Texas Bride: A Bitter Creek Novel

by Joan Johnston

  “Uh,” he said in surprise.

  Miranda didn’t know exactly what it was she wanted as she cried, “Please, Jake! Please!”

  But Jake did. He spread her legs farther apart with his knees and reached beneath her with his hands to angle her so he could more easily push himself inside.

  Miranda felt stretched impossibly wide. Her body tensed against the intrusion and she gripped Jake’s shoulders hard, digging her fingernails into his flesh as pleasure turned to pain. “Jake, it hurts!”

  He paused, but not for long. “Yes, I know. Just this once. There’s no help for it.” Then he plunged deep inside her, till he was seated to the hilt.

  Miranda felt like she’d been torn in two. Her whole body was trembling as she stared up at Jake, fearing more pain.

  “That’s the worst of it,” he said in a quiet voice.

  “Are you done?”

  She heard him chuckle as he huffed out a breath. “No. There’s more.”

  “Will it hurt?”

  “I hope not.” He hesitated, then added, “Do you want me to stop?”

  Miranda didn’t know why Jake had changed his mind and decided to have sex with her, but she didn’t want him to change his mind now. Not if there was more. She wanted to know what that more was.

  “Don’t stop.” She braced herself for more pain, but as he began to move inside her, she heard the wetness again that had so embarrassed her and realized it made it possible for him to love her without hurting her. She relaxed enough to lift her hips, to create a sort of rhythm with his movements, and began to feel the goodness of what he was doing.

  He laid his head beside hers as he worked in her, and she felt her insides begin to clench and tighten and lifted her body to meet his in a rhythm as old as the ages. She felt an inexplicable tension and her breathing became erratic. She clutched Jake’s shoulders, striving to hold onto something solid when the ground was shifting beneath her. Until, at long last, deep inside her, she felt Jake release his seed.

  He pulled her close as he separated them, his chest a bellows that matched her own. Miranda leaned her cheek against his chest and smiled to herself at the knowledge that she had finally, at long last, become a wife.

  He rolled onto his back, releasing his hold on her, and threw an arm over his eyes, hiding his face from her.

  Miranda felt bereft. She wanted to be held. She wanted the closeness she’d felt when he was inside her to continue beyond their lovemaking.

  Abruptly, he leaned across her and turned off the lamp, which was when she realized it had been on the entire time. She marveled that she hadn’t been more shy. She wondered what had caused him to finally make love to her.

  “Why did you change your mind?” she asked in the darkness.

  “I figured I might as well get what I want out of this marriage,” he said. “Before I end up with a lot more of your relatives on my doorstep.”

  Miranda felt cold inside. How had he found out? “What are you talking about?”

  “Your three sisters in Chicago.”

  Miranda began searching frantically for her nightgown in the dark. She wanted to be dressed for this conversation. She finally located it on the floor and put it on, then found a match and lit the lamp. She took one look at Jake, lying naked on the bed, and said, “Cover yourself!”

  He smiled sardonically. “It’s a little late to play the innocent maiden, Miranda. You’re no longer a virgin. And you sure as hell aren’t innocent!”

  She felt her heart hammering in her chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He grabbed his Levi’s and pulled them on, then stood up, towering over her. “I know about your three sisters in Chicago. Nick let the cat out of the bag. I’m just wondering what your plans are, now that it turns out I’m not a rich enough dupe to provide a home for them.”

  “Oh, Jake, it isn’t like that.”

  “Oh, no? Then what is it like, Miranda? Are you telling me you didn’t plan to bring your sisters here to live?”

  She thought about lying, but instead said, “If you’d had the space, and if you were willing, yes, I would have loved to have my whole family together again. You can’t know what it’s like, Jake, to be at the mercy of forces beyond your control.”

  “Can’t I?” Jake demanded. “You think I haven’t been fighting a power greater than I am for the past ten years? You don’t know Alexander Blackthorne!”

  “Then perhaps you can understand how desperate I was. How desperate I am,” she corrected. “Now that you know, perhaps you’d be willing to post a letter from me to my sisters the next time you’re in San Antonio.”

