John’s ill-combed head popped through the doorway as soon as they drove past the Stantons’ barn. He smiled, waved, and ran straight for them.
She let a half smile slide onto her face as she stepped down onto the dirt-packed yard. Though just turned eight, John could make any girl feel welcome and wanted. Unlike her husband, who had busied himself with grabbing bridles from the back of the wagon.
“Juuuliiiiaaa!” John sang her name and bounded over to her. “Ma’s got a secret! But I’m not supposed to tell. No. Can’t tell. Anyone. But she said she’d tell you whenever you got here.” He grabbed her wrist and tugged. Heaven help his future bride. Whereas she wished Everett would utter three words together, John’s wife would need three sets of ears and plenty of spunk to keep up with his jibber-jabber.
“I have to keep it a secret. I’m not supposed to tell no one. Not even you. Or Everett. Not one single person, and I promised. You’ll have to keep it a secret. Just like me.”
John dragged her up the stairs, followed by Everett, and stopped in front of Rachel, who dropped her mending into her lap and rolled her eyes at him. Dex was whittling at the head of the table.
John bounced in place. “Go on. Ask.”
Rachel held out her palm and stood. “No need to ask, but I’d better tell you the secret before John bursts.” She turned to the squirming boy. “But it isn’t polite to forget to greet your guests. I hope you greeted Julia before you dragged her in here.”
John’s face scrunched.
Julia laughed and chose to save him. “I think his spirited waving would constitute a greeting. Good morning to you, Rachel.”
“Pleased to have you drop in.” Rachel flattened her skirt over a slightly bulging stomach. “I’ll give you a chance to guess the secret yourself.” She flashed a grin at Everett.
“I presume there’s a little one to be born in the Stanton household?” Julia forced a smile, though all she wanted to do was frown. Rachel would expect her to be happy at this news, and so she would be—at least on the outside. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
Rachel shrugged. “I’ve lost a few.”
That familiar feel of cold ran up her arms. Losing babies was one thing, but losing mothers was another. Would she lose the one person in the county whom she could talk to in just a matter of months?
“I’m excited this time though, because I’ll have someone to help attend me.”
“Is there another midwife in the area now?” Everett leaned against the wall in the corner, hat in his hands.
Julia wished he’d leave so she could talk to Rachel alone, but it didn’t look like either man planned on moving anytime soon.
Rachel grabbed Julia’s hand. “No, but I have her.”
Julia stepped back. “Me? No.” She waved her hands in front of her. She wouldn’t ever go into a birthing room. Not again. Never again. The last time she had done so with her mother, she’d forever turned her father against her. But she couldn’t blame him; it was all her fault. She swallowed hard and worked out a reply that sounded intelligent. “I’m no midwife, no nurse. I barely know how to bandage a wound.”
Rachel chuckled and whispered, “I’ve given birth four times and attended countless others. All I need is a helper. I can tell you what needs to be done.”
That wasn’t the problem at all. She knew what needed to be done—and what things should never be done. She hugged herself to staunch the qualm in her middle. “I can’t.”
Rachel bent to look in her eyes. “It’s not that horrifying.”
She shook her head. The image of her dead baby brother painted itself onto her arms. She squeezed her eyelids until darkness overcame the image. If Rachel’s baby died, she’d be stuck in Kansas with a friend who would hate her and a man she wasn’t comfortable with.
“Really, you’ll be great help. Seeing a birthing will help you get over any fear of going through it yourself.”
Julia would never voluntarily go through the agony her mother did, losing child after child. Rachel had said she’d lost a few. How could she be serene about it? Her mother had never gotten over a single stillbirth. She barely cared that she had a daughter. But the last baby was a boy, a son, a living son, who died in his sister’s hands only minutes before his mother followed him into heaven.
The Stanton boys’ shouting in the yard bespoke that Rachel had indeed been more successful in bringing children into the world than Julia’s mother, but she couldn’t bear the thought of holding another dead baby—and definitely not her own. Her grandmother had the same problem as her mother, so why would it be any different for her? It was best to never try. And Theodore had swiped away any desire she’d ever had to become a mother.
