The Brides of Evergreen Box Set

by Heather Blanton

  He wouldn’t argue with such fanciful, hopeful thinking. Her heart was in the clouds, but he liked hearing of hope nonetheless. His people needed it. “I wish you would call me Henry or Long Feather.” He stopped and offered his hand, “But not mister. That is a white man’s title.”

  She wrapped delicate, pale fingers around his wrist, so light against his dark skin. “Very well. Long Feather.”

  Even as they shook hands in the traditional manner, he felt the glares and disapproving glances of the working ranch hands. So be it. If she could raise her chin in spite of them, so could Henry Long Feather.

  10

  Angela backed up and flattened herself against the chicken coop in an attempt to hide. Obviously she’d interrupted a moment between Long Feather and the new school teacher. The shyness of their handshake, their tenderly locked gazes made her smile. Her old friend was interested in a woman, after all these years?

  For a moment she was happy that the man who had so often struck her as lonely had found someone. But almost instantly, the obvious barrier reared its ugly head. What would the hands say? What would her father say?

  Indians were treated awfully on the ranches. They took their lives in their hands trying to become cowboys. A few folks accepted them, of course, but most didn’t.

  She was fond of Long Feather. He’d been a quiet, steady friend over the years. He’d taught her to ride and given her wise advice on more than one occasion of heartbreak. One thing he’d always told her: don’t go looking for trouble.

  The awkward duck in his chin, the way Miss Laurie hugged her Bible to her chest, lingering glances—these were signs. Signs Long Feather wasn’t taking his own advice. Angela had to act. He’d thank her later.

  She left her hiding place and strode quickly to the pair, coming up between them. “Long Feather, is this our new school teacher?” Barging in between them worked a slight frown from him and wide eyes from Miss Laurie. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.” The three of them stopped walking and formed a triangle.

  “No, no, you’re not intruding at all. Mr. Long Feather was going to show me some horses.”

  The woman was pretty, but more mature than Angela had expected, closer to Long Feather’s age. Only faint lines around her eyes and barely noticeable sagging around her mouth betrayed her years. Teaching tended to be a profession for younger ladies. Curious.

  She offered her hand, belatedly remembering her manners. “I’m Angela Fairbanks. I mean, Chapman. Angela Chapman. I’ve known Mr.,” she cut her eyes at him, amused at the title added to his name, “Long Feather since I was about twelve.”

  The two women shook hands. “I’m Mrs. Laurie Wilcox.”

  “Mrs? We haven’t had a married school marm in some time. What does your husband do?” And why is Long Feather looking at you as if you don’t have one?

  “I’m a widow. My husband died two years ago.” She smiled, perhaps out of a polite attempt to lighten Angela’s embarrassment.

  It didn’t help. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” For the gaffe, as well as the woman’s loss.

  “You’re not the first to assume if I am a missionary and teacher I must have a husband nearby. The truth is, I have chosen to serve God in my latter years and make myself useful, rather than knitting away the rest of my days in a warm parlor.”

  “She teaches the children at the reservation as well,” Long Feather said, and Angela could hear the pride in his voice.

  “Really. I’m surprised my fath—I mean, that’s unexpected.”

  The man chuckled. “He does not approve.” His smirk said Angela was right to be surprised.

  Miss Laurie shrugged her shoulders. “But I pressed him. Carefully.”

  “Oh. Well.” Angela didn’t know what to make of her father’s acquiescence. He had no love for the Cheyenne.

  “I convinced him I would not in anyway inconvenience him or the ranch children by slipping out to the reservation a few days a week.”

  Therein lay the secret to getting anything past the general.

  The three started walking again—Angela in the middle—toward the larger corral on the other side of the barn. “Joel will be a fine rider again,” Long Feather said, clutching his hands behind his back. “He must learn to believe in himself and ignore everything your father says about him.”

  “That’s always the challenge, isn’t it?” Angela sounded a touch more bitter than necessary, but Miss Laurie looked off in the distance, politely ignoring the intonation.