  “I can’t afford to go to town right now.”

  “When will you be going?”

  “I have no idea.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Then you won’t mind if I take the letter to your mother and ask her to post it for me.”

  “You stay away from Bitter Creek!”

  She arched a disdainful brow. “Is that an order from my loving husband?”

  “It’s for your own good.”

  “It’s not my own good I’m worried about. I’m the one married to a kind and good man,” she said with a sneer that showed just how much she meant the exact opposite. “It’s my poor sisters I’m concerned about.”

  “Do what you want,” he snarled, thrusting an agitated hand through his hair. “You always do! I’ll find somewhere else to sleep tonight.” He grabbed his shirt and belt and boots and left the room without a backward glance.

  He was headed back to the barn. Again. Making love hadn’t changed anything.

  Miranda felt like bawling. Instead she turned out the lamp and got into bed. She wanted to be up early to make the trip to Bitter Creek. She hoped Jake tried to stop her, she really did. She would make a scene the likes of which he’d never seen.

  Miranda felt a hot tear trickle down her cheek and angrily brushed it away. She hoped, she fervently hoped, she was pregnant. She was going to have that baby and the two of them were going to live happily ever after. That would show him!

  Miranda slept badly and woke early. Jake had not had a change of heart during the night. He had not come back to bed. She wondered just how uncomfortable it was to sleep on a bed of scratchy hay, then told herself she didn’t care. She was determined to do what she’d threatened. She was going to saddle up a horse and ride over to Bitter Creek today and ask Jake’s mother to post her letter for her in San Antonio.

  Then she heard the spatter of raindrops against the window. The sun had shone so persistently every day since the snowstorm that Miranda was surprised by the change in weather. She got out of bed and crossed to the window and peered out. Not only was it raining, it had apparently been doing so all during her restless, sleepless night. Rainwater had pooled around the corral and lay in wide puddles across the backyard.

  “Darn.” She wasn’t going to be riding anywhere today, not unless she wanted to get soaked through. The roads would be deep in mud, so slippery that her horse might take a fall. She was going to have to wait until the rain stopped and the road dried out to make her grand gesture.

  She saw a light in the barn and wondered how long Jake had been awake. She hoped he’d slept as badly as she had!

  She sighed. Marriage was a lot harder than she’d thought it would be. Talking with a husband was much more difficult than talking to a sibling. There was so much room for misunderstanding. She hadn’t meant to hurt Jake’s feelings. She hadn’t realized she could hurt Jake’s feelings. She was sorry she had.

  She’d liked what he’d done to her in bed. It had made her feel close to him, closer than she’d ever felt to another human being. It had hurt at first, but as both Jake and her friend at the orphanage had promised, the pain was over quickly.

  What had come afterward had been nice. Very nice. Until Jake admitted his reasons for making love to her. That loving was no part of what he’d done. That he’d been taking rather than giving.

  She
hoped they’d made a baby last night. Then it wouldn’t matter if Jake never touched her again for the rest of her life. She’d still have a little one to love.

  She sighed again. Marriage was for life. She would be smart to make peace with her husband. Unfortunately, she’d never been able to go along to get along. She had the stripes on her back to prove it. Maybe there was some middle ground. She would have to see if she could find it.

  Miranda was about to move away from the window when she saw a strange-looking wagon with a white canvas top appear over a slight rise in the road. She knew what it was, of course. She’d seen pictures of Conestoga wagons in the Chicago newspaper, in stories about wagon trains heading west. But how had a single Conestoga wagon ended up here at Jake’s ranch?

  As she watched, the wagon slipped precariously from side to side on the muddy road as the six mules pulling it struggled for footing. The large back wheels seemed to be stuck for a moment and the man on the bench seat used a bullwhip to urge the mules to pull harder. The wagon slid again and the left rear wheel fell into a gully alongside the road. The mules kept pulling, and the wooden wheel snapped in two with a crack so loud Miranda heard it even through the closed window.

