he right now? Was he safe? Did those rough men he hired follow his orders? When would he be home?
“This is the last of it. Where should I put them?” Lem stood in the doorway gripping two fancy leather suitcases.
She tapped her chin. “I found them way back under the bed. A mouse or something has already been chewing on them, which is a shame, since they’re so nice.” She surveyed the room, which, while it was now much brighter and neater, didn’t abound in extra space. “Put them here on the bed for now.”
“I’ll fetch some water for coffee. I think we’ve earned a break.” He picked up the bucket by the door and limped away.
Jane spooned coffee into the pot and poked up the fire before she unlatched the first suitcase. If she could consolidate the contents, she could nest the suitcases one inside the other safely in one of the trunks.
Opening the cas
e, her eyes fell on a beautiful broadcloth suit, snowy shirts, and several silk ties and handkerchiefs. Her fingers brushed the navy silk as a hundred questions leaped to her mind. How had her husband, who wore homespun and buckskin and denim every day, come to own such fine clothing?
She quickly opened the second suitcase, expecting more of the same, but was surprised when papers and books filled the space. Letters, photographs, books on raising cattle, on farming, and several history books. Rolled up along one edge were large sheets of paper that proved to be blueprints for a house. In one corner of the drawings, bold and scrawling, someone had written, Stop being so stubborn and build the house. I won’t have you living in the dirt. Rutherford.
Curious.
A picture caught her eye. A beautiful young woman with soft, creamy shoulders rising from an evening gown, and dark ringlets piled high stared back at her with large, luminous eyes fringed with heavy lashes, a saucy tilt to her bow-shaped mouth. Jane turned the photo over.
Something to remember me by, Harrison darling. I won’t wait forever. Sylvia.
Who was this gorgeous creature? She must know Harrison very well to call him “darling.” Jane studied the face in the portrait, a green feeling sloshing in her middle. Sylvia. An unusual name for an unusual face. Her own name, Jane, was as plain as pudding. Her father had insisted on medieval monikers for each of his daughters, and where her sisters had received beautiful names—Evelyn, Emmeline, Gwendolyn—she’d been given Jane. Plain old Jane.
Another photograph, this one of two men, lay in one corner of the suitcase. The younger one was clearly Harrison in city clothes with his hair brushed neatly. He stood behind an older, seated man with piercing eyes and an uncompromising set to his jaw. Her fingers curled around the frame as she studied her husband’s face.
A shadow fell across the doorway. “That’s Harrison and his father.” Lem set the bucket of water on the table and ladled some into the coffeepot. “Two more stubborn individuals, I don’t know that I’ve met.”
“Help yourself to some corn bread if you like.” She waved to the pan on the table before returning the photographs to their place and latching the case. A heavy feeling, as if she’d been prying into secrets, pressed on her chest, but her curiosity about the man she married shoved it aside. She had so many questions that needed answers.
When the coffee boiled, she poured them each a cup and sat opposite Lem at the table. “Tell me about Harrison. You’ve known him a long time, haven’t you?”
He took his cup, blew across the steaming, dark liquid, and sipped. “Since he was a kid. I worked for his family back in Ohio, and when he wanted to head out West, I tagged along.”
She cradled her cup and breathed deeply of the rich aroma. “I want to know everything about him. How he came to be in Wyoming, why he wanted a mail-order bride, what his childhood was like. He’s got a suitcase of city clothes and another full of books on how to raise cattle and live on the prairie. He’s got the plans and materials for a house, but it’s sitting in a pile in a sod storage shed. Nothing seems to fit.”
Lem chuckled. “All those things are tied up together. One thing you need to know about Harrison is that he’s a strong man. Not just physically, though he could work most men to a standstill every day of the week. He’s strong inside. When he sets his mind to something, he doesn’t quit until he’s accomplished it. Gets it from his father, Rutherford Garvey.”
“Rutherford?” The one who had written the dictatorial note on the blueprints.
“Yep. That’s him. Rutherford Garvey owns a factory in Columbus. They make sewing stuff. Pins, needles, thread, trimmings.”
“The Garvey Sewing Company? That’s Harrison’s family?” Every woman who had ever sewn on a button had heard of Garvey’s. “How on earth did he wind up out here?”
“Stubbornness mostly. All his life Harrison has wanted to be his own man, make his own decisions, and all his life his father has tried to hem him in, force him to be the man his father wants him to be. Rutherford had the boy’s whole life planned out from the minute he was born, right down to the kind of girl he should marry and where he should live.”
Jane set her cup down carefully. “The kind of girl he should marry?”
“That’s right. Rutherford had a real beauty picked out for Harrison. Sylvia Norwood. A face to rival one of those Greek statues. Everyone expected them to announce their engagement, but Harrison bucked against the old man’s maneuvering. He wanted to make his own way in the world. I don’t know where he got the notion, but since he was a kid, he’s wanted to farm and raise cattle. That’s where the contract came in.”