  “You will hear, there was some commotion today with the general’s new bull. He blames Joel for letting it get loose in the herd.”

  Oh, that couldn’t be good. “Was it his fault?”

  “No, I do not think he could have made any difference. The general won’t believe that.”

  “I don’t mean to intrude,” Miss Laurie said gently, “but I’ve seen your father issue a tongue-lashing. If he was as hard on your husband as the young boy I saw him berate…” She faded off, then shook her head. “All I mean to say is, as his wife, you can be his greatest proponent. You can do more to heal and restore his self-respect than anyone in his life. I hope you won’t miss the opportunity. I think I did, too often.”

  Angela had to study Miss Laurie for a moment. Perhaps not as old as Martha, she was softer, kinder. Wiser? Martha, though loving, was a blindly loyal soldier in the general’s army, bringing everything back to keeping him happy. “I’ll try not to.”

  “Forgive me if I speak out of a turn, but I was married many years before I realized how fragile a man’s ego is. A woman has the power to either build up or tear down her husband.”

  Angela thought of Joel’s wife. She’d so misused that power. “I appreciate the advice and will try to be mindful of Joel’s ego.”

  “Ladies, I can work the horses alone if you would prefer to get right to fixing the men hereabouts.”

  Angela had to laugh at Long Feather’s sarcasm. It took a moment for Miss Laurie to join in. When she did, something in Long Feather’s expression softened and Angela knew he was lost. She’d intervened too late. Not that it was her place and Long Feather wasn’t naive. But if these two acted on their feelings, nothing but trouble would come of it.

  Especially on this ranch.

  11

  Gauntlet. Crucible. Bludgeoning. Joel didn’t see much difference. Every interaction with General Fairbanks could be described with any of the three words. As the man sat down at the head of the dinner table, Joel tried to meet his gaze with confidence and a semblance of warmth. Angela flashed her father a weak smile and waited for the meal to commence.

  Joel had resolved to say grace over the evening meal when the general rattled off a perfunctory prayer, snapping a napkin in the air at the same time. Joel whispered a closing Amen and reached for a bowl of mashed potatoes, passing them to Angela. Her eyes widening over the gesture, she took them, started to serve herself, but then dropped a scoop on Joel’s plate.

  “I don’t know anything about you.” General Fairbanks plopped a chicken leg on his plate with no subtle amount of disgust. “You appear here, claiming to be her husband, and I’m just supposed to say, ‘Welcome to the family.’” He served himself a spoonful of candied yams. “And ‘Angela, it’s fine that you ran off and disgraced the family.’” His voice started rising in pitch.

  Joel and Angela exchanged concerned glances.

  The general ignored them and continued his mocking. “‘Now we’re one big, happy, forgiving family.’” He slammed a fist down on table, rattling dishes and working a start from Joel and Angela. “I want you to leave.”

  The sudden demand caught Joel off guard. Could this man not find five minutes to be civil? “If that’s what you want, sir, we could use a few days to make plans—”

  “No, no,” Fairbanks waved a fork at Joel. “I want you to leave. My daughter can stay. Although that decision wasn’t easy to come to.”

  This could make everything easy… only, Joel suspected Fairbanks was after some
thing other than kicking his son-in-law out the door. Was he testing him? His love for Angela—a man’s love for a Fairbanks daughter? Angela tensed beside Joel, eyes wide like a frightened squirrel’s.

  “Before she left,” Fairbanks stabbed a beat, “cowboys knocked on our door sun up to sun down. I knew what they wanted. They wanted this ranch. You—” the loaded fork danced in the air, “you want something else. I don’t know what, but I know there is something here the two of you aren’t telling me. I want you gone by first light.”

  “No, sir,” Joel said quietly. “Not without Angela.”

  “General,” Martha’s gentle voice came from the shadows. She stepped into the table’s candlelight, a tray of corn muffins in her hands. “General,” she said again, this time with a more pleading tone.

  Disgusted, the man threw his napkin across the table and stormed from the room, muttering curses underneath his breath.

