The Wedding Kiss

by Hannah Alexander

  He stood watching her as if he might be standing over a coiled snake, wondering about her next move…her next words.

  She raised her chin, distracted by the sound of Cash indoors, still crying. In fact, it seemed he was crying more loudly than when she’d handed him to Elam.

  “I heard you married,” Pa said. His voice was gentle, questioning, almost fearful.

  “You can thank our good neighbor for helping me remain an honest woman while putting a roof over my head.”

  “That’s what I came to do. I mean to thank him. And Keara, child, you have my deepest apologies. I’ll make it right to the both of you. I promise you that.” As if his words would pave his way, he pushed from the stone buttress and walked along the flagstone path toward her.

  She would have met him halfway. She almost took another step toward him. But then she thought of Susanna, who had taken to calling down the stairs when she needed help. Not that she called often, but what if she did with Brute McBride within earshot? The woman was greatly burdened with fear, with secrets that she held too closely to her heart. Keara could not betray her.

  Keara had once known her father to be a man of integrity, but now? When he was in his cups he became a different person. He could swear from here to kingdom come that he had changed his ways, but he must prove himself. She could not risk revealing Susanna’s presence to a man who allowed whiskey to loosen his tongue. Even if that man were Pa. Even if he needed his daughter now.

  With a tug of pain that tore at her, Keara raised her hands at him. “Don’t take this so lightly, Pa. You’ve uprooted all we’ve ever worked for. You’ve destroyed too much. I’ve managed to save the animals from the farm, and because of Elam’s great sacrifice, he has a right to them.”

  Her father’s eyes closed in misery as his shoulders slumped.

  “Elam has refused them,” she said, her voice softer. She couldn’t break him completely. She would hold him off, but despite all he’d done, she loved her father. “He has told me that when you settle in a place of your own, you may have your livestock.”

  The eyes opened again, and she was relieved by the renewal of hope in them.

  “Elam Jensen would know, more than any man, how it feels to lose the love of his heart,” Pa said.

  The words bit into her. “And I know, as well as any woman, how it feels to be a pawn at the mercy of a man.” She turned from him and raced back up the steps and into the house.

  Thanks to Cash’s cries, Elam could hear little of the conversation outside the front door of his house, but he saw the storm in Keara’s expression when she pounded inside and thrust the door shut behind her with too much force. He saw the big frame of Brute McBride as the man climbed onto his horse and rode back the way he had come—though with less spirit and much less speed.

  Keara reached for Cash, and Elam saw her tears mingle with those of his son’s as she whispered calming words to him.

  “You sent him away?” Elam couldn’t believe it. “Keara—”

  “We can’t risk it,” she said. “Bringing the children back home can’t be helped, but we’ll need to keep them away from others until we know Susanna’s out of danger. My father is man enough to find his own job and make his own way.”

  “But he’s been freed?”

  Keara shushed Cash and pressed her lips to his forehead as the baby calmed. “He has.”

  “I knew it would happen. Your father is not a killer.”

  “But until the judge can prove to me that Pa is not a gambler or a loud-mouthed drunk, it won’t be safe for Susanna to have him in this house.”

  “He has no home to go to.”

  “Neither did I, and through no fault of my own. The farrier in Eureka Springs, Herman Daugherty, has been asking Pa to work for him for the past two years. He knows how good Pa is. As soon as Pa gets to town you can bet that’s where he’ll be.”

  There was a rustle near the stairwell. They both glanced up to see Susanna leaning heavily against the banister at the top of the stairs. Her face was still flushed with fever, her eyes bright, her long black hair tousled around her shoulders.

  “I can’t keep disrupting this family,” she said, her voice weak.

  “What you cannot do is take a chance on falling down those stairs.” Elam rushed up the steps to Susanna’s side. He took her by her unhurt shoulder to help her, while Keara returned to the kitchen counter with Cash on her hip.

