"Careful, the bottom drops off fast right about there.” Noah swam over and stood, taking both of her hands in his.
"Can you swim, Annie?” Drops of water clung to his eyelashes, the whorls of dark hair on his chest glistened, and he smiled at her, lighthearted, boyish--and very bare.
The shock of the water and the sight of Noah’s naked body was taking her breath away. “No, I can’t swim,” she gasped, clinging tight to his hands, laughing with the wonder of it all. “I’ve never done this before.”
“Put your arms around my neck, but don’t choke off my air.”
He turned his back to her and she looped her arms around him, heart hammering at the feel of his skin against hers, and in one smooth movement, he sank down into the water with her half floating on his back.
She screamed in delight as the chill of the water reached her buttocks, her back, her breasts. She clung to him, laughing uncontrollably, drunk with the sensation of weightlessness, the naked male body pressing against her. He swam a few strokes, and she felt the power of his muscles as he stroked and kicked, easily supporting her.
Like carefree children, they splashed and teased and played, until all at once, laughing up at him in waist deep water, Annie met his eyes and caught her breath.
The game had changed.
His arms slid further around her, and one hand cupped her breast. His mouth came down to claim hers, and with a groan, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her out of the water, up the bank to where the grass was soft.
He stripped her of dripping chemise and drawers, spread his shirt, and drew her down upon it.
Their loving was both easy and intense, because in this one thing they seemed to know instinctively what the other required.
The sun beat down upon them, the meadowlarks sang, and the rushing of the river muffled the sounds they made.
"I’ve lost my hairpins, and I can't put my hair back up without them.” Annie was searching the grass.
Noah, dressed again in trousers and the crumpled blue shirt they'd lain on, knelt obligingly beside her and combed the ground in search of them.
"Here’s three, is that enough?” He couldn't help but grin at the picture she made kneeling there in disarray, scowling as she tried to control the wild red curls covering her shoulders and tumbling down her back. Her freckled face was golden from the sun, her body voluptuous.
He refused to dwell on the reason for that new lushness, the child that grew within her. Today he was at peace, with her and with himself. There’d be time later to come to terms with the child.
"Thank you, Noah.” She stuck the pins in her mouth and smiled at him as she wrestled with her unruly hair.
Her eyes were as green as the grass they knelt on, as wide and clear as the pool where they’d been swimming. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss on her swollen lips, then regretted his impetuous gesture when her eyes shimmered with sudden tears.
But she gave him a wide smile and pulled her stockings up, teasing him with one last glimpse of shapely leg before she struggled to her feet.
"I have to get back. Bets and Zachary will think I've been taken by Indians. Do I look decent again?”
He pretended to study her. Her dress was creased beyond redemption, and there was grass in her hair. He reached over and took it out before she tied the sunbonnet on.
“You look just fine," he assured her, knowing that anyone with half an eye could tell by the rich color in her cheeks and the slumberous look in her eyes that she’d been well and truly loved.
But Bets was too young and innocent for such thoughts, and if Zachary should notice, well, Zachary would be overjoyed that the strain of the past weeks was over and done with.
“Let the past go,” he’d communicated to Noah just the other night. Zachary had come to love Annie, and he made no secret that he blamed Noah for the problems between them.
Yes, his father would be delighted to see Annie like this.
Noah tucked the dish towel into the lunch pail and handed it to her, and he watched as she set off across the field. A hundred yards off she turned and waved, and he raised a hand in response, feeling happy and more at peace than he’d been in a long while.
She disappeared over the hill, and he walked toward the peacefully grazing horses. “C’mon, boys. Buck, Bright, time to get back to work.”
He was whistling as he harnessed them and led them over to another stump, and he was still whistling half an hour later when he heard the frantic call.
“Noah—Noah."
His body stiffened as he caught sight of Annie and Bets, skirts held high, racing towards him over the uneven ground.
A terrible foreboding filled him as he ran to meet them.
