Harper's Bride

by Alexis Harrington

  He hoisted himself from the bed and walked over to Jenny's crate. She was just waking from her nap and still had one thumb fixed firmly in her mouth. He didn't know anything about kids, but he had to admit that she captivated him. Sometimes he was almost curious enough to pick her up and hold her to his shoulder. But what if he dropped her? Even if he didn't, she was so little, he might hurt her somehow.

  So he settled for brushing her velvet cheek with the back of his finger. Compared to her head, his hand looked enormous. When she saw him, she didn't flinch in fear. She waved her arms and kicked, and gave him a big grin, showing off her toothless gums. He couldn't help but smile back at her. "Hey, little Jenny," he whispered. Then louder he asked, "And the baby? Did she get along all right?"

  "I think she enjoyed the change of scenery and all the activity." Melissa tried to carry the heavy iron pot to the stove, but obviously her overused muscles wouldn't cooperate, and it clanked back into the steel sink.

  Watching her struggle while he did nothing made him feel a bit like a heel. He knew she'd worked even harder today than he had. He crossed the floor. "Here," he said, and reached in front of her to grab the wooden grip, "let me."

  "No! I can do it." Melissa recoiled, but kept her hands clamped on the handle. He saw naked fear in her dove gray eyes. He supposed he couldn't expect her to instantly overcome what might have been years of intimidation, although whenever he'd looked outside this afternoon, she seemed to be getting along just fine with her customers.

  He dropped his hand. "Why are you so damned jumpy? And why do you think you have to do everything yourself?" He couldn't keep the impatience out of his voice.

  "I don't think that," she said. "It's just that . . ."

  "Just what?"

  She glanced up at him through a veil of dark lashes. "I'm afraid you'll think I'm not doing my best for you and make me give up my laundry business."

  "Why? I told you I didn't care how you spent your free time."

  "You also said that I'd better keep up my end of our agreement. That's what I'm doing." She looked him full in the face then, and her low voice held both anguish and determination. "I need to make money for Jenny and me, money that no one can take away. I don't want her to have the kind of life that I've had. I don't want to see her sold by a drunken husband to a stranger in a barroom. She's a brand-new life—she has a chance for something better, and I have a chance to give it to her. I mean to do it." Her breathing was labored, and her eyes glittered with unshed tears. It was the longest speech he'd ever heard her make in one breath, and Dylan felt his face flush all the way to the roots of his hair.

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. All this time he'd supposed that Melissa was just glad to get away from Logan. He'd never thought about how humiliating that day must have been for her.

  "Look, if you want to work, go ahead. There isn't that much to do up here anyway."

  She looked relieved, then cautioned, "I'll try hard to have dinner ready on time, but sometimes it might be late."

  He shrugged. "Well, I guess that's the way it'll have to be. I'll tell you what," he said, "you make the biscuits and I'll finish this." He looked around at what she'd assembled on the table, a piece of boiled canned beef and a few fresh vegetables. "Stew, right?"

  "You want to help?" She gaped at him as if he'd suggested putting on one of Jenny's diapers and dancing down Front Street. Apparently she'd never had such an offer before. "But I can do it, really—"

  "You look as stiff as an old gunnysack left out in the rain. I'll give you a hand. But just until you're limbered up."

  "All right," she conceded, and he reached for the pot handle again.

  This time his hand brushed hers, and their eyes met. She gazed up at him, not so frightened now, he thought, but more curious. Standing this close, he caught a whiff of the soap and starch she'd used all day. The scent wasn't perfume, but in a way it suited her, clean and unadorned, and it went to his head like the most expensive of fragrances.

  Stunned, Dylan stared down at her, recalling the first time he'd seen her. She had seemed plain then, a pale ghost of a female with a downcast gaze and a carefully blank expression on her face. He'd felt resentment, and maybe even a bit of distaste, when she'd been foisted upon him. When had his feelings begun to change? At what point had she ceased to be unattractive? Dylan didn't know. He only knew she no longer seemed homely to him. Just the opposite.

