The Wedding Kiss

by Hannah Alexander

  Susanna’s lips parted. “Oh really? And just who told you that?”

  “My mother delivered many a baby along the hollow. My hips are slender. I once overheard her remarking to Clydene Brown that she feared I might have trouble giving birth. She’d seen two women die in childbirth, and she was afraid for me.”

  Apparently, the tea had taken yet more of the edge off Susanna’s pain, because she laughed so loudly Keara feared it would wake the children.

  “You obviously lacked only one thing necessary to have children of your own,” Susanna said, “and that was time. You will be able to bear children as well as any other woman whose babies I’ve delivered.”

  “But my mother—”

  “Obviously taught you well about herbs and teas, but she was not a doctor. Just because you’re slender from working hard and feeding others all your life instead of yourself does not mean you aren’t built for childbearing. I read letters from Gloria about how her friend worked her fingers to the bone for her family, and was never allowed out of the house to meet other people her age.”

  Keara felt heat rising in her. “I loved my family, and they loved me.”

  “So much you weren’t allowed out for social gatherings?”

  “You don’t know what it’s like to be the only female in a home with a paralyzed mother and two rowdy boys. Pa worked so hard—”

  Susanna placed her hand over Keara’s. “And your heart was so tender you couldn’t force yourself to let them struggle. That’s why the other ladies your age—who are not ladies, in my opinion, if they hold someone such as yourself in such low regard—might seem to look down their noses at you. They barely know you. And as for your mother, she may have needed you at one time, but she doesn’t need you now. She, also, is obviously up in that heaven you believe in, chattering on with Gloria and comparing stories about you.”

  Before Keara could further explain why she’d stayed at home so often as a young woman, Susanna said, “I think it’s time you learn a little more about the joys of true romance, and I’m just the one to teach you.”

  “Romance? But I don’t—”

  “You’re every inch a beautiful woman, and you have what it takes to be a loving and nurturing mother to more than three children. Get your mother’s voice out of your mind and get on with your life…and your marriage.”

  Keara turned her back on Susanna and paced to the window. She had forgotten how Gloria used to be able to rile her early on in their friendship.

  “You know so much about us from your letters from Gloria,” Keara said, keeping her voice gentle, “but we don’t know much about you. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

  There was a long pause and then a soft chuckle. “Very well, I’ll change the subject for the moment. I was well-educated by the standards of the day when I went to live with Aunt June in Philadelphia, but I, too, was a country girl from the backwoods of Pennsylvania. I know how it is to feel intimidated by societal rules.”

  “I’m sure you missed your home.” Keara glanced over her shoulder at her patient.

  “I was so homesick for the first few weeks I could barely sleep at night. I also found my aunt to be intimidating, with her culture and education. It took me a couple of years to become accustomed to that.”

  “I probably never would have.”

  “I believe you to be capable of doing anything you set your mind to.” Susanna looked at Keara in silence for a moment as her eyes continued to reflect her desire for sleep. “I hope I haven’t given you reason to feel intimidated.”

  Keara’s gaze skittered from Susanna’s face.

  “I’m sorry,” Susanna said. “I would never wish to do that to anyone. I noticed you’re not intimidated by my brother-in-law.”

  “Elam?”

  Susanna blinked sleepily, smiling. “I can teach you about romance.”

  “I thought you agreed to change the subject.”

  “I said for a moment. It’s been a moment. There really is some romance in your marriage, after all you’ve tried to deny,” Susanna teased.

  “I’ve told you the circumstances.”

  “My brother-in-law is one very handsome man, with a pure heart. He’s your rescuer. What woman wouldn’t love him? It’s certainly no sin.”

  Keara didn’t reply, but she felt her cheeks grow warm. “More tea?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Whiskey?” Keara teased, stepping to the bed and straightening the covers.

  “I think I’m plenty sleepy already. You’re still avoiding the conversation?”

  “I think I gave you too much whiskey earlier.”

  Susanna chuckled again. “You gave me whiskey to ease my pain and loosen my tongue so I would tell you the truth. Therefore you must agree that what I’m telling you is merely the truth as I see it.” She reached for Keara’s arm with her good hand then gasped when she leaned too far. “Ouch. I’m a horrible patient.”

  “Yes, actually, you are,” Keara said with a grin. “I can quite imagine why Marshal Frey would want to shoot you.” She raised the bandage from Susanna’s shoulder and peered beneath the poultice. She nodded with satisfaction. It didn’t look infected, as they had first feared, but it would be best to take precautions against that possibility. “Tomorrow, I’d like to make a different poultice to speed the healing.”

  “Gathering more weeds, are you?”

  “Trees, actually. I have fresh sassafras and witch hazel gathered to boil. You obviously enjoy the sassafras tea, and we have more wild honey to sweeten it. You just relax and let me do the doctoring for a little longer.”

  Keara took Susanna’s temperature one final time and then rested her hand on the uninjured part of Susanna’s head, as if in a blessing. “Get some sleep.” She picked up the lantern and the empty cup. “Tomorrow you should begin to feel better, and after your bath we can wrap that shoulder and arm so you’ll be less likely to cause yourself pain.”