Chapter Nine
Bets was sobbing, her face soaked with tears and sweat. Annie, too, was crying as Noah reached them, her flushed face contorted into lines of anguish.
"What is it? What’s happened?" He grasped Annie by the shoulders. "Tell me, for God’s sake."
"It’s—it’s Zachary. Bets was—she was coming—to get us,” she gasped. “I met her on the trail, I ran back to the house with her, but it—it was too late. Oh, Noah—” She gulped and her voice broke. "He’s gone. Zachary's dead.” She pressed her hands against her mouth, trying to still the sobs so she could talk.
"Bets said she—she was playing checkers with him, and he had some sort of a seizure, just for a moment or two, and then—then he just fell back on the pillows—"
An absolute stillness seemed to surround Noah. He heard the words, but they came from a great distance. He turned and ran over to unhook the team. Then, with his hand on the harness, he paused and laid his forehead against Buck's rough, warm flank.
His father was dead.
Hurrying served no purpose, because Zachary was no longer there for him, the way he'd been through the whole of Noah’s life.
His wife, his child, and now his father. Fate had a way of taking everything he cared about. It was a reminder, a grim warning, not ever to let himself love without reservation.
November 14, 1886
My dear Elinora,
We’re having the first real snowfall of the year, and it’s still coming down like big, soft feathers. It's pretty, but it also makes me feel lonely and rather a prisoner. It’s been over two months now, but Bets and I still can’t seem to get through a day without crying for dear Zachary. We do miss him so very much. I find myself longing for the sound of that cursed cane of his banging the floor.
Thank you for the letter, and the parcel. You are altogether too generous, dear Elinora. The baby clothes are beautiful and much appreciated. Tell Fanny I shall treasure the shawl she knitted. And the book you sent, Advice To A Mother, has cleared away many of my questions about the birth process. I note that it is written by an Englishwoman; surely the English are more enlightened than the rest of us, to publish so outspoken a volume.
You ask when this blessed event will occur. I see Doctor Witherspoon each time we go to town, and he says about the third week in January. Although I hate the very thought, Noah is adamant that I go and stay with friends in Medicine Hat after Christmas so the doctor will be in attendance at the birth. Elinora, I can't help but feel in my heart that I'm being banished, even though my head tells me the idea is a sensible one. We are far from town, it’s winter, and the doctor might not reach us in time.
Enough of my ranting! Truth to tell, I am in perfect health, although I grow to look more like a pumpkin every day. Gladys is quick to inform me that my rounded shape is going to get worse before it gets better. She and Rose came to visit again last week, the first time since the funeral. I think I told you that Zachary is buried in a spot near the river, alongside Noah's first wife and baby. I go there when the weather permits; I feel strangely close to all three of them.
Gladys has become a good friend, and Rose and Bets are as thick as thieves. Rose can sign almost as well as I can. We're planning a get-together for Christmas day. Gladys says her family w
ill come here because of my “condition, "and we’ll all make Christmas dinner. Bets and I are busy making gifts—aprons and potpourri from wild roses for the women and socks for the men. I'm making Noah new mittens from scarlet yarn; his are full of holes.
You asked in your letter how Noah is doing with the death of his father, and I have to say I don’t really know. You see, he won’t talk to me, Elinora. I try, but it’s as if he’s far away. I did think, just before Zachary's death, that things had changed for the better, but it hasn’t worked that way at all.
As always, he is kind and very thoughtful. He brings all the water in and takes the slops out and warns me not to lift heavy things. He bought me two new (voluminous) dresses last trip to town, as nothing I have fits anymore, but he refuses to speak of the baby, which is what I need and want him to do. Every time I’ve brought it up, he gets up and walks away.
I love him with all my heart, Elinora, and I've come to realize I'm an all-or-nothing sort of person. If he can’t see his way to loving me and this child equally, the day will come when I will have to leave.