  Angela ran her hand over the tall stack of extra blankets Martha had left on the end of the bed and tried not to sigh. This situation had taken too many turns for her to fathom what she’d gotten herself into. Her emotions were as messy as the kitchen junk drawer.

  ‘Not without Angela.’ Why had he said that? “You don’t have to stay. You could have left so easily in the morning. He gave you a way out.” She couldn’t admit she was glad Joel had told her father he wouldn’t go without her, but she also knew she shouldn’t read too much into it. Perplexed, inexplicably breathless, she sat down on the bed and waited for his answer.

  In silhouette against the fire, Joel, leaning on his cane, stabbed at the flames with the poker and seemed to roll the question around for a moment. “It’s hard to explain, but I took it as a challenge. A test. I think he wanted to know if I would leave you. I almost think he expected me to.”

  “You have to.”

  He leaned the poker against the hearth of river rock and hobbled to the nearby chair. His uniform was unbuttoned revealing a white undershirt. Pale gray smudges lay beneath his eyes. He sighed and it was such a weary sound, Angela wanted to go to him. If she could offer just a little comfort…

  Someone knocked at the door. “Señor, Señora,” a voice called. “We have the water for a bath.”

  Joel’s bath. “Yes, come in.”

  Four ranch hands, one right after the other, trailed into the room, each with a steaming bucket of water. In short order, the portable copper tub was full, and they excused themselves.

  Joel stared at the bath with a tight expression, as if he was afraid of it.

  Slowly, Angela rose and crossed the room to stand in front of him. He looked up with an expression of surprise that quickly transformed to desire. Hope flickered in his deep, blue eyes. She knelt in front of him and gently laid a hand on his knee. “You need a bath.” She swallowed and fought to control her breathing. “I’ll help you.”

  His eyes widened. “You—you can’t.”

  She reached for his boot heel and started tugging. “I’m the only one who can.” The boot came free and she reached for the other.

  Joel clutched her hand. “No.”

  She didn’t meet his gaze, but she could feel it, like a gentle touch on her cheek.

  “I mean, I don’t want you to see…”

  Was he afraid his wound, his missing limb, would be too grotesque for her? She couldn’t imagine anything about this man being repulsive. She gave him a slow, reassuring smile. “I don’t mind.”

  She pushed his pant leg up above his knee and realized his boot had been sewn on to the prosthetic. She didn’t know what to do.

  “It’s cinched around my thigh.” Joel’s voice sounded strained.

  Angela rose on her knees and leaned forward. “Let’s get your jacket off first then.” She moved in close and tugged off one sleeve. As she reached around him to pull it from his shoulders, she heard his breath catch. Sliding the jacket off his arm, she laid it off to the side and stood. She took his hands and pulled him to a standing position. This man deserved her help. And she could do this for him.

  Their bodies inches away from each other, she ordered herself not to look into his face. Still, she felt a force between them, something like the tingle in the air before a thunderstorm. Trying to ignore it, she reached for his belt buckle.

  “No.” He stopped her hand again. His voice was thick and husky. “For pity’s sake…” he swallowed. “I’ll manage. I’ll manage,” he whispered.

  His breathless self-control, his desperate desire not to cross any lines made Angela long to love a man with such honor. “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “It must be difficult getting in and out of the tub.”

  A pained smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “I can be creative. Ruth didn’t—I mean, she wouldn’t—that is, I found ways of doing things myself.”

  “I’ll just be in the study, next door. Call out if you need me.”

  Joel slid into the steaming water.

  He sighed, wishing the tub was full of ice water. Angela made his pulse race, his skin tingle, every fiber of his being sing… and he was ashamed of himself. When she’d reached for his belt buckle he’d nearly stopped breathing.

  God, give me the strength to keep this pure. She needs a friend. Not… not anything else.

  He slipped below the surface and stayed there a moment, letting the heat sink in, the silence wash over him. Yet, this was hiding. He broke the surface and fell back against the tub. Running from a problem never solved it.

