by Gina Welborn
“I have a wheel rim that needs repair.” She motioned to the front door. “Could you?”
“Of course.” He came out from behind his counter. “George, I’ll be outside with Mrs. Svenson. Make sure no one leaves with something they haven’t paid for.”
“You got it.” The short, bearded man wasn’t wearing a shopkeeper’s apron. Was he an employee or just someone Mr. Pawlikowski trusted?
As she led Mr. Pawlikowski to the door, Marilyn glanced about the shop. If only she had time to peruse this cornucopia of goods. Her gaze caught on an unfamiliar gadget. She stopped at a bookshelf beside the door and picked up a brass circle with what looked to be tin windmill blades surrounding a scale in the center.
Mr. Pawlikowski stopped next to her.
“What’s this?” She held it up for him to see.
“It’s an anemometer. It measures wind speed.”
“Interesting.”
“I used to have a model much older than this one,” Mr. Pawlikowski said, while she spun the blades and imagined the wind flow. “That anemometer had four cups attached to horizontal arms. The cups would catch the wind, moving the arms and spinning the center rod. The faster it spun, the faster the wind blew. It was quite fascinating to watch an unseen force at work. It’s a quarter, if you’re interested.”
“Just a quarter?”
“If you insist, I’ll accept two quarters for it.”
Marilyn chuckled. Although tempted to buy the anemometer, she put it back on the shelf. Gunder would say she didn’t need it. She didn’t. But if the shop had multiple anemometers, she could place them around Helena and study the wind patterns. Oh! What would be even more fascinating was putting an anemometer inside something like a tornado. But how? There had to be a way. Maybe if—
The touch of a hand against her waist drew her attention.
Mr. Pawlikowski spread his other hand, palm up, in the direction of the door. “Shall we?”
Marilyn nodded. She stepped out onto the covered porch. Again, a wave of dizziness assaulted her. She grabbed hold of a post supporting the small portico roof and waited for it to pass.
“Mrs. Svenson? Are you all right?”
The concern in Mr. Pawlikowski’s voice warmed her more than the July heat. She took several deep breaths to compose herself. She wasn’t an emotional woman, some would say unnaturally so. First embarrassment and now a sensation she couldn’t identify. Odd.
The sound of multiple footsteps drew her attention back to the store. A host of men crowded behind the open door, faces of many more pressed against the glass-paned windows on either side of it.
Marilyn let go of the post now that her dizziness had passed. “The wheel is in the back of my wagon.”
Mr. Pawlikowski followed her to the buckboard and examined the wheel rim. “How did you get this heavy thing in here?”
Was he underestimating her the way Judge Williston had? “I’m not made of sugar.”
He chuckled. “That you aren’t.”
He would be a good husband. Surprised at that sudden realization, Marilyn gave words to the question that had been plaguing her for weeks. “Why have you never asked me to marry you?”
Mr. Pawlikowski blinked twice and coughed into his hand. After another moment, he said, “I’m not a marrying man.”
She eyed the strands of gray in his hair and wondered his age. Late thirties? He could be in his early forties, but it was reasonable to presume he was about ten years older than she was. “How is it you never married? Did you wish to join the church?”
He didn’t flinch or show a smidgen of awkwardness this time. “I had a wife. She died fifteen months ago.” He said nothing more, which seemed unusual. Custom was to praise the lost loved one to avoid the appearance of speaking ill of the dead.
“I’m sorry,” she said automatically while doing mental calculations. He’d arrived in October around the time the city was named. That was nine months ago. So he’d come west within about six months of his wife’s death. “Were there any children?”
“No.” The word was flat and unemotional but something flashed in his eyes that she found familiar. Loneliness.
There seemed little point in pretending she saw nothing. “I wish Gunder and I had been fortunate enough to have a child.”
“Ah, yes,” he remarked with an odd edge to his tone, “to carry on his name.”
