Amaryllis (Suitors of Seattle)

by Osbourne, Kirsten

  Fred smiled down at his two daughters. “You both look beautiful today.”

  “Thank you, Papa,” Daisy said with a smile. “I’m going to wait for my cue in the hall.” She rushed from the room, leaving Fred alone with Amaryllis for the first time since he’d announced she was marrying Alex no matter how she felt about it.

  Amaryllis didn’t meet her father’s gaze. She knew she shouldn’t be angry with him, but she was. She didn’t feel like he’d done the right thing by forcing her to marry a man she didn’t trust.

  “He’s going to be a good husband to you, Rilly. Just give him a chance.” Fred’s deep even voice always had a calming effect on Amaryllis.

  Amaryllis shrugged. “I’ll try. I don’t have much choice in the matter, do I?”

  “No, you don’t. He’s going to be the only man you ever marry, so you might as well make the most of it.”

  Amaryllis met his eyes for the first time. “I’ll try.”

  “That’s all anyone is asking of you.” He tucked her hand into his arm and walked toward the door. “I only want what’s best for you.”

  Amaryllis nodded. “I know, Papa.” She sighed. “I’m sorry I’ve been so angry with you.”

  He patted the hand threaded into his arm and stepped into the hall. Daisy had just reached the bottom of the stairs and taken her place beside Alex and the preacher. Amaryllis stared ahead at Alex, handsome in his best suit. She knew everything her parents had said was right. This was the only wedding she would ever have. He was the only husband she would ever have. If she wanted to be happy, getting along with him and loving him was her path to happiness. She took a deep breath and descended the stairs walking straight to him.

  Alex was the man she loved. This wasn’t how she’d dreamed their marriage would happen, but what did that matter when she loved him? She just wished she could stop the little voice in her head, insisting that he would never be faithful. She did her best to ignore the voice as she took Alex’s hand and repeated her vows after the preacher she’d known all her life.

  When Alex was told he could kiss his bride, he lowered his head and brushed his lips across hers, and touched his tongue to her lips. She was startled as she looked up at him, shocked he’d do that in front of other people.

  She sighed when the wedding was over. Finally. She was married to her Alex, and she was going to make the most of it.

  Chapter Five

  The afternoon passed in a blur. They had their wedding lunch. Her aunt Harriett pulled her aside and had the talk she had with all of her nieces when they married with her. “We knew we didn’t have to investigate Alex, because we know him so well, but still. If something goes wrong, you leave him. You go to your parents, you come to me. In this case, you can go to his parents. You don’t stay in a situation where you can be abused.”

  “I won’t, Aunt Harriett.” Harriett was huge with her fourth pregnancy. She wasn’t leaving the house much, because she was so close to her due date. “Thank you for coming.”

  “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

  Higgins and Mildred enveloped her in their arms welcoming her to the family, making it clear to her that there was not another young lady they wanted to marry Alex. They were thrilled they were getting her for a daughter-in-law. “Maybe sometime this week, the two of you can join us for supper. We’d love to have you,” Mildred invited.

  Amaryllis grinned. “Since I have no idea how to cook, we will probably take you up on that offer.”

  Mildred laughed. “Alex knows how. Have him teach you.”

  Higgins smiled, patting her shoulder. “You’re worth a lot more than your ability to cook.”

  Amaryllis’s eyes were sparkling as they met Higgins’s. “I know.”

  When it was time for her and Alex to leave, Shawn helped Alex load Amaryllis’s trunk onto the back of his wagon. Alex helped her up and drove her to his tiny apartment. As they drove away, he took her hand into his. “Thank you,” he said softly.

  “What are you thanking me for?” she asked in surprise.

  “Thanks for acting like a bride who actually wants to be married today and not embarrassing me in front of everyone.”

  She sighed. “My parents keep reminding me that I’m only going to be married once. I have to make the most of our marriage or just plan to be unhappy for the rest of my life, which I refuse to do.”

