The Bride Series (Omnibus Edition)

by Bittner, Rosanne

  They arrived at his cabin and he lifted her down. “Come. I made you something to eat this time,” he told her, after tying his horse near a watering trough.

  “Brand, you didn’t have to do that.”

  “It is not much, but I never offer you anything when you are here.”

  He took her inside, pulling out a chair for her. Rachael laid down the ledger paper she had brought along and sat down. There was a wonderful aroma in the little cabin, and he had put a checked tablecloth on the rugged, homemade table. He brought over a basket with a cloth over it, and a jar of honey.

  “Indian bread,” he told her. “Indian women make this often. It is hard for me to do all these things for myself. Indian men are not raised to do these things. It is woman’s work. But now that I am alone, I have no choice.”

  He opened the cloth, and several hunks of bread were inside, still warm. He had apparently made them just before coming to get her.

  “I cooked it outside over a fire. It is too hot to cook inside. The bread is really nothing more than sweetened dough that is fried.”

  “Oh! Kind of like the sweet bread my mother used to make,” she replied, picking one up. “Sometimes she would roll them in sugar.”

  “I suppose it would be good that way. We put honey on ours.” He set a tin plate in front of her and gave her a spoon. “I made coffee. It is out back over the fire. I will go and get you some.”

  He left, taking two tin cups with him. Rachael wondered at his statement, “now that I am alone.” Did that mean he had once been married? Moments later he was back with the coffee, setting the cups down and going to get his slate.

  “Look. I wrote a whole sentence by myself. Did I spell it all right? Connect the letters right?”

  Rachael spooned some honey over her bread roll, then studied the slate. “My name is Brand Selby and I own a ranch near Austin, Texas,” she read aloud. She smiled and met his eyes. “Brand, it’s perfect.”

  “I did some of that bookkeeping, too. I will show you later and you can tell me if it is right.” His eyes glittered with pride, and she knew she would not tell him she wanted to stop. She was determined to teach this man until outside forces prevented it.

  “Today I will read a whole story to you,” he told her. “I have been practicing with the reader you left me.”

  She laughed lightly. “I wish I could get this much enthusiasm out of the children, especially the boys. Children get so restless in school.” She took a bite of the bread, surprised at how soft and delicious it was.

  “That is because their spirits want to be free, to explore,” he answered. “While they are children, whites and Indians are very much alike. If we could all remain like children, the world would be a happier place.”

  She swallowed the bite of bread and looked at him thoughtfully. “Brand, that’s a beautiful statement. Do you know it’s very much like what we learn as Christians? Our own Christ taught that we can only enter the kingdom of heaven if we have the spirits of little children.”

  He grinned. “You see? It is the spirit that matters, not social custom or dress or the color of a man’s skin.” He picked up a piece of bread and poured some honey over it, holding it over his own tin plate. “How do you like the bread?”

  “Oh, it’s wonderful. Who taught you to cook it? Did you have a wife?” She asked the question as casually as possible, taking another bite of bread.

  “No wife. I used to watch my mother and other women make it. After my mother died, my father’s brother and his wife took us in and she did the woman’s work. Then my father and uncle were both killed at Plum Creek. By then the sons of my aunt and uncle were big enough to take care of my aunt, hunt for food and such. I had already started scouting for the Militia and then the Rangers. But when I go back to visit, my aunt always makes bread for me. I love it.”

  Rachael breathed a secret sigh of relief that he had had no wife. “Brand, I was wondering if you could do something for me.”

  He swallowed his bread. “I would do anything for you. By the way, I intend to pay you for these lessons. I guess I never mentioned it. I am surprised you didn’t ask.”

  “Oh, it isn’t necessary. I never even thought about taking money for it.”

  “But you should. It is only fair.” He drank some coffee. “What is it you want me to do?”

  “Well, I was just wondering if there was any way you could insure my brothers’ safety. They run my father’s ranch northwest of Austin. It’s about a day’s ride. I thought maybe you could say something to your people, or whoever the renegades are who keep raiding the settlers—maybe get them to promise not to raid the Double ‘R’ or harm it or my brothers. I worry so much about them.”

