Lisa Plumley - [Crabtree 02]

by The Scoundrel

  On the other hand, none of those men had been wise enough to wed a practical woman like Sarah.

  “It’s all settled, then,” she announced. “We’ll stay here, and Eli will sleep in his own room.” Smiling, Sarah clasped his hand. Her wedding band glinted in the sunlight, reminding him of exactly how deep this arrangement between them went. “It will be cozy and wonderful.”

  That’s what Daniel was worried about. That, and the question of exactly what had happened last night. He obviously wouldn’t get a straight answer out of his wife.

  “If that’s what we decided.” He frowned, honestly unable to recall doing so. “I’ll sleep on the floor. It won’t take me long to make up a pallet.”

  “A pallet? No! Don’t be silly. You don’t have to—”

  “Yes, I do. My mind’s made up.”

  Otherwise, he’d inevitably hurt Sarah—even more than he had already. That was more than Daniel could stand. They were friends, first of all. Since he couldn’t promise her anything so mush-hearted as love, he knew it wouldn’t be fair to treat their arrangement of theirs as an ordinary marriage.

  Gently he withdrew his hand, hard pressed to withstand the disappointed look she gave him in return.

  “Last night won’t happen again,” he promised.

  Glumly, Sarah looked back at him.

  He couldn’t let her dissuade him. Daniel McCabe was a man of his word. He knew what was best for them both. He had to keep their friendship in the fore, not whatever shenanigans had happened last night. If they didn’t linger over it, they would both forget it. In time.

  Vowing to keep his life with Sarah strictly companionable from here on, Daniel reached for the quilt.

  “Now close your eyes, wife.” Despite the peculiarity of their situation, he couldn’t help but smile. “I don’t want you to swoon when I get out of bed.”

  Chapter Six

  Sarah did not close her eyes. Not when Daniel turned back the quilt that morning, and not when he rose from the bed, either. How could she? Her curiosity was simply too powerful.

  She didn’t feel the least bit guilty about sneaking a peek at him. Daniel was her husband, after all. Aside from which, she’d wager her last hunk of schoolmarm’s chalk that the rascal had lingered for a moment in a patch of sunlight as he’d reached for his britches, all but encouraging her to look her fill of him. Without his cooperation, she’d never have glimpsed such a scandalous view of his backside.

  The very memory of it made her feel hot, even days later. She had only to recall his tanned skin, his muscular back or his brawny arms, and she flushed all over. When she thought of his round-cheeked, jaunty posterior, she wanted to giggle aloud with delight. Who knew a man could have so appealing a backside? Or that the sight of it would make her feel so giddy?

  Of course, she hadn’t glimpsed anything…frontward on Daniel. Even she—for all her vaunted open-mindedness—wasn’t that bold. And despite her intimations to the contrary, she and Daniel hadn’t shared anything more on their wedding night than a few inches of mattress and part of the quilt.

  Something had gone wrong between her finding the nightgown he’d given her and his arrival home that night. How else to explain his surprise upon seeing her wearing it? He’d gone positively beet red in the face—not, she’d estimated, the reaction of a man delighted to see his bride in her finery.

  Never one to be daunted by a setback, though, Sarah had simply regrouped. That was her way. She refused to be defeated. If one tactic didn’t work, another was in order—it was as plain as that. So she’d bided her time, then slipped in bed with Daniel after she’d been certain he was asleep. It was only proper, she felt, that they spend their first married night together.

  Admittedly, it had been somewhat devious of her to mislead him the following morning. They’d had no such discussion about Eli’s room, and Daniel hadn’t agreed to a thing regarding their sharing a bed. But between growing up in her unconventional family, reaching a spinster’s age and teaching dozens of schoolchildren, Sarah had learned a thing or two about human nature. If a person insisted on anything staunchly enough, sooner or later everyone else gave in. It was only natural.

  Besides, her tactics had been for the greater good. It was true that Eli—so recently arrived in the territory—needed stability. Surety. An openly false marriage would give him neither. And Daniel—his protestations to the contrary—needed love. For too long, he’d held himself apart from the more sensitive qualities in his nature, preferring to spend his time in decadent bachelor pursuits. Her taming of him was for his own good. In the end, Sarah didn’t doubt he’d thank her for it.

