Marry Me

by Susan Kay Law

  “Two miles?” She’d expected some hardships, understood she’d miss the convenient rush of hot and cold water from the taps at Dr. Goodale’s house. But it never occurred to her there wouldn’t be at least a pump, as Anthea and Gabriel had.

  Despite her determined cheerfulness—or perhaps because of it—some of her dismay must have leaked through, for Murphy shook his head sadly at the naiveté of impulsive girl homesteaders. “I’ll leave you a barrelful. Always keep a couple in the back. And I figure you won’t have much trouble sweetening some fella or ’nother into fetchin’ it for you, regular-like.” He winked broadly.

  “I’m sure I’ll manage.”

  “Oh, you will.” He climbed back up to his seat and grabbed the reins. “Marry up right quick, that’s my advice. You’ll have your pick, sure shootin’. Most of the girls who come out here who aren’t married aren’t married for a reason, if you catch my drift. Rest are snapped up right quick. Smart thing of you, to come here to look for a husband. Surprised we don’t get more of that.”

  “I’ll keep your advice in mind,” Emily said with appropriate solemnity. The last thing she intended was to save her sister from another marriage of convenience only to be forced into one herself. But Murphy seemed so earnest in his advice, she hadn’t the heart to reject it out of hand.

  “I’m off, then.”

  He drove away without looking back. Despite the fact that no one would accuse Murphy of being a scintillating conversationalist, and Emily suspected those would be fighting words should anyone try, she found herself unable to keep from watching him drive off like he was her last, best friend, her eyes tracking the back of his wagon until the settling gloom swallowed him up as he rounded over the edge of a swale.

  What now? The wind rustled through the grass, whispering the question. It seemed as if there should be a thousand things to do, but she couldn’t think of one.

  And so she spun slowly, skimming her gaze over the land, trying to get it to settle in and take hold, trying to reconcile it with home. On her way to visit Anthea, neat, square little pieces of land, framed by the train windows, clicked nicely by, here and there a rustic little town, completely charming from a distance.

  And even Gabriel’s ranch was far less…intimidating than this, bounded by the enclosing mountains, crisscrossed by stock paths, tamed by cowboys.

  This…this could never be tamed by anyone. The land wasn’t as flat as it first appeared; the darkening sky exposed slight washes and bluffs, the shadows hollowing beneath, the sun glistening gold along the top of the ledges. The grass rippled and swayed, a living thing in a way the clipped lawns of Philadelphia never were. And she was alone, completely and utterly, in a way she had never been before in her entire life. She could shout, she realized, scream to the sky, and no one, not one single person, would come running.

  She shivered. But it was beautiful, for all that, the way she could trace the gradations of color across the sky, gold in the west, and then pink, red, bleeding into violet where it bumped down against the ground again in the east. And there a light flickered on, so suddenly she blinked.

  She couldn’t judge the distance. A small light, close? A bright one, farther? But she wasn’t alone after all. There were others who’d made this place their home, who’d lit a lamp and were now settling in for the evening. To supper, perhaps.

  As she should be. She certainly couldn’t stand out there all night.

  The little shack seemed no larger as she approached it. But it wasn’t as if she needed much space just for her. It’d be easier for her to maintain. She’d be…cozy. Who wanted to rattle around in a big echoing space like her brother-in-law’s manse?

  Rope as thick as her wrist trailed down from each corner. She followed the nearest one down, brushed aside the grass with her hand, and found it tied securely to a sturdy stake wedged in the ground. Just like a circus tent, she thought, and it made her smile. She tugged on the rope, found it firm. At least it wouldn’t blow over in the night. That was good to know…though it wouldn’t have occurred to her to worry about it.

  The front door sagged open, hanging by a single leather hinge, and she gingerly tugged it wider, relieved when it didn’t fall off in her hand. The interior was dim, the shutters closed, the fading sunlight behind her throwing her shadow tall and wavering across the wide-planked floor.