  Although her hair was the color of frost-covered daffodils, her eyelashes were dark, he noticed, framing her eyes with thick, silken spikes. And her bronze brows were as fine and delicate as butterfly feelers. His gaze dropped to her mouth, pink and tender-looking. Would that mouth be soft under his if he were to kiss her? Would it?

  Just then, the baby let out a loud squawk, the kind of noise that babies make when they exercise their lungs and voices, and the spell was broken.

  "Oh," Melissa said, as if she too had been entranced, then pulled away.

  Dylan followed her lead, widening the floor space between them. Jesus, what had he been thinking of? He took the pot and put it on the stove. "Okay, let's get this going," he mumbled.

  "Yes, of course," she said, and ran her hands over her sleeves. She went to the table to roll out biscuit dough.

  He felt as awkward as a schoolboy. Why, he couldn't guess. He'd known his share of women and bedded more than a few. Kissing one wouldn't be the end of the world.

  This was not an ordinary woman, though—people in Dawson believed that she was his wife. These circumstances weren't ordinary either, and by God, he didn't want to make them any more complicated than they already were.

  She had a goal? Well, so did he, and he had to keep his mind on it.

  He resolved that he would stop noticing how nice Melissa was beginning to look, and how good she smelled. He swore he wouldn't wonder again what

  it would feel like to kiss her, or imagine his fingers twined in her long pale hair.

  But as he watched her working at the table, slender and utterly feminine, he knew that ignoring her would be as difficult a feat as getting rich by digging in the gold fields with a teaspoon.

  *~*~*

  Late that night Dylan lay on his side of the bed, caught between sleep and wakefulness, when the baby started to fuss.

  He saw Melissa get up to tend her. Her thin nightgown looked like a pale moonbeam as she crossed the room in the semidark of the Yukon summer night. She carried the child back to bed, murmuring the softest of endearments to her.

  "What's the matter, button?" she whispered in a voice mothers saved for their children. "Are you hungry? Is that what's wrong with my button? Well, we can fix that, can't we."

  He felt the mattress sag as she lay down again. Her voice, soft and lulling, had nearly made him feel drowsy when he made the mistake of glancing at her.

  The bodice of her gown was open, and Jenny lay at her full white breast, suckling contentedly.

  Stifling a groan, Dylan swallowed hard and turned his back to her. Watching her with the baby, he'd never expected to see anything so intimate, or worse, so arousing. Hot blood suffused his groin, and his heart began pumping hard in his chest. He'd never known such exquisite torture.

  As he lay there, trying to ignore the woman on the other side of the rice sack and wishing for the oblivion of sleep, he almost wished he were digging for gold with a teaspoon.

  That would be a hell of a lot easier.

  Chapter Seven

  "Have you heard that singin' washerwoman? I swear she's got a voice like one of God's own choir," a bearded man remarked to his companion.

  "That she does, but she's right here on earth and she don't seem to be married. I was thinkin' I might call on the young gal personal-like and ask to her to some festivities," his companion replied, and washed down a doughnut with a mug of beer.

  "You? Why, she's too much of a lady to be seen with the likes of you. Besides, she's got that baby there with her. I bet her man is workin' in the gold fields an
d she's makin' ends meet with her laundry."

  "Well, I won't know till I ask, will I?"

  Eavesdropping on this conversation between two rough miners standing behind him at the bar, Dylan scowled. After what he'd seen lying next to Melissa the night before, he had no little difficulty in checking his impulse to deck them both. After all, he told himself, in some circles it was considered a dueling offense to even mention a lady's name in a saloon.

  He turned and gave them a sour look, but they didn't notice.

  Rafe, who stood next to him, obviously did notice, and he laughed so hard he started coughing.

  "Come on, Dylan," he said, recovering his wind, "let's find a table to sit at." Lately it had seemed that the lawyer grew tired as quickly as an old man, and he'd taken to carrying a walking stick. It was an impressive thing, with a big gold filigree head and black lacquered ferrule, and it certainly looked correct on a spiffy dresser like Rafe. But Dylan noticed that he leaned on the stick more than carried it.

