by Nerys Leigh
They ate the rest of the meal in silence, which was fine with Jo because she wanted to concentrate on every bite. She certainly didn’t want to concentrate on Gabriel, who ate ungracefully and with noisy enthusiasm. When they were finished, he leaned back in his chair, rested his hands on his stomach, and burped loudly.
“Pardon me,” he said with a smirk when she frowned at him.
She placed her knife and fork onto her sadly empty plate and folded her hands in her lap.
He looked at their dishes pointedly. “I’m going to see to feeding the animals. Washing bowl’s outside the door.” And then he got up and walked out.
Jo watched him leave in disbelief. She was used to manipulating men into doing her bidding, but this was going to be harder than she’d thought. She hadn’t taken into account that being married gave the man the idea that he didn’t have to make any effort whatsoever to gain her favour.
But she had more in her arsenal than her feminine wiles. A new plan of attack was all that was required.
Considering new options occupied her mind while she cleared the table. She gazed sadly at the empty serving dish. She’d hoped to keep some of Mrs. Goodwin’s delicious food for the next day, but Gabriel had eaten an astonishing amount. Placer mining must be hard work if he ate like that all the time and still managed to stay so lean.
She ran one finger around the inside edge of the dish and sucked the tiny amount of stew from the tip, closing her eyes in bliss. Even cold, it was scrumptious. She licked the serving spoon clean and then used it to scrape every last drop from the dish. When there was no more left, she sighed deeply and carried it out to the washing bowl which sat on a rough table outside the door.
She’d just finished putting the clean dishes away when Gabriel walked back in. He was her husband now, she told herself as he swaggered towards her. This was why she’d come, to have someone provide for her child, believing it was his own. And to do that, she had to do this.
It wouldn’t be so bad. Gabriel wasn’t hideous. And he appeared relatively clean.
She could do this.
For her baby, she could do this.
He raised one hand to brush down her cheek. “You’re a real pretty woman, Josephine.”
She swallowed. “Thank you.”
“There ain’t nothing to be scared of. I’ll be gentle with you, this being your first time and all.”
“Thank you,” she said again. Hopefully he wouldn’t know how to tell that it wasn’t.
Having apparently used up all the kind words he could muster, he leaned forward. She tried not to flinch as he pressed his lips to hers.
The smell of his chewing tobacco washed over her.
Her stomach heaved.
Jerking back, she clamped one hand over her mouth and ran outside, frantically looking around. The only thing she saw was the washing bowl and she rushed over to it just in time for Mrs. Goodwin’s wonderful stew to reintroduce itself to the outside world.
At least she’d got to enjoy it going down.
“You all right?”
Her stomach having emptied itself, she straightened. Gabriel was standing as far from her as it was possible to get and still be within earshot. She took the tin cup that hung by the water barrel beside the table and lifted the lid so she could scoop a drink from inside. When she’d rinsed out her mouth, she slumped against the wall of the house.
“I’ve been feeling queasy all day,” she said. “I think it must have been something I ate on the train.”
“Oh.” He glanced at the open door. “So... you feeling better now?”
At the hopefulness in his voice, she heaved a sigh. His kiss had just made her vomit and he was still lusting after her. Men were so disappointingly predictable.
“I think I need to lie down for a while,” she said. “I’m not feeling at all well.”
His face fell. “Oh.”
The truth was, the nausea had subsided now she’d been sick, but she definitely needed to feel at her best for her first time with him. Right now, she wasn’t sure she’d make it through the experience without throwing up again.
He eyed the washing bowl as she walked back inside but didn’t say anything. Whether it would be cleaned up or not when she came back out, she had no idea.
To give the bed its due, it wasn’t the worst she’d ever laid on. There were a few lumps, but overall it was okay. The sheets might even have been clean, relatively speaking. She sank onto the mattress and closed her eyes in relief, only now realising how tired she was.