  He frowned. “I can make no promises. I can talk to them, but I am no chief or leader or anything like that, Rachael. But I have convinced them you are my woman, and since they are part of my woman’s family, I might be able to keep the Comanche from bothering them.”

  She kept her eyes averted, not wanting him to see the longing there at the way he said “my woman.” “I would appreciate anything you can do. I know you can’t make any promises, but just knowing you will talk to them helps. Do you see them often?”

  “Not so much. Those left are the most stubborn, the most determined. The tribe with which my aunt lives moves around a lot. Whenever I go to see them it becomes a scouting exibition—tracking them all over the plains. But I usually find them. The ones you see around here, like Rotten Mouth, they are just scattered renegades, hitting where they can, dealing with outlaws. The whites have done a good job of breaking us up. To be apart and to disagree on what to do only weakens us.”

  He finished eating his bread.

  “Brand, anything you can do would help me sleep better at night. My brothers are good people, and they’re all the family I have left. They’re the main reason I came back to Texas, but Josh won’t let me live at the ranch for fear of an attack.”

  Brand drank some coffee. “It is more likely an attack would come from outlaws, Comancheros, than from the Comanche renegades. But I know there has been trouble from the Comanche, too. I wish I could stop it, but they still think they can defeat the whites and drive them out of Texas. They think that eventually they will frighten all the whites away.”

  She sighed. “I’m afraid there are few whites more stubborn than Texans,” she replied. “Lamar already showed most of the Indians how the settlers feel. He just about sent us into financial ruin with all the money he spent getting rid of the Indians. I’m glad he isn’t president of the Republic any longer. I remember my father saying how he hated that man.”

  She sensed an anger rising in him at the mention of ex-President Lamar. “A lot of people hated him,” he answered.

  Rachael finished her bread in silence, realizing she had unwittingly struck a raw spot. She didn’t want to talk about anything sad today, or anything that brought out his bitterness.

  “We had better get on with the lesson,” she said then, drinking down some more coffee. “Thank you for the bread. It was so good.”

  “I will give you some to take back with you. Let your landlady taste it.”

  “Brand, you don’t have to—”

  “I want to,” he interrupted, meeting her eyes. Their eyes held for a moment, and she began to redden at the hint of desire she saw in his green eyes. “You make me happy, Rachael. You are kind and helpful and you look at a man for what he is. The man I used to work for was very much like that. He was a German man, Oscar Kruger. You are the only other white person I have met who was truly good, who truly accepted me. When I scouted for the Militia, they paid me well. But the prejudice was always there, lying just beneath their skin, just behind the eyes they pretended were kind. Some people are true and some are not. Mr. Kruger was true, and so are you. The only difficult part is that you are a woman.” And a very beautiful woman, he wanted to add.

  “Difficult?” she asked.

  Her eyes were glued to his until he rose, p
icking up their plates. He took the reader down from a shelf where he had laid it and brought his chair closer, opening the book to begin reading.

  Rachael managed to maintain a cool but friendly disposition as Brand read to her. She corrected him here and there. When he finished reading she spread out the ledger paper, and he took down a quill pen and a glass container of ink. Rachael ran through a few pointers in bookkeeping.

  “This is very complicated,” he commented. “With the Indians, one simply trades a few robes for some beads, tobacco, whatever. No one needs to keep books. Why do whites make everything so confusing, have so many rules, so much book work?”

  Rachael smiled. “I wish I could answer that. I sometimes wonder myself.”

  Rachael felt removed from herself when she was with him, as though the Rachael Rivers who was educated and should have common sense and self-control left her completely whenever she set eyes on Brand Selby. She had read books about forbidden love. Now that same kind of love had become a reality for her. She could think of no other description for her feelings.

