Lisa Plumley - [Crabtree 01]

by The Matchmaker

  “You needn’t look so astonished.” Still wearing his fierce expression, Marcus grabbed a cloth from nearby and shielded his hand with it. He opened the oven door. “It wasn’t as though I put Smith in charge and then came home to nap. I had things to do.”

  “What things?” Molly asked, bemused as she watched him spoon drippings over the chicken roasting in the oven. He may as well have been attempting something nigh impossible, so intense was the concentration he applied to the task.

  “Getting the napkins.” He angled his head toward the dining table, still engrossed in his cooking. “Setting the table. Collecting branches and whatnot for that bowl you see. Buying this chicken.” Marcus shook his head. “O’Neil was wearing that embroidered butcher’s apron and matching neckerchief his matchmaker gal made him, poor knuck.”

  Molly smiled. “I’ll bet he looked nice.”

  “He looked like a fool. Like I probably do right now.”

  He shut the oven door with an iron-forged clank, then straightened. The heat had reddened his face and curled the dark hair at his temples. Marcus swiped at both with his sleeve, then headed across the room, his expression grim.

  “Something to drink?” he asked. “I have cider, ale—”

  Molly waylaid him, grabbing both his arms. “Thank you for this,” she said, wanting to ease the harsh angles in his face, wanting to reassure him. “Everything is lovely.”

  “The candles!” He eyeballed the two sitting on the table as though he meant to strangle them. “I forgot to light the candles.”

  He jerked the long tapers from the table. With decisive stomps, he carried both candles to the cast-iron stove. Seconds later, Marcus had them lit.

  Molly was taken aback. “You shoved those directly into the flame.”

  “They’re lit, aren’t they?”

  Marcus carried the candles, now dripping copious amounts of wax, back to the table. He arranged them beside the Indian-worked bowl, then stood back to gauge the effect. His brow furrowed. He pushed the candles an inch closer together.

  He was nervous, Molly realized. Marcus was nervous about his proposal tonight, and about this meal they would share.

  His concern touched her deeply. It was then that she realized exactly how much Marcus had changed. For her sake, he had set aside his work. For her sake, he had attempted cooking and cleaning and decorating. For her sake, she understood suddenly, he had forged a new openness in his life…a life that now had room to include the two of them, together.

  “Hmm. That will have to do,” he announced.

  “It looks lovely!”

  Too overwrought to hear her praise, Marcus returned to the stove. Basting spoon fisted in hand, he squinted at the clock.

  “The chicken should be ready soon,” he said. “I think the potatoes are already done.”

  He glowered at the oven door, as though his displeasure could penetrate the cast iron and compel the poultry to catch up and cook faster. Molly felt a tiny, love-filled smile come to her lips.

  “Don’t worry. The potatoes won’t be harmed by keeping them waiting.”

  Marcus glanced over his shoulder. His expression was appalled, as though he’d just recalled something important, something awful.

  “You haven’t become a Grahamite like your mother, have you? You still eat chicken, don’t you?” He whacked himself on the forehead. “How did I forget your family’s vegetarianism?”

  With a growl, Marcus cast aside his spoon and paced across the kitchen. He looked so anguished, Molly couldn’t stand it. She loved this man too much to see him worrying so, but all her attempts to put him at ease had come to naught. What else could she do?

  “I should have known the Crabtrees would give in to faddish nonsense like Graham’s preachings,” Marcus muttered. “Wheat berries and bark and—”

  “I like chicken.”

  He cast her a suspicious look. “To eat, or to keep as a pet?”

  “To eat! I’m the one who taught you how to cook it, remember?” Molly went to him, spread her palms over his chest and gazed beseechingly up at him. “Please, Marcus. All will be well. We’re here, together. We need nothing more. If you would only ask that question which you’ve been meaning to ask—”

  “Ale!” He snapped his fingers. “We need ale.”

  Moments later, he’d opened a pint and poured a glass. He was draining his third in quick succession when Molly realized that if Marcus kept on this way, he’d never be able to form the words for his proposal, much less understand them.