  She squinted, trying to make it out. The room couldn’t measure more than twelve by fourteen, intriguing shapes lurking in the shadows. The sun slipped lower, glinting off glass as it slid past—a lantern. She grabbed it off the wall, and kerosene sloshed.

  Emily dashed back to her pile of supplies, congratulating herself that she’d made sure the matches were readily accessible. Curiosity had her hurrying back to the shack. The lamp balked only once before catching, light and odorous smoke wafting from it in equal measures.

  But it didn’t take much to illuminate the interior. A bed, a table, a couple of chairs, a tiny corner allocated for the kitchen. But for Emily, who’d lived in a mansion but who’d never truly owned much of her own, it was like having a pile of presents handed to her. They were all around her, waiting for her to unwrap and discover some wonderful thing inside. She couldn’t wait.

  The floor was wood. Warped and dull, studded with knots and wide gaps puttied with gray. But good firm wood, she thought fondly, tapping it with her toe, ever so much better than the dirt she’d expected. She chose to ignore the rodent droppings; she’d get rid of them, both the leavings and the creature who’d left them, soon enough.

  There were two windows, the glassless openings firmly shuttered. Thin blue paper covered the walls, great sheets of it curling down from the ceiling, and it crinkled beneath her touch like wrapping paper.

  She pushed on the corner of the table. Obviously homemade, it was sturdy all the same, the top sanded so smooth that she could glide her hand over it without fear of slivers. Who made this? she wondered suddenly. Nothing fancy, not the slightest bit elegant, but done with pride, the legs even, the top level, as if intended to serve a family for years.

  A shelf laden with books was fastened to the wall over the bench next to the table. She lifted her lantern and tilted her head to make out the titles. James, Hardy, Stevenson, several by Twain. Even Thoreau. A couple of ancient copies of American Farmer magazine. She smiled when she discovered a copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; Kate had read it to her when she was eleven. Grimaced when she came across The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Try though she had, she’d never managed to slog past page twenty-five, and had finally managed to “lose” it somewhere in the depths of the clinic. Interesting that these books had meant enough to whomever had lived there to drag them all the way out when surely they’d needed lumber and flour more, but not enough for them to take the books when they left.

  Whoever’d built this place, they’d surely left it fast. There were dishes in the dry sink, any water long evaporated, the bottom thick with scum. An opened tin can, empty except for the black crusting its sides, lay on the floor beside the stove.

  A shadowed corner sprouted a pile of rusting tools: a hoe, a rake, a bow-handled saw. A rope bunk attached to the far wall held a pile of sheets and blankets. Clothing dangled limply on hooks. A gorgeous green silk dress trimmed with wide bands of creamy lace shimmered against the splotchy, papered walls. One good afternoon of work out there surely would have ruined it…a wedding dress, perhaps? Never worn again?

  The rest of the clothes belonged to a man. A big one, she thought, lifting a faded blue shirt and measuring its shoulders against her outstretched arm.

  What could have caused them to leave so quickly? A sudden inheritance, perhaps, that rendered these things no longer valuable. Or a family emergency, one from which they’d fully intended to return quickly but soon changed their minds.

  The air simmered with memories, tangible, out of her reach. Someone else’s memories.

  She set the lamp on the nearest chair and lowered herself to the bed. The matt
ress crackled. She stretched out, enveloped in the musty smell of old, dried grass, testing it out, and found it fairly comfortable.

  The activity of the past few days hit her all at once, a wave of sapping fatigue. She’d slept little on the train, too excited, afraid to miss a moment, abuzz with anticipation.

  But now she was here. Home.

  All her precious supplies were still stacked out where Murphy had left them. She probably should bring them in, but there was no one around to steal them. The afternoon’s clear skies and mild breezes promised a lovely night. And oh, this was so comfortable. The wind was low, sloughing around the shack, a soothing sigh like a mother whispering to a child.

  Just a moment, she promised herself. She’d just a rest a moment, and then she’d commence to settling in to stay.

