The Wedding Kiss

by Hannah Alexander

  Not Gloria, of course. Susanna. But it was enough to give him pause as the curtains closed them away from his sight.

  Gloria wouldn’t have wanted him and the children to remain alone, but to replace her in their hearts before a year had passed? And to have awakened this morning with the recall of a dream of a woman with golden-brown eyes instead of blue?

  Keara skirted the orchard wall, studying her father as he stood beside his mount, scratching the gelding’s ears, unaware of her presence. He seemed to hesitate as he looked toward the front porch, as if afraid to approach and possibly receive the same welcome he’d received yesterday.

  She closed her eyes as she recalled her words, and she hated herself for them. How could she have turned him away like that?

  But how could she have known if she could trust him with Susanna’s life? Maybe if she’d asked him, as Elam had, if he was still drinking…but would she have listened?

  His continued hesitation told her that Elam was right. Brute McBride had been blessed with a new touch of humility.

  He glanced up and caught sight of her at last, and he froze, his eyes widening. “Hello darlin’.”

  “Hello Pa.”

  He reached up and pulled his hat off his head, and the waves of thick black hair formed a frame around his face. “I don’t reckon you’d care to have a word with your rogue father.”

  She took a step toward him, hesitated, then took another, and another until she was rushing toward him and her throat was swelling with tears she didn’t want to shed, but they refused to be held back.

  “Oh, Pa,” she cried as she rushed into his open arms and felt him swing her up and around and heard his laughter in her ear and felt the soft brush of whiskers on her face.

  “Pa, I’m sorry I—”

  “Now, now, none of that.” He lowered her to her feet and then kissed her forehead. “I’m the one to apologize.”

  “You did that last time you were here.”

  “And you let me know how much you’ve been through. I don’t think there can be enough apologies for that. I’m here to try to make it up to you.” His deep voice sounded solid, reassuring.

  “You are?”

  “That I am.”

  “What about your job?”

  “I’ve talked to Herman. He knows what I’m doing. The sheriff and I’ve had ol’ Pete at the telegraph office busier than a coon in a henhouse.”

  Keara stared at her pa, yet again amazed by his ability to make friends everywhere he went, even in jail. “You’ve got help from the sheriff?”

  “Of course,” he said, as if that were a silly question. “Sheriff got word back from Cassville that US Marshal Driscoll Frey never arrived with his prisoner.”

  Keara grasped her father’s arm. “That man still has Timothy Skerit?”

  “I don’t know, darlin’. Elam told me Frey was planning to stay the night in Seligman, so they might not have even made it to Cassville yet, but you can bet Thomas Skerit has already lit out after his son. Telegraph’s a wonderful thing. We may hear before the end of the day if the boy’s been found and if he’s safe.”

  “What else have you heard from the telegraph office?”

  “We got quick word about Frey from the US Marshal’s office out of Philadelphia, where he was headquartered until a few months ago.”

  “He really is rogue, isn’t he?”

  “Just like your ol’ pa, only this’n’s truly a nasty piece of work, not a loveable fella like me. The sheriff had Pete run down Marshal Albertson, who’s been through Eureka Springs a few times and is friends with the mayor. Albertson hails from Philadelphia, and he remembers Frey, even filed a formal complaint about him when he saw too many of Frey’s prisoners shot or beat half senseless for no good reason.

  Keara gasped. “What if he’s hurt Timothy?”

  Pa shook his head. “Don’t know. Albertson said the man has cold eyes. Of course, he couldn’t say much else over the telegraph. It’d take too many words. I’d like to have a talk with him someday.”

  “There was something about him I didn’t like, Pa. He was polite and all, but it was as if his politeness was a skin he could crawl out of anytime he wanted. He told Elam he was keeping Timothy out of the way of a big arrest as a favor to a friend.”

  Pa shook his head. “There wasn’t any arrest, and a man like him wouldn’t be a true friend to anybody. I’ve seen the like. Last time I saw one like Frey,” Pa said, looking down at her, “was the night I was cheated out of the farm.”

