by Jillian Hart
“Do you see anything you’d like?” The shop owner turned away from the women and approached him, back straight and chin up.
“I’ll take those things. Right there.” He had no idea what they were called, but they were pretty enough. A gift a country woman like Linnea Holmstrom with her love for sewing and beauty could use.
“What a fine choice. Let me wrap these up for you. It will only take a moment.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” He ambled over to the window display.
That was Linnea’s quilt. He couldn’t imagine having the patience and skill to make those tiny stitches. No doubt about it, that was the most beautiful quilt he’d ever seen.
“—stole the woman’s husband. Twice—” a whispered voice rasped just loud enough to carry the length of the room.
Seth glanced over his shoulder and saw one of the women looking at him. He turned his back, troubled by the harsh words.
“Poor Ginny, stuck out in the country right next to that woman—”
They were talking about Linnea. Seth clenched his jaw and tamped down his anger. He had no doubt the women were speaking just loud enough so he would hear. So that he couldn’t help wondering about her past. Part of him wanted to know the truth, but it wouldn’t be right or respectful to Linnea. He willed himself not to listen even when the woman grew louder.
Maybe he’d wait out on the boardwalk until his gifts were ready—
“Major.” The shop owner approached, her face tight. Although he didn’t know her by name, she knew who he was. “Here you are. That will be nine dollars and fifty cents.”
He reached for his billfold, feeling the curious women’s stares and the rapid thud of his pulse. “I’ll take that quilt, too. You’re right. It would look mighty fine on a wedding bed.”
“What a good man you are.” The seamstress beamed at him and he had the strange idea she knew exactly why he was buying the quilt. “I’ll wrap it well in paper. Just two more minutes.”
She stepped away, hugging the quilt to her.
The well-dressed women remained silent, staring at him as he counted greenbacks from his billfold and laid them on the counter. He recognized a familiar face. “Good day, Mrs. Johanson.”
The widow turned beet red. “Hello, Major.”
“I found someone to sew for me.” He said it quietly, so there would be no misunderstanding. To any of these women with more time on their hands than they had principles.
He had no doubt of the gossip that would result from this, and he didn’t care. He had nothing to hide. A man who’d just realized he still had a heart, that it wasn’t dead and buried, didn’t care much what busybodies thought.
When he left the shop, the quilt slung heavily over his forearm, happiness hit him full force.
* * *
“These are the last shirts I can accept, I’m afraid.” Mrs. McIntyre looked as unrelenting as a northern blizzard as she laid the shirts on the counter. “Shannon will pay you up front.”
“But I’ve already come down on the price.” Linnea kept her voice low so her mother, shopping an aisle away, couldn’t overhear. “I need this work, Mrs. McIntyre.”
“It can’t be helped. Mrs. Johanson made a more reasonable offer and I’ve chosen to go with her from now on. Do not bring your work here again because my decision is final.”
“But I don’t understand. You’ve never made one complaint about the shirts.”
“The shirts aren’t in question.” Mrs. McIntyre’s cold gaze turned sharp.
“The sewing I do for you is most of my income.” She felt her face flush, because the store was quieting. She could practically feel the dozens of shoppers listening. And her mother was one of them. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Shame filled her. Somehow her wobbly legs took her one step forward. Then another. She made it across the silent store. Anger lashed through her and she fought to keep her temper.
At the counter, Shannon filled an envelope with dollar bills. “The customers are always pleased with your shirts. I thought maybe you’d like to know there’s never been one complaint.”
Linnea pushed the envelope in her pocket, wishing she could thank the woman who’d once been her best friend. Humiliation balled hard and hot in her throat, and she didn’t dare try to speak as she turned away, the heat of so many glares making her feel small and ashamed.
“—strapped with that old mother of hers, the woman can’t have an easy life. You can’t blame her for looking for a little affection—” whispered a voice on the other side of the canned goods aisle.
“A decent sort of woman doesn’t go looking for a man’s affection. You’d think one nine-month’s shame would be enough.”