But how could she not help if no one else was around to do so? “I guess I can help.”
“And I’ll send for you when Mrs. Hampden has her baby. She’s due in a few weeks. That way you’ll have a good idea of what to expect.”
Could she for once expect something good? It wasn’t like children didn’t exist. Children and mothers did survive the process.
John tugged on her hand. “And she forgot to tell you about the kittens. We have kittens too, so we know all about babies around here. I was there with the mama cat, I was. I can help with birthin’.”
“Sure you can.” Rachel poked his side. “You’ll do your chores when the time comes without complaining. Now, get with you.”
Julia sat beside Rachel in the rocker and unwrapped the knitting needles she’d brought with her. Feeling watched, she looked up.
Everett was staring at her with the most peculiar look on his face, but then grabbed a discarded wooden piece off the table and tried to spin the misshapen piece like a top. “So glad to find you home. Need any choring help this afternoon?”
Dex leaned over to spit before answering. “Naw, I’m inside for a while. Broke the ax handle.” He brandished his carved stick of wood. “Nothing left to do with the handle but whittle. Rachel wants me to carve a whistle while I’m at it.”
“Ambrose’s eleventh birthday’s tomorrow,” Rachel said.
Everett grabbed a different chunk of wood. “You using this piece for the whistle?”
Dex nodded.
“I’ll help you start. What’s the plan?”
The men conversed about dimensions and angles for cutting. Julia took a deep breath and released it. Just because Everett remained inside didn’t mean she couldn’t talk. If she didn’t converse with someone, she might explode. But maybe she could get Rachel to do most of the talking. “So how far along are you?”
“Five and a half months—not too much longer to go.”
A few times, the men’s laughter interrupted their conversation. Throughout the next hour, she often stopped to stare at Everett as he rocked in his chair with laughter or teased Dex or the boys. He even chucked wood pieces at John, who attempted to catch them by contorting in crazy positions.
Everett stood and hiked his knee onto a bench, crossing his arms below the crook of his leg, a hand wiggling on either side of his knee. “Put your arms like this, John. I’ll throw two at a time.”
Upon John’s success at catching the wildly thrown sticks, the men roared in approval.
“Hush, boys. You’ll wake up Emma.” Rachel wagged her finger at them, and they at least tried to keep it down.
Julia fidgeted in her chair. This was not the Everett she knew. He had not stopped smiling for the last twenty minutes. The camaraderie between him and the children and Dex sliced at her. He had an enjoyable personality. Just not one he wished to share with her, apparently.
She was nothing more than an intruder. The Stantons had been friends with Everett for years, and their easy company revealed she didn’t yet belong. He’d reiterated many times the past few weeks how summer work was too important to put aside for things like sleep and food, yet he didn’t seem a bit on edge about spending hours here wasting time. Hanging her head, she tried to concentrate on her stitch count.
“G
lad to see him act like his old self.” Rachel’s soft voice cut into her tally. “I knew it wouldn’t take him long to warm to you. Thought his tongue had froze off right after your wedding. In a stupor over your beauty and his good fortune, I suppose. Never seen him act like that.” Rachel leaned over to catch a wayward spool of thread. Her constricted voice floated up from between the chairs. “Not even around my sister.” She settled back into her seat and waved her needle. “Though she’s quite pretty, Patricia can’t hold a candle to you. I felt terrible for him when she left him for Duncan, but Everett’ll make you a better husband than Duncan has Patricia. I can read between the lines of my sister’s letters. He’s a scoundrel.”
Patricia? Everett had been courting Rachel’s sister? Scrambling through her mind, Julia envisioned the extra trunk’s engraved latch. No P in the monogram. He’d never said a thing about the items from the trunk she’d spread throughout the room. Maybe the reason he remained distant lay in this new information.