'Well, this is a sad excuse for a letter, but you told me always to write as I feel. Enclosed is a note from Bets—her penmanship is getting much better, isn’t it? I make her do lessons every day. You wouldn’t recognize her. She’s grown a foot and put on weight and looks a different girl altogether'. Coming here has been good for her, at least.
I hope you are well and not working too hard. Bets and I laughed over your story about the new boarder. I imagine you have her quite house-broken by now.
I hope to hear from you soon. Each time Noah goes to town, I pray for a letter.
Your loving, expectant friend, Annie.
In mid-December, at Bets’s urging, Noah cut a bushy willow tree and nailed it to a stand. The sisters decorated its stark branches with strings of cranberries, popcorn, and paper angels.
They tied suet to the outdoor clothesline for the birds and wrapped the gifts they’d made and stacked them under the tree. Noah bought extra sugar in town, and Annie made candy and baked cakes in preparation for Christmas.
The temperature dropped to 38 degrees below zero and stayed there for a week. Annie and Bets fretted over whether it would be too cold for their guests to travel, but on December 23, it suddenly warmed up again, to only 10 below.
All the Christmas preparations were finished, and the house was clean. Annie awoke that morning filled with energy, determined that the time had come to tidy Zachary’s bedroom and turn it into a nursery for the baby. She’d been putting it off.
Noah had shut the door to his father’s room after the funeral, and it had remained closed. Now, for some reason, it was urgent to her that the room be in order before the next day, when the Hopkins family came over.
She told Noah that morning at breakfast what she was planning, and as usual these days, he didn't really answer her. He simply nodded in. that distracted way he had, pulled on his heavy coat and hat, and disappeared out the door in the direction of the bam.
Half the time, she thought despondently, she didn’t know whether he even heard what she said to him.
Annie enlisted Bets’s help in dismantling Zachary’s bed and setting it against the wall. They folded his clothing neatly into a box, dusted down the walls, and scrubbed the floor. Annie lined the dresser drawers with fresh paper and lovingly laid her meager collection of baby things there, flannel diapers and tiny dresses and knitted leggings that she was certain were too small to fit anything human.
In spite of the freezing temperature, Bets carried the rag rug out to the clothesline and gave it a vigorous beating.
Noah had been out in the barn all morning, shoveling hay down from the loft to load on a sled to take out to the cattle in the south pasture, and when he came in at noon, Annie showed him what they’d done.
"Now we need your help in moving the bed and mattress to the attic,” Annie told him, adding with her heart in her throat, "and Noah, do you think you could bring the cradle down?”
All morning, she’d worried over his reaction to that suggestion. She knew Noah had built the cradle before his son was born. Zachary had carved the angels and flowers and wood sprites into the satiny wood, and having it in plain view would be a painful reminder of both dead father and lost child.
The roof in the attic room was too low for him to stand upright. With Bets’s help, Noah lowered the awkward mattress to a spot against the wall and, half crouching, forced himself to look around at the things he’d sworn never to look at again, Jeremy’s cradle, his high chair, the soft blankets and shawls that had kept him warm, the trunk packed with his baby clothing, the wooden box Noah had fashioned to hold his son’s toys.
Bets plucked a stuffed kitten, its tail gone, out of the toy box and stroked it. Then, with a nervous glance at him, she carefully put it back again.
Noah winced, remembering his sturdy, mischievous son pulling on that tail until it finally came loose from the toy.
"Broke,” he’d said matter-of-factly, handing it to Noah. "Da fix.”
How he missed his little son. How he’d loved him, right from the moment Molly told him she was pregnant. He’d begun the cradle that very day. With pride and delight, he’d watched his wife’s body changing, placing his hand on Molly’s belly and laughing with awe and joy to feel their child moving. He’d rubbed her back and teased her and laced her boots each morning when she could no longer reach them.
And what had he done for Annie?
Nothing. Nothing at all, except make it plain in every way he could that he didn’t want her child. He’d witnessed the anxiety in her eyes just now when she asked him to bring down the cradle.