“The contract?” Jane could hardly concentrate, she was so stunned.
“Yeah, old Rutherford finally decided Harrison wouldn’t settle down until he got this ranching lark out of his system, so the old man drew up a contract. He would loan Harrison the money to get started out here, to buy cattle, build the barn, hire hands. Harrison would have just three years to pay it all back with interest and show a profit. If he doesn’t, then he agrees to return to Ohio and work for his father in the family business. Rutherford put all kinds of clauses in it, I guess. I haven’t seen them all. Harrison doesn’t talk about it much. I do know Rutherford heard Harrison was living in a soddy and shipped that house out here. Harrison won’t build it though, because he doesn’t want to incur more debt. He won’t build it until he can buy the materials outright from his father. I don’t imagine that will be anytime soon, since everything he’s got is going into fulfilling the contract. It’s due soon.”
Her mind reeled. What kind of man was so ruthless as to treat his son this way? “And will Harrison make it?” She suddenly wanted him to succeed, to show his father he wouldn’t be ruled, that he would be his own man.
Lem shrugged, his face sober. “I don’t know. The first year out here was a rough one. We lost a lot of cattle over the winter, and that set him back. Since then, he’s worked himself nearly to a frazzle every day trying to make it up.”
“What about this Sylvia Norwood? Is she waiting for Harrison to get ranching out of his system and come home?”
“Doesn’t matter much now, does it? Harrison’s already married.” Lem refilled his coffee cup. “You could’ve knocked me over with a gesture when Harrison said he was answering that advertisement. I don’t think the notion ever hit him until Parker brought the paper over. They talked about it a long time, and I guess Harrison figured if he got married, that would be one less hold his father could have on him. Though he wrestled with the idea for a while, especially since he would need to pay your expenses out here, I guess he thought having a wife to do some of the chores would help him get the ranch. He could spend a lot more time on the range if someone was keeping the home fires burning, so to speak.”
Jane studied the red and white checks on the tablecloth, heat swirling in her ears and cheeks.
“You’re the right sort for here. I can’t see that fancy Sylvia lasting a day in a soddy, much less slapping clay on the walls or feeding chickens or the like. No sirree. You’re just what Harrison needs to help him meet that contract. I reckon he knew he’d need someone strong and healthy to share the load, who won’t expect pampering. Someone plain and sensible.”
Lem had no notion that his words hit like hammer blows, smashing all of Jane’s fragile dreams. While she’d known Harrison hadn’t married her for love, she had cherished the hope that love might grow between them. But if he’d only married her to spite his father and to have someone to do the chores, what hope did she have of happiness with him?
That night she curled on her side, pressing a pillow to her middle. She wanted to cry for her lost dreams, but the tears wouldn’t come. Sylvia’s beautiful face mocked her. Had Harrison loved her? Had she refused to follow him West? What was she, Jane, going to do?
Her hand drifted to the empty side of the bed, and mortification coursed through her. She’d responded wholeheartedly to Harrison’s advances. What must he think of h
er behavior? She’d assumed he was at least beginning to care for her, but if he only saw her as a scullery maid, cook, and gardener, then their coming together had nothing to do with tender feelings.
She drew a shuddering breath and clutched the pillow with more force.
The only thing she knew to do was to work hard. Perhaps if she helped Harrison get the one thing he wanted above all others, he might come to care for her a little bit, to see her more as a woman than as a hired hand.
But unless or until he did, there would be no more intimacy between them.
Harrison let his weight up off the calf, and it sprang away with a bawl of protest. The smell of singed hair, smoke, cows, and hot metal swirled around him like dust. He shoved the branding iron back into the coals and swiped his forehead with his sleeve.
“Here come a few more.” Reed coiled his rope and prepared to cut out another calf. “Do you want me to spell you?”
“No, I’m fine.” He motioned the boy toward the bunched cattle. Digging in his shirt pocket, he withdrew his tally book and pencil. The calf crop, though decent considering the winter they’d been through, wasn’t near what he’d hoped for, not nearly what he needed it to be. He blew out a breath and prepared to tackle the calf bucking at the end of Reed’s lasso.
The new men were working out all right, though they kept to themselves. He’d been lucky to hire them, considering he couldn’t afford to pay top wages and he didn’t even have a chuck wagon. But these fellows hadn’t seemed to care, only wanting to find work. Harrison looked forward to the day when he could afford to keep a full crew on year-round.
By nightfall of the twenty-third day, they’d finished. They’d ridden every corner of his range, they had branded every HG calf they could find, and their supplies were running low.
Fletcher, the leader of the trio of temporary hands, let his saddle plop into the dirt beside the campfire. Reed stirred yet another pot of beans and rice, squatting on his heels, his face and hair illuminated by the flames. Harrison stretched out on his bedroll and went over his figures again. No matter how many times he added it up, he was still going to be short.
Love Is Patient Romance Collection Page 10