Pining for a lost love, perhaps? Seems he had two women to choose from.
A repressed sob reached into her throat, threatening to strangle her. She stood, and the beginnings of an infant’s cap in her lap dropped to the floor.
Rachel looked at her, puzzled. “Are you all right, Julia?”
“I . . . I ought to, need to, uh . . . go outside.”
Rachel stood and caught her shoulder. “By all means, go. But you’d tell me if you were in pain, right? If something’s wrong?”
If only she could tell her. She moved her head with an ambivalent shake before turning to escape out of doors.
Rachel followed her onto the porch. “Julia?”
Afraid Rachel would pry into emotions she didn’t understand, she sucked in air and put on a cheery face, hoping to mask the tears about to spill over. “Just need to, you know . . .”
When Rachel nodded, she headed in the direction of the privy and once out of sight, tramped into the woods quite a distance before letting go. The onset of tears heightened the stabbing pain behind her eyes, yet she sobbed all the more. She was clearly overreacting. She wasn’t supposed to care what Everett had done, who he’d known. Of course something terrible in his past had pushed him into a marriage of convenience—just like her. But why did it bother her that he’d most likely loved two women when she’d already suspected he’d most likely been jilted by one?
She swiped at the nonsensical tears. She shouldn’t care. Why did it matter? She didn’t want to be his wife in the traditional sense.
It rankled her that he’d had the capacity to love more than one woman, that he loved the entire Stanton family—but didn’t care for her, not even a smidgen. No one had ever loved her, and now, no one ever would.
When the tears ceased, she leaned her head against the mossy trunk of a nearby tree and fixed her eyes on a small flock of songbirds pecking near a puddle.
Everett wasn’t thrilled with her, but she was no stranger to that. Father had never been pleased with her. And it turned out Theodore had never been enthralled with her either, just the business opportunity she represented . . . and just like every other man she’d met, he considered her nothing more than a delicate ornament to crush if it suited his fancy.
She closed her eyes. She’d wished many times to be more than an attractive face useful for conning her father’s customers into purchasing something they didn’t need, and she’d finally gotten her wish. Her husband cared nothing for her looks.
But he also cared nothing for her. Might never care. She was competing with women in his past she didn’t even know.
There had to be a bright side to this.
She had the opportunity now to make a man who hadn’t fallen for her physical charms to think well of her. She’d always wanted to be respected for the woman she was on the inside.
Yes, this was the good of it. She would work so hard, she’d make him proud. If all he did was see that her beauty was only one of many good things about her, she’d be happy.
Her mouth grew dry and new tears pressed on the back of her eyes. That was a lie. What she really wanted was to make the Everett back in the Stantons’ cabin like her. Maybe even something more. The thought terrified her, but she couldn’t deny that the desire toyed with her heart. Could she really end her days content, knowing that no man had ever truly loved her? The image of Everett cutting wood shirtless swam unbidden before her. Could she truly allow a man to love her like a man loved a woman?
No. A friendship like the one he enjoyed with the Stantons was a worthy enough goal. And a lot less scary.
Whimpering in the woods wouldn’t help. She dried her tears and threaded her way back to the Stantons’ cabin. Their door opened, and Everett’s lithe form bounced down the stairs. Whistling, he headed to the barn and threw open the whitewashed door. Children’s laughter rolled out of the dark interior. The kittens were probably in the hayloft. At least she’d have Rachel to herself now.
Pulling the front door open, she envied the sound hinges. Perhaps she could figure out how to fix the hinge at home herself. Inside, Dex was standing in front of Rachel, his hands resting on the arms of her chair, their lips only a breath apart.
Dex glanced in her direction, a shaft of sunlight illuminating his face.
“I’m so sorry.” Her face flamed. “I’ll just step back out.”
“Not a problem, Julia. I was just leaving.” Dex turned back to his wife. “But I needed something before I left.” He lowered his lips to Rachel’s.