  She watched in horror as the wagon began to topple sideways. The man on the bench yanked hard on the reins, trying to keep the frightened mules from bolting. He finally managed to calm them, then jumped down, slipping and sliding and falling on one knee, before grasping the back of the wagon. He reached his arms up and came away with a stout woman wearing a heavy skirt.

  He set her carefully on the ground, then stood back at arm’s length to look at her, brushing at her face and leaving a streak of mud from his hand. When the woman turned sideways, Miranda saw she was very, very pregnant.

  The man looked toward the house and Miranda realized she could be seen through the window in her nightgown. She stepped back out of view and stared down at the couple. She was turning away to dress when she caught sight of movement from the corner of her eye. She leaned back in time to see Jake ride out from the stable on horseback to greet the couple.

  He spoke with them briefly, then took the woman up before him on his horse, while the man followed behind on foot. Miranda realized they were headed for the house and hurried to dress herself. She was glad she’d taken the time to alter some of Priscilla’s clothes and pulled on a dark blue skirt and white blouse over her chemise and pantalets. She pulled on long socks and hooked a pair of half boots onto her feet and then ran down the stairs.

  She was halfway down when she realized her hair was still in its night braid. She started to turn around and go back up, but she wanted to be there when Jake arrived in order to greet their company. She realized that Jake had lit a fire in the kitchen stove before he’d left the house—or had come into the house from the barn before dawn to do so. He’d put a kettle on to heat water for washing, and it smelled like he’d also brewed a pot of coffee.

  She wondered how a man could be so thoughtful—and so judgmental and stubborn and foolish—all at the same time.

  Miranda opened the back door when she heard the three of them dropping their muddy shoes on the back porch. “Welcome,” she said. “Come in and get dry.”

  She saw the woman was very young and had wide-spaced brown eyes and a beaked nose. Her husband, who had astonishingly blue eyes and a nose as straight as a ruler, couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than she was. What on earth were they doing out here in the middle of Texas all by themselves?

  “This is my wife, Miranda,” Jake said, making the introductions as the couple entered the kitchen in stocking feet. “Miranda, this is Mr. and Mrs. Mueller. They’re on their way to Fredericksburg, west of Austin, to live with Mr. Mueller’s brother, Augustus.”

  “I am Heinrich,” the young man said with a heavy German accent, taking off his dripping hat and holding it in front of him, nodding in greeting to Miranda. “This is my wife, Gretta.”

  “So nice to meet you,” the young German woman said with a smile, her hands wrapped around her belly. Her English was even more heavily accented than her husband’s.

  “It’s nice to meet you, too,” Miranda said. “Come in and sit down where it’s warm. Are you hungry? I was just about to make breakfast for—”

  “She’s in labor,” Jake interrupted in a harsh voice.

  Miranda stared at the young woman. She looked perfectly normal. “Really?” she asked, not quite believing what Jake had said. Miranda’s mother had gone to bed at the first hint of labor and stayed hidden in her bedroom with the midwife—moaning and groaning and crying out in pain—until each of her children were born.

  Gretta lowered her eyes shyly. “I am afraid it is true. The baby was not due for three more weeks, but I have been having pains for four hours already. I am sorry to be so much trouble.”

  Miranda looked at Jake and said, “Is there a doctor close by you can call to come help with the delivery?”

  Jake shook his head.

  She looked at him mutely. Then who’s going to deliver this baby? “Maybe your mother can help,” she suggested.

  “I can’t get across Bitter Creek,” he said curtly. “With this much rain, the water will be running too high and fast.”

  “It is our first child,” Heinrich said. “We planned to be at my brother’s home in Fredericksburg when Gretta’s time came. My brother’s wife has six children. She would know what to do.”

  “Heinrich says neither of them has any experience with birthing a baby,” Jake added.

  “I don’t either,” Miranda admitted. She looked Jake in the eye and said, “You’re the only one who does.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t help her. I’m sorry. I can’t.”

  His voice was shaky, Miranda noticed, and a little frantic.

  “Having a baby is a natural thing,” Gretta said, the calmest of them all, Miranda thought. “We will make do, yah?”

