A Bride for Keeps

by Melissa Jagears

  “Feels nice to get out sometimes. I don’t think any of the others were near this bad.” She leaned against the paddock’s post, sucked in a huge parcel of air, and let it out slowly. “Thank goodness the boys are old enough they don’t need my full attention. I’d let her cry, but then she just screams. Without stopping. Never heard a child scream so long.”

  “Is there something wrong?” He twisted his hat in his hands, certain he could offer no assistance besides what he already did—allowing Julia every spare minute to help.

  Rachel chewed on her fingernails. “My mother’s heart says no. Just . . . I don’t know. She’s difficult. Hopefully it won’t last long.”

  “I’ll pray it won’t.” He leaned against the railing. “John asked if I could take him to the pond. Thought I’d ask to make sure.”

  She waved her hand. “That’s fine. It’s Ambrose’s turn to occupy Emma, and John was underfoot.”

  “Then I’ll take him.” He crammed his hat back on his head.

  “Everett?” Rachel’s hesitant voice stopped him. He pivoted and waited.

  “How’s it going with Julia?” She pulled at a splinter of wood on the post.

  How was it going? Bad, good, who knew? One second, she drove him to distraction being but a few feet away from him, acting like she wanted to be as far away as possible. The next, she’d give him a look that made him feel weak down into his toes. But the few times he’d leaned in for a kiss after receiving one of those looks, she’d scurried away. “I don’t know. You probably know better than me.”

  “How’s that?”

  He shrugged. “Women talk.”

  She stared at her knuckles, but made no move to dismiss him or return to the house.

  Why hadn’t she chosen somewhere in the shade to hem-haw? “Do you want to say something to me?” He wiped his brow with his handkerchief.

  She sucked in her lips and looked skyward. “I’m not supposed to meddle.”

  “That didn’t stop you in setting this whole thing up, so out with it.” Actually, if she knew anything about Julia’s feelings in the matter, he’d take whatever information she could provide.

  “Julia’s scared.”

  “Scared of what?” He’d nursed her with gentle hands while she was bedridden. Would she have confided in Rachel about whatever it was that made her fear men so? Was it as bad as he thought? Had she told Rachel how she’d fallen from the roof?

  “Scared that you’ll hurt her more.”

  He cringed. “But the roof was an accident!”

  Rachel’s smile turned lopsided. “Yes, I’m sure it was. She’s not worried about getting hurt physically. She’s worried you’ll break her heart, I think. Use her and cast her aside.”

  “I don’t understand.” He never wanted her to leave.

  “You love her, right?”

  Everett jammed his hands into his pockets. He felt wrong to admit it to someone other than Julia for the first time. But then that kind of information would probably make her uncomfortable at the moment. “Yes,” he whispered.

  “For more than her physical beauty?”

  He squinted at Rachel, trying to gauge what her question meant exactly. It hurt him to think she might think he solely lusted after Julia—but hadn’t he, from the first moment he saw his bride, been stuck on her surface features? He closed his eyes as if it would help him search within. When he thought of her now, a picture didn’t form in his mind, just the feeling of her. How he wished he could be closer, know her, be with her. Love her. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Yes.”

  Rachel’s weary eyes shone a bit. “Good. Tell her.”

  “I don’t know how, beyond what I already do. She skitters away any time I try to tell her how I feel.” He tossed up his hands. “I know I messed up in the beginning. I was a fool, but—”

  “Yes, definitely a fool.”

  Great, everyone thought him an imbecile.

  “She’s built a wall around herself, just like you did—to protect yourself from the possibility she’d run away and hurt you. Something in her past is keeping her away, something inside. And walls that strong don’t let love—”

  “But what is it?” His cheeks burned. The thought that she would confide in Rachel instead of him humiliated him. “What happened that makes her so unwilling to respond?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. She’s guarded against me too.” She chewed on her nails and looked over the harvested hay field. “But you’ve got to tear them down, though right now she doesn’t think she wants them torn down. What did it take to bust through your walls?”