She wondered how her friends were doing. Was Daniel living up to Sara’s sky-high expectations? Had Lizzy done everything she could find to do on Richard’s cattle ranch yet? Was Amy working through whatever was wrong? What was happening with Louisa and Jesse? Although she wasn’t given to praying, she offered a silent wish for each of her friends, just in case anyone was listening. It couldn’t hurt. If God existed, maybe He would hear her. If He didn’t, her prayers wouldn’t matter one way or the other. Better to err on the side of caution, in the event that He did.
After a minute or so, she heard feet shuffle. Opening one eye, she saw Gabriel standing a little way away, looking at her. “Are you going to stand there watching me for the whole time?”
He started, as if he’d been caught doing something wrong, and cleared his throat. “No. I... I was just making sure you don’t need anything.”
“I don’t, thank you.”
“Good. Okay.” He nodded and turned away.
Jo watched him until he’d disappeared outside then closed her eye again. She’d feel better once she’d had a rest. Then she’d get the deed over with and that would be that.
It wouldn’t be so bad.
~ ~ ~
When Jo awoke, all was darkness outside the window nearest the bed.
A single candle burned in the centre of the table, its meagre light illuminating Gabriel where he slept in an upholstered chair close to the stove, his head tilted up to the ceiling and his mouth wide open, emitting the most unattractive noise.
She scrunched her eyes closed and stifled a groan. He was a snorer. Some of the men her mother had brought into the house had been snorers. Jo hated those ones even more than the others.
Then she noticed something. There were actually two sets of snoring. Opening her eyes again, she looked around and saw Brutus sprawled by Gabriel’s feet. The dog’s snores were even louder than his master’s.
Her stomach chose that moment to gurgle. The sickness had given way to hunger, now her stomach was well and truly empty. She should get up and find something to eat. Yes, that would wake Gabriel, but that’s what she wanted. He’d stop snoring, she’d eat something, then they’d... do what needed to be done. So she should get up now.
Although she was still a little tired.
Her eyes drifted closed again.
Just a few more minutes in bed before she moved wouldn’t hurt.
Chapter 3
The marriage wasn’t consummated the next day, or the day after that.
Jo was sick both days, so that helped with the excuse that she was too ill, although she missed going to church and seeing her friends. Each evening as she went to sleep, she told herself she would do it the next day, and then the next day would come and her nerve would fail her again.
She could tell Gabriel was frustrated, but to his credit, and her relief, he didn’t try to force himself on her. If he had, she would have had to stop him, and there was a chance he would have come out of such an encounter somewhat the worse for wear. She’d learned to defend herself over the years, and she was more than adept at it. But she didn’t want to hurt him. He wasn’t a bad man, he just held no appeal for her whatsoever. That shouldn’t have made a difference to her, and yet it did.
On Monday he left for his gold mine, or placer claim, or whatever it was, taking Brutus with him and leaving her with the parting words that he hoped she was “well and truly better” by the time he returned on Thursday. Once he was gone, s
he slumped onto her back on the bed and groaned.
“What is wrong with me?” she asked the ceiling. “Why can’t I do this?”
Clive had been her first. Her only. She’d had plenty of opportunities before him, but no one else had broken down her defences. Until she’d fallen in love.
She sat up as realisation struck. That was it. That was why she couldn’t bring herself to be intimate with Gabriel. She wasn’t in love with him.
Of all the things that could go wrong.
Grabbing a pillow, she buried her face in it and screamed in frustration. Surely she could get past this. She could bend grown men to her will, and yet she couldn’t get past her own silly emotions? Where was the woman who had been looking after herself since she was fourteen? How could she be letting a simple, ridiculous notion like love stop her?
“Pull yourself together, Jo. You’re better than this.”
With a firm nod, she threw the pillow aside, shuffled to the edge of the bed, and stood.
When Gabriel returned on Thursday, she would be ready. This was going to happen.
Chapter 4
She wasn’t ready, and it didn’t happen.