  “I’ll go milk the cow,” Jake said.

  Miranda recognized the offer for the excuse it was to escape, since it was Nick’s job to milk the cow.

  “I’ll see if Slim can make breakfast for everyone while I take care of Gretta,” she said. She met Jake’s panicked gaze and asked with her eyes, Are you going to help me with this?

  “I’ll be in the barn,” he said.

  Apparently not, Miranda thought with dismay. “Please help yourself to a cup of coffee,” she told Heinrich. “I’m going to get Gretta settled upstairs.”

  She started toward the kitchen doorway with Gretta, but the woman suddenly stopped in her tracks. Her eyes closed and she put her hands on either side of her enormous belly, panting through her mouth.

  “She is having a contraction,” Heinrich said.

  Miranda stared, entranced. The young woman didn’t make a sound. Her face didn’t scrunch up in pain. She wasn’t even lying down, she was standing in the middle of Miranda’s kitchen. Within a very short time, Gretta took a deep breath and let it out. Then she opened her eyes, met Miranda’s concerned gaze, and smiled. “We can go now.”

  “Aren’t you in pain?”

  Gretta shook her head as she followed Miranda to the stairs. “The pains come only for a few seconds. Between the pains, there is nothing. At the end, the pains will be longer and closer together. Now, I am fine.”

  Miranda was astonished. “Is it the same for all women?” She’d imagined her mother in pain every moment she was in labor. Gretta shrugged. “I do not know. This is what is true for my mama and my sister and me.”

  Miranda wondered if Gretta’s labor would be any shorter than her own mother’s had been. Miranda’s mother had sworn that she’d spent sixteen hours trying to push her first child from her body. The rest of her siblings had come in less time, between eight and twelve hours, with Josie coming in only four.

  She stopped by Slim’s room and knocked and explained the situation to him through the crack in the door, whereupon he readily agreed to help with breakfast. Then she headed upstair
s with Gretta. She wanted to make sure they weren’t still on the stairs when the young woman had her next contraction.

  “Miranda? I heard strange voices downstairs,” Nick said. He was only half dressed and crossed his arms over his bare chest when he spied the strange woman on the landing at the top of the stairs.

  “This is Mrs. Mueller, Nick. She’s in labor. She and her husband are going to stay with us until she has her baby and they’re able to get the wheel fixed on their wagon. Why don’t you help Harry and Anna Mae get dressed. I’ve asked Slim to make breakfast.”

  “I saw Jake leave the house,” Nick said.

  “He’s milking the cow. I’d appreciate it if you’d go gather some eggs. I think Slim has an extra rain slicker you can use. We’re going to need all the eggs we can get with company here.”

  “Sure,” Nick said, eyeing the pregnant woman as he backed his way down the hall to the room he now shared with Harry and Anna Mae.

  “You have three children?” Gretta asked.

  Miranda laughed. “No. I have two brothers, and Jake has a daughter.”

  “You have no babies together?”

  “Not yet,” Miranda said. Not yet? Not ever if Jake got his way. “Here we are,” Miranda said as she led Gretta into her bedroom. “I’m sorry everything is such a mess.” She realized both her clothes and some of Jake’s from the previous night were strewn around the room. She quickly gathered them up. “Let me change the sheets before you lie down.”

  “I will help,” Gretta said. “If you do not mind, I would rather sit in the rocker as long as I can. Maybe Heinrich can bring my crocheting to me. I am making a cap for the baby. I want to finish it before he—or she—is born.”

  Miranda was frankly agog at how little Gretta seemed to be affected by her labor. “How far apart are the pains right now?”

  Gretta pursed her lips, apparently calculating, and said, “Fifteen minutes, I think.”

  “How close will they be at the end?” Miranda asked.

  “They will come practically on top of one another and be very powerful.” Gretta caught her lower lip between her teeth and for the first time looked like the inexperienced almost-mother she was. “I am a little worried about the end,” she admitted. “My mama said it hurts worse than anything a woman can imagine. But one is rewarded in the end with a child to love, so it is all worth it.”