  “Yes, doctor,” came Susanna’s sleepy reply as Keara closed the door behind her.

  It was good that the children were sleeping in total innocence of the man who might be a danger to them. She hoped Susanna did sleep tonight. But Keara would not be able to close her eyes until she saw Elam walk through that front door, whole and strong.

  She would pray for him as she watched through the front window for movement.

  But for the moment, Keara could not prevent a grin. Something was happening here. Susanna was becoming a friend.

  Hours later, Keara jerked awake on the sofa in the front room when she heard the sound of hoofbeats outside. She’d nodded off. How could she have done that?

  She reached for the rifle beside her and stood up to peer through the closed curtains then put the rifle back down. It was Elam’s outline in the moonlight, riding Lass into the corral.

  She expected him to linger in the barn a few moments, but she unlocked the door for him. To her surprise, she heard the echo of his boots on the wooden porch before she could turn away from the door, so she opened it.

  “Keara?” he called in the darkness.

  “I’m here. Been waiting for you.”

  He stepped inside smelling like a fresh spring night and leather and horse. Keara loved those smells. “Why? Has there been trouble?”

  “Nothing here. I just didn’t want to take any chances. I see you rode Lass back. How’d it go with Pa?”

  “He says he isn’t touching any alcohol, and I believe him. I believe your father is back to his old self.” To her surprise, Elam placed his hands on her shoulders and squeezed, as if he was happy to return to her.

  His touch couldn’t have been more potent had it been lightning. She swallowed and licked her lips, glad he couldn’t see her expression in the darkness. She couldn’t help thinking of Susanna’s teasing about romance. “You’re sure, of course, or you wouldn’t have left Duchess with him.”

  “He knows all we do now, and he’s in a position to ask questions and get answers.”

 
; “He’ll take good care of Duchess.”

  Elam’s hands tightened on her shoulders. “And he has been assured that I will take good care of his daughter.”

  Keara held his gaze in the filtered light, and as she had done many times, she wondered if he knew how his touch affected her. For a moment, she was tempted to stretch up on her toes and touch her lips to his, just to recall the shocking pleasure of the one kiss they’d shared.

  And then Elam said, “I think you should sleep in my bed tonight.”

  Her breathing stopped, and for a moment she couldn’t restart it.

  He laughed softly and cupped his hand against her cheek. “You need rest, and Susanna seems to be out of danger, at least with the fever. I’ll sleep down here on the sofa with the rifle, keeping watch, and tomorrow I’m hoping we’ll receive the new mattress I ordered at the mercantile.”

  He smiled into her eyes then patted her on the shoulder and turned away. “Any new married couple would want a new bed, don’t you think? No one’s going to think it strange. Come, let’s get you to bed.”

  Twenty-One

  Thursday morning found Elam chopping wood out back of the house. When he and the neighbors had built the house, he’d gladly given in to Gloria’s pleas for a real bathroom, with running water from a cistern, and also a flush toilet. They were the talk of the community.

  He could still remember the teasing he’d endured from the men along the hollow that year when he’d devised that contraption. Now both his sisters had bathrooms, and his youngest brother, Delmar, planned to build his own house complete with bathroom. Other neighbors had asked for his help in constructing their own. No more running to the outhouse through the snow or rain for his neighbors. The men of White River Hollow knew how to treat their women.

  Elam had found it well-nigh impossible to create the kind of water heater folks had in Eureka Springs, which used electricity, since they had no electricity so far from town. He had, however, managed to devise a wood stove to heat the water pumped into a large cauldron upstairs above the bathroom. One could stand beneath the trickling stream of warm water and have a satisfying wash. He just had to make sure the water didn’t get too hot. It had happened a time or two, and he’d not take the chance again.

  This morning his job was to chop enough wood to heat water for the huge iron tub in the bathroom. Keara wanted to give Susanna a bath.

  He glanced toward the house, hoping to catch sight of Keara. Since the wedding, he’d had very little time to focus on the marriage part of their friendship—something, of course, that he had not intended to focus on in the beginning. How quickly things changed.

  He’d been spending more time alone with his horses this week than he’d expected due to the emergency, so he didn’t know how the days might have gone if not for Susanna’s appearance. On his ride home last night he’d nearly talked himself into greeting Keara with more than that silly pat on the shoulders, though when she’d met him at the door, making it obvious she’d been waiting up for him, his boldness had failed him.

  He missed the easy friendship they’d had for so long. That comfortable companionship had been harder to come by since the wedding vows were spoken, and he knew the moment that had happened—the kiss, the flare of wonder. The hope. And then came the crush of guilt at the betrayal in his heart of his wife’s memory for just that moment.

  Until then he’d been telling himself that he and Keara would, indeed, have a good partnership, as she had suggested.

  He hurled the ax into a log and split it in two with one hit then set both halves up on the stump and split both of them.

  This week had been one frantic moment after another. Before the wedding, he’d told himself he could wait until the dust settled to see how he and Keara would be with each other—whether things would be strained or whether they would carry on as before. A couple of times, they’d seem easier, but then back would come that tentativeness about pressing for more because he feared losing what they already had.