  “Marcus, give me that,” she said, prying his glass away. The last of the ale sloshed over the rim, sending its sharp, yeasty aroma into the air between them. “You’ve had enough.”

  “Ah, you want some, too. Of course. I’m a passing poor host not to have offered you a draft.”

  He filled her a glass. Molly refused it.

  His mournful gaze pinned her. “I can make you happy.”

  Was he drunk already? Molly doubted it. Nevertheless…

  “Perhaps we should eat now,” she suggested.

  Marcus paid no attention to that sensible notion. Clearly he had something more on his mind.

  “The ale, the dinner—” he flung his arms wide, swaying a little as he indicated the preparations he’d made “—they’re only the beginning. If you’ll let me, I can make you happy.”

  “I know.” She’d seen her papa this way once or twice, when he’d weathered a disappointment at the newspaper, or expected bad news in a letter from the States. Molly tucked her arm around Marcus’s middle, then guided him toward the kitchen table. “I know you can. I can make you happy, too.”

  “No!” he roared. He thumped his chest. “I will make you happy. Pleasing his woman is what a man is made to do.”

  “Grace will be happy to hear it. Sit down.”

  Marcus frowned. And sat. He blinked up at her, all seriousness, of a sudden. “I don’t think I can do this, Molly.”

  A shiver of unease swept over her. Shaking it off, Molly patted his shoulder. Marcus could not be having second thoughts now…could he?

  “The dinner will be wonderful,” she said in her most comforting tone. “Would you like me to get the chicken and potatoes from the oven?”

  She stepped away, intent upon doing so. Marcus stopped her with one big hand on her wrist. “I don’t mean the dinner,” he said gravely. “I mean this. I can’t do it, Molly.”

  Miserably Marcus watched as Molly’s back straightened. Her skin went cold in his grasp. He rubbed his thumb desperately over her wrist, seeking to…he didn’t know. Seeking to apologize? To make himself understood? To tell her, without words, how much he’d struggled with this night?

  The ale sent another wave of dizziness to his head. Hell. Maybe drinking it hadn’t been such a fine idea. At the time, though, he’d needed something. Something to deaden his raging feelings, something to ease the unfamiliar uncertainty coursing through him…something to make him not blurt out the confession he felt himself about to make.

  Molly gazed down over her shoulder at him, all sweetness and womanly confusion. He could tell he’d hurt her. The realization wounded him, as well.

  “I’m not the man you think I am.” Marcus cleared his throat against a sudden hoarseness there. “You don’t know me.”

  She whirled, skirts whooshing over his knees. In a thrice, Molly was kneeling on the floor in front of his chair. Her face turned upward to his, filled with a brightness he longed to believe in.

  “I do know you!” she cried, clasping the arms he’d left loose in his lap. She gave him a little shake. “Don’t do this now, Marcus. Please. You’ve had too much ale—”

  “I haven’t had enough. Not for this.”

  “No. You’re wrong.” She glared at the pint bottle, as though her wish to have it gone might be enough to make it vanish. “You’ll eat, you’ll feel better—”

  Her certainty ignited some measure of hopefulness inside him. Marcus hesitated. He drank in the sight of her, wond
ering if his love for Molly had come first, or his fear that this moment would arrive and damage things between them.

  “There are things you don’t know about me,” he said.

  “They cannot be so bad as your black expression makes them seem.” Her touch was a benediction. “Tell me.”

  He’d never thought he would. When he’d embarked on this time together with her, it had been a lark. Finding out if Molly was indeed the matchmaker had been nothing more than a task to be completed, for the satisfaction of the men’s club. Marcus had never expected it to change his life.

  And yet, it had.

  “I never had fancy things like this, until coming here.” He picked up one of the plates he’d set out, made of china so fine it sparkled in the candlelight. Catching a glimpse of himself on its pristine face, Marcus set it aside. “No china, no silver…no linen napkins or centerpieces. When you are as poor as my family was, such things are sold for food—and they were. While I was still a boy.”

