“Margaret?”
Margaret spun around. Her door had been left ajar when the men had left and, because she was a trusting fool, she’d stripped down to her underclothes without checking that it was properly closed.
Jake stood in the doorway, his eyes locked on the bare skin on her chest and shoulders. Margaret was momentarily taken aback by the raw desire she saw in his eyes. She knew that look of course – it was the look she’d seen on Captain Sharpe’s face the evening he and Elizabeth went on their honeymoon. That look was all hot, heavy with promise, and in that moment all Margaret could do was remain pinned beneath Jake’s eyes.
Then she came back to herself. She remembered that she was half-naked.
“Jake!” she gasped. She had nothing to cover herself with, but her arms flew over her chest and she ducked her head so her hair obscured some of the skin on her shoulders.
Jake seemed to come back to himself in that moment as well. “Oh, Margaret. I’m sorry,” he said quickly, turning around to give her some privacy. “I just – well I thought you’d still be in bed, where you’re supposed to be.”
“Well I’m not!”
“Luke said –”
“I heard what Doctor Elliot said!” she replied. “But he didn’t say I couldn’t get up to bathe, did he?”
Jake wavered at the door, clearly wondering if he should continue the argument with his back turned. Margaret groaned.
“Please just go and ask Cora to run me a bath if she has time,” she said. Jake’s shoulders began to shake. She realized he was silently laughing. “Really?”
“Sorry, sorry,” he said again, but this time his voice was filled with breathless laughter. She was about to growl at him once more to leave the room, but he was already going – closing the door behind himself with a soft click.
“Honestly,” Margaret said, turning back to the mirror with her cheeks still red.
It wasn’t until several minutes later, when the shock of seeing the desire on his face had worn off, that Margaret could smile as well.
Eighteen
Jake had to splash water on his face, but he couldn’t get the sight of her out of his mind. Margaret – beautiful, delicate Margaret – dressed down to her underclothes with her long waves of blonde hair cascading over her shoulders. Her body was slim and curved in all the best places. He wanted to run his hands over those curves. He wanted to kiss the line of her shoulder and tuck that hair aside to reach her neck…
He splashed water on his face again.
He’d retreated to the kitchen after Margaret had sent him running, and darn if she didn’t look good enough to eat when she’d blushed all the way down to her chest. Jake had started laughing as he closed the door – a reaction he would probably pay for when Margaret was feeling better and ready to give him a piece of her mind. She would probably give him a thorough dressing down for not knocking.
But then, he thought absently as he wiped his face on a clean dishtowel, Margaret was going to be his wife. He’d been looking forward to the wedding day since he’d met her, but now there was something else to look forward to: the wedding night.
“Get your head out of the gutter,” he muttered to himself.
Her hair had been wet, he remembered. Still wet from the stream. Jake had nearly had a heart attack when he’d seen William running towards him over the field, pumping his short legs as fast as he could, screaming and crying.
“Uncle Jake! Uncle Jake! Margaret’s drowning!”
Jake had dropped the plough he’d been pushing, shouting over his shoulder for Greg to get the doctor as he’d sprinted towards the stream. He hadn’t needed to ask William where she was – there was only one place on the whole ranch where Margaret could be drowning. He’d nearly had a heart attack when he saw her in the water, fighting weakly against the current, clinging to a branch which looked like it only had seconds before breaking.
Heart in his mouth, Jake had only just managed to get a rope around her before the branch broke and she went under. Those few seconds when she was beneath the surface of the water were the longest in his life. All he’d thought was: I can’t lose someone I love, not again. Not again. Then he’d gotten her out but she’d collapsed and he thought he might just collapse with her. It wasn’t until Luke Elliot had double- and triple-checked her for injuries that Jake had been satisfied that he wouldn’t lose her. Not today. Not, he hoped, ever.
While she’d been resting, Jake had found a letter on her bedside table. It had been addressed to Elizabeth. He’d opened it. He’d only needed to read it once to memorize what she’d written.
… I don’t know if this is the right man for me, Lizzie…
… I’ll explain everything in my next letter, but I’ll just say that he has been terribly indifferent to me since I arrived…
… other issues, including the omission of some important information…
I might have to come home before the month is up.
Seeing those words made Jake’s heart beat like a rabbit’s foot. She couldn’t leave him yet – he’d made a bad first impression, but he could do better. He could make her love him back.
He loved her.
All it took was seeing her in the water for him to know it. Reading the letter confirmed it. He loved Margaret Singleton. He’d only known her a few days and he was already far more deeply in love with her than he’d ever been with Abby. He needed to move up the wedding day. Now that he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, it seemed stupid to wait.
Of course, the thought of her slim, curved body might have motivated his decision a bit as well.
Jake was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of Margaret’s dainty footsteps heading towards the kitchen. He dropped the dishtowel and turned, bracing himself for a tongue-lashing.
But when he saw her standing in the doorway, color still high and an indignant frown on her lips, a dress hastily pulled over her body and doing nothing to make him forget what he saw, Jake couldn’t help himself. He reached out without thinking and pulled her close to his chest.
