“You want to change history?” Jack stared into her eyes and she was sure he wasn’t speaking of biblical history but something much more recent. He was asking if she was going to change her mind about his proposal. That would certainly feel like a happy ending except that she knew it didn’t end there. That was why she was afraid.
She crossed her arms defiantly and pretended they were only talking about the Christmas story. “You don’t know it didn’t happen like I said.”
He simply raised his brow at her.
“I didn’t change anything important,” Caroline said. “I only stopped the story before the unpleasant part. It is Christmas after all. And I’m tired.” She stood to head upstairs for the night.
“Merry Christmas, sis,” Sam said.
“Thank you, Caroline,” Ruth added. “Your story did have all the good parts.”
She smiled her appreciation at Ruth and was about to wish them all a merry Christmas when Jack came to her side. He wished the others a merry Christmas before he lightly squeezed her hand and said, “Merry Christmas, Caroline,” and moved past her to go upstairs first.
She waved to her brother and sister and followed Jack, at a respectable distance so that his door was closed before she passed it. She went into her own room fighting an irrational and sudden anger towards Jack. He had tried to smile at her when he said it, but something in his eyes had stabbed her heart and made it the saddest “Merry Christmas” she’d ever heard. How dare he ruin the happy sentiment!?
He hadn’t meant to though. She knew that. Just as she knew his heart had been in criticizing her story as little as hers had been in telling it. They weren’t going to be able to go backward. Was there a way forward?
Caroline opened her bible and read a few of her favorite psalms, the hope-filled ones. She lay awake for hours trying to remember those words and thinking only of Jack and the despair that she might never be comfortable around him again. The night felt strangely lonely. She had never been lonely at night, particularly not on the nights George hadn’t made it home. But that night she felt desperately incomplete, as though something… or someone… was missing.
She jumped out of bed at a sudden idea and wrapped a thick shawl around her shoulders. She opened her door slowly and looked out at the quiet hallway. It was too dark to make out much of anything but she dared not light a lamp. Her fingers slid along the wall and confirmed that all the doors were closed. She stopped outside Jack’s room and tried to slow her breathing so he wouldn’t hear her. He couldn’t know. No one could know.
Slowly, a quarter of an inch at a time, she turned his knob. She eased the door open only wide enough for her slight frame to slip through. Then she stood there with her back to the wall and she sighed softly. He was snoring. Odd that a snore could be considered peaceful, but it was. It was a peaceful moment to stand there and be near Jack with no words and no argument and no pain. Caroline believed that she could be content enough to sleep right there on his floor. She knew that wasn’t possible. She needed to return to her room soon.
Jack stirred. She caught her breath and held it. If she stayed still he wouldn’t see her even if he woke. He was awake though, wasn’t he? Was he sitting up? Had he sensed there was someone nearby? Caroline was paralyzed. The open door was immediately to her left. She knew she had to flee before he saw her. She couldn’t move though, couldn’t will her feet to take those steps.
Light flickered and then glowed as he lit the lamp by his bed. In a moment, he was at her side. “Caroline?” he whispered. “Is something wrong? What do you need?”
She shook her head. The only thing wrong was that she had made a huge mistake.
Jack poked his head into the hallway and then faced her again. “You can’t be in here now.”
She nodded. She knew she had to leave but her legs still wouldn’t move. “Jack, I…” She only wanted to apologize for disturbing him but his face came alive before she could get the words out.
“You’ve changed your mind, haven’t you? Will you marry me after all?” He reached for her and it made her legs unlock.
She whispered, “No,” before she ran – keeping her feet as light as possible – back to her room. Tears of humiliation stung her eyes and blocked out the speck of light so that she fumbled around trying to close her door. She dropped into a heap behind it and sat in shameful wretchedness. What had she done? Why couldn’t she leave the man alone?
~~ ~~
Caroline didn’t know how long she stayed on the floor before she realized she was shivering. When the shaking threatened to become violent, she crawled to her bed and under her blankets. Exhaustion must have taken over at some point because faint sunlight was coming in her window when she thought she’d only blinked. She dressed and went downstairs, knowing she’d missed breakfast. Ruth had even cleaned up alone.
“I saved you some toast,” she said as Caroline entered the kitchen. “Can you eat?”
Caroline nodded as she took the plate. She felt bad about misleading her friend to thinking she was ill. Ruth was an intelligent woman though. She eyed her friend carefully before she said, “Does you feeling poorly have anything to do with Jack?”
There was no point denying it, especially when the women were alone. “Yes. It has a lot to do with Jack.”
“I don’t like to pry but he’s not covering his misery any better’n you and…” Ruth stopped and pushed her lips together in a wince. She looked as though she didn’t want to say what she was going to say. “Well, I know… I know he’s not moving out because of the baby.”
“What do you mean he’s moving out?” Caroline put down her half-eaten bread.
“Jack took his things out to the bunkhouse this morning. He told Sam he needed to give us room for our growing family.” She patted her rounded belly. “But this one is a long way from needing his own room and he certainly won’t need two.”
Caroline’s hand came up to her temple. Now she’d driven Jack out of his own house. This was getting out of hand.