  “So, you’re happy you married me?” he asked in surprise.

  She laughed. “I don’t know that I’d go that far, but I’m going to do my best to make the most of it. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life unhappy just because I’m being stubborn.”

  He nodded, slipping his arm around her shoulders. “Does that mean you’re going to give me the wedding night I want?”

  “That’s the one area we’ve never had a problem, Alex. I don’t think you need to worry about the wedding night.”

  He pulled up in front of his office and jumped down to unlock the door for her. He got the trunk on his own and carried it into the office and through to the apartment. Putting it on the floor at the foot of the bed, he sighed. It was going to be a tight fit to even walk around the trunk, but they’d have to make it work if she wanted her things. He had no drawer space left to put her clothes into.

  She followed behind him, looking at the trunk. “I’ll get ready for bed while you take care of the horses,” she told him. She waited until he was gone and quickly changed into her nightgown, taking her hair down and braiding it for the night.

  She looked around the tiny apartment realizing just then how many of the luxuries she was used to that she would have to live without. Her family had indoor plumbing for years, and here she’d have to use an outhouse. She would have to heat the water for her own baths. She knew she could do it, because so many people in their community didn’t have those luxuries yet, but she wasn’t looking forward to it.

  She poked at the large cast iron stove he cooked on. It was the only source of heat for the small home, but also the only way they could cook. She rarely walked into the kitchen of her parents’ house, so she didn’t know if most people cooked this way or not. She knew the stove at the shelter was more modern than this one.

  By the time Alex returned, she was in her nightgown under the covers of the bed ready to sleep. Alex blew out the light and quickly undressed, laying his clothes over the back of a chair before sliding into bed beside her. In the dark he reached for her, and she moved into his arms with no problem resting her head on his shoulder. She felt so right in his arms. If marriage were only about intimacy, she was sure she could handle it. She worried more about the day to day part of marriage.

  Alex lay quietly for a moment, enjoying just holding her close. He’d spent a lot of nights over the years lying in bed wishing that he could do just this. It wasn’t just about the sexual part, although he enjoyed that, it was about having her beside him. She completed him.

  As they’d gone through school together, he’d always known she was the girl for him. Back as far as when he’d kept a boy from picking on her about her spectacles when she was in her first year of school, and she’d looked at him with her eyes shining with tears, but adoration in her eyes, he’d known she was the one for him.

  The years they’d spent apart had been difficult, and even more so when she’d stopped writing to him, but he’d never dreamed that when he returned to Seattle she wouldn’t be waiting for him. Finding out she thought he’d had a relationship with another woman had hurt him. He’d never imagined she wouldn’t have absolute trust in him.

  “I’m glad you’re here with me,” he said honestly. He promised himself that no matter how she felt, he would never hide his emotions from her. He would make her feel as loved as he possibly could. There was no other way he could be.

  She dropped a kiss on his bare shoulder. “I am too.” She knew it was a mistake to bare her feelings, but just this once, she had to.

  He turned onto his side and cupped her face in his hands, kissi
ng her sweetly at first, and then passionately. Her arms went around him and she kissed him back, enjoying the feel of him against her.

  Within minutes, he divested her of her nightgown and proceeded to make sweet love to her, loving the feeling that this time, it was right. He was no longer doing something wrong with her, or demeaning her in any way. They were married now, and this was something that they were supposed to do.

  *****

  Amaryllis woke up to the smell of bacon frying. She took a deep sniff of the air and smiled. She sat up in the bed, tucking the covers under her arms so she wouldn’t be totally bare and watched her new husband cook her breakfast. “That smells wonderful,” she said shyly.

  He turned from the stove where he was wearing just a pair of pants to cook. “Good morning.”

  She smiled, truly happy this morning, despite her misgivings. “Good morning.”