  Again the lessons ended, and again he rode her back to their meeting place. Rachael had lost her desire to tell him she would not be back. She clutched the extra bread he had given her, wrapped in a cloth, and turned to tell him goodbye. A flood of passion moved through her at the desire she saw now in his eyes. Could it be he did feel the same as she? Were they both just too afraid to admit to it? She turned and left, walking as fast as she could, determined to get away before she said something she shouldn’t. When she reached the trees she looked back, and he was gone.

  “I thought that fourth meeting was your last,” Lacy said, as Rachael made ready to leave again. “This has been going on nearly three weeks, Rachael.”

  “But he’s doing so well, Lacy,” Rachael replied. “I just don’t have the heart to stop the lessons. He’s so eager, so intelligent.”

  “And you’re so much in love,” the woman added for her.

  They sat in the kitchen again. Rachael drank some lemonade before leaving. She reddened at the words, left momentarily speechless.

  “I see how you’re dressed. That’s one of the prettiest dresses you own. You don’t dress like that to teach children, all pink and pretty and lacy. And I’ve seen you struggle, Rachael, watched your eyes, heard all your arguments in the man’s defense. But the real reason you won’t stop the lessons is because you don’t want to stop them, not down deep inside. You don’t like the idea of not seeing Brand Selby anymore. Right?”

  Rachael closed her eyes and sighed. “What should I do, Lacy?”

  The woman came and sat down across from her. “You can’t keep it bottled up forever, Rachael. You might as well tell the man.”

  “Tell him!” Rachael looked up at her. “Oh, Lacy, I’d make a fool of myself. What if I told him my feelings, and found out he has no such feelings for me at all! I’d be devastated! Shamed! I would just want to die!”

  Lacy smiled, shaking her head. “Rachael, you’re the easiest person in the world to love. My guess is if you stopped those lessons, Brand Selby would be disappointed for more reasons than his inability to get an education. So what if you do tell him and you do find out he doesn’t have the same feelings? At least it’s a kinder reason to stop the lessons than having to say you’re afraid you’ll get caught with a half-breed, isn’t it? At least the excuse that you love him and find continuing with the lessons too difficult emotionally is a flattering letdown for him. I’m sure he would feel honored no matter how it turns out. And you’d feel a whole lot better and maybe sleep better at night.”

  She reached out and took the girl’s hand. “And another thing. Joshua is coming back any day now. In fact he should already have shown up. I think this time you had better tell him, too. Get it off your chest, Rachael, no matter what the consequences. Whatever happens after that, I’ll be behind you. At least this Brand Selby has apparently shown he’s an honorable man. You aren’t a bad woman for thinking you love him, Rachael. Every woman falls in love at some point in her life. I think like you. Brand Selby is just a man, capable of loving and being loved like any other. It’s only the outside hurts I worry about—how you’d be treated. But you can’t go on like this. You’ve got to do something about it. You’re losing weight and losing sleep.”

  “I know.” Rachael rose. “I’d better go, Lacy.”

  “There’s one other thing to remember.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Jason Brown. He’ll be back soon. You’d be better to tell Josh first and have him on your side before you tell Jason.”

  Rachael shivered. “I don’t know if I can tell Jason. I’ll tell him I don’t want to marry him. But I’m afraid to tell him about Brand. He hates Brand, and Brand hates Jason. And Jason has so much power, through the Rangers. I’m afraid he’d try to hurt Brand.”

  “Honey, I’ve seen Brand Selby, remember? I don’t have any doubts that one can take care of himself.”

  Rachael smiled softly. “Yes, I suppose you’re right there.” She picked up her parasol.

  “By the way, tell him he’s a good cook,” Lacy told her teasingly. “That was darned good bread.” She came around the table and hugged the girl. “God be with you, Rachael.”

  “Thanks.”

  Rachael went out, and Lacy watched from the back door, thinking how powerful and passionate young love was. Rachael Rivers was a strong, determined young woman. Once she made that final decision, she would be steadfast. She would not break easily.