  Grabbing the whiskey bottle, Dylan led them through the crowded saloon to a table, and Rafe eased himself into a chair, chuckling at Dylan again.

  "I'm surprised you think this is funny," Dylan commented, flopping into the opposite chair. He downed his own shot "Wasn't that what you were worried about when Melissa decided to start that laundry business? That she'd be exposed to 'unsavory opportunities'?"

  "I'm not laughing about that. I'm laughing at you. You might not admit it, but you're the one who doesn't like their interest." Rafe had a wicked gleam in his deep-set eyes. He flicked a speck of lint from his crisply tailored coat.

  "I just don't want her to be pestered by people like Ned Tanner." Dylan inclined his head toward the two miners. "Or men like that."

  "Maybe she wouldn't see it as pestering," Rafe suggested, keeping a keen eye on him.

  "If you think she's looking for another man's attentions, I can guarantee you that you're wrong. It's the last thing she wants." Dylan put his feet on the chair next to him.

  "And how would you know?"

  Dylan thought back to Melissa's impassioned speech about giving Jenny a chance in life. "I don't need to be a genius to figure that out. Besides, your mumbo jumbo at McGinty's back table didn't do away with Coy Logan. She's still legally married to him, if you'll recall."

  Rafe shrugged and took another deep swallow from his whiskey glass. "He deserted her. I'm sure any judge would grant a divorce decree given the circumstances."

  Dylan didn't want to think about that. As long as she was technically some other's man's wife, he felt a measure of safety from the thoughts that kept creeping up on him. "It makes no difference to me—that's her business. All she wants is to make money, and from what I can tell, that's just what she's doing."

  *~*~*

  The day was overcast, although the sun peeked through the clouds from time to time. A cool, stiff breeze threatened to carry away the wash drying on Melissa's clotheslines. She had erected a little tent over Jenny's cubbyhole to keep the wind from blowing in the baby's face.

  Melissa stood over her iron kettle, stirring a batch of starch with a broken oar. She paused for a moment to roll up her sleeves and then leaned on the oar.

  Despite the breeze, this was hot, hard work. In fact, everything about the laundry business was grueling. She had given up on perfection; most of the clothes that were brought to her were so grimy with embedded earth and sweat, they would never be truly clean again no matter how hard she scrubbed. She had to settle for mostly clean, but her customers were very satisfied.

  Now and then they would linger to make small talk, lonely miners with their mostly clean wash wrapped in brown paper and tucked under their arms. Her experience with men was limited, but she sensed their interest by the questions they asked. How had she gotten started with this laundry business? Wasn't this a hot summer? Did she like to dance? Melissa was polite, but she reminded them that she was Mrs. Harper, and suggested that they might want to do business with her husband at his trading store. Some of them actually did.

  She'd also had a couple of unpleasant experiences. The gold rush had drawn men from all walks of life, most of whom, she was surprised to learn, had come seeking escape more than gold. They sought refuge from nagging wives or mothers-in-law, bill collectors, punishing jobs, and the law. A few of them reminded her of Coy; they eyed her speculatively, as if assessing her ability to be dominated, and possibly because she was making more money than they were.

  One man offered her money to sing to him—in private. Another erupted into a rage when she couldn't remove a wine stain from his shirt front. But the Mounties also made their presence known, and they patrolled her side street just often enough to keep any situation from getting out of hand.

  Yes, the work was hard, but oh, it paid so well. She hoarded every single grain of gold dust she received, and she weighed it every night. For good measure she'd sewn a button closure on her apron pocket where she kept her poke, and once in a while, especially when her back ached the most, she'd heft that pocket to feel the weight of it. While she'd had every intention of paying Dylan for Coy's debt, in her heart of hearts, the plan had been more like a child's solemn promise than a certainty. How on earth would she do it? Now, though, she was beginning to believe that she would achieve that goal.

  She had seen and heard nothing of Coy since the afternoon at the Yukon Girl Saloon, and for that she was grateful. He had taken her fragile hopes for a better life and crushed them before he deserted her. At first she had been as wary and watchful for his return as she'd been with Dylan. People like Coy rarely went away, but turned up again like the famous bad penny. And she knew Coy well enough to have trouble believing she'd seen the last of him. But as the days passed with no sign of him, she began to relax her guard. She wished that she weren't still his wife, but eventually perhaps that could be remedied.