Julia threw her glance to the floor. After the sound of their kiss ended, she couldn’t help but peek. Dex cupped the back of Rachel’s head and kissed her hairline. “Love you, Rach.”
A lovely blush settled upon Rachel’s cheeks, and Dex gave her a tender look before straightening.
Dex winked at Julia and sidestepped her for the door.
Rachel coughed. “Sorry for that.”
“No reason to be sorry.” At least one woman she knew could enjoy kisses. If only she could look forward to them without fear.
Julia bit her lip. She would not cry a second time today.
Chapter 12
Several days later Everett straddled the last beam of his new cabin’s roof.
“I can stay and help get the rest up,” Dex called up from below in what would one day be the main bedroom. But would it forever remain just his bedroom? Everett almost didn’t want to finish the house since separation was exactly how Julia wanted things.
“If you’re sure the boss won’t mind.”
“She’s rather anxious for this to get done so she can have my slave labor back. She won’t mind—too much.” Dex sidled over to the fence. “If we work hard enough, I think we can have the whole roof on by tonight.”
Everett dropped down out of the rafters and joined Dex, taking the canteen he offered and pouring the lukewarm water over his head before taking a swig. “As long as you leave well before nightfall.”
“The moon will be bright enough to keep my team on the path.”
The moon was visible even now, a chipped silver dish in the bright blue sky, but the flicker of Julia’s bright green skirts swimming in his peripheral vision distracted him. He rubbed the bruise on his left hand and forced himself to stare at the grasses bending in the breeze in front of him. He’d missed the roofing nails one too many times, his purpled hand testifying to how many times Julia’s green skirts had stolen his attention today.
“Let’s eat and get back to it then.” He grabbed a biscuit for each hand from the plate Julia had set on the crate near the well and returned to the fence, hopped onto the other side, and slid down the post. She couldn’t steal his attention from his food if he couldn’t see her. Dex brought the plate over, but stayed on the other side.
The biscuits were flaky and buttery, and he wanted another, but he couldn’t take Dex’s. “Toss me an apple if you would.”
Dex ignored him and turned to scratch his back against the fence post, facing the cabin.
Did he ha
ve to get up and get the apple himself? Everett turned and noted Dex’s frown, a frown that scrunched his whole face. Everett followed the man’s gaze to the old shack’s roof, where Julia was traipsing atop the peak. He worked at keeping his hands in his pockets. How did she get up there?
Dex pointed. “What’s she doing?”
“Don’t know. I didn’t ask her to do anything up there.”
“What did you ask her to do?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you want her to do?”
What did he want? She didn’t want to know what he wanted. It was enough she was there. Or at least it should have been enough. He stood and snatched up an apple and tore a bite out of it. “I let her do whatever she wants.”
Dex’s eyebrows lowered. “Do you ever talk to her?”
He turned to look at him. What was he getting at?
Dex coughed. “I saw Ned yesterday. He came by my place.”
Just the mention of that man sent a wave of heat through his chest.
“He had Helga with him, poor woman.”
He nodded. No one would argue with Dex there.
“He takes her for granted, doesn’t speak to her unless he wants something.” Dex shifted. “But she works hard. Long and hard, trying to do anything that will please him. But it won’t do any good.” Dex picked a blade of long grass next to the fence post and snapped it off. “He’s a sorry old cuss. Treats her like she’s less than human. He doesn’t share a life with her—he simply shares his space with her.”
True. But talking about it wouldn’t change anything. What could they do for Helga? Ned wasn’t the kind of guy to take unsolicited advice.
Dex turned to face him. “She might do something as dangerous as climb onto a rooftop. And Ned wouldn’t care. Just as long as she didn’t bother him.”
He frowned and kept his vision fixed on Julia fiddling with the roof’s shingles.
“But he’s got a beautiful wife. Not beautiful like yours, mind you, but like Julia, beautiful on the inside. Proverbs says ‘Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing.’ But sometimes I have to wonder why God casts His pearls before swine. Sometimes.”
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