  Rachael had not even made it yet to the flat rock when Brand came riding toward her at a hard gallop. She gasped when he circled her, reaching down and scooping her up with one strong arm, plopping her on the horse in front of him.

  “Men are coming from the direction in which we usually ride. We have to go another way,” he told her, heading east. They rode into a gully, following it for at least a half mile before climbing out of it and heading over a hill and down the other side of it.

  “I don’t know who they were,” he said louder then. “Good or bad, I didn’t want them to see us together.”

  “Could it have been Jason coming back?”

  “I don’t think so. I can spot that man a mile away. It was probably just settlers coming into town.” He moved into a dried-up arroyo, following it awhile, then heading for a stand of cypress trees. “Now that we are this far east, I know of a different place where we can go.”

  “But we don’t have the slate or the book.”

  “I will just practice writing and spelling today. You can give me some bigger words. There is a stream where I am taking you, and sand. I will write in the sand with a stick.” He kept a firm arm around her, and she let herself lean against him. She realized then that perhaps this terrible burden she carried would at least be lighter if she told him, especially if she discovered Brand Selby felt the same way about her. Lacy was right. She couldn’t go on this way much longer.

  Brand caught the soapy scent of her hair, feeling the urge to nuzzle it. He was surprised at the way she leaned into him, but pleased. He wondered how much longer this aching need for her could go on. Perhaps he should convince her not to come anymore, that it was too dangerous and he had been wrong to ask her. If he had known his feelings would be this strong, he never would have asked her in the first place, for now he couldn’t bear the thought of her being hurt on his account. He had done a terrible thing to this precious, beautiful woman, for she had too soft a heart to have sense enough to turn him down; and he had been too infatuated with her beauty to have sense enough to not ask in the first place. He chided himself for being so weak in her presence. His whole world had changed since getting to know Rachael Rivers.

  He rode into the stand of trees, and to Rachael it was like being suddenly in another world. It was instantly cooler, and there was soft green grass on the ground, as well as an array of wildflowers. Brand rode up to a stream, where tufts of grass dotted nearly white sand.

  “This will be a pleas
ant change,” he told her, dismounting.

  He lifted her down, their eyes holding for a moment. Was that something special he read in her eyes? He dared not believe it. He let go of her reluctantly, thinking that she seemed thinner, hoping she was all right. He untied a blanket from his gear and tied his horse to a branch, then carried the blanket toward the stream.

  “Come,” he told her. “We will sit by the stream.” He took her arm and led her toward the water.

  Rachael felt led by forces beyond her control. It was as though this man had some kind of power over her. How quickly she had learned to trust him.

  “I like this place,” he was saying. “It’s like a secret retreat.” He spread out the blanket and sat down on it, looking up at her.

  “It is beautiful,” she told him, walking to stand by the stream. “You don’t see many places on the plains where water runs freely like this, unless you’re right beside the river. There is a small tributary from the Colorado that brings water to my brother’s ranch. It seems like in Texas there is green beside the water, and then when you ride a little away from it, everything is barren again. I don’t understand how the buffalo grass grows.” She turned to face him. “Back in Missouri it’s green everywhere.”

  “Tell me about it. I have never really seen a city like St. Louis.”

  She walked closer, hesitant about sitting down on the blanket beside him. He leaned back, resting on one elbow. He wore only a vest again, his arms glistening dark and strong in the sun. When he leaned back more of his chest and some of his flat stomach showed. Rachael walked past him, suddenly terrified of her own feelings. She rattled on about St. Louis, doing her best to describe brick streets and theaters where people acted and sang on stage; about the Missouri River, the Mississippi River, the huge shipping business that kept St. Louis alive; how St. Louis seemed to be the focal point for all settlers headed West.

  “They have a beautiful courthouse,” she told him. “It’s several stories high, and magnificent murals are painted on each circular wall of the dome, at each level, and on the dome itself. In the spring it’s a real outing just to go there and see all the wagons lined up. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, all of them headed West.” She walked nervously between the blanket and the stream.