  Elam led Susanna back to Britte’s bedroom. “I know you’re the doctor with the medical school education, but Keara isn’t fighting fever and a battered body, and she’s got a good foundation of common sense. You need to trust her and listen to her advice.”

  Susanna followed Elam’s orders without argument, obviously realizing, as she stumbled into the room, that she had misjudged her strength.

  “I’m glad you’re bringing the children home,” Susanna said as Elam helped her back into the bed. She laid her head back on the recently changed pillowcase and looked up at him.

  The deep blue of her eyes and the shading of sunlight through the windows played tricks with his mind, and once again he saw Gloria’s face, heard her voice.

  He shook himself and stood back.

  A quick knock at the doorway, and Keara hustled into the room, bearing a bowl of cold water, a towel, and a glass.

  “Elam, Kellen is here to see to the livestock. I need time alone with Susanna.” She placed the glass and bowl on the dresser and dipped the towel in the water.

  Elam made his escape.

  Eleven

  Keara had released most of her anger by the time Elam left the house on the buckboard with Cash to collect Britte and Rolfe. Her poor father had endured a measure of her temper, but Elam had borne a bit himself, as would Susanna if Keara didn’t take some deep breaths and focus on treating her patient.

  “Elam’s sweet new wife has a definite bite,” Susanna said.

  Keara frowned as she listened to the solid thump of wood on wood of the wagon when Elam rode off. It sounded as if he was going the opposite direction of David and Penelope’s farm, but she shrugged it off. Too much to attend to right here in this room.

  She unbuttoned Susanna’s dressing gown and began to cover her chest with the cold, wet cloth. “I don’t remember ever claiming to be sweet.”

  Susanna gasped as the cloth settled over her skin, but she didn’t complain. She nodded toward the glass on the dresser. “More of your brew?”

  “Cold this time. You need to cool down.”

  “I’m not the only one.”

  Keara ignored that. “Your temperature is back up, and I saw you wince when Elam accidentally touched your shoulder on the stairs. Is it becoming infected, do you think?”

  Susanna closed her eyes. “Too soon to tell.”

  “Then perhaps the children should stay with their cousins for the rest of the week.”

  The eyes opened. “No.”

  Keara was tired of arguing. A word of thanks might be appreciated now and again. She shrugged and reached for the glass of cold tea.

  “I hear a lot more from this bed than you think I do,” Susanna said.

  Keara didn’t ask. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  Susanna jerked her head toward the open window. “You didn’t try to keep your voice down when you were chasing your father away or when you were arguing with Elam. I think I have most of the pieces in place.”

  Keara removed the towel and dunked it into the cold water again. “I don’t see why you’re concerned about my father.”

  “In other words, mind my own business?” Susanna gave a brief smile. “If not for my presence here, perhaps you and he could have breached a divide between you. For my safety, you sent him away.”

  Keara remained silent as she washed her patient’s face and held the glass for her to take sips of tea. When she turned to place the cup on the dresser, Susanna took her arm and squeezed gently.

  “You’re a surprise.”

  Keara met the woman’s g
aze. They took each other’s measure for several long seconds.

  “I needed refuge.” Susanna closed her eyes and bit her lip.

  “And you have it. Who is chasing you across country?”

  Susanna looked away as her shapely lips drew together into a tight, resistant bow.

  Keara studied the finely honed lines of her patient’s high cheek-bones, the darkness of her brows and lashes, the high color of her neck and face. “We drop everything to help you, and yet you won’t tell us what kind of trouble you’re in, why you were shot?”

  “I’m afraid my husband’s killer may have shot me.”

  Keara held her breath. “And who would that be?”

  Susanna shook her head. “I shouldn’t be talking about this. The more ignorant you are of what’s happening, the safer you’ll be.”

  “You truly believe that? Trouble has arrived on our doorstep, and yet we don’t know when to duck, or who to duck from.”

  “I’m the trouble. It would be best if I weren’t here at all.”