“Do you suppose there’s any chance you’ll be able to patch things up with him?” Ruth’s voice was cautious.
“I’m not sure.” Her voice faltered but Caroline’s emotions surged. All the embarrassment and the disappointment channeled into a nice stream of rage. Of course they would work this out. She would simply find Jack and inform him that he was being an imbecile. Just because she had taken complete leave of her senses the previous night didn’t mean he had any reason to fear it happening again. This was his house. He was going to live in it. She was going to live in it. And everyone would get on just fine. Marriage proposals had surely been rejected before with much less fuss.
Caroline told Ruth not to worry and her friend wisely did not bring up Jack the rest of the day. Caroline distracted both of them with a return to stories about Anna. When Ruth went out to ring the bell for supper – which was unnecessary since Sam was chopping wood near the back door and Jack was apparently not planning on joining them – Caroline told her brother they could start without her.
“What are you up to?” he asked, eyeing the cloak she was securing around her shoulders.
“I aim to talk some sense into your partner.”
Sam shook his head sadly. “Poor man.”
“I’m not going to ask what you mean by that,” she said as she marched past him. She’d been thinking of what to say and she cleared her throat as she knocked purposefully on the bunkhouse door.
The man who answered wore a heavily-stained apron and had thin gray hair and lots of freckles. “Miss Caroline,” he said, looking surprised. The surprise was warranted as she’d never knocked before. “The boys are about to sit down to chow. Have you come to weasel my chili recipe?” His expression was like a father warning his child not to do something he couldn’t help but think was cute.
“Oh, Red, I know better than that. No one keeps a secret like you.”
He smiled proudly.
“I’d like to have a word with Jack, please.”
“Sure thing, Miss Caroline. I’ll send him right out to you.” Red didn’t close the door as he retreated. A series of whooping noises came through the opening before Jack emerged. He shut the door and gestured for her to move a few paces away from it. He hadn’t bothered to put on a coat so she surmised that he did not intend to talk for long.
That was no matter. She would get to the point. “I need to apologize to you for…” she pushed aside the embarrassment at the memory and focused it back to a simmering anger at his overreaction, “for what happened recently. I have come to assure you that no such incident will occur in the future.”
He nodded and began to turn away.
“And to let you know supper is ready.”
“I know,” he said. “Red made chili.”
“I meant in the house.”
“If I’m sleeping out here, it makes sense to go ahead and eat here as well.”
Caroline put her hands on her hips. “You are not sleeping out here.”
“I’m not?” He narrowed his eyes in mock confusion.
“No,” Caroline said, “you’re not.”
“Got a bed in there with my things around it.” He nodded to the bunkhouse. “Care to explain how that doesn’t mean I’m sleeping there?”
“You simply made a mistake.”
He laughed at her answer. “I don’t believe I have.”
“Be reasonable, Jack.” Caroline felt her temper and her voice begin to rise. “No one believes you moved out because of the baby. It isn’t fair to make me responsible for kicking a man out of his house.”
“Fair?” Jack’s eyes filled with heat. “You want me to come back to the house and continue having you cook for me and mend my shirts and basically feel like my wife. But only during the day. Is that fair?”
Caroline choked on her response. That was exactly what she wanted… or what she thought she wanted. Even though she’d been married, she’d never had a man look at her with so much desire before. She sort of understood his argument.
He stepped forward and put his hands on her waist. “Or you could come to town with me right now to find the preacher and make everything easy. Will you?”
Not again. If he had any idea how difficult it was for her to say no, surely he’d stop asking. Or maybe not. The man liked nothing better than to be difficult.
And then he complicated things further by kissing her. She didn’t know if he was trying to sneak one in while a marriage proposal was on the table because that was a respectable time to do so or if he was trying to sway her answer. The first possibility was sweet so she ignored it and fixated on the one that annoyed her. Though if she was annoyed, why wasn’t she pushing him away? Why were her hands on his chest and not pushing him away?
She shoved him a bit more firmly than she intended in order to snap herself out of the distraction. “I can’t get married and I want you to stop asking me.”
He nodded but he was looking at her as though he wasn’t sure he believed her. “I guess that means I’m staying put.”
“No. It makes no sense. You’re sleeping alone either way so you might as well keep your house.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “My chili is getting cold and so am I.” He turned before he’d even finished talking and walked away from her. He walked away. If she’d been a little less angry, she’d have thanked him for it. It was so much easier to be mad at Jack.
~~ ~~
It goes without saying that Jack was crushed when Caroline refused his proposal. Each time. It was true even when he didn’t say it. He was also confused as she seemed to return his feelings. She completely folded in on herself after she turned him down and he hated to see her like that. That was why he had moved to the bunkhouse. There was no strategy in the move.
It had clearly been the right course of action though. She’d been all fired up when she came out to suggest it was wrong. The spark had returned to her eyes. And she’d been making excuses to come out and continue trying to convince him to return to the house. She asked – or more like demanded it – when she brought out a shirt she’d been mending when he gathered his clothes. She came out specifically to ask if he’d be going to church with them when Sam made the general call to all the hands. And she’d mentioned a return to the house then as well.