  Emily awoke to dense blackness, her heart pounding, every sense on full alert, but unable to identify exactly why. It was as if she’d been jolted awake by a terrible nightmare, but she couldn’t recall a single detail. Perhaps there’d been something outside, a noise that would soon become familiar and friendly but was now shocking to ears more accustomed to the burble of voices and rattle of carriages. The lamp must have burned out on its own.

  But then the door burst open. The doorway was lightened by moonlight, thoroughly filled by a large, and very well-defined, human form.

  Chapter 2

  So this was terror, Emily thought numbly. How odd…though aware of her fright, she felt it dimly, from a distance, observing more than truly experiencing the tingling of her fingers, the tight knot in her belly.

  How strange she’d never felt it before. She’d been sad, of course, and lonely; grieving or worried upon occasion. Not often, and rarely for long, but those emotions had been true and deep just the same. She’d never been truly terrified, however, for she’d always believed everything would work out just fine. And it always had.

  She lay flat on the bed, absolutely still, and wondered how long she could survive without breathing. Long enough, she prayed, so that the intruder would never even realize her presence.

  He moved silently into the room. There was more light behind him, thin and pearly, spilling a rectangle of moonlight on the floor. His steps were unerring, as if he could see better than she in the dimness. She kept expecting him to bump into something, the table, a trunk, but he didn’t falter until he loomed over her in the bed.

  “You’re not sleeping,” he told her.

  As if a dangerous brigand cared whether he disturbed her sleep or not. Her thoughts churned, scrambling to remember which corner held the collection of tools, pondering whether the rake or the hoe might prove a more effective weapon.

  “I—” She tried to speak, managed only a squeak.

  “Aw, crap, don’t tell me you’re scared.” He was as shaggy as a great bear—wild fall of hair, thick beard, immense shoulders—with a deep grumble of a voice. “You think I would’ve knocked on the door if I meant to strangle you in your sleep?”

  Despite his looking ever so much like the sort who would do just that, he made undeniable sense. “What difference does it make if I’m asleep? Or scared, for that matter?” The first sharp bite of terror receded. Surely if this man threatened immediate danger he wouldn’t simply be standing beside the bed glowering at her.

  And so she took her customary approach to dealing with a difficult person.

  She talked.

  “Which I am, by the way. Frightened, I mean. And I was sleeping.” She wondered if it would be too obvious if she yanked the covers higher around her neck. “You still haven’t explained why you care if I am.”

  “Frightened? Because women tend to be even more unpredictable and unreasonable than usual when they’re frightened, that’s why. And sleeping? Because you’re probably not going anywhere until you wake up.”

  “Going anywhere?” she repeated. Dulled by heavy sleep, her stomach still jittering with unease, she sat up—making sure the quilts were wedged firmly in her armpits—and pushed her hair out of her eyes.

  “Yeah.” He whacked his hand against the bed-frame so hard it nearly sent her tumbling. “Get moving.”

  “And where, exactly, am I moving to?” A nice burn of anger shoved aside the rest of her fear. If he thought she’d be traipsing off anywhere with him, well, she’d just recalled exactly where she’d left that hoe, and figured it would look mighty fine wrapped around his skull.

  “How the hell should I know where you’re going?” If only he wasn’t so large. Plotting a clear path around him was a challenge. “Do I look like I care?”

  Deranged, she concluded. Or dead drunk, though he spoke quite well for someone with a brick in his hat. “Who are you?” she ventured. It was one of the first things she’d learned from Dr. Goodale in treating patients. Learn their name, and use it often, to retain both their attention and their trust. Not that Dr. Goodale himself bothered very often, but Emily had employed it to good effect.

  His head jerked toward the door. “Move.”

  “Sir—”

  “My name doesn’t matter a damn. All that matters is that this is my claim, and I want it back.”

  If Murphy had taken her twenty dollars and shown her to the wrong land, she was going to wrap that hoe around his neck instead. “If you’d just sit down, I’m certain we can sort through this.”

  “Nothing to sort through.”