  Especially once he fell in love with her.

  “Put down Whiskers and sit still in that chair, Eli.” She nodded to the cat in his arms. “And please stop kicking the rungs. As soon as I get this in the oven, we’ll start on your haircut. It’s past time you looked respectable again.”

  The boy groaned in protest. Sarah slid a graniteware dish of beans in the oven, wincing at the blast of heat that greeted her. Over the past several days, she’d become adept at her new role, teaching during the days and caring for her family in the mornings and evenings. Now, on her first full Saturday with the McCabe men, she felt determined to affect some additional—and much needed—changes in their household.

  This seemed a fitting time, while Daniel was busy at the smithy employing a new apprentice. In her experience, the least said about an intended change, the better. It only upset folks if they had too much time to contemplate progress. Wasn’t the resistance Grace had encountered in establishing her new Morrow Creek Ladies’ Bicycling Club evidence of that?

  After a careful perusal of Eli’s hair, Sarah picked up her shears and tackled the task at hand. She did a fine job on the boy’s dark brown locks, she thought, especially for someone with her limited experience. Even if Eli’s hair was turning out a bit shorter than she’d originally planned.

  With a hearty greeting, Daniel entered the kitchen on a breath of chilly autumn air. The scents of dried leaves, wood smoke and tobacco came with him. He set down the armload of repaired cooking utensils he’d lugged home with him, then turned away to shuck his woolen coat.

  Wistfully, Sarah watched his shoulders bunch beneath his shirt, his hands flex as he hung his coat on a peg. He had wonderful hands, big and strong and sure. Now that she knew what they felt like clasped within hers, she yearned for more. More touches, more embraces…more kisses.

  The memory of the brief wedding kiss she’d shared with Daniel tantalized her still. What would it be like, she wondered, to feel truly loved? To feel cherished, like a proper wife? ’Twould be…

  Daniel glanced her way. Caught gawking, Sarah hastily returned her attention to Eli’s unruly hair. Her cheeks heated, though, and her heart took to pounding as well. Undoubtedly, Daniel had seen her mooning at him. If that didn’t make him pull foot for the fireside with a mug of cider in his hand and an urgent need to be away from his wife, nothing would.

  It proved awfully inconvenient, she supposed as she snipped diligently, when a man’s wife showed signs of actually being in love with him.

  To her surprise, though, Daniel leaned against the worktable with, it seemed, every intention of staying to watch them. Almost as though he’d glimpsed the yearning in her eyes, she fancied, and felt intrigued enough to study her further.

  At his lingering there, Sarah couldn’t help but feel her spirits lift. It was silly, but she couldn’t help it. For the past few days, Daniel had done all he could to keep his distance from her. His insistence on behaving strictly as “friends”—despite their marriage—had driven her half mad. She’d imagined she’d be able to bring him round to her way of thinking—her romantic way of thinking—by now. But so far, he’d proved stubbornly resistant to her charms.

  Not to mention her repeated invitations to join her in their bed instead of his pallet. Foolish man. She had half a mind to sharpen her washboard and “accidentally” shred his makeshift bedrol
l the next time she laundered their things.

  “A haircut, eh?” Good-naturedly, Daniel peered at Eli, who sat with his arms stubbornly crossed. “Don’t look so glum. That bald spot will grow back lickety-split.”

  “Bald spot?” Wide-eyed, Eli reached for his head.

  “Hush.” With practiced movements, Sarah stilled the boy’s hand. She went on snipping. “You don’t have a bald spot, Eli. And I wouldn’t be so full of jests if I were you, husband. You’re next.”

  He laughed. “That’s what you think, wife. You’ll have to tie me down first.”

  “Very well. If that’s the way you want it.” She shrugged, pausing to comb a cowlick. “Eli will help me. Won’t you, Eli?”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  “You’ll help me get a rope? And tie extra-sturdy knots?”

  “Really sturdy!” The boy guffawed.

  At his laughter, warmth welled inside her. She truly did love Eli. He was a sweet, tenderhearted boy—beneath all the muddy shoes and frog-filled pockets. She didn’t know how he’d wound up on that westbound train—especially without the chaperone who’d been meant to accompany him—headed for an indefinite stay with his uncle. She didn’t know how anyone could have given him up. All she knew was that he was hers now—a part of her makeshift family of three.