  “How do you like your eggs?” he asked. He shook his head. “It’s funny. We’ve known each other for thirteen years, and I feel like I know everything about you, and then I realize I don’t know something as simple as how to cook your eggs.”

  “I prefer them scrambled.” She watched as he adeptly took the bacon from the hot pan and put it on a plate.

  “I do too.” He reached for the coffee pot from the back of the stove. “Coffee?” he asked.

  “Yes, please.” She watched as he poured the coffee into a cup for her, and he brought it to her in bed. “Thank you.”

  He sat beside her for a moment, kissing her deeply. “I thought you might like breakfast in bed for our first morning together.”

  “You shouldn’t spoil me, Alex.” She loved that he wanted to, though. How could she stay angry with a man who got up before she did to make her breakfast in bed?

  Within a few minutes, they were in the bed together eating their breakfast of eggs and bacon and drinking coffee. “This is really good,” she said with surprise in her voice.

  He laughed. “I told you I knew how to cook.”

  She shrugged. “I guess I didn’t really believe you. A lawyer who can cook for himself? Isn’t that just a bit odd?”

  “Maybe a little. It makes sense though, because my librarian wife can’t cook.”

  She smiled. “Are you going to have a problem if I keep working?” she asked.

  “Of course not. I wouldn’t ask you to stay in this tiny apartment all day. The whole thing takes fifteen minutes to clean. If you want to stop working, you can.”

  “I want to work, but I appreciate being given a choice. Thank you. I’ll start reading some cookbooks while I’m at work and see if I can figure out how to prepare a simple meal. I don’t want you to have the full burden of cooking. I think it’s something we should share.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “For now, I could do the cooking and you could clean up?”

  She nodded with a smile. “I can do that. Then when I learn to cook, you can clean up.”

  “That’s fair.” He knew she was surprised at his ready agreement, but since he was used to doing it all, it wouldn’t bother him a bit to clean up the kitchen when she cooked. “I’ll teach you as well, if you’d like. Or my mother would be happy to teach you to cook if you asked her.”

  He was sitting cross legged on the bed, with his plate in his lap facing her. She was still covered up, showing him no skin. She liked how he looked with no shirt on. “I might go ask her. I’m sure she’s a good teacher. She taught me to make coffee during my time volunteering for the shelter.”

  “She was sad when you decided to do your volunteer work for the orphanage instead. She has always felt a special affinity toward you.”

  Amaryllis smiled ruefully. “I missed her too. I just didn’t feel like I could be around her after we weren’t together anymore. It didn’t seem right.”

  They made it through their first full day as a married couple with their easy truce between them. At church they happily sat together and received the startled congratulations of the congregation. Her parents came over and talked to them for a moment as if they were reassuring themselves the newlyweds were happy and letting everyone else know the young couple had their blessing.

  They accepted an invitation to eat lunch with his parents at the shelter, and she happily helped her mother-in-law with the lunch preparations. “I wish I could cook at least one meal,” Amaryllis lamented as she made the coffee.

  “You’ll get to where you can. I know…after lunch, I’ll teach you to make pancakes. They were one of the first meals I ever learned to make, and you can surprise Alex with them sometime soon.”

  Amaryllis looked at Mildred. “You wouldn’t mind?”

  “Of course not! Teaching you means I’m feeding my little boy after all.”

  Amaryllis laughed. “He’s not so little anymore!”

  “It’s hard to believe he’s a grown man with a wife of his own. I’m really proud of the man he’s become.”

  “You always knew he would be!”

  Mildred shook her head. “I actually was afraid he’d take after his father for a while. He seemed to have a lot of anger inside him.”

  “I don’t know a lot about your first marriage. Alex doesn’t mention his father.”

  “No, he wouldn’t. I think he still feels some guilt over his death.”

  Amaryllis frowned. “Why would he feel guilt over his father’s death? There was an accident, right?”

  Mildred smiled over Amaryllis’s shoulder. “Lunch is just about ready.”