  Occasionally, she would glance up from the bubbling cauldron of starch to look at the side window of Harper's Trading. Dylan wasn't standing there. She wasn't sure if she hoped to see him or not. He was still a mystery to her. She sensed that something drove him, and that an old grievance—a disappointment, maybe—that lurked in his past had colored his viewpoint.

  However her original fear of him was turning into curiosity, and lately she'd caught herself watching him in the morning while he shaved. It was always the same—he stood at the mirror barefoot with no shirt, his jeans hanging low, his sun-blond hair brushing his wide shoulders—

  "Ma'am, are you Miz Harper?"

  Melissa lurched back to the present and saw two men approach in a wagon that had pulled into the side street. In the wagon bed they carried a large, tarp-covered object.

  "Yes, I'm Mrs. Harper," she answered, stopping her oar. Strange how easy it had become for her use Dylan's last name. She hoped that a wagonload of dirty clothes wasn't hidden under the tarp.

  The driver nodded, then set the brake and wrapped the lines around the brake handle. "Ma'am, we have your order back here," he said, and both men jumped down.

  "Order? I haven't ordered anything."

  "Says here you did." He waved a piece of paper at her so quickly she saw nothing but the largest print before he jammed it into his back pocket. She had been able to read Bill of Sale and Paid. "Leastways, we was hired to make a delivery here."

  The other man, ignoring the conversation, had already begun to untie the ropes holding the tarp in place.

  "But what is it?"

  The man unpacking the delivery flipped the canvas back with a flourish. "Here you go, ma'am."

  There Melissa saw a large sign that read, Mrs. M. Harper’s Laundry. It was beautifully painted, with scrolls and fancy black lettering outlined in gold leaf.

  "Who bought this?" she asked, astounded.

  "Well, lessee." The man pulled out the bill of sale again and handed it to her. She read Dylan's bold signature, and the price—seventy-five dollars! It seemed no matter how hard she worked, her obligation to him kept growing. And s
he hadn't even asked for this.

  "Oh, please, no, I can't accept this. You'll have to take it back."

  "You don't like it?"

  "Oh, no, it's a wonderful sign, a beautiful sign. But I can't keep it. Please, can't you take it back?"

  The man rubbed his stubbled chin, obviously unprepared for this possibility. "No, we can't do that, ma'am. See, the thing has been bought and paid for proper, and we was paid to put it up for you. Anyways, what would the sign painter do with it if we took it back to him? He can't sell it to somebody else, 'less you know another Miz Harper doing wash in Dawson."

  "But I—"

  "It's a gift, Melissa."

  She turned and saw Dylan approaching. His stride was graceful and long. The wind whipped his hair away from his handsome face and flattened his shirt against his torso, outlining the frame and muscle of him. Intermittent sun highlighted the gold hair on his arms, making it sparkle. She wished she could learn to ignore his striking looks.

  "You said you wanted a sign. I had one painted."

  "But I meant when I could afford it. I didn't expect you to pay for it."

  He shrugged and gestured at the back of the wagon. "Well, it's here today, and I wanted to pay for it. So—what are you going to do, Melissa?"

  The delivery man watched her expectantly. Dylan smiled and looked vaguely triumphant, as if he knew he would have his own way. Melissa didn't know what else to do but accept. It bothered her that once again, she'd had no say in a decision that affected her. But mingling with her annoyance was a sense of pleasure that Dylan had actually thought of her, and done something nice to surprise her.

  "All right," she said to the men, "put it up."

  *~*~*

  The next day was Sunday, and by strict order of the North West Mounted Police, the lively, sleepless Dawson that everyone knew six days a week came to a dead stop. Every business in town, including the saloons and dance halls, closed up tight. The only sound to be heard was the faint strains of hymns coming from the Catholic and Anglican missionaries who had traveled to Dawson to save those who lusted after wealth and its associated evils. An air of grudging repentance hung over everything.