  “Sure, and it would be best if you hadn’t been shot, if time could turn back and Nathaniel were still alive, as well, but this is not heaven we’re living in yet, and we have to take things as they come. You’re here, Susanna, and you’ll be here for a while yet.”

  Susanna looked up at her. “First of all, I do not plan to be here any longer than I have to. I can heal elsewhere, and I have the means to find lodging away from family. I can hide where people will not know to search. Second of all, don’t speak to me of a place that doesn’t exist.”

  “You don’t believe in heaven?”

  Susanna shook her head. “If it does exist, I won’t be going there, and don’t try to convince me otherwise. Nathaniel learned quickly that it wasn’t a good subject of conversation for me.”

  “Heaven wasn’t for Gloria at first, either.” Keara gestured for Susanna to take the rest of the tea, and she did so without argument. As Keara placed the glass on the dresser and reached for a fresh towel, she glanced over her shoulder to find Susanna watching her again.

  “Nathaniel has been gone a month, and the shock of it seems to have grown in my heart, not diminished,” Susanna said.

  “Well, if you don’t want to join him soon, I’d suggest you conserve your strength. You’re not even recovered from your fever yet, and we don’t know how that bump on the head is affecting you.”

  Susanna blinked up at her, and Keara realized she still seemed to be wearing invisible battle armor. She didn’t need to be taking out her frustrations on a helpless patient.

  “I know you must be reeling,” she told Susanna as she sank to the side of the bed and laid a hand on her arm. “Of course you are. If Nathaniel was murdered, the horror of that must tear at your insides.”

  “It does, and I’ve had…no one to talk to about it.” Susanna swallowed back apparent tears.

  Keara took a deep breath and thought about what Jael would do in her place. Jael was so good with people.

  “Why don’t you tell me a little about Nathaniel,” Keara suggested. That was what she’d encouraged Elam and the children to do over this past winter. They’d shared memories of their lost wife and mother.

  “Gloria must have told you I was taken to live with my aunt June at an early age,” Susanna said. “If I hadn’t been, Nathaniel and I would never have met.”

  “Then it’s a good thing you did go to live with her. I know Gloria envied you.” Keara got up and stepped to the open window and relished the coolness of the spring breeze. From the windows, she could hear the horses in the corral, the chickens outside the coop, the cattle in a nearby field. Sound seemed to carry, reflecting against the rock wall that separated the yard from the orchard. No wonder Susanna had been able to hear the arguments with Pa and Elam.

  “Though I kept in touch with my sister after my marriage to Nathaniel,” Susanna said, “I didn’t write detailed accounts of my experiences with him. Our brothers knew hunting and fishing and how to round up a herd of half-wild hogs, but the girls learned how to sew, keep house, cook, cure meat, all the farm chores that kept us close to home. Gloria wanted the kind of life I was given. I did not. We weren’t given a choice.”

  “She was happy here with Elam.”

  “And I was happy in Blackmoor, treating patients and living a quiet life.”

  “Yet you set out across country after Nathaniel’s death.”

  “What would you have done in my place?” Susanna asked. “Waited for his killer to shoot you as well?”

  “Why was he—”

  “Nathaniel took me around the world and taught me how to survive on my own,” Susanna said in a rush, obviously to prevent more questions and allow her secrets to remain unspoken. “Under Nathaniel’s tutelage, I learned to outshoot pretty much any man in Blackmoor. That’s why I thought I would be safe coming west by myself.”

  “Yet you were followed.”

  Susanna nodded. “I didn’t use common sense when I chose to ride Duchess. I should have realized she would be a red flag.”

  “Second-guessing yourself isn’t helpful now. We have to figure out what to do about this dilemma.”

  “I’ll heal quickly.”

  “It’s obvious you’re trying to push yourself too hard. You could have a setback.”

  “I have to get out of here.”