  I’m a man, Lord, and a weak one at that. It’s been a year since I’ve been with a woman. Give me the strength to maintain the proper distance. Help her reconcile with her father and then help me find Your plan for me.

  The simple prayer made him feel some better, at least a bit stronger. He grabbed the bar of soap resting on the side of the tub and commenced to scrubbing off the day’s grime. If only all his problems could so easily be washed away.

  The water grayed over from the soap and cooled at a rapid pace. Joel surveyed the room wondering what he’d do about drying off. As if reading his thoughts, someone knocked on the door.

  “Yes?”

  “Joel, it’s me. I have a robe for you, and a towel.”

  How was he supposed to—

  “I’m coming in,” she said softly.

  He dropped his good leg below the water, and made sure his half-leg was hidden as well. Angela set the items on the bed. “Oh, here,” she picked up the towel again. “Let me dry your hair.”

  “Oh, that’s—”

  He’d started to protest, but the cloth landed on his head and she began to massage his scalp with it. “My, you have thick hair.”

  Joel swallowed his shock and let the pleasant sensation of her hands rousting his hair and rubbing his scalp filter down into his muscles. In a moment his head was lolling with the relaxation her touch brought him. He hovered somewhere between floating and dreaming.

  “Now, how do we get you out of there? The water is getting cold.”

  Perhaps for the better. “If you’ll step out, I can manage.”

  “If I keep wandering the house while you’re bathing, I think it will look suspicious. I can avert my eyes.” She left him and picked up the robe, but kept her back to him. “When you’re ready, I’ll put this on you.”

  Joel had perfected two methods for climbing from a tub. Neither was particularly graceful. He could anchor both hands on each side of the tub and hop out, or sit on the edge and swing his legs over. He opted for the last one and stood up.

  Wrapping himself in the towel she’d used to dry his hair, he turned to her, leaning on the tub for support. “All right.”

  Angela held the robe up in front of her face so she couldn’t see him. Joel inserted one arm, hopped and spun, and inserted his other arm. As he clutched the flaps, his balance teetered. Angela instantly wrapped her arms around him. “I’ve got you.”

  He stared mesmerized at her fingers pressed to his ribs and stomach. Her touch was whit
e-hot but as comforting as a fire on a cold day. She seemed to linger for a moment, holding him, pressing into him from behind. Maybe he was reading far too much into her subtle actions, but her touch caused an explosion of butterflies in him.

  Abruptly, she released him and stepped back. “Steady now?”

  He mumbled a yes.

  Squeezing his shoulder, Angela silently drifted over to the fireplace.

  He could still feel the intoxicating warmth of her fingers against his skin. His hand drifted to the spot on his stomach, wishing she had lingered longer.

  What if she had…?

  Though Angela had argued with Joel that she should be the one to sleep on the floor, he wouldn’t hear of it. Consequently, she’d spent a sleepless night in the bed listening to him toss and turn on the floor. Strange how her fingers still tingled after touching him, and butterflies fluttered inside her. No, not strange… sweet.

  She longed for another touch.

  Perhaps he felt the same way and that was why he was adamant about staying out of her bed. If only her darling actor had been so noble and honorable.

  Sighing softly, Angela crawled from bed before the sky had accepted even the hint of a new day. Joel lay on the floor, highlighted in the faint orange glow of the fire’s embers. Yes, he presented an odd image, his legs of different lengths beneath the blanket, but he was in no way repulsive. How could his wife be so cruel? Angela would have given anything to curl up beside him and sleep a little longer, secure and warm in his arms.

  Pushing the thought away, she dressed in gauchos and a red shirt and slipped down to the kitchen. She found Martha sitting at the lone farm-style table, sipping on a steaming cup of coffee.

  “How do you do it, Martha?” Angela poured herself a cup at the stove. “First one up every morning, last one to go to bed at night.” She joined the housekeeper. “You exhaust me just watching you.”

  The older woman chuckled and smoothed the hair in her bun. “I’ll work till I drop. Just the way I am.”