  He tossed the four chunks of wood onto the pile then placed another log onto the splitting stump.

  The dust he’d hoped would settle after the wedding didn’t look like it’d be settling for a while, judging by Susanna’s report.

  Still, he couldn’t totally blame Susanna’s appearance for the occasional discomfort between him and Keara this week—partially, but not totally. He could avoid thinking about the subject, but if he was honest with himself, he would have to admit he hadn’t been able to get that wedding kiss out of his mind. It seemed almost like a promise.

  Of course, he’d known the comforts of marriage. Why hadn’t he realized that a kiss like that—with a woman like that—would have ignited something inside him?

  He could have put his foot down with his sisters and refused the wedding ceremony in Eureka Springs, but until Monday he had never before seen the woman who had come walking down that aisle toward him. There’d been no time to change his thinking before the words were said and their lips met.

  For Keara’s sake, whether she’d felt comfortable about it or not—and she obviously had not—she deserved that wedding. For once in her life she needed to feel as if she mattered more than the next necessary thing to be done.

  What would Gloria have wanted?

  Something Keara told Elam last week continued to echo in his mind. Gloria had wanted him to remarry, to be happy, to not be lonely, to have a partner in life. Hers had been that selfless kind of love, and if he turned it around, he’d have wanted the same for her.

  He finished the next log and lifted it onto the woodpile. There would be plenty of hot water for all of them. His family would be clean in the coming days.

  He returned to chopping and thinking. Sure, if he’d been the one to die, he would want his loved ones to grieve for him and miss him, but he couldn’t have borne the thought of his darling Gloria and his children continuing in pain and sorrow forever. Not that he liked the thought of her with another man, loving him, sharing his bed, his life—but if it was the right kind of man, a good man, solid and strong and kind, he would want that for her.

  Gloria had loved Keara as a sister.

  The back door opened and out stepped the blond-haired woman of his thoughts in a pretty green calico work dress, her hair caught up in a loose knot, prepared to give a bath. Was it his imagination that she’d had fewer dust marks on her dresses, cleaner hands, tidier hair this week? And she hadn’t worn her old work trousers one single time.

  “You planning to bathe the whole neighborhood today, Elam Jensen?” The teasing lilt in her voice betrayed her mood this morning, and he couldn’t help wondering if a good night’s sleep in his bed—while he slept with the rifle on the sofa downstairs—might have helped her mood. She’d needed the sleep.

  He gestured toward the wood. “I’ll take a load up in a minute.”

  She stepped from the house and crossed to the pile. “I can carry it up. I’ve already got the fire going with the kindling. Wouldn’t want it to go out.”

  He reached out and took her by the shoulders. “You’ve done enough carrying this week. How’s Susanna’s fever this morning?”

  Keara looked up at him, her expression softening to something…else. “Still normal. We may have this thing beat after all. She’s got a constitution as strong as Freda Mae’s.”

  “Let’s hope her hooves don’t grow as fast.”

  Keara chuckled, her golden-brown eyes lighting again with that humor he’d grown to depend on over the long winter.

  “I’ll have the wood upstairs in a minute,” he said. “You take a rest. Have a cup of that sassafras tea you keep making for everyone else.”

  As she gave him a final grin and turned back toward the house, he found himself distracted by her small-but-strong form, the curve and movement of her—

  “Hello the house!” came a call from beyond the orchard wall just before Keara reached the door. From here, he wasn’t visible, but the voice was recognizable.

  Keara stopped
and turned. “It’s Pa. I wonder what he’s doing here this morning.”

  “He must have news for me, or he wouldn’t have left work to ride all the way out.” Elam leaned the ax against the woodpile.

  Keara started back across the yard. “Well then, I’m sure you men will need to talk. I’ll just take a log to keep the fire—”

  Elam intercepted her with an arm around her shoulders this time. “You go greet your father. I said I would see to the fire, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “I’m sure he came to see you.”

  “You need to make peace with your father. I’ll talk to him after I carry the wood upstairs.”

  She blinked up at him. She didn’t argue, but she didn’t immediately withdraw. Like last night, it was as if his touch stilled her. He guided her toward the side of the house. “It’ll be okay, Keara. Walk around to the front and greet him. His first concern is for you. He won’t be angry with you.”

  When they were in sight of her father’s solid form, she hesitated.

  Elam tightened his arm around her. “You have forgiven him, haven’t you?” he asked softly.

  “I…believe I have,” she said under cover of Brute’s chatter to the horse. “I know I have no ill will toward him, but after these past two years I’m not sure what to expect from him, and the things I said to him on Wednesday—”

  “You simply told him the truth, very forcefully. And he’s still the same Brute McBride, he just has a little more humility than he once had. Not much of it,” Elam said, smiling into her upturned face, “but it’ll do.”

  He felt her shoulders square and heard her intake of breath. He gave her shoulders a final squeeze and eased her forward, out of his embrace. He watched her go, and he marveled at the change in her these past few days.

  Or maybe he was the one who’d changed.

  When he returned to the woodpile, he caught a movement in the upstairs window. Britte’s room. He looked up, and for the briefest of moments, he saw his family, Britte and Rolfe…and Gloria, smiling down at him.