She’d actually thought he would refuse her even the use of the cradle for the baby she carried.
He straightened suddenly and smacked his head on a rafter. He swore viciously, but the pain mirrored the sudden, shamed anguish in his heart.
He couldn’t pretend he wanted this child, because he didn’t.
But neither could he deny his feelings for Annie. In spite of himself, against every vow he’d made, he cared for Annie.
It was for her sake that he lifted the trunk that held Jeremy’s baby clothing and carried it downstairs. It was like slowly plucking the scab from a deep, half healed wound, but he returned for the cradle, the box of toys, and the high chair, setting everything in the room that Annie was preparing for the baby.
She watched wide-eyed as he brought down all of Jeremy’s things. When he had finished, she came over to him and, without a word, locked her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to kiss him full on the lips.
“Thank you, Noah. I know it’s difficult for you, and I thank you.” Her green eyes shimmered with tears, and the gratitude and love on her face were more than he could bear.
God, she was beautiful. She’d spilled something brown down her front and she smelled of cooking, and her fiery hair rose like a nimbus around her head, curly and messy and wild, and it came to him that he loved her. He’d loved her for a long time, without being able to admit it to her or to himself.
Longing overwhelmed him, and he wrapped his arms around her and held her close against him, his eyes shut tight, his heart aching for release, imagining for a split second how it might have been with her if only .. .
But he could feel the mound of her belly pressing his, and the babe inside suddenly kicked hard against him.
Panic filled Noah at the emotion that contact created.
He jerked away from her embrace and blindly reached for his overcoat and hat. "I'm taking a load of hay out to the cattle this afternoon. I’ll be home in time for supper.”
His voice was harsh, because something was happening in his chest. A tight knot that he’d never allowed to unwind was stubbornly coming undone.
He fought with all his strength, but the sobs started when he was halfway across the yard, tearing, painful sobs that he'd denied when Molly was taken from him, when Jeremy died, when he lost his father.
He knew that strong men didn't cry, but he couldn’t stop himself any longer. He stumbled into the bam and stood there, arms braced against a stall, tears raining down his face, the savage agony of all his losses bursting in his chest and erupting in an avalanche of grief that he couldn’t force down anymore.
At first he fought the tears with all his strength, horrified, ashamed of such weakness, but their power overwhelmed him and at last he gave in, sinking to his knees on the hay and weeping until he was empty.
At last he staggered to his feet, mindful of his cattle needing to be fed. Still in a daze, he harnessed Buck to the loaded sleigh, not taking note that the wind had changed and was now blowing from the north, or that the western sky was bruised looking and inky dark, heavy with storm clouds.
Instead, he looked toward the house. Smoke curled cheerfully from the chimney. It was a dark afternoon, and the lamp shone from the window. He imagined the little Christmas tree and thought he could hear Annie and Bets laughing together as they so often did over their work.
They were his family now, and he desperately wanted to tell them so. He needed the comfort that affirmation would provide, but he couldn’t go in now, with red, shamefully swollen eyes. He’d only be gone two hours. He'd tell them when he returned.
When he came home, he’d take Annie in his arms and confess how wrong he’d been all these months. He’d beg her forgiveness, and because he knew her so well by now, he knew she’d give it freely, with all the fervor of her passionate, generous nature.
His chest filled with warmth and anticipation. At the last moment, he remembered the wolves that preyed on his cattle and went back to the barn for his rifle. Then he clucked to Buck and headed off across the snow-covered landscape.
Annie and Bets were totally engrossed by the pleasurable task of readying the baby’s room. Bets wiped the cradle down and made it up with its tiny sheets and warm shawls. They smiled and made admiring faces at the wealth of meticulously hand- sewn shirts, knitted sweaters, and tiny flannel nightdresses in the trunk. Annie arranged some of the wooden toys on the dresser, only vaguely aware that the wind had gotten up and snow was beginning to fall outside.
A Lantern in the Window Page 7