  Dex calling him out on his sin and the near death of his wife.

  Dear God, make her wall not as stubborn and thick as mine!

  “If you can get through to her, Everett, I promise you there’s a woman there who wants to be cared for, who wants to be worthy of your love.”

  “But I can’t make her feel worthy and whole, only God can do that. I’ll let her down if she looks solely to me for that.”

  Her lips pursed. “You’re right. I’ll pray harder for God to get into the situation. I think she just might be ready to hear about His love for her, and if she feels your love, she might put two and two together.”

  He sighed. He still didn’t know what to do. Talking about destroying walls didn’t help him know how to proceed. Choosing the wrong strategy could drive her further away.

  Rachel grabbed one of his hands with both of hers and squeezed. “You’ll figure it out with God’s help. But if I don’t get back inside and relieve her, she might just run away before you get the chance.” She darted off, leaving her words to bounce around in his mind.

  She might just run away.

  Would he ever stop worrying about that?

  Sweat escaped Everett’s hat and trickled into his ears. He wiped his face with his handkerchief and pulled his line in. “John, I’m about to be a roast goose. Why don’t we head in?”

  “Aw. Do we have to?” John wiggled his line.

  “It’s so hot the fish aren’t even biting. Why don’t we do something else? We ought to find your pa.” He had some questions for Dex, though he didn’t relish having to ask them.

  “All right. Maybe he’ll let us help him work.” John scurried up the bank, his feet blackened with dirt.

  “He can always use help picking bugs in the garden.” Everett grabbed the boy’s suspenders to help him over the steep edge.

  John stuck out his tongue. “Forgot he was doing that. Maybe we can find something else to do?”

  Everett ruffled John’s dusty hair. “You need a bath. Maybe you ought to take one.”

  “Maybe I might just pick bugs.”

  He laughed. “Like being dirty that much, eh?”

  “Race ya!” John sprinted to the field where Dex and William were stooped, checking plants one by one.

  Not about to run, Everett called after the boy, “Get us some water. Then come help.”

  Like a flock of birds in flight changing their collective minds, John veered toward the well.

  Everett moseyed over to the field. Thankfully, William’s head bobbed toward the far end, nowhere near his father. John rushed back with a jug of water.

  Dex took a big gulp before handing over the water. “You two done playing?”

  “Sure, Pa.” John’s voice couldn’t hide his reluctance. Everett hid his smile by taking a swig.

  Dex tweaked his son’s ear. “Why don’t you go help Will, then?”

  John pivoted on bare feet.

  “Hold on, boy!” Dex pointed to the canteen. “Will needs water too.”

  Pulling a goofy face, John snagged the water before racing toward his older brother.

  Knees creaking, Everett stooped next to the row of plants Dex was working on. “The speed of that boy’s feet is only matched by his mouth.”

  Dex snickered. “Don’t I know it.”

  “Fun kid though. You’re awful lucky to have them all.”

  “Yep.”
Dex threw a thick hornworm into a bucket.

  Everett scanned the underside of the leaves for the green caterpillars with bright yellow slashes across their back. “Bet it takes a lot to keep them all happy.” He added a bug to Dex’s pile of wriggling insects. “What makes Rachel happy?”

  Dex moved ahead a pace. “Doing what she wants me to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like me mucking out the chicken coop though that’s her job, so she can read the paper.”

  “But what about wives? More in general, I mean.”

  Dex stopped his picking and stared at him. When Everett broke eye contact, Dex humphed. “As I see it, the Bible says to love your wife like Christ loved the church. The Divine giving up everything. He laid His life at the feet of unworthy sinners. That’s the ultimate sacrifice—giving up your worthy life for the undeserving who want nothing to do with you. So, how much easier is my situation—to give up my wants for a woman who loves me? Not near the same sacrifice.”

  Grabbing another worm off a leaf, Everett moved down a few feet. Was there anything left for him to give up?