Linnea fisted her hands and kept walking. Her vision dimmed around the edges and her shoes rang unnaturally loud. She caught sight of her mother at the yard goods counter. “Mama, it’s time to go.”
“But I must wait for Donna to cut the cloth.” Her mother appeared as cheerful as ever, but Linnea could see the lines of strain around her mouth and how her eyes lacked their usual sparkle.
Pain tore through her like a summer twister. How dare Mrs. McIntyre say words that would hurt Mama! “We will buy fabric somewhere else.”
“But here it is cheaper and I have chosen what I think you will like.”
“We cannot afford a new dress now. Let’s head outside for some fresh air.”
“This is to make you happy. To show my dotter’s beauty.” Chin high, she clung to the counter’s edge and refused to move. “Donna helped me choose the right color of blue to match your eyes, and enough to make a bonnet.”
Across the store, boys stood openly in the aisle and snickered. Boys old enough to have manners.
“Mama, come.”
“Ah, here is Donna. How much do we owe you?”
Linnea read the pity in the clerk’s quiet gaze. She hated the way her hands shook as she counted out the few dollars from the envelope in her pocket.
No shirts to sew. She’d hated sewing them, it was true, the endless basting and piecing and interfacing. The careful repetitive detailed work that gave her a knot in her neck and a pain in her wrist. But it provided for Mama.
Now what would she do?
Taking her mother’s arm, she led the way down the aisle. Shoppers had returned to their browsing, but the boys were still pointing. She could read on their lips the nasty words they were saying. Words that made filthy the foolish love she’d felt—once so pure and innocent—for Jimmy McIntyre.
“Is the major waiting for us?” Mama asked, stubbornly cheerful, as if that had been the real reason Linnea had pulled her out of the store.
“Not yet.”
She felt her heart was exploding. Long ago she’d been a stupid girl believing a handsome man would choose her to love. And she was being just as ridiculous now, a grown woman who knew better.
“Now do you see why you must stop with this hoping?” Linnea hated her harsh words. “I’m too old to marry. And a woman who’s made my mistakes doesn’t get a second chance.”
“You were young and in love.”
“You are too forgiving and I can’t stand it.” She didn’t want to hurt her mother, but she stared down the street and saw everything she couldn’t have.
Women climbing out of their buggies, holding babies in their arms. Healthy, beautiful babies that wiggled their tiny fingers and waved their chubby arms and cooed adoringly.
The hole in her heart opened a little wider.
Mama touched her brow. “I did not mean harm, my flicka. I did not think. Of course you are right, but then I love you, my own precious daughter. I know the beauty in you that no one else can see because they are blind.”
Linnea guided her mother out of the way of passersby, tears blurring her vision when she’d vowed not to let them. Love for her mother so bright that it hurt filled her. What would she do without Mama, whose love never dimmed or doubted?
A man’s rumbling “whoa” drew her attention
and she saw Seth perched high on the wagon, drawing his oxen to a stop. How wonderful he looked, even streaked with dirt from the fields. So noble her soul sang from simply looking at him.
“Are you two lovely ladies ready to head home?” He set the brake and jumped down.
He looked at her with respect, treated her as if there were no taint to her reputation. As if people weren’t whispering about the time Seth had been spending at her place.
“Why don’t you take Mama home?” she choked out, managing to hold back the hot, aching tears. “I need the walk.”
“But Linnea—” Mama reached out.
Linnea caught her frail hand. “I need to be alone. Besides, you’ll have the major all to yourself.”
“You will walk safely?”
“Linnea, I’m not leaving you behind.” Seth’s dusty boots strode into her line of sight, and she couldn’t look at him. Had he heard the rumors, too? “I’m a gentleman, remember? I can’t ride knowing you’re walking in the hot sun.”
“I love to walk,” she lied the best she could, and hurried off, nearly tripping down the boardwalk.
