The horse knew the way home and plodded steadily down the road toward the little house she’d rented on an Amish farm. The horse turned into the drive without any need for her guidance, plodding past the main farmhouse. She looked over at the house, silent and empty at this time of day. But then, the most they ever saw from that house was a kerosene light in the kitchen after dark. Two widowers used to run this farm together—Peter and Jebadiah King. Uncle and nephew. They acted as landlords for the cottage, too, but the older of them had passed away, and now it was just Jebadiah, a scarred and mysterious man, running the farm alone.
Jeb made her uneasy—he always had. He was tall, muscular, and badly scarred from a barn fire. His halting gait was recognizable from a distance, and it always gave her a shudder.
As Leah approached their rented one-story cottage, she saw a buggy pulled up next to the house. And there was Jeb, reaching up and steadying her brother as he climbed down from the seat.
Simon moved slowly, and he wasn’t wearing his hat. Simon looked toward her, and she saw smears of blood under his nose and mashed, bruised skin around one eye. Her heart skipped a beat and then hammered hard to catch up.
“Simon?” she called, and she pulled her buggy up short, tied off the reins, then jumped down. She lifted her skirt to keep it from tangling with her legs as she ran toward him.
“Hey, Sis . . .” Simon grimaced as he took a step toward the house. “It’s not as bad as it looks—”
“I find that hard to believe,” she said, but her voice didn’t sound as firm as she would have liked. “Simon, what happened to you?”
Simon leaned on the larger man, and she turned her attention to her brother’s rescuer. Jeb was about forty, and he stood head and shoulders taller than Simon. Burn scars went down one side of his face, then disappeared under his beard. His neck and left arm were scarred, too, and his limp suggested the burns hadn’t stopped there. Jeb adjusted his grip on Simon’s shoulder.
“Nothing, nothing . . .” Simon murmured. “Don’t worry about it. Just a misunderstanding.”
“Yah?” Leah looked toward Jeb. “What happened to him? I want the truth.”
“I found him like this, walking by the side of the road on my way home from town,” Jeb replied, but when he looked down at Simon, his gaze lacked proper sympathy.
“Simon!” Her voice was rising and she couldn’t help it. “Who did this?”
“What are you going to do, drag them off by their ears?” her brother muttered. It was a jab at her job as a schoolmistress, but she wasn’t amused. She was about to retort when Jeb cut in.
“Who do you owe money to?” Jeb interjected, pinning Simon with a hard stare.
“Some men . . . it’s nothing—”
“It’s enough to have yourself beaten like a tough steak,” Jeb retorted. “So I’m thinking this isn’t legal. That leaves gambling and booze, and you don’t smell like alcohol.”
Leah’s gaze whipped between them. Jeb was only voicing what she was already thinking.
Simon grimaced. “It was a sure thing. I thought I’d beat him. I had the perfect hand, and I was so sure he was bluffing. . . .”
Leah took her brother under the other arm and as she and Jeb both helped him into the cottage, she could feel Jeb’s wrist brushing against her waist. When they got him inside, he hobbled to a kitchen chair and Leah stepped back. Jeb seemed to fill up more of the small kitchen than both she and Simon combined. Simon winced as he lifted his shirt to inspect his bruised ribs, and Leah went straight for the sink.
“How much do you owe this time?” Leah asked, turning on the water and putting a fresh cloth under the flow.
“How much did you make for teaching?” Simon asked instead.
“Enough to pay my room and board in Rimstone, and keep our rent paid. Not a penny more than that,” she retorted. “How much have you got saved?”
Simon didn’t answer, and maybe she should have expected that much. Simon didn’t save, he spent. Besides, they weren’t alone.
“How much do you owe?” she asked instead. This was a more important question, and she wrung out the cloth and came over to where her brother sat. She dabbed at the blood beneath his battered nose. Whoever had done this to him was a monster, and she had to hold back tears as she dabbed at his swollen flesh.
“Fifty thousand,” her brother said.
The breath whooshed out of her lungs, and for a moment, the room felt like it was spinning. A strong hand caught her elbow and lowered her into a kitchen chair. She looked up to see Jeb standing over her, his expression granite. But there was something close to sympathy shining in his dark eyes. He pulled his hand away and she sucked in a wavering breath.
“Fifty thousand dollars?” Leah breathed. “Simon, where on earth are we going to get that kind of money?”
* * *
Jeb should leave—he knew that. He wanted to leave, in fact. Everything inside of him wanted to bolt for the door and get some space again, but when Leah had blanched like that and just about fainted, he didn’t have a whole lot of choice.