The moment she saw Gabriel approaching on the buckboard, she knew. She simply couldn’t do it. It frustrated her no end, but there it was. Except now she had a problem. Well, several problems.
His first words to her were, “How’re you feeling?”
When she replied that she was much better, he grinned like it was his birthday.
This called for her emergency plan.
She had hoped to never need the powder she had stashed in her valise, but she’d brought it anyway. Better to have it and not need it than not have it and need it.
Fortunately, he wanted to eat first, and she’d done her best with her meagre cooking skills to prepare a reasonably tasty meal for him, to which she surreptitiously added a tiny amount of the powder. An hour later, he returned from taking care of the horses looking uncomfortable.
“Are you all right?” She knew very well that he wasn’t.
He slumped into a chair and rubbed his stomach. “I’m feeling a mite unwell.”
She walked over to him and laid a hand on his forehead as if feeling for a fever. “I do hope you haven’t caught what I had.”
Over the next three days, she gave him tiny amounts of the powder. Not so much that he’d be really sick, but just enough to dampen his ardour. She felt bad about it. It wasn’t his fault, after all. But what else was she to do? This was who she was. She manipulated people. She didn’t know how else to deal with problems. Except it seemed this wasn’t a problem that could be got rid of with lies and cunning.
Three days later, early Sunday morning, he was off to his mine again, feeling better since she hadn’t given him any of the powder since the previous morning.
And Jo was left with the knowledge that coming to marry Gabriel had possibly been the biggest mistake of her life.
Chapter 5
The track was almost non-existent close to the house, but Fred started off in the general direction Jo remembered the town being so she hoped he knew the way better than she did.
She concentrated on the landscape around her, memorising features and landmarks for her return and any future journeys this way. She very much did not concentrate on the fact that she was going to church.
Churches made Jo uncomfortable. She wasn’t sure why that should be, but she hadn’t found one yet that didn’t. She always felt like she was being judged in some way. Not necessarily by the people around her, although in some places that was almost certainly the case, but just... judged. Or maybe she felt guilty. On the off-chance He did actually exist, she preferred to keep her distance from a God who knew everything she’d ever done in her less than blameless life.
It took just over an hour to reach the edge of town although she was sure she could have made it in less if she hadn’t had to rely on Fred to get them halfway before the road showed up. The horse didn’t seem eager to get anywhere at any sort of speed.
She took a wrong turn in the town before finding the road she was looking for, having to ask for directions from a greasy man with a scraggly brown beard who didn’t know where the church was but made her want to have a bath just from the way he was looking at her. But she finally found her way and brought the buggy to a halt on the fringes of the crowd gathered in front of the white clapboard church.
Groups of people stood talking and laughing together. They were obviously more comfortable being here than she was. She scanned the gathering from her elevated position, trying to catch a glimpse of any of her friends. She sincerely hoped Amy, Sara, Lizzy and Louisa would be here. She’d come all this way just to see them.
“Morning, ma’am. Do you need any help?”
Jo looked down. The first thing she noticed was hair the colour of bronzed fall leaves. The second thing she noticed was a pair of eyes the colour of a clear summer sky. The third thing she noticed was that she seemed to have turned into a poet.
The man staring up at her smiled. “You seem a little lost.”
“I... uh... yes.” She scrambled to unscramble her mind in the face of his astonishingly attractive... everything. “Is there somewhere I can leave my buggy for the church service?”
“Sure is.” Without waiting for an invitation, he jogged around to the other side and climbed up beside her. “That way,” he said, pointing to a narrow road that ran along the side of the church.
She set Fred off in that direction.
“I haven’t seen you before,” the red-haired man said as they drove. “Are you new here?”
“I arrived on the train the Friday before last.”
Understanding dawned in his eyes. “Are you one of the brides that arrived? Just through here.”