  “Rod Snyder?”

  “The cheatin’ dog-eared—”

  “You shouldn’t’ve been betting.”

  “I know. I do. It won’t happen again.”

  “You don’t have anything left to bet.” She paused. “You do still have Duchess, don’t you?”

  He gave her an innocent look. “Who’s that?”

  “Pa!”

  He winked at her, eyes twinkling. Elam was right, her father had developed only a little humility.

  “She’s safely hidden back deep in Tilley Holler where few folks ever wander due to snakes and wildcats. I rode her there myself before sunup this morning, where the Tilleys are treating her like the royalty she is. They loaned me this gelding with a nasty temper.” He gestured toward his borrowed mount.

  “Elam said Timothy Skerit got into a skirmish with a gang of men. Have you seen those men today?”

  Pa put his arm over Keara’s shoulders and walked with her toward the front porch. “Not meetin’ at the saloon anymore, but I know where they are meeting. Soon as I got back from taking Duchess to her deep holler keep and checked for news with the sheriff and had a long talk with Herman and other stalwart friends, I wandered the streets until I spotted a couple of the men I recognized. I followed them out of town. Guess where they went.”

  “I don’t know, Pa. Did you get any sleep at all last night?”

  “Slept like a baby from the time Elam left until I had to take Duchess away. Then after I followed those men to their new meetin’ place, I had to get out here and warn you.”

  “About what?”

  “Those men are meetin’ at the farm.”

  “You mean our home?”

  “That’s right.” His eyes darkened. “Couldn’t get close enough to hear what the meetin’ was about, but I reckon Timothy Skerit did, and that’s why he got into that skirmish with them. They’re up to no good, you can be sure of that. Too bad Timothy didn’t see fit to tell the sheriff what he heard, but he and his pa were distracted when they saw me in the jail cell.”

  “You mean, that’s why they were there and could testify for you?”

  Pa nodded. “That’s right. They wouldn’t’ve known I was even there if Timothy hadn’t been brought in on charges of misconduct. As if that young man was a troublemaker.”

  “Elam followed a couple of men along the cow path from the road to our farm last night,” Keara said. “But there’s a dog there.”

  “I heard that same dog this morning. We may need to doctor up a few pieces of meat from the butcher’s shop to quiet the hound.”

  Keara told her father what Elam had overheard from Snyder and his cohort last night. “Do you think the sheriff could call a couple of real US marshals in to stop these men?”

  “From what? We don’t have anything to show them.” He stepped up onto the porch with her and patted her back. “But I mean to find out.”

  Keara wanted to cry with relief. Her pa was back.

  Twenty-Two

  Elam built just the right size stack of logs for a good draft in the stove then closed the door and adjusted the damper. That would be enough to heat the water in the cauldron and he would bring more wood upstairs after he talked to Brute.

  He was dusting his hands, stepping from the hot water room, when he heard the feminine sound of a throat clearing behind him. He turned to see Susanna leaning against the opposite hallway wall, her hair mussed, her dress twisted awkwardly because of her shoulder.

  He he
ard the sounds of Cash’s squealing, Rolfe’s laughter, and Britte’s mother-hen voice downstairs.

  “They’re playing in the bathroom,” Susanna told him. “I have to say, those little ones are three of the happiest children I’ve set eyes on. How did you get them through this mourning period with their gift of laughter still intact?”

  He smiled as the sound of their voices continued up the stairwell. “Much prayer and help from friends and family.”

  “Especially Keara, I don’t doubt.”

  “She risked her reputation so she could spend time with us over the winter months. She has a kind nature.”

  “And so do you. I think two kind people will be marvelous parents for a houseful of children.”

  Elam met Susanna’s direct gaze and tried to read behind it. Was she being sarcastic or giving him her approval?