He went to the sink and opened two cupboards before he found the glasses. There were a few dishes inside, but not many. Jeb couldn’t boast much more in his own cupboards. He and Katie had started out with some proper dishes, but after her death, he and his uncle had broken them one by one through their own clumsiness and he was down to an assorted few.
Jeb grabbed a water glass and filled it from the tap, then returned to the table. Leah was ashen, her lips almost as white as her cheeks, and when he handed her the glass, her gaze fell to his scarred hand with the puckered, stretched skin. She licked her lips uncomfortably. He still wasn’t used to this reaction—the revulsion. He placed it on the table next to her and pulled his hand behind his back and out of sight.
He knew what he looked like now—his face was worse than his arm and hand were, and his left leg was probably the worst of all. Kinner stared if they saw him on the road, clinging to their mamms’ aprons, and they burst into tears if they were faced with him in an aisle in the farm supply store and didn’t have an easy escape.
“Thank you,” Leah said, a beat too late.
Jeb didn’t answer.
His hip ached, and the skin on his arm was so tight that he couldn’t fully extend it. He’d worked on that alone in his room, pushing past the point of comfort, grunting with pain—but something had happened to the tendons in that fire and they’d shrunk. He wasn’t going to be the man he was before ever again.
Simon sat at the table and wiped blood from his nose on the back of one hand. He might be beaten up, but he’d heal up all right. Jeb’s damage was more permanent . . . and he dared to say, it went deeper. He’d lost his wife and his naïve optimism all in one tragic accident. He’d gained both these scars and his freedom from a marriage to a woman who loathed him. . . .
And he hated that he was relieved.
“We’ll figure out the money,” Simon said to his sister. “We always do.”
“You mean I always do!” Leah’s voice shook, and Jeb looked over at Leah. Her color hadn’t come back yet, and she looked exhausted.
Jeb took the cloth from her fingers and he turned to Simon. The younger man’s gaze jerked up in surprise, but Jeb put a solid hand on his shoulder to keep him put, and carefully wiped the blood and dust from his face.
When Jeb had seen Simon stumbling down the road, his hat missing and blood dribbling from his face, he’d felt about how Leah looked right now. This was bad—and if whoever he owed was willing to give this kind of message, it wouldn’t stop, either. But what could he do? He’d pulled his buggy to a stop and helped Simon up onto the seat. There would be blood splats Jeb would have to hose off his buggy floorboards before the day was out.
But there was no confusion as to what had happened . . . and fifty thousand dollars wouldn’t be easy to come by.
Jeb finished wiping off Simon’s face, then he crossed his arms, looking the young man up and down. “Your leg—what
happened there?”
“It’s my knee,” Simon said. “It’ll be okay—”
It very likely required a hospital visit, but that cost money, too. Jeb sighed, then crouched down in front of Simon and gently felt the joint in question. There was a fair amount of swelling, but nothing felt broken or dislocated.
“Who did this?” Jeb asked, his voice low.
Simon didn’t answer, and Jeb’s anger started to rise. This was no game, and the idiot might end up dead in a ditch next time if he kept trying to play with whatever Englisher crooks he was associating with.
“This was no random attack, Simon,” Jeb said, and he rose to his feet. “So who did this? And who do you owe?”
“Just some people. I’ll get them the money—”
“How?” Jeb demanded. “You’re going to make your sister come up with it?”
Leah cleared her throat. “It’s okay, Jeb. My brother and I will discuss it.”
He doubted that she had it. A man leaning on a woman like that—it put a bad taste in his mouth.
“You should go talk to the bishop,” Jeb said. “Maybe the community can step in—”
“They’ve already threatened to shun me,” Simon said, his words slurring past his swollen mouth. “We’re not going to the bishop.”
Leah looked away, and her expression was grim. She was a woman very much on her own—single, and trying to fix problems too big for any solitary person. He might like his privacy, but there were times when a community could be of help. He wasn’t blind to that.
“You just inherited this farm, didn’t you?” Simon asked after a beat of silence. “Your uncle Peter just passed, and you were named heir. I know that.”
Leah looked over at Jeb in surprise, and he felt the heat hit his face. That was private business, and he preferred to keep it that way. But apparently word was out. He had his own problems at the moment—namely, finding a new home.
“Yah, I was named heir, but there are a few complications there,” Jeb replied. “Peter stipulated that I had to be married within four weeks of his passing in order for me to inherit, so my cousin Menno will get this land.”