  Molly listened, clasping his arms reassuringly, emboldening him to go on. He searched for pity or disgust in her face. Remarkably to him, he found none.

  “We were so poor we lived on dandelion stew. On leavings from the butcher, and turnips that once fed us for an entire Baltimore winter. My father talked often of heading west to make a new start. But my mother was always too sick to make the journey. And so we stayed.”

  “Oh, Marcus. Most people aren’t well-to-do,” Molly protested. “I know that. My own family—”

  “Eats porridge for a laugh. ‘Dr. Graham’s famous wheat berry porridge.’” He gave a defiant shake of his head. “Mine ate it to survive, when we couldn’t finagle anything better.”

  Her solemn look, and the quantity of ale he’d drunk, encouraged him to go on.

  “I wanted to work. But I wasn’t allowed to leave school. Not till I’d mastered as much as I could without paying a university for the privilege. By the time I finished, my family had gotten used to doing without.”

  “Making do is nothing to be ashamed of, Marcus. I’m sure you did the best you could.”

  He fisted his hand, remembering. “I wanted to do more. More for my mother, more for my sisters. They suffered, and shouldn’t have. That damned powerless feeling was more than I could stand.”

  “But it was your father’s responsibility—”

  “It is a man’s responsibility to care for the people around him. Whether they’re women, children, kin or strangers. A man makes sure all is well.”

  “But you were only a child.”

  “In the beginning,” Marcus agreed. “But soon enough, I was a man. Old enough to head west myself. Old enough to join a logging crew and start work as a greaser.” He paused, thinking of his time as the lowliest of all workers in a lumber camp. “Old enough to work my way through every damned job on that crew, until I’d mastered them all.”

  Her faint smile touched him. “That’s why you understand me,” Molly said. “Because we are equally determined.”

  Marcus squeezed her hand. Her acceptance was a balm to him. He couldn’t look at her, though. Not yet. Molly didn’t understand the whole of it.

  “Once I’d mastered the lumber crew, I could see that real success came from owning the lumber mill. The owners weren’t breaking their backs sawing and hauling and felling timber. They were prospering, enough to buy horses and houses and land. That’s what I wanted. That’s what I got.”

  He swept his household with a savage glance. Seeing the results of his success reassured him. He had done what he’d set out to do, and he’d done it well.

  “And your family? What about them?”

  Marcus turned a hardened gaze on her. “What about them?”

  “You helped them, of course.”

  Deliberately he remained silent.

  “I won’t believe otherwise! Marcus, you are too good a man, with too strong a sense of duty, to see them struggle while you prosper. Tell me what you did for them.”

  “No one has ever asked me that before.”

  “Then no one knows you as I do.”

  “The whole of Morrow Creek thinks me a miser,” Marcus said. “Even you did, once.”

  Molly shook her head. She held his hand between both of hers, cradling it. “Tell me,” she urged. “I won’t be deterred. You know I am as stubborn as the lock on my bakeshop door, and twice as talkative. I’ll have the truth from you.”

  A smile touched his lips. Marcus felt his heart ease. ’Twas a mere fraction, but it was enough.

  With her heart in her eyes, Molly continued to gaze up at him. Waiting. He could not disappoint her, any more than she had not disappointed him. She had seen through his ruse, after all. That was a first, in his experience.

  Marcus relented. “I bought them a house, outside of the city. Land, and livestock. My father is a gentleman farmer these days, and my mother a farmer’s wife. My sisters live nearby. Those dark days are behind them.”

  Her smile proved triumphant. “See? I am right about you.”

  Fiercely he went on. “Once I had given them a better start, my world seemed to turn upright again. That much is true.”

  “Because you are a good man.”

  “No. You don’t understand.” Marcus raked a hand through his hair, dreading this moment. “I did it to make myself feel better. To this day I help them because I need to, the same way I need to fill my pantry to bursting. The same way I need to tuck bread in my pockets and tally all my ledgers twice.”