  “You heard me,” she said. “I arrived on your front step on your wedding night injured and defiant, and Keara and the rest of this family has nursed me and cared for me. I see nothing but goodness in that woman.”

  Those words eased a tightness inside him. It wasn’t as if he needed her approval, but she was and always would be his children’s aunt. “Then you see her as I do.”

  “I hope not.”

  He blinked at her.

  “I realize you’re still in mourning over Gloria, and that this was a rushed wedding, to say the least. Keara has told me a great deal now that I’m lucid and on the mend. I realize you’re getting things backward, but I do hope you intend to court her as a suitor would court a young lady.”

  “Court?”

  “As you courted Gloria on your business trips back East.”

  “But Keara and I are married.”

  Susanna straightened from the wall. “Elam, I know you’ve been out of the romance game for ten years, but would you please try to remember how gently you treated Gloria after you two first met? How you eased her into gentle friendship, made those first tentative steps toward romance, and then toward lasting love?”

  “That was young love.”

  “And you don’t think Keara deserves the same kind of love? Oh, sure, I realize she’s a different woman, but she’s not a second-rate woman. Please don’t make her feel you settled for her as a consolation prize.”

  “Susanna, there’s been no time—”

  “A woman like her is worth the time. I see the way the two of you look at each other when each thinks the other isn’t looking. Don’t forget I was trained to be a keen observer of people. It’s often how I make my diagnoses.”

  He took a step backward. “Fancy yourself a bit of a matchmaker, do you?”

  “Oh no. The match has already been made. My intention is to assure that my niece and nephews continue to live in a happy environment filled with love. In order to do that, their father must truly love their stepmother. She is a woman worth that love.”

  Elam suppressed a smile. “I met your aunt June a few times on my trips to Pennsylvania. She was a lady who spoke her mind. I can’t help believing she rubbed off on you.”

  “I count that as a compliment, but she was my mother’s sister, and Gloria tended to have nearly as much invincibility. Keara has the strength of will to stand up to even that kind of outspokenness, and to thrive on a friendship with another strong-willed woman. I count her as a true friend.” Susanna reached for his arm. “Help me get down the stairs without falling, and I’ll keep quiet about your need to be told how to romance your new bride.”

  He walked with her, taking care to move slowly. “I’m not sure Keara would appreciate any attempts at courting.”

  “Why is that?”

  “She was the one who insisted on a platonic partnership.”

  “And you agreed to such an arrangement?”

  “At the time I thought it best.”

  “Have you, then, changed your mind since?”

  He hesitated.

  “That’s what I thought,” she said as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “If you can’t trust your own instincts—and I’ve found many a man who cannot do such a thing—why won’t you trust mine? I don’t think your new bride would be unreceptive to your charms.”

  “You think I should court her.”

  “Gently. As you were doing this morning out by the woodpile. I know you must remember a few things about it. I could see that she was charmed. Try it again, and again, until you get it right.”

  “I’ll think about what you’re saying.” He glanced out the front window, where Keara and her pa stood in deep conversation. “Until I’m sure, I need to meet with a man about a plot to kill the Cherokee.”

  Susanna reached up and firmly pinched his chin between thumb and forefinger. “Consider me Keara’s doting older sister. I have a great interest in her happiness. Don’t disappoint me.”

  “Yes ma’am.” He scooted away before she could read even more deeply into his thoughts. The woman was disconcerting, to say the least.

  And yet…he couldn’t help dwelling on her words as he stepped onto the porch to greet Brute.

  Keara worked Susanna’s long hair into a lather with bars of the scented soaps Jael and Pen had given her as a wedding gift. In an attempt to keep Susanna’s wounded shoulder out of the water, she had Susanna lean her head over the rounded back edge of the tub and poured water from the tub over her hair and into a pan.

  Keara had brewed a pot of strong tea and added whiskey to a cup to stave off Susanna’s pain. It was a good thing Susanna didn’t have a taste for alcohol, because if she did, she could become dependent on it in a hurry.