She would not make matters worse by reading anything into his kindness. He was a good man, through and through.
And she was done with wishing and dreaming for what could never be.
From this moment on, she would pack away her hopes into a box and close the lid. No matter how lonely she was, how empty the house after Mama went to bed and the night lent itself to dreaming, she would never hope, never imagine. Never believe.
Her arms would remain empty.
Nothing—and no one—could change it.
* * *
Seth’s wagon stood in front of the barn, and his oxen were picketed in the shade, grazing. Dread filled her as she took off across the fields. Seth was probably in the house, held captive at her mother’s table by yesterday’s batch of cinnamon rolls. Knowing Mama, she probably wouldn’t quit hoping for a son-in-law, even after today.
“Linnea!” Seth’s call resounded across the plains. There he was in the corral behind the barn, holding the wild mustang with rope and the strength in his arms.
She wasn’t going to go near him. Not with the tongues wagging in town. So she turned away, letting the restless hush of the prairie soothe her.
A white-tailed jackrabbit stood up on his hind legs to study her with his long floppy ears laid back and his nose twitching. Then he leaped in long strides, disappearing in the thick prairie grasses.
She climbed a rise and stared out at the horizon where land and sky made forever. How she wanted to let the wind blow her there, where there were no troubles or pain. A red-tailed hawk cried out in the blue skies overhead, sailing on wide reddish-brown wings. He circled lazily as if no worries could tether him.
What was she thinking? She couldn’t go anywhere. She had Mama to care for. The dear, sweet, stubborn woman who refused to stop loving her no matter the mistakes she’d made.
The crosses stood barely seen amid the calf-high grasses and the nodding yellow bells. Linnea knelt in front of them, tracing the words she’d carved there herself. Olaf Holmstrom, her cherished father. All the guilt in the world couldn’t bring him back or change the existence of the second grave.
She could barely look at the marker she’d made years ago. She’d been shaking with weakness from a prolonged labor and it showed in the unsteady writing. Christopher Olaf Holmstrom, it read, Beloved Baby Son.
She let the tears come, hot and steady, ripping through her like claws. Tears she had refused to shed in the mercantile where Mrs. McIntyre, her baby’s grandmother, scorned her. Where others pitied or disdained her for this child resting in the earth, this child who’d never taken a first breath or wiggled his tiny perfect fingers or gazed with wonder at the world.
Shame, they called him. But he was her son and her whole heart.
Nothing hurt like broken dreams, buried and without life.
She cried until there were no more tears. Until there was only emptiness and the wind racing across the prairie, leaving her behind.
* * *
Coyote song haunted the night, making the prairie eerie. Linnea hesitated on the bottom step the instant she spotted light through the cracks in the closed barn doors. Seth was here.
She almost turned around and went back in the house. It was well after midnight and she couldn’t put off going to bed any longer. As she filled her arms with wood for the morning fires, she kept her back firmly to the barn. With any luck, he’d stay inside until she was safely locked in the house.
“Who-who?” asked a barn owl as he glided on soundless wings to the ground. He captured a field mouse with his hooked talons. Like a phantom, he lifted into the air and disappeared from sight.
“Are you all right?” Seth asked from behind her.
She dropped the wood with a ringing clatter. “That’s twice now you’ve done that to me.”
“Sorry. The coyotes are loud tonight. Full moon.” He knuckled back his hat but his face remained in shadow. “You didn’t come to the corral today. I called out to you.”
“I had some things on my mind.”
“I noticed. Did you want to come with me now?”
“I need to go in. Chores are waiting.” She knelt to gather the wood, but he was already there, so close their arms brushed.
His eyes darkened. His gaze slipped to her lips. Her lips buzzed as if he’d closed the distance between them. She jerked away, leaving him to gather the wood.
As she headed back to the house, she could feel his question in the air. And like the haunting cries of the coyote packs, it made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. She marched into the front room and grabbed the empty wood tin. Without a word, she dropped it onto the porch outside the door.