Marilyn nodded. And yet if she were being honest, she would have said her reason was less about giving Gunder a namesake than about her desire to have a family. Gunder’s death had left her wanting. Just as Mr. Pawlikowski’s wife’s death had left him wanting. As long as he saw himself as not a marrying man, his want would never end.
She gave him a weak smile. “I am sorry you have no son to pass down your family name.”
“I’m sorry you have no husband to give you a child to pass on his name.” His smile seemed as sad as she felt. “You should remarry.”
“Is that a proposal?” she teased.
His face paled. “Ahh . . .”
Marilyn chuckled. “Thank you for that laugh. After my meeting with Judge Williston, I needed it.” She touched his arm, her mood growing serious. “Thank you for your friendship with Gunder. He appreciated your patience with his accent.”
His dark eyes grew watery. He cleared his throat. “I, um, I’m actually the middle of seven children, three girls and four boys.”
She knew his change of topic was intentional, so she complied. “Are they all married?”
“Absolutely, and they’ve reproduced five or more times over. At least twelve are boys,” he said with an overt amount of pride, “so I think it’s relatively safe to presume Pawlikowskis will be around for generations yet to come, even without my help.”
“Family is important.”
As the words left her lips, she made her decision. She would go back to Minnesota. Someday she wanted to remarry, perhaps even be a mother if God granted it, but there were no marrying men—as Mr. Pawlikowski termed them—here in Helena. In the meantime, she could be the spinster aunt who doted on her nieces and nephews. Although doting might be too strong a word. She’d be more interested in expanding their minds than their bellies by giving books instead of treats.
“If you decide you want to return to your family,” he said as if he could read her mind, “I’ll buy whatever you wish to sell.”
“Thank you, but first I need to figure out how a widow files for head-of-household status on a homestead claim, so I can legally sell it.”
“Excuse me.” A masculine voice came from the right of her. “I have no wish to interlope on a private conversation, but I can help you with that.” An unfamiliar man bowed in almost a regal way. “Jonas Forsythe at your service.”
Marilyn turned away from the wagon to get a better view of the man who she guessed to be near her age. Tall, blond, studious in appearance, and wearing a three-piece suit with a gold fob dangling from his black brocade vest. He reminded her of Judge Williston—at least in attire.
Mr. Pawlikowski came closer to stand next to her. “Welcome to Helena. I’m David Pawlikowski, owner of The Repair and Resale Shop.” He shook Mr. Forsythe’s hand, then said, “May I have the honor of introducing you to Mrs. Gunder Svenson?”
Mr. Forsythe bowed to her again. “A pleasure, ma’am, although please allow me to express my sympathy for your loss. Your husband?”
Marilyn smiled to acknowledge his polite condolence. “Yes. Are you a legal expert?”
“I’m a recent graduate of Harvard Law School.”
An impressive achievement. Which is why she couldn’t help but ask, “Then why come to Montana Territory?”
The corners of Mr. Forsythe’s mouth lifted a fraction of an inch. “My friends and family asked a very similar question when I shared my plans to come west. In short, I see the territories as the next great land of opportunity.”
“As a miner?” asked Mr. Pawlikowski.
“A bit,” Mr. Forsythe admitted. “I re
ckon I ought to get in on the gold rush while nuggets are so plentiful they can be picked out of creek beds.”
Marilyn sighed. Someone needed to squash his East Coast naïveté.
The first snicker came from Mr. Pawlikowski.
Marilyn looked at him and then Mr. Forsythe, whose smile had grown broad. She glanced between the two of them twice more before she understood their humor. “Oh goodness, for a moment there I believed you to be serious.”
Both men laughed. There was a natural ease between the two men that she liked . . . and envied. How could two people instantly connect as friends?
Mr. Forsythe’s broad grin melted into a polite smile. “Truth be told, Mrs. Svenson, my aspirations are more political in nature. I’d like to be a state senator or a state supreme court judge someday. The states back East are swollen with politicians. Out here, I can get in on the ground floor.”