  “I still hate that stuff,” Susanna said. “But it works almost as well as laudanum.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Once you get me out of here, it’s your turn for a nice bath.”

  “I had one yesterday.”

  “Another one wouldn’t hurt, as long as the fire’s already going. Don’t waste all this sweet scent on me. I’m sure Elam will love it.”

  Keara poured a pitcher of water over the soapy hair and watched the suds splash into the pan below. “I’ve told you, that isn’t…the way it is with us.”

  “You’re a twenty-six-year-old woman, and you can’t see what’s right in front of your eyes?”

  “I can see you’re going to talk until the water gets cold.”

  “There’s still more heating up above our heads. Elam filled the stove full.”

  Frustrated, Keara finished rinsing Susanna’s hair and reached for a towel. “I’ll leave you in peace to soak for a while,” she said as she wrapped the towel around Susanna’s head and tucked the end of it so it wouldn’t unfurl.

  “I had a private conversation with your husband awhile ago,” Susanna said as Keara reached for the door.

  That stopped Keara short. She turned back to see Susanna grinning at her over the side of the tub.

  “You undersell yourself so much, my friend,” Susanna said.

  “I don’t undersell anything, I just know what I am and what I’m not.”

  “What are you?”

  “I’m…well…I’m good with horses and children, I know how to care for the sick and tend a garden, milk cows, and goats.”

  “That’s it? Then tell me what you aren’t good at.”

  “This is silly. You need to finish your bath and I need to see to Cash.”

  “I asked you a question.” Susanna’s authoritative tone rose through the scented bathroom.

  Keara took a breath, let it out, turned to peer through the gauzy curtain over the window. “We’ve already discussed this. I’m not a…I’m not Gloria. Nothing like her. You’re her sister. You’re like her in so many ways, you could have given the children a touch of sophistication had you been their new mother instead of me.”

  There, she’d said what she’d been thinking since Monday night, and she certainly didn’t have to turn around and look at Susanna to imagine the surprise on her face in the silence that followed her words.

  “I could raise her childre
n the way she would have raised them and been a second Gloria to Elam Jensen?” Susanna asked.

  Keara hesitated, nodded.

  “Why would I want to be my sister’s stand-in? I have no wish to remarry after ten years of marriage to Nathaniel.” Susanna’s voice began to rise. “Why, his brother Sikes looks a lot like Nathaniel. Do you think I would wish to be bound to that self-righteous clod simply because he resembles Nathaniel?”

  “Of course not, but—”

  “Then why do you believe Elam would wish to marry me? You’re the friend who has seen his family through the winter. You’re the woman he knows and loves, despite what you choose to believe.”

  “I was merely being practical.”

  “You were practical when you accepted Elam’s proposal?”

  Keara sighed. “He didn’t propose. I did. I had to beg him to marry me.” Why, oh why, was she spilling all this information?

  “And he saw the good sense you made,” Susanna said without hesitation. “Why are you now second-guessing yourself?”

  “I didn’t stop to think about the realities of marriage.”

  “You mean the intimacies?” Susanna grinned. “Nothing has changed since you proposed, but you are definitely lacking when it comes to romance.”

  Keara caught her breath and turned to glare at Susanna. “Do you have to be so cruel?”

  “Honesty is important. You’re the one who’s being cruel. How can you think your husband would be such a cad as to look at another woman when he’s married to you? Especially since he so obviously cares for you. Keara, you need to set things in order with that husband of yours before you both get off on the wrong foot and never get together again in this dance of love and marriage.”

  Keara frowned. Those words, the “dance of love and marriage,” sounded so familiar. It was something her best friend would have said if she hadn’t died last year.

  Keara stared down at her work-worn hands, realizing why she’d confided so much to Susanna.

  She was Gloria’s sister. “I miss Gloria so much.”

  There was a long silence between them as the sound of the children laughing and playing in the garden outside drifted past the gauzy curtain.