“How are you and the mare getting along?” He ambled up the stairs and into the light.
“Well enough.”
“She’s nearly healed. I let her run around the corral today. Kept her hobbled so she couldn’t jump the fence and take off. Are you two becoming friends?”
“She won’t eat from my hand. But after I’m gone, she’ll eat the apples I leave for her.”
“Give her time.” He dumped the wood into the bin, his movements relaxed and easy. “I’ve nearly got the fields plowed and sowed. Bought the rest of the seed today.”
“I’m sure Ginny appreciates it.” Her stomach twisted and she retreated toward the safety of the house.
“Linnea? I’m sorry about what Ginny did.” His apology stopped her just as she was about to shut the door. He stood like a warrior on her porch, strong and as unconquerable as the night. But it was his tenderness that touched her.
He moved close. Too close. “Ginny speculated to a few of her friends on what you and I have been doing together. She had no right to hurt you.”
“She didn’t hurt me.” Words came easily, because she wasn’t going to malign Seth’s family. Whatever manner the woman, Ginny McIntyre was his rightful sister. “I don’t think you and I should be spending time alone together from now on. I’m certain it would only give the neighbors more fat to chew.”
“I don’t care about the neighbors.” He caught her hand and pulled her away from the safe haven of her parlor and into the shadows. His grip was strong, but his touch tender. “I’ve learned the hard way what matters in life.”
“I have, too.”
“Good.” He leaned closer, his gaze arrowing to her mouth. The air buzzed between them, and Linnea watched in horror as he dipped his head and tilted just enough so he could fit their lips together.
“I’ve got Mama to tend to.” It was the only excuse that came to mind as she splayed her hands on his forearms and shoved him hard enough to dodge his kiss. “She’s asleep, but I need to keep an eye on her.”
“Listen.” Seth caught her wrist so she couldn’t escape into the house. “The horses.”
Across the prairie beat the drum of a hundred hooves. Faint and growing louder across the face of
the night, pounding with life and power. Closer they came, soaring like magic, manes and tails shimmering in the moonlight, barely earthbound. The stallion lifted his head and neighed. The forlorn sound echoed across the plains.
The mare inside the barn answered, the sound strangely melancholy.
“She sounds lonely.”
“She surely does.”
Linnea listened again to the stallion’s call and the mare’s answer. The remaining herd sailed over her fence and into her pasture.
“I’ve never been so close to a wild herd. Look at them.” Seth swept off his hat, gazing with awe and desire at the beautiful horses gleaming in the silvery light.
The mare’s cries filled Linnea’s ears until she couldn’t stand it anymore. She tore away from Seth and ran. Her skirts caught the wind and nearly tripped her, but she kept going. Ten feet away on the other side of the road, the dangerous stallion’s neighs rang shrill with warning and he pawed the air with his hooves.
“Linnea!”
Seth was behind her. He was going to stop her, and she couldn’t bear it. She’d had enough loneliness. Enough sorrow. With all her strength, she pulled open the door and raced into the darkness.
“She could hurt you. Linnea. Wait!” As if he knew what she planned to do, he was already trying to stop her.
His hand caught her shoulder, and she twisted away. Dodging the center post, she dove toward the stall and pulled the latch.
“I’m not keeping her captive.” She wasn’t crying, but her cheeks were wet as she tugged open the gate.
“Linnea.” He wrapped his arms around her.
But she squirmed away. She found the rope holding the mare and jerked the slipknot free.
The mare reared. Seth hauled Linnea against the back wall and the mustang galloped away with a clatter of hooves and high triumphant neighs—calls to her herd that she was free.
Linnea felt better, stronger. Crushed against Seth’s chest, she could hear his rapid heartbeat. Had he been afraid for her?
Their gazes met in the darkest shadows. In the scant glow of moonlight through the weathered boards, she could see his fear.
“You could have been trampled.” He tightened his arms, trapping her against him. “I’m glad you’re safe.”