  “You can’t do anything on your own right now. While you’re healing, our neighbors and family living in the hollow need to be prepared for any trouble that may have followed you from Pennsylvania. Telling them is the prudent thing to do.”

  “No.”

  “Folks in this hollow are good people, and they’re trustworthy. You need their help.”

  Susanna raised a hand to silence her. “You should be glad to be rid of me.”

  Keara felt her temper begin to simmer once more. This was one stubborn woman. “I may not be a doctor with a degree, but I can’t believe you’d expect me to shove you out of the house the way someone might shoot a lame horse. You’ve refused to see a doctor in town.”

  “I’m not convinced any of the doctors in Eureka Springs know their jobs. Otherwise, why would they have staked their reputations on plain old water from local springs?” She fixed her stare on Keara. “Water helps with a lot of things, but cancer? Women’s ailments? Blindness?” She shook her head. “Craziness.”

  Keara decided not to add her own advertisement for the healing springs of this land. She dabbed at Susanna’s neck and face once more. Her skin was still hot, her eyes over-bright from fever. She wasn’t thinking clearly. Now was not the time to argue with her.

  “I realize I’ve been a bit of a challenge for you,” Susanna said, “but I misjudged you on your wedding night, and I wish to rectify that.”

  Keara decided to humor her patient the way she used to humor Pa when he’d had too much to drink. “How do you plan to do that?”

  Susanna tugged on Keara’s sleeve. “The first thing we must do is get you out of this homespun rag you call a dress and find you more appealing clothes. I do know how to sew, and I do it well. I’m sure you know how to thread a needle.”

  Despite her determination to remain unmoved by this woman’s words, Keara felt her jaw tense. “I’m not interested in showing off—”

  “You’re married, and you have a husband to please. After we repair a wardrobe for you, then we will repair your hair—something you don’t seem capable of managing while you spend all your time caring for me and the baby and doing chores.”

  “My clothes are fine.”

  “There’s nothing I love more than a good challenge,” Susanna said. “You’re a tiny thing, but you’ve got spirit.”

  Keara’s face felt tight. “I’m not a young filly to be judged for having all my teeth and well-curved haunches.”

  Susanna closed her eyes again, but she laughed, and the golden sound of her laughter warmed Keara despite her irritation. Maybe it was because Susanna sounded like her sister. Susanna could simply be reacting t
o the fever, but at least she still had strength enough to talk and laugh and make plans. Maybe she was strong enough to fight her way out of this.

  Elam held Cash in his arms instead of setting him on the bumpy board at his side. The roads to Eureka Springs were often misused and rough, and he didn’t want his son bouncing off the wagon before they could catch up with their quarry.

  “Lord, guide my words and my steps. Give me wisdom.”

  He breached the rise that would take him into a deeper hollow along White River. With a quick glance over his shoulder, Elam couldn’t see Keara watching him, but she might glance out a window and wonder why he was headed in the direction of Eureka Springs instead of David and Pen’s. The way Brute had been riding, it appeared he was in no hurry. All Elam could hope for was that his old neighbor had bypassed the farm he’d gambled away.

  Keara hadn’t mentioned whether or not Brute was drinking. Elam prayed the bad patch had passed and Brute was his old self again, because if he picked a fight with the man who took his farm, he might not live long.

  It took only a few more minutes before Elam found what he was looking for. Recent tracks led toward the cemetery near the little settlement of Beaver, where the McBrides had attended church when the family was together. The train crossed the river here on the bridge called the Narrows.

  Mrs. McBride was buried in the church cemetery beneath a young oak tree. Elam saw Lass tied nearby and found Brute kneeling before an uncut headstone.

  Brute hadn’t once darkened the doors of a church after his wife’s death.

  For the first time since Gloria’s death, Elam found himself having difficulty feeling compassion for Brute. How could he identify with a man who disregarded his faithful daughter and left her to fend for herself?

  Of course, if a man could turn against the God who made and kept him, then why not disregard his daughter as well?