  Molly did not so much as glance across the room at his telltale pantry. Instead, she shook her head. “You did it because you care for them. You help your family because you love them. It is as plain as that.”

  He stared at her, wanting to believe.

  Stubbornly he could not.

  “You have it turned around,” Marcus insisted. “They care for me because I help them. I know it.”

  “Then you are a fool,” Molly said gently. She rose higher on her knees, releasing his hand to lay both palms against his chest. She pressed her lips to his, once. “A fool who must be loved well, in order to be taught the error of his judgment.”

  “I bought their house!” Marcus insisted. “The very land they farm on! Without me—”

  “Shh.” Her kiss cut short his words. “I believe in you, Marcus. I won’t listen to anyone berate you. Not even yourself.”

  “I am right,” he grumbled. “About myself, and everything else.”

  Molly merely smiled, as though his talk were all bluster, without basis in fact.

  Beneath the tender persuasion of her touch, Marcus felt himself weakening. He wanted to believe her…yet he knew the truth with everything inside him. The most he had to offer was the labor of his own two hands and the results of that labor. The most he could give was caretaking and protection. The woman before him needed neither of those things. The realization of that fact was what knifed through him still.

  “If you like to stock your pantry,” Molly observed into the silence, “then it’s only because you are caring for yourself as well as you care for your family. If you like to carry bread in your pockets, then it’s only to have it on hand, to offer to a lady who needs some.”

  At her words, Marcus recalled their first shared meal at this table, remembered the tin of beans he’d pressed in her hand and the leftover bread he’d been so pleased to offer. All at once, a measure of relief pushed inside him.

  “You have the right of it there,” he agreed.

  “And if you must tally your ledgers twice,” she went on, “then it’s only because you haven’t an excellent system like mine, to help you keep track of things.”

  “Indeed.” He couldn’t help but smile.

  “So you see, I do understand you, Marcus,” Molly said as she walked her fingers up his shirtfront. “I told you once that I have no illusions about you. That remains true to this night.” She cupped the nape of his neck in her hand, then kissed him chastely once more. “You are an excellent man. A man I will be
proud to have a certain…question from.”

  Her eyebrows flared meaningfully. Her expression turned expectant, even excited. They were back to this, then.

  “Question?” Marcus repeated. He pretended to ponder it. “Do you mean…are you hungry?”

  “Marcus!”

  “Thirsty, then? There’s still some ale—”

  “Grr…”

  He leaned back to examine her face. It was the most beloved sight he thought he’d ever seen, even scrunched as it was in feminine consternation.

  “Or I have cider—”

  “You are doing this apurpose!”

  “Doing what?” Given the relief and good cheer burbling inside him, it was hard to keep an innocent expression. Molly did not think less of him. She wanted him still. “I am asking you questions. Are you not proud to have them?”

  “That’s it.” With a distinct huff and a businesslike flutter of her skirts, Molly rearranged her position. Before he’d even realized what she was about, she’d propped herself on bended knee at his feet and was reaching for his hand. She cleared her throat, then gazed up at him nervously.

  “Marcus, we’ve known each other for quite some time now. I’ve come to care for you very much.”

  “I care for you also.” He regarded her in puzzlement, wondering at her anxiety. Their sentiments were hardly unknown to each other. So why, now, had she…oh, hell.

  “When the kind of caring we share comes to its natural fruition,” Molly went on, “it’s only fitting and right that we should pledge to each other a lifetime of—”

  She was proposing to him. She, a woman, was proposing to him. A man.

  Matchmaker or not, this would never do.

  “—fidelity and companionship—”

  He had nothing to offer her that she couldn’t obtain for her own. Nothing…save himself.

  “—no matter what we might face together,” Molly was rambling, her cheeks pinkening, “I think it’s only correct and proper that we—aah!”

  Her words were cut short as Marcus leaped desperately from his chair, not so much thinking as acting on instinct. He caught her in his arms as they both fell to the floor. There, atop the round rag rug, Molly glared at him.