“Jake –” she said, her diatribe cut off and a look of confusion gracing her pretty face.
He just needed to have her close. He needed to know she was safe – he needed to feel that she was safe.
She felt so small in his arms, and he could feel a slight shiver in her body, but there was also a core of strength in her which made him wonder if anything in the world could break her down. Her parents’ deaths hadn’t done it, moving to a new state hadn’t done it, nearly drowning hadn’t done it... Jake wanted to keep her forever to be reminded of what strength really looked like.
“You should have knocked,” she said. Her voice was a bit quieter. He was too busy staring at the curve of her cheek and feeling the way her waist quivered under his fingers to take in her words.
When they registered, he raised an eyebrow. “We’re going to be married in a few days, Margaret. Seeing you getting changed will be a regular thing.”
Confusion disappeared from her face. Anger replaced it.
She shoved him. He stepped back. The loss of her body against his was far more painful than the shove had been.
“A few days?” she demanded. “I have a month’s grace period!”
He nodded. “Yes, but I’ve moved the wedding up.”
“Without my consent?”
“I didn’t think you would mind.”
He maybe should have planned this better…
“You didn’t think – you didn’t think –” She was so angry, she seemed to have difficulty speaking. “You’re just going to move the wedding day up, without even consulting your fiancée, and you thought I wouldn’t mind?”
Before he could reply, William appeared out of nowhere and screamed with joy when he saw Margaret.
Margaret’s fury was cut off before she had time to build up steam. She turned towards the boy in time to catch him as he threw himself at her, keeping up a steady stream of almost incoherent words:
“I’m sorry I dropped Bear in the water I promise I won’t ever do it again please don’t drown again Margaret.”
Jake glanced up and noticed his mother leaning against the doorway with her arms crossed and a look of wondrous pity on her face. Jake understood immediately what happened. Cora had heard his fumbled proposal, heard Margaret’s growing anger, and sent William in to give Margaret something else to focus on.
Margaret held the boy to her breast, smiling softly. The love Jake saw on her face told him he’d made the right decision bringing her into their lives. She may not love him yet – she may view their arrangement as nothing more than practicality, but there was something between them. A spark of passion – passion that he would fan into a flame. With time she might love him. She had to.
He would just have to prove that he was worth it.
Nineteen
Jake had moved their wedding up to Friday. Margaret was bed-ridden until Thursday. Jake had insisted she return to bed immediately after her bath, and apart from giving her privacy during her bath, he had hovered over her like a mother hen.
Margaret sat up against the headboard, silently fuming and refusing to even speak to the man when he entered the room. She spoke to William, who had stopped apologizing and brought his bear to sit with her during the day, and Cora who had been put in charge of wedding arrangements since Margaret was unable to do so. But she didn’t speak to Jake.
But she hadn’t said no.
Every time she thought of just walking into the kitchen and telling Jake that she didn’t want to marry him so soon, she couldn’t do it. Her mind would supply her with images of William’s utter relief when she was pulled out of the water, or Cora’s sweet smile when she’d shown Margaret the dress she had made for her – Margaret’s wedding dress, with more lace than she’d ever seen in her life, handmade by the women in town and so beautiful Margaret was almost afraid to touch it much less wear it – or the way Jake’s hands had felt on her waist when he’d held her in the kitchen. The way his breath had felt on her cheek and the way his eyes had flickered to her lips.
She would have liked to kiss him then. If he hadn’t brought up the fact that he’d moved the wedding date up without her consent, she would have.
But she hadn’t said no.
It was so much sooner than she’d wanted, and the way he did it set her teeth on edge, but she still couldn’t make up her mind if the manner of his asking was enough to condemn him. Was she willing to end the marriage before it started despite a large part of her wanting it to proceed?
“You’re alive,” she said into the mirror on Wednesday afternoon. She’d climbed out of bed that morning to help Cora with the dress after she heard Jake leave to help the ranch hands, and she had retreated to her room before lunch to get some rest and center herself before Jake came back to the cottage. “William didn’t lose someone else in his life. You’ve got a successful man who wants to marry you and provide for you,” she reminded herself.
There was a knock on the door and Margaret jumped.
“Who is it?” Margaret called, dreading the answer.
“It’s me.”
She relaxed. It was Cora. Cora let herself into the room and sat on the edge of Margaret’s bed.
“So, has anyone ever talked to you about your wedding night?” she asked without preamble.
Margaret felt her cheeks going red, though Cora seemed completely comfortable about the situation. “My mother – when I turned eighteen. She and my father both wanted me to marry early.” But Margaret hadn’t wanted to. There was too much of her grandmother – a suffragette before her time – in Margaret for her to marry even at eighteen and keep house for some tradesman down the block.
Her parents would never see her in a wedding dress. She tried to push the thought from her mind.
“Good,” Cora said. “You know you can come to me with any questions you have, right?”