  “Give him a bald spot!” Eli crowed. “A big one.”

  “Hmm. I just might.” Enjoying their banter, Sarah pretended to scout an appropriate place amid Daniel’s thick brown hair. Using her shears, she pointed to a likely location. “Right there above his ear, perhaps?”

  Daniel shook his head. “I get my haircuts—and my baths—down at Miss Adelaide’s place. I don’t need—”

  “‘Miss Adelaide’s’?” Gaping in astonishment, Sarah clapped her hands over Eli’s ears. “But that’s practically a brothel!”

  “Nothing ‘practical’ about it.”

  He grinned, a smile that probably came from remembering his impractical visits there. Or from recalling those occasions when he’d been illicitly “soaped up.” As if they didn’t have a perfectly serviceable washtub at home.

  Sarah felt her blood boil. “There’ll be no visits to Miss Adelaide’s in your future. I won’t have it.”

  He looked confused. “But you always knew I visited there. You used to joke about the place with me.”

  “I wasn’t married to you then.” Ignoring his puzzled frown, Sarah straightened as regally as she could. She resumed snipping. “It’s different now. You have Eli. And…and me.”

  A grin. “Well, I didn’t plan on taking you two with me.”

  “It won’t do any good to argue.” Her tone was a reasonable impersonation of her mother’s, whenever Fiona took Adam Crabtree to task for sneaking a cigar. Sarah figured she was doing well, in a wifely sort of way. “I’ve said my piece on the matter.”

  Daniel, blast him, didn’t seem the least convinced.

  “I didn’t ask for your ‘piece.’ Not that it matters now, anyway, because I don’t need a haircut. That’s my final word.”

  Did he truly believe a blustery statement like that would dissuade her? “Indeed you do need a haircut,” Sarah insisted, feeling a need to stand her ground. On something. “You might fancy looking like a mountain man, but I—”

  “But you can’t handle my fine rugged looks?”

  “Pshaw.” That was too close to the truth. Could he tell? Hoping not, Sarah lifted her chin. “Your head is growing fatter by the minute. That’s not what I meant at all.”

  “Come, now. You don’t have to be coy. Admit it.”

  “I will not!”

  With sham regret, he pursed his lips. “I’m simply too fine looking for your delicate sensibilities.”

  Daniel gave her a roguish wink, one she felt certain he typically reserved for dance-hall ladies and their ilk. She looked again, but he only offered her an even more dazzling smile. He must have momentarily lost his head, she decided, to have unloosed a portion of his charm on her.

  “After all, you can hardly be expected to withstand so much manliness—” outrageously, he spread his arms in demonstration “—all in one place.”

  Sarah scoffed. “Don’t be silly. You’re not so very…manly.”

  She nearly choked on the fib. And Daniel obviously didn’t believe her—not that she could blame him. This was the way it had always been between them—he, spinning ever more outlandish tales; she, secretly relishing every one. Daniel possessed an audaciousness Sarah had never found for herself.

  The difference was, he’d never before used that boldness of his to suggest she fancied him. Why was he doing so now? Of a certain, that fatheaded grin of his was no clue.

  “I want to be manly, too!” Eli piped up, suddenly switching allegiances.

  Sarah gawked. “Eli!”

  “We’ll be a manly pair together.” Daniel nodded assuredly. “You and me, Eli. How’s that?”

  Affectionately, he slung his arm around Eli’s skinny shoulders. Thus united, the two of them faced her—dark haired, dark eyed and so alike in their man-size mulishness that Sarah actually wondered…had she been wrong all along? Was Eli truly Daniel’s son in secret, as everyone in Morrow Creek suspected?

  He’d told her the boy was his sister’s, but looking at them now…

  No. That way lay madness. Rather than wonder, Sarah decided to take what providence had given her—Daniel and Eli—and try to recapture some of the warmth they’d shared earlier.

  With that aim in mind, she stuck her hands on her hips, then regarded the pair of them puckishly. “Are you two ganging up on me, then?”

  They nodded. Solemnly, Daniel explained, “We men have to stick together.”