  Dex threw another pest in the pail. “Besides, the more I make Rachel happy, the more I see her strive to make me happy. It’s when I’m looking out for myself that our marital harmony hits a bad note. When I balk at doing something Rachel wants, I remind myself God doesn’t even ask me to love her with the same magnitude He required of His Son. So I buck up and do as she asks. Unless of course it’s immoral, but that’s not the kind of thing I’m talking about, just selfish things I don’t want to give up.”

  Everett spent a few minutes checking several plants down the rows, double-checking around the nibbled leaves before moving to the next. Dex’s advice seemed sound, but how could he give himself to a woman who asked nothing of him? He kept his hands busy feeling for worms. “But how do you make a woman happy with you to begin with?”

  The constant hum of John’s chatter forty yards away filled the otherwise silent fields. Everett stopped and took a side glance at Dex, who pulled his mustache into his mouth with his lips. One eyebrow pushed his forehead into a mess of wrinkles. “What did you not get about my little sermon there?”

  Everett tossed a worm. “Uh, I understood the speech. Sounds right. But I mean more like, how do you get a woman to . . . to love you in the first place?” Admitting he’d failed to capture the attention of a woman who’d lived under his roof for more than four months filled his chest with shame.

  “Well, have you taken care of what I said last time? Do you talk to her?”

  Looking straight at Dex, he crossed his arms across his chest. “I’ve tried. A lot. I would think you could see that. I didn’t like what you said. Hated it, in fact. I wasn’t acting like the kind of man I want to be, but I think I’ve messed this up for good.” He reached down and snapped a worm between his fingers. Rachel’s speech about tearing down Julia’s walls with love nibbled at the edge of his mind. “How do you make a woman understand you love her?”

  Dex’s goofy grin showed up. “Like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “You say, ‘I . . .’” Dex leaned forward. “Wait for it.” He put his hand behind his ear and pushed it forward. “. . . love you.”

  Everett huffed. “You’re very funny.”

  “Well, have you tried that?”

  “I think so.” Everett threw a chewed-up leaf in with the worms.

  “Think?” Dex shook his head. “What happened after you think you said it?”

  “She fell off the roof.”

  A fit of coughing hardly covered Dex’s laughter. He shook his head and returned his attention to the plants in front of him. “I think I’ll stop giving you advice right here and now.”

  Could no one help him? “God help me.”

  “Yes, my friend.” Dex’s voice was underlaid with amusement. “God help you.”

  Chapter 25

  Julia attempted to rub her back while balancing on the bouncing wagon seat. A violent bump over an upturned rock sent her scurrying for a handhold.

  Everett’s welcome vocal hum relating his fishing adventures with John entertained her. She smiled at his pleasure in the child. He’d make a good father. . . . Julia’s heart constricted. She’d stolen that chance away from him. She never wanted to hold a dead baby again, not after having the pleasure of holding little Rebecca, screaming and all. Her brother’s lifeless body still weighed heavy in her arms. But then, she’d only been nine. If she’d known how to get an infant to breathe, if the midwife hadn’t been busy staunching the flow of blood . . .

  No. She couldn’t blame herself for her ignorance. And Mother had lost more than one child, most before they were supposed to be born. What were the odds it would be any different for her?

  “And so he took the worm off and bit into it.” Everett’s laugh turned into a sputter. “His face was really something. Almost made me want to take a bite to see what caused such terrible disfiguration.”

  How different the rides back and forth to the Stantons had become from that initial one in late March. Everett’s jaw was still sharp and square, but unhinged now. And the dark evening shade of his eyes stole her breath. She’d never seen anyone whose eyes neared the color gray.

  “He said the thing tasted like dirt and . . .” Everett took his focus off the oxen to look at her, but his voice died off. His Adam’s apple bobbed.