Jack was beginning to hope that Caroline only needed more time to get used to the idea of being married again. And now, though she hadn’t approached him yet, she had come out to saddle Dirt.
Shortly after they arrived, Sam had decided that any woman living on a ranch should be at least moderately comfortable on a horse. Caroline put up with his lessons while insisting she preferred to walk. She never practiced alone so why the need to ride when Jack happened to be in the barn? He watched out of the corner of his eye to make sure she remembered how to saddle the old mare. Her stories showed her soft spot for heroic actions and if he could swoop in for even a tiny bit of aid, that probably at least wouldn’t hurt his suit.
The task gave her no trouble, which impressed and disappointed him. She led the horse outside and mounted on the second try. Jack walked out and stood still watching Caroline ride around the yard. Her cheeks were pink in the cold air and though she hadn’t gotten to moderately comfortable yet, she was amazingly graceful. He should have found some way to appear busy and not watch her so obviously. But she knew better than anyone else that he hadn’t moved out for the baby so he let himself watch, only for a minute.
It seemed to happen in slow motion. He couldn’t tell what spooked the horse, but she reared up and Caroline was thrown backwards. Jack was running towards them before she hit the ground. He couldn’t let the horse step on her. Jack reached for the reins. A man who’d been around horses for so many years should not have been so careless. Jack was too focused on Caroline to pay proper attention to what he was doing though. He caught a hoof in his right shin. Pain shot up his leg and ricocheted in his skull. The leg would no longer bear his weight.
The horse, however, calmed as suddenly as she had reared. In fact, she looked downright remorseful for her brief and unexplained tantrum. Jack leaned on the animal for support. “Caroline,” he called. “Caroline, are you hurt?”
She shook her head but she was pale and didn’t get up. He wasn’t convinced.
“Are you hurt?” he asked again.
She looked away instead of answering as one of the hands, a young man with curly hair sticking out from under his hat, thundered to a stop nearby. He jumped from his horse and reached out to Caroline. “Miss Caroline,” he said, “you’re not hurt, are you?”
“No,” she said, letting him help her to her feet, “but Jack’s been kicked. Will you ride for the doctor, Jesse?”
Jack instinctively moved to protest but found he still couldn’t stand on his right leg. Perhaps the doctor was not a terrible idea. The young hand seemed to agree. He glanced at Jack’s leg and returned to his saddle. “I’ll send someone to help you get him to the house,” Jesse said as he nudged his horse into motion.
“Thank you,” Caroline said before she turned to Jack. She looked him up and down as though appraising the situation. “If we go slowly, can you hop and lean on Dirt?”
“Of course,” he said. “It’s not that bad.”
She cocked her head disdainfully. “You can’t walk.”
That was true. And it might also be more pain than he’d ever felt before. He needed something to distract him as they began the slow trek to the house. Caroline was leading the horse. “How would we do this if you were making it up?”
“What do you mean?” Caroline asked over her shoulder.
“I don’t remember any plodding along in your stories. I realize the heroes tend to be injured more seriously… and in a more dramatic fashion… but if one couldn’t walk what would you imagine next?”
Caroline let out a soft laugh. “I suppose I would somehow find the strength to lift you onto the horse.”
“Care to try?” Though the attempt would
certainly be fruitless, he rather enjoyed the thought of her gabbing hold of him.
She cast a disapproving look at him as though she knew exactly what he was thinking.
“And after I was on the horse?” he prompted.
“A real hero would be grateful. You would likely grumble about the bumps.”
Jack considered her words. He was doing everything he could to keep his injured leg still and riding a horse at the moment would not be pleasant. But did she really believe he’d be ungrateful?
“In the story,” Caroline continued, “the hero would be congratulating himself on taking an injury that could have landed on me. You would scold me for not having a better grip on Dirt in the first place.”
The thought had crossed his mind, but only because she could have been hurt and that was an upsetting idea. Upset people sometimes found themselves scolding. Caroline wasn’t looking back anymore as she talked. She might have been telling the story to herself as much as to Jack and he wondered how long the unflattering comparison would go on.
“When we got to the house,” she said, “the hero would allow me to help him up the stairs, not because he needed me to help but because he appreciated that I wanted to help. You will insist on leaning only on the banister. I’ll clean the wound once you’re lying down. The hero would ask if he could bestow a kiss in return for my help and you…” Caroline turned abruptly. “Do you need to rest a moment?” she asked.
Jack was still thinking of where the story stopped and where he and the imaginary hero seemed to suddenly have a lot in common. Caroline’s mind may have been there as well. He was sure she was staring at his mouth in a way that said it would not be unwelcome. She was at least two steps ahead of him though. This was the worst possible time to be unable to walk.
Hoofbeats made them both look to the side where Sam was approaching. He stopped his horse, jumped down, and took Caroline’s hand. “Jesse told me what happened,” he said. “Are you hurt?”
Caroline shook her head at the sky. “Why does everyone ask if I’m hurt when Jack is the one who’s bleeding?”
A Quiet Life Page 20