If he was as knowledgeable as he was friendly, she foresaw great things in his future.
Marilyn shifted her stance. “Seeing you are from back East, have you any experience helping a woman claim head-of-household status for a homestead? Being a male, you will certainly have better luck securing help from Judge Williston. I advise you not mention your business until after you’re sitting in his office.”
“My, my, Mrs. Svenson, you are direct.” His words were punctuated with a smile.
“That she is,” Mr. Pawlikowski confirmed, his voice just as pleasant.
Marilyn looked back and forth between the men, trying to decide if the two of them were sharing another joke. The expressions on their faces—and her knowledge of Mr. Pawlikowski—denied it. He was not a man to be demeaning to anyone.
She turned her attention to Mr. Forsythe “I know my directness does not endear me to men, but I wish it wouldn’t stop them from helping me.”
Silence greeted her pronouncement.
Mr. Pawlikowski cleared his throat.
It took an instant for Marilyn to understand the gentle rebuke in Mr. Pawlikowski’s throat-clearing. She turned to the lawyer. “My apologies for telling you how to do your job.” Although she was right.
Mr. Forsythe gripped both of his lapels. “Mrs. Svenson, how about we strike a bargain? If I procure your change of status within the next four months, you will owe me three dollars. If not, I will continue to help you until your status is changed, but you will owe me nothing.” He looked at Mr. Pawlikowski. “Would you act as witness?”
“I’d be honored.”
Marilyn tapped the side of the wagon. Four months? If it took him that long, she wouldn’t be able to sell until the beginning of November. Not a good time to begin travel to Minnesota.
She turned to Mr. Pawlikowski. “Do you know when another wagon train trail-master will come through Helena on his way back East?”
He thought for a moment. “Shandon could be here in August, depending if he decided to marry or not. Hawks will definitely be here in early September.”
“Mr. Forsythe,” Marilyn said, “would you be open to a negotiation of ‘within the next two months’ instead of four? I need to leave Montana while the weather is still good.”
“Where are you heading?”
“I’m returning to family in Minnesota.”
He paused, studying her face. “I’m agreeable.”
Mr. Pawlikowski touched her arm. “I’m willing to give you a fair price on your land.”
A lawyer to help her with her head-of-household status and a shop owner to free her of the burden of her land. In two—no more than three—months, she was on her way home.
Now it was her turn to smile at the town’s newest arrival. “Mr. Forsythe, I believe you’ve retained your first client.”
Chapter 2
While Mrs. Svenson and Mr. Forsythe chatted about legal matters, David stepped to the back of the buckboard to attend to the damaged wagon wheel. He had nothing to contribute to the conversation. Truth be told, he needed something to occupy his hands. And to keep from staring at Mrs. Svenson. One little question from her—a woman who was the exact opposite of his late wife in every way—dredged up every painful remembrance of Klaudia.
Why have you never asked me to marry you?
Mrs. Svenson’s questions thereafter proved she had no specific interest in his answer. She was simply curious—a trait that defined her as much as Klaudia’s madness had defined her by the end of her life.
A madness for which he was responsible . . . at least in part.
David hoisted the wagon wheel out of the buckboard and set it on the ground. If only mending a broken soul was as easy as mending a bent rim.
Bits and pieces of Klaudia’s accusations flung at him over their ten years of marriage escaped the box he usually kept sealed inside his mind.
You are a terrible husband.
Why won’t you give me what I want?
How can you call yourself a man?
I hate you!
This is all your fault.
And on the day she finally got what she wanted—a child in her belly—she leveled her most devastating blow: It’s not yours. I had to find a real man to do the job.
David winced at the memory. Klaudia filed for divorce on the grounds that he could not consummate their marriage. It was a false accusation, but that made no difference to her or the newspapers that reported it as fact. He fought the lie, fought to keep his marriage together, fought the humiliation until Klaudia ran off with her lover. Even then David stayed in Ohio, hoping she’d come to her senses and return home.