  Eli nodded. “Against the womenfolk.”

  “The ‘womenfolk,’” Sarah pointed out, “are the ones who keep you clothed and fed.”

  “Pshaw.” Daniel waved off the notion. “If by ‘fed’ you mean that mush you slopped out for us last night—”

  “That was a perfectly good dish of barley and rutabagas!”

  Fiona Crabtree had recently become a Grahamite, in keeping with Sylvester Graham’s revolutionary findings about the merits of eating whole grains and plenty of plant stuffs. Following her mama’s example, Sarah had decided to try out one of the doctor’s receipts. She’d wondered why Daniel and Eli had volunteered so readily to scrape the plates and stack them for washing.

  “—then I’m happy with beans and bacon down at Murphy’s.”

  “That’s another thing.” Reminded of Jack Murphy’s saloon—and Daniel’s habit of taking his meals there—Sarah prepared for another tussle. “Why haven’t you been taking your noontime meals to the smithy with you? I leave out something for you every morning, nicely packed with a gingham napkin and—”

  “—and vegetables. Green beans, corn, tomatoes.” He made a face. “Those aren’t foods fit for a man.”

  “Well, I can hardly scurry from the schoolhouse to cook you a beefsteak on your blacksmith’s fire every noontime, now, can I?” Sarah arched her brow. “Mama gave me some things Cook had put up for winter. I thought you’d like them.”

  “But…they’re vegetables.”

  At his aggrieved tone, Sarah grinned. As a girl, she’d helped Daniel smuggle his share of carrots and turnips from the dinner table and feed them to the neighbor’s hogs. But things were different now. Pointedly, Sarah glanced at Eli.

  “You’re a grown man now. You have an example to set. That includes vegetables.”

  Daniel groaned, sounding markedly like Eli had when she’d originally suggested trimming his hair. Ignoring him, Sarah gave her charge one last comb-through. She unfastened the cloth she’d tied around his neck to catch the clippings.

  With a hopeful face, Eli glanced up. “All done?”

  At her nod, he hopped gleefully from his chair. “I guess I’ll go read a book, then,” he announced.

  Daniel stared, diverted from his tirade against vegetables. “A book?” He turned to Sarah.
“You have bewitched him.”

  She smiled, feeling satisfied. The change in Eli was no less dramatic than she planned for Daniel. Not that he needed to know the details yet.

  “No mud pies? No mischief?” he prodded.

  “Nah, I like my book.” Eli nodded toward the other room. “Miss Crabtree got it for me from the News Depot.”

  Daniel frowned. “You mean your Aunt Sarah got it for you.”

  The boy shrugged. “No, Miss Crabtree did.” He headed for the distant hearth, where his book waited on a chair.

  Daniel held out his hand to stop him. A curious tension emanated from him. “She’s not ‘Miss Crabtree’ anymore. She’s Aunt Sarah. That’s what you’re to call her.”

  “She’s Miss Crabtree,” Eli insisted stubbornly.

  “You go ahead and read your book, Eli.” Sarah stepped in, giving him a pat on his rigid shoulder. “It’s all right.”

  He scampered away, clearly relieved. Sarah wished she felt the same. Something in Daniel’s face alarmed her. Something dark and pained and very unlike him.

  “It’s not all right.” Daniel peered past her, probably intending to call back Eli. His voice was a rumble of pure displeasure. “He’ll do what I say, or—”

  “Leave it, Daniel. Please. We can’t force Eli to change the way he thinks of me. Maybe in time—”

  “Maybe you can’t force him. But I can.” His mouth hardened. “Already you care for him more than his mother ever did. More than she ever will. You deserve—”

  “I don’t deserve anything more than he’s ready to give.” Sarah hesitated, wondering if she dared ask about Eli’s mother. Why had she sent away her own son? But given the stormy look on Daniel’s face, she decided another time would be better. “Honestly. I can be patient.”

  “You? ‘Patient’? Ha.” At that, Daniel gave her a skeptical look. “’Twould be the first time, that’s for certain.” Unexpectedly, some of the gloom left his expression. “Remember when you wanted to cross the creek on those stepping stones? You nearly drowned yourself being ‘patient.’”