  At a loss, she simply sat there, squinting at him through the gloom. His hair was dark and wild, blending into the night, streaming around his shoulders and into a heavy beard. All she could see was the hot glitter of his eyes when he turned his head and the moonlight caught him.

  Well, if he refused to be civilized and sit down, she certainly was not going to remain on the bed any longer, craning her neck to look up at him. She swung her legs to the floor and stood, only to discover she was still forced to look up considerably.

  “Mister, it’s late, it’s dark, and I’m tired. If you insist this is your claim, either your locator or mine made a terrible mistake.” She sighed, just thinking about making the trek back to McGyre. She’d so many plans for tomorrow. “There’s nothing for it, I suppose, but to return to the land office and check the numbers.”

  “I don’t need to check any numbers. I lived in this place for six damn months and built every stick of it with my own hands. I know my own claim when I see it.”

  “Oh dear.” Sympathy, rich and bittersweet, welled instantly. Those were his books. His shirts, hanging over her bed. “I’m so sorry. But you understand, the government recorded it as abandoned, and I paid my fee and filed on it yesterday. It’s fully legal.”

  “Yesterday.” He spat the word out. “Then you’ve hardly had time to become attached to the place, have you? Should be no trouble at all for you to move on.”

  She had to think. She knew the legalities were completely on her side. But there was legal, and there was fair.

  And then there was what she could afford to do, which was something else entirely.

  “It really doesn’t seem wise to attempt to sort this out in the middle of the night, does it? I’m sure that, in the morning, everything will be simpler.”

  Impatience simmered around him. He jammed his arms over his chest, glaring at her. “Wouldn’t take much for me to just haul you out of here and be done with it.”

  “No, it wouldn’t.” Charming was clearly beyond his reach, but a bare minimum of politeness shouldn’t be. She could understand why he—wrongly, she reminded herself—considered this land his, but she’d never understood rudeness. “It would take a bit more for me to fetch the federal agent who deals with claim jumpers, but I imagine then I’ll be done with it, too.”

  He just barely held himself in check. “All right then. The morning.” He hooked the nearest kitchen chair and dragged it close, flopped into it, and kicked his feet up on the foot of the bed.

  “You’re not planning to stay here,” she said, aghast at the idea.

  His voice lightened with somethi
ng that, in another man, might have been amusement. “Don’t tell me you’ll expire from the shock of sharing breathing space with a man for what little’s left of tonight.”

  “I’ve spent the night with a man before,” she said staunchly. And it wasn’t even much of a lie. “Several, in fact.” They’d mostly been comatose at the time, and barely capable of lifting a finger, much less anything else, but Emily didn’t see why that should disqualify it.

  “I’ll bet.”

  Emily clamped down on an automatic protest. It’d be utterly foolish to allow him to spur her into ruining her own reputation just for the pleasure of calling him wrong. But his loftily superior skepticism just dared her to contradict him. And Emily had never been good at resisting a dare.

  “Fine. You stay.” She plopped back down on the bed. The bed that he claimed to have built, that he’d slept in for many months…the thought lodged itself firmly, big and brazen, at the forefront of her brain. Oh, she was going to sleep ever so well after realizing that! She’d be tempted to go ahead and hash the whole thing out right now, the late hour be damned, except that he’d be too pleased by her capitulation.

  So they just sat there, her on the bed, tense, stiff-backed, hands tucked between her wedged-together knees, fervently grateful she’d fallen asleep fully dressed; him, apparently comfortably settled into what she’d considered a seriously uncomfortable chair.

  “So this is what we’re going to do until sunrise? Sit here and glare at each other?” she asked him.

  “You can do whatever you want.” The door was still open, shades of gray and moonlight washing through, but he’d pulled the chair to the side, into the shadows. She couldn’t make out his borders, so he was just vague forms in the dark, denser and firmer than the gloom cloaking him, but she thought he might have shrugged.

  “And you’re going to…” She trailed off, she hoped, leadingly. And futilely, for all she received in response was silence brushed with the whispering sigh of the wind.