  Quickly, she assessed herself, staring at him with a muscle-stretching grin. Straightening in her seat, she relaxed her mouth and looked out over the prairie. “I had a good time with Rachel. Despite Becca’s crying. Thankfully she takes naps. Rachel napped too, so I cleaned everything I could quietly.”

  She stretched the fingers of one hand against the fingers of the other and yawned. “Got tons of cleaning at home to do, but it feels good to help, considering how much Rachel did for me while I was bedridden. And how much she taught me about farm chores when I first arrived.”

  “I’m sure Rachel is grateful. Without ladies taking care of the house, we farmers would be less successful, less relaxed.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. “Thank you.”

  She squeezed back, but didn’t let go. Birds flying overhead twittered as they passed, filling the silence that descended. Her heart encouraged her hand to lie there. Why couldn’t he hold her hand? She’d been giving quite a bit of thought to letting him kiss her, but she kept shying away from it anytime he seemed to think about it. So she’d have to start slower—with hand-holding.

  The feel of his roughened palm swallowing her thin fingers made her feel connected, relaxed . . . like she belonged.

  “Julia . . . ” His thumb lazily caressed the back of her hand, and she could feel the bloom of heat filling her cheeks.

  “I know the day on the roof was a disaster, but I was trying to tell you something rather important that I hope you didn’t miss.”

  Dots of white, yellow, and purple flowers poked their faces between the tall grasses dancing in the light breeze. She couldn’t meet his eyes, knowing what he was going to say, and not sure she could say it back.

  “I want you to know that I love you more now than then.”

  She swallowed hard a few times, testing the words in her head, but she couldn’t force them off her tongue. She couldn’t toy with him.

  “And even if your heart never lets you love me back, I’ll still love you.”

  The sway of the wagon kept the awkward silence from being terribly uncomfortable. She took his hand in both of hers and squeezed her thanks, holding on to his hand as if she’d slide off the seat without that anchor. He dropped her hand and pulled her closer, the tension of the moment dissolved under the security of his arm wrapped around her. Asking nothing, offering everything.

  They stopped in front of their pine cabin. She glanced over at the old one and smiled. Of course, before Kansas she’d never lived in anything as small and sparse as this new cabin, but compared to the one they had lived in for two months, the new house was b
ounds better. Just like their relationship, from horrible to good. He talked to her and helped without her having to ask. How many women had that? Not her mother.

  Everett stood next to the wagon with two hands extended. She tentatively grabbed both of his shoulders, instead of one to steady herself.

  On the ground, he seemed reluctant to let her go, like the last several wagon rides. She squeezed his arms and let her hands drop before she turned toward the well.

  His hand snagged her elbow, and he pulled her to him. Her breath catching, she questioned him with her eyes. Would he kiss her? Any day now, he’d take another step toward becoming more than just the friendly man she lived with, and she needed to let him. He wasn’t out to take and not give. She had to give back, but the brush of fear in her stomach fought against the anticipation in her heart.

  “What . . . what can I help you do?” His voice resembled a frog’s. His clammy palm slid to her wrist.

  She searched his face. Why had he stepped away? “I need water for dinner tonight. I hope you don’t mind leftover stew. I’m tired from the work this morning, so I don’t have the desire to do much more.”

  His left hand joined his right, holding and caressing her knuckles. Her heart beat with each stroke. “Would you like me to cook dinner?”

  Her mouth skewed awry. “I’ve heard plenty of your hardtack and bean stories. Should I really take you up on the offer?” But did she really care what dinner was? She’d welcome anything that got her to sleep faster.

  He bit his lip, and then his eyes shone. “Yes.”

  She smiled. “Well, then you best get to it. Stew would be easy, but you’d need to start now to get dinner done in time.” She should work on the other chores that needed doing before night fell. “I’ll tend the garden then.”

  “Do you want to tend the garden?” His hands disappeared behind his back.

  What did want have to do with anything? “I suppose I do. It needs to be done.”

  “Why not . . . rest?”

  A tempting suggestion, but she laughed it off. “No time for that.”