She guided Fred through the gate he indicated at the back of the church. “I am. Josephine Car... Silversmith. Josephine Silversmith.” She let go of the rein with her right hand and held it out.
He had remarkably smooth hands, for a man. And warm. The handshake was over far too quickly.
“Zach Parsons,” he said, flashing her another smile that made her heart stutter. “Your friend, Amy, works for my pa.”
Amy had a job? Jo was going to need someone to fill her in on everything that had happened in the nine days she’d been stuck in Gabriel’s shack.
“Is she all right? I haven’t been into town since I got here.”
“She’s just fine. I haven’t seen her this morning yet, but I’m sure she and Adam will be along soon. You can pull in over there. So you married Gabriel Silversmith? How’s it going?”
Jo brought Fred to a halt in the space Zach indicated, at the end of a line of wagons, buggies and buckboards, and considered her answer. “I guess I’m still settling in. It’s a big change from where I come from.”
He swivelled in his seat to face her. “I’ll bet it is. I’ve always wanted to see a big city, but I’ve never been farther than Sacramento. What’s New York like?”
She was a little surprised to find herself smiling as she remembered her home town. She’d never thought much of it when she was there, but having lived in relative isolation at Gabriel’s hovel for over a week, she now appreciated the hustle and bustle of the city. “It’s big and dirty and noisy and there are people everywhere. I miss it.” She looked down at her hands. “I never thought I’d be saying that.”
When she raised her eyes, Zach’s face was filled with sympathy. He had an openness about him that was disarming. “It was your home. Sometimes I think I’d like to try life somewhere else, but if I left Green Hill Creek I know I’d miss it. But maybe you just need to get used to it here.”
“Yes. Maybe.” If only it was the place that was the problem.
“And I’m sure God brought you here for some reason,” he added.
She was fairly certain God hadn’t had anything to do with it. Desperation and incredibly poor judgement on her part, yes. God, no. “I’m sure you’re right.”
Zach’s exceedingly attractive smile created dimples in both cheeks and sparkled in his eyes. It occurred to her that she shouldn’t be noticing men’s attractive smiles now she was married, but she had no idea how to not notice. Maybe she’d be less inclined to notice if she actually felt married.
He jumped down from the buggy and walked around to help her down. “If you’d like to go in, I can get your horse some water and hay.”
She did want to go in and find her friends, but she also had an unexpected desire to stay and talk to Zach some more. She shook it off. Good or bad, she had a husband.
“That’s very kind of you, thank you.” She patted Fred’s shoulder. “His name is Fred, by the way.” Which Zach didn’t need to know at all.
He held his hand out for the horse to sniff then rubbed his neck. “Pleasure to meet you, Fred.” Fred bobbed his head. “See, we’re friends already.”
She laughed. He was adorable.
Fred was adorable. Not Zach.
What was wrong with her?
She took a couple of steps back. “Well, thanks again.”
He flashed his too attractive smile once more. “My pleasure, Mrs. Silversmith. Enjoy the service.”
“Thank you.” That was the third time she’d thanked him. Just leave, Jo. You’re making a fool of yourself.
Smiling awkwardly, she turned and headed towards the front of the church, ordering herself to not look back. She made it as far as the gate before she stopped listening to herself and glanced behind her. Zach was watching her. She waved, which made her feel even more foolish.
He smiled and lifted his hand and she nodded and then turned and fled, before she embarrassed herself even more.
Chapter 6
More than a week passed, a week that saw a lot of changes in Green Hill Creek for Jo’s friends but absolutely none for her.
Gabriel returned from his claim on the Tuesday. This time her excuse was that she was menstruating. Fortunately, she cut herself on Monday evening while preparing the meal. The idea came to her as she blotted the blood from her finger on a cloth. A few minutes later, and some massaging of her finger to encourage it to bleed more profusely, she had three pads of material with convincing bloodstains for him to ‘accidentally’ stumble across. He left again on Thursday, no happier than when he’d arrived.