She did come back—four months later with hollow cheeks, hollow eyes, and a hollow womb—but she never came to her senses. To the bitter end, she blamed him for every misfortune whether real or imagined, her claims growing wilder and her physical outbursts more frequent, until David started the process of putting her in an asylum. He was only saved from such a drastic step when she took her own life.
At which point a rumor swirled through his tight-knit community—that he had killed her. How could people who had known him all his life believe such a scandal? The answer still eluded him.
Once local police cleared him of all wrongdoing in his wife’s death, David loaded a Conestoga wagon with anything and everything he thought he could sell or rent and fled to Montana Territory to create a new life. Mostly to escape memories of his wife. But he couldn’t escape one fact: Though he could perform his husbandly duty in the marriage bed, he hadn’t been able to give his wife a child, and it destroyed her.
He’d not make another woman miserable.
The conversation between Mrs. Svenson and Forsythe drew to a close. The lawyer handed her his calling card. “I will let you know the moment I have an office secured.”
She slipped the card into her little purse. “Thank you. I’ll look for you the next time I’m in town, which should be a week or two.”
Forsythe held out a second calling card to David. “Sir, I hope we meet again soon.”
David took the card and tucked it into the front pocket of his white apron. “We don’t have a church building yet, but if you’re so inclined, a number of folks meet inside my store at eleven o’clock every Sunday morning.”
“I would be delighted.” Mr. Forsythe dipped his head in a polite bow and turned to make his way along the street, presumably to introduce himself to more business owners in Helena.
Mrs. Svenson stared after the lawyer’s retreating form. “Mr. Forsythe seems like a nice man.”
He was exactly the sort of man she should marry. David winced at the internal prick that thought gave him. “I agree. He—” She turned and let out a little gasp, cutting off his words. The moment she began tilting to her left, David reached out and grabbed her waist to steady her. “Is everything all right?”
She didn’t nod. Or move. Or even breathe for what seemed like a full minute.
His heart banged against his ribs in a rapid tattoo, like that of a signal calling soldiers to quarters. It wasn’t calling him to her. It couldn’t.
> Yet something tightened within him.
Desire, to be sure. Desire to hold her in his arms forever—a pointless feeling. He had work to do, a business to run, and a bride not to catch.
Just when he was about to ask if she needed the doctor, she turned to face him, seemingly oblivious to his hands still on her waist. “I’m fine, but I need you to do me a favor.” She opened her eyes wide. “Look into my eyes and tell me what you see.”
“Excuse me?” His voice sounded brusque even to his own ears. David dropped his hold on her and stepped back, needing space.
She closed the distance between them. “Please, just look and describe what you see.”
What he saw were eyes the deep blue of Lake Helena on the clearest day of summer with flecks of brown near the pupil, as though God knew a man would need something to ground him so he didn’t drown while looking into them.
“Well,” she said in that forthright manner of hers, “what do you see?”
Everything I ever hoped for but never received. David shook his head to clear away the absurd notion. “Blue eyes. What else do you want me to say?”
She ran her tongue over her top lip while staring at him for a long moment. “Would you say my eyes are more deep set than normal?”
He looked back and forth between her left eye and right. “Not that I can tell.”
She nodded for some reason. “How about my pupils? Would you say they are smaller than normal?”
He bent his head closer and squinted a bit. “Maybe.”
She inhaled with a little gasp. “What about drooping eyelids or swollen veins in the corners of my eyes?”
Why on earth was she asking such questions? Partially because she was asking and mostly because he felt inclined, he took his time looking into one eye then the other. She really was the loveliest woman he’d ever laid eyes on. Blond with a narrow-bridged nose, high cheekbones, and a perfectly oval face, she was so tall her lips were mere inches from his.
Something he shouldn’t be noticing.
But he was noticing. And now that he’d noticed, he couldn’t stop noticing . . . and wondering if they were as soft as they looked.
She leaned forward a bit more and blinked repeatedly, a clear sign she was waiting for his answer.