Margaret nodded. She didn’t even know if Jake was interested in consummating their marriage, although after he’d seen her yesterday she was well aware there was passion in his eyes. Before that he’d insisted that their marriage would be a business relationship and nothing more.
Then he’d kissed Abigail Drake at her party and left Margaret alone for half the night. But when she thought about the way his hands felt on her that day in the kitchen… Margaret thought she wouldn’t mind at all if he wanted to consummate their wedding night. Quite the contrary. She thought there was nothing she would like better than to hear his laugh and see him smile right before he kissed her. She wondered if he would kiss tenderly, or whether he would be passionate and rough. She thought she might like either.
If only she knew that he cared for her, and that she could trust him with her feelings. If only she understood what was going on in his mind.
She tried to run through her list of reasons to smile in her head, but it was difficult with Cora sitting in front of her and giving her such a look of understanding.
“I know you’re nervous,” Cora said. “I was nervous too. Did you know that my husband and I had an arranged marriage as well?”
Margaret hadn’t known that. But Cora was at the age where arranged marriages would have been the norm when she was young. Cora reached out and took Margaret’s hand. Margaret allowed herself to be pulled away from the vanity and out into the hall.
“When I met Douglas we barely had two words to say to each other,” Cora said as she guided Margaret to the kitchen. “But in time we learned to be friends. Then we fell in love. We were soulmates, in the end.”
Margaret wanted to ask if it would have hurt less to lose him if they hadn’t been soulmates, but she didn’t dare. Instead, she said: “I’m so sorry you lost him.”
“Not as sorry I was that my boys lost him,” Cora replied. “Hank –” Her voice got choked up. Margaret looked over and saw tears in the other woman’s eyes. “Hank was too young to really remember his father. But Jake was old enough. It left a mark on him. He’s never been good with his words since – always barreling in when he should get the lay of the land first.” She gave Margaret a significant look and Margaret knew she was referring to Jake’s decision to move the wedding up. “He had to be the head of the house from a very young age. He’s used to being decisive – he had to be.”
“Then why did he even want a wife – a woman from this area?” Margaret asked.
They paused in front of the kitchen door. Cora gave Margaret a smile.
“Because he knows he can be better,” Cora said. She pressed her wrinkled, care-worn hand to Margaret’s cheek. “He’s got his heart in the right place, even if his foot is in his mouth.”
Then Cora opened the door and Margaret gasped.
On the breakfast table was a massive bouquet of wild flowers. Margaret had only seen the likes in florist shops. Lavender, larkspur and wheat were entwined together and tied with a simple white bow. When she got closer, Margaret saw the white blossoms of love in a mist dotted through the bouquet as well.
Attached to the flowers was a note. She plucked it with trembling fingers and read it out loud: “If you’re willing, I’d like to take you to dinner tonight.”
Cora sighed. “Not exactly Shakespeare, but he’s a rancher so you’ll have to make allowances.”
Margaret clutched the card in her hands, reading and re-reading it. That first line caught her eye: if you’re willing.
She was. She would give him one last chance – and if she didn’t like what she saw, she would catch the first train back to Boston.
Twenty
Margaret was excited and annoyed. Excited at the prospect that Jake wanted to take her out on a proper date, yet annoyed that he refused to listen to the fact that she felt fine, and had insisted she remain in bed until Luke had given her a final check. She tried to explain how it would be a waste of everyone’s time since she knew quite well how she felt, but there was no moving him. He stood in her doorway, arms crossed, like a guard until Luke arrived.
; At first Luke looked concerned at her flushed face, but it didn’t take him long to realize Jake was the reason for it, and then Luke had shooed him out of the room.
Now Jake was taking her to a restaurant in town. It was actually part of a hotel – situated like a dining hall at the back of the building, running along the edge of the building in a long thin line. It was difficult to move between crowded tables without bumping into a wall or another person, but the atmosphere was cosy, filled with conversation, and the food smelled delightful.
Margaret had learned from her mistake at Abigail Drake’s party. She’d chosen a simple frock, something she’d inherited from Lucy of the Boston branch – a pale pink number with longer sleeves. She felt much less out of place when she entered the restaurant than she had the other night when she’d entered the party at Abigail’s. Jake, in his fine Sunday best, looked so handsome that Margaret had trouble looking at him.
He seemed to be determined to make the night romantic. He’d pulled up at the cottage and kissed Margaret’s hand when she’d come outside. The feeling of his lips on her skin had made her entire body tingle as though it had been lit on fire. He’d helped her into the carriage and coaxed her into a conversation about her childhood and where she’d grown up. When they arrived at the restaurant, he held her seat for her.
Margaret was beginning to realize this was meant to be a real date. That he was courting her. Did that mean he’d changed his mind? That he wanted them to be romantic?
When they’d entered the room, all eyes had turned to them. Margaret had spotted Abigail Drake in the crowd, eating dinner with an older fellow who could only be her father. She’d sneered at Margaret. Jake had put his hand on the small of Margaret’s back – an intimate gesture of support which gave Margaret the courage to walk into the room with her head held high.
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