  Amaryllis turned to see Alex there and noticed that Mildred didn’t say another word about his father. All through the meal as they ate with the woman who was staying there and her two sons, Amaryllis wondered what Mildred had been about to say to her.

  After lunch, when the men had gone to the backyard to see to some repairs to the picket fence, Amaryllis brought up the subject again as she and Mildred washed the dishes together. “What were you telling me about Alex and his guilt over his father’s death?” she asked.

  Mildred sighed. “I really think he should tell you, but if he hasn’t by now, he may never.” She didn’t look at Amaryllis as she spoke. “Alex’s father was extremely abusive. Alex was afraid to become involved, but by the time he was fifteen, he was a big boy, bigger than his father.”

  “I remember. He was the biggest boy in school.”

  “One night his father came home and was very violent with me, much worse than usual. Alex stepped between us, and his father went crazy. The next thing I knew, his father was lying on the floor with blood running from a cut on his head and Alex was standing over him with his fists clenched.”

  Amaryllis gasped, her hand going to her mouth. “He killed his father?”

  Mildred nodded her eyes full of tears. “He did it to protect me. I honestly think his father would have killed me that night if Alex hadn’t interfered.” She handed Amaryllis a pot to dry. “Your aunt Harriett had met me just days before, and she’d asked Higgins to watch over me. He happened to be looking in our window when it happened. He came to the door and introduced himself, and then he went to the police for us, explaining what had happened. Without his help, I think Alex would have been executed for murder.”

  Amaryllis stood in stunned silence continuing to dry the dishes that were handed to her. How could she not have known something that was so important about Alex? How could he not have told her that? What else hadn’t he told her?

  She didn’t say anything for a long while, and finally, as they dried the last dish, she said, “Thank you for telling me.”

  Mildred nodded. “I hope it doesn’t change how you feel about my son.”

  Amaryllis nodded, and she hoped it wouldn’t too, but it was a lot of information for her to take in. On the one hand, she was happy that he’d defended his mother and had been willing to make sure she stayed safe. On the other, she couldn’t believe her husband had killed his own father. How did one deal with that kind of information?

  Mildred showed her how to make pancakes, and they
worked together well in the kitchen as they always had. Amaryllis wrote down Mildred’s instructions so she would be able to make them herself. She didn’t know when she’d have a chance, but she hoped to be able to start cooking meals for him soon.

  As they walked home that evening, she looked over at Alex. “What was your father like?” she asked.

  Alex gave her a surprised look. “Where did that question come from?”

  She shrugged. “Watching you with your mother and Higgins made me wonder what kind of man you came from. What was he like?”

  “He wasn’t a good man. He beat my mother. That’s why she feels so strongly about the shelter.”

  Amaryllis was pleased that he’d admitted to that much at least. “Do you ever miss him?”

  He shook his head emphatically. “He was always either at work, or at a saloon, or hurting my mother. How on earth could I miss a man like that?”

  “You seem to think of Higgins as a father.”

  “I was already a teenager by the time he married my mother, but he’s a good man. I was always thrilled to be able to look up to him. He married my mother right after my father died so that he could take care of us. He said it wasn’t right for a woman to be on her own with a son to take care of.” He shrugged. “Until he made the offer, I’d planned to drop out of school and get a job so I could support my mother. Did you know he helped me pay for my schooling? He didn’t have enough to pay for it all, but he sent me money every month to help me out.”

  Amaryllis noticed that he mentioned his father’s death but he didn’t mention how he’d died. “He’s a really good man.”

  “He is. I’ll never forget everything he’s done for me.” He kept staring straight ahead as they walked.

  Amaryllis wished she had the courage to ask him how his father had died, but she decided she’d leave that for him to tell her. She hoped he would do it soon, because she needed to hear the words from his lips. Until he admitted it, she would feel as if he was hiding something from her. She didn’t want to feel that way, because it just added to her mistrust of him.