It had been a cruel stipulation, because Peter knew exactly why Jeb wouldn’t remarry after his wife’s death, free or not.
“Do you have any savings?” Simon pressed.
“Simon, stop that!” Leah seemed to be getting her color back. “I’m sorry about your uncle, Jeb. And I’m sorry for how callous Simon is being. My brother isn’t himself right now—”
“Yah, I know,” Jeb said.
“I did hear about the funeral,” Leah added. “And I was going to send a letter of condolences, but—”
No, she hadn’t been. That was a lie that he was willing to forgive.
“It’s fine,” he said, and he headed to the sink to rinse out the cloth. “The funeral was very nice. The community did well by him.”
“God rest his soul,” she murmured.
“God rest his soul,” he echoed, then wrung out the cloth and tossed it toward Simon. “Put that under your nose.” Then he turned to Leah. “If I were you, I’d bandage up his knee nice and tight. I got kicked hard by a horse once, and that’s what helped most. Do you have any steak in the house?”
Leah shrugged weakly. “I’ve got an old sheet to use for bandages, but no steak at the moment.”
“I have one in the icebox at home. It was going to be my supper, but you can have it for his face.”
It was something. Someone had to help her. Simon had some of Jeb’s sympathy for the pain he was in right now, but he’d brought that punishment on himself, the young fool. But Leah was caught in the middle, and she was doing her best to provide for herself without a husband.
“I’ll bring you some dinner,” Leah said. “And then you won’t go hungry. If that’s okay with you.”
“Yah. A fair trade,” he agreed. “Thank you.”
A woman’s cooking . . . it had been a very long time since he’d had some.
Simon adjusted himself in his chair, leaning forward as he nursed his nose. Leah looked uncomfortable, her gaze flickering toward Jeb uncertainly. Right. He wasn’t exactly welcome here.
“I should go,” Jeb said and he turned toward the door. Leah stood up and followed him.
“Jeb—” she started, and he glanced back. She closed the distance between them, tipping her face up to look him in the eye. He saw her slight recoil as her gaze moved over those scars. “What do you know about what my brother has been up to?”
Jeb glanced back at the young man. He wasn’t about to keep his secrets, and if Simon hated him for it, so be it.
“He’s been gambling with some dangerous Englishers,” Jeb said. “They do this kind of thing when a man hasn’t paid up. I can only imagine how long that debt has been growing.” Jeb rubbed his good hand over his beard. “I saw him with a black eye and a sprained wrist once, and another time with a bloody nose. So this isn’t the first time he’s been beaten up.”
“And no one thought to tell me,” she breathed.
“He’s an adult.”
“He’s my brother!” she snapped, but her chin quivered. Was she angry at him for not writing to tell her? As if staying in communication with his late uncle’s renters was his responsibility.
Jeb had bigger problems.
“Really?” was all he said.
She licked her lips. “If you could maybe keep me informed of what he’s up to—” she started, but the words evaporated on her lips when she saw his face. Were his feelings about her brother that obvious? Or was it just the scarring that stopped her like that?
“I won’t be here,” he reminded her. “Menno will inherit this land, remember? I’m sure my cousin will be happy to keep you on as renters. It’s income, right? So if you want someone to keep an eye on him, you’d have to talk to Menno.”
Leah nodded, and tears misted her eyes. Blast. It wasn’t just a beautiful woman crying that softened him like this, it was this particular woman. Life hadn’t been easy for her, either. There were some people who got left out when it came to marriage, and he could sympathize. Although it might be a blessing in disguise.
“I’m sorry,” he added feebly. “If there was something I could do, I would.”
Jeb pulled open the door and stepped outside. He couldn’t stay here. He had work to do, a farm to run on his own for the time being, and getting emotionally involved in other people’s problems wasn’t good for him. The community might be a great support for others, but it hadn’t ever been for him.
“If I came by at six, would you be at the house?” Leah asked.
“Yah. I can do that.”
“I’ll bring some fried chicken, in exchange for that steak.”
Jeb nodded his agreement, then headed toward his buggy, the horse waiting patiently. Chicken in exchange for steak . . . Except an idea had started to form that just might be the solution to both of their problems. She needed money, and he needed a legal wife in order to collect on that inheritance.
He glanced back and saw her standing at the door, her dark eyes fixed on him with a worried expression.
Leah was beautiful, and he was scarred. She was ten years younger than him, and far less emotionally damaged than he was. But she’d been left over in the marriage market, and she needed money.
He could get that money, if he inherited the land under his boots.
Was this as crazy as it sounded?
Thursday's Bride Page 28