Second-Chance Bride (Dakota Brides Book 3)
Page 17
Besides, Lena wasn’t about to ask for charity. She would make it on her own. Owe nobody.
Lena shuddered. She’d heard people speak of being burned out but, until now, it was only an expression, not something reaching down into her body and pulling hope out by its heels.
One of the youths slapped his sack against his boot. His eyes met hers and she saw a mixture of shock and fascination before she turned away.
Four more wagons pulled into the yard, drawing into a semi-circle facing the smoldering house.
While the men climbed down from the wagons to gather and compare notes, the women who had come with them remained in their seats, staring straight ahead.
Lena didn’t need to study their stiff posture and averted eyes to understand the unspoken message. They would make sure the neighborly thing was done in controlling the fire, while pretending she didn’t exist.
She hugged Charlie close, silently daring any of them to make a comment about him.
I don’t need them. But her insides were frozen. What will I do?
One man inched toward her. “You will need a place to stay.”
“Albert,” the nearest woman croaked, and the man turned away without offering anything.
Shock, cold, and fear raced through Lena and she shook violently.
The biggest of the Hampton boys grabbed a blanket from the wagon seat and ambled toward her. Awkwardly, he draped it across her shoulders. It did little to ease the cold encasing her, but she murmured her thanks and pulled it close.
“Lady.” His voice cracked. “We don’t have an inch to spare at our house, or we’d take you with us.”
She nodded, painfully aware no one was about to offer help. Despair filled her mind, as black and empty as the darkness beyond the fire.
“She will come with me. I have the room. I take care of her and Charlie just like I promised her good man before he die.”
The women gasped at Anker’s suggestion.
Mr. Hampton stepped forward. “We don’t do things that way in this country. She can’t live with you unless you two are married.”
“I will marry her.”
“No.” Lena tried to gain her feet. Anker, seeing her struggle, took Charlie, who went to him all too readily. Then Anker grabbed her hand and pulled her to his side. When her legs wobbled, he steadied her.
“I can manage on my own.” She’d meant to sound bold and strong, but her words were little more than a whisper.
Disbelieving eyes watched her.
“We talk.” Anker steered her toward the barn. He waited until they stepped into the dark interior before he shifted away to stand in front of her. “You have no place to live.”
“I will live in the barn.”
“You will freeze.”
“I’ll build a little room and put in a stove.” Maybe the kitchen stove had survived the fire. And she’d find bits of lumber somewhere. Maybe from a kindly neighbor, though she’d seen few enough of those in the past months.
“Little Charlie will freeze. You be wanting that, ja?”
“Of course not.” Hadn’t she fought the elements all summer, struggling to run the farm on her own for Charlie’s sake? So he’d have this farm when he grew up? “Nor do I want to owe you for your kindness.”
He mumbled something in that strange language of his. It sounded harsh.
“What did you say?”
“I say you are one stubborn woman. I tell you over and over I take care of you and little Charlie.”
“You’ve already done enough.”
“I promised Johnson. You fight me all summer, but now you need to let me do this. First, we must marry, but I not be one to push you to do something you not want.”
He stopped and let her consider his offer.
“I don’t want to marry again. I want to keep my farm.” She heard the doubt and fear in her voice and clamped her teeth together.
He waited silently.
If she could see his expression, perhaps she could guess how he felt, what his offer meant.
But she already knew. He believed he was obligated because of a foolish promise. The last thing she wanted was to feel beholden.
Charlie made snuffling noises. The poor baby was tired. He’d lived through so many disasters in his short year and a half of life.
She could not add to those hardships by trying to survive the winter in a barn. “I will agree to a marriage on paper only.”
She felt Anker’s stillness as he considered her words.
“I do not understand.”
“Charlie has enough narrow-mindedness to deal with already.” For herself she did not regret that her son clearly showed the evidence of his father’s half-breed status. But for Charlie’s sake she wished he looked more like her. “I don’t want to add to it. So I will go with you to your house. I will marry you to make it look honorable. But in truth, I am not marrying you, and I want you to agree that in the spring we will have the marriage annulled and I will come back here.” People would talk but she had grown used to that.
“This ‘annulled.’ I don’t understand.”
Grateful the darkness hid the heat rushing up her neck and nipping at the tips of her ears, she sought for a delicate way to explain. “If two people don’t…ahh…don’t share the marriage bed—” She choked, but forced herself to continue. “They can declare the marriage to be…”
“Only pretend?”
“Yes.”
“This is possible?”
“Will you agree? Promise to—” How did she ask a man to share his home yet not expect anything in return? Did he truly understand?
“If this is what you want, I will agree.” His voice deepened and he sounded weary.
“You’ll release me come spring?”
“If this is what you want.”
“I promise I will do my share. I won’t leave owing you for giving me a home.”
“You will owe me nothing. I made a promise to your man and I will keep it. Come.” He reached for her hand but didn’t give her a chance to decide if she would let him take it. He pulled her out into the orange light. “We are getting married,” he announced loudly and firmly.
“And the preacher’s here to do it right now,” one of the men said.
Reverend Sorrow stepped forward. “I came to see if anyone needed my services.”
Lena understood he meant he feared someone had perished in the fire. No one had. At least she had that to be grateful for.
Anker’s hand held her upright when her legs threatened to melt.
With curious neighbors gathered around, Lena faced her wedding, in a cotton dress that had seen better days even before she’d soaked it with water, smoke, and mud. Charlie still perched contentedly in Anker’s arms.
Through Johnson’s death and the long hard summer, she’d clung to what Johnson had taught her about God. She was sure he would have been proud.
But now what? What was God doing?
Despair swelled inside her head, reaching bony fingers into her heart and gouging at her ribs.
Had God’s care been for Johnson alone? Perhaps, with him gone, she no longer qualified for it.
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Copyright © 2018 by Linda Ford
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