“What was that?”
He cleared his throat, and Grace saw a flush rise on his cheeks as he admitted, “Gracie.”
Grace was startled into blurting, “After me?”
“Even though she’s the smallest, she’s just so…” Andy grinned at her and finished, “Spunky.”
Grace found herself grinning back.
“And plenty nosy, too,” he added.
Grace laughed. “Do the rest have names?”
He shook his head. “Naw. I only named the cutest one.”
Grace knew how to scare off a drunken cowboy and how to stare down an insolent upstairs customer, but she had no idea how to respond to a young man who seemed to like and admire her. She felt flustered and couldn’t think of what to say next.
Andy reached out and picked a piece of hay from the kitten’s fur. He brushed a thumb across Grace’s eyebrow, tracing the shape of it, then he slid his forefinger down her nose all the way to her bowed upper lip. He seemed fascinated by what he was doing, and Grace realized that her breath seemed to be caught in her chest.
The kitten mewed piteously, breaking the spell.
Grace realized she’d been like putty in Andy Peterson’s hands. He could have tumbled her in the hay and taken her right there, and she wouldn’t have made a squeak of protest.
It seemed there were some kinks she needed to work out if she wanted to be Andy’s friend, but only his friend. This attraction thing was dangerous. She was going to have to do some thinking about how to deal with it.
She replaced the kitten it its nest, then lurched to her feet and marched toward the ladder.
“Grace? What’s wrong?” Andy called as he followed after her.
“I’ve been gone from the house too long. Hetty will be worried about me.”
“Don’t you want to meet my oxen?”
“Another time.”
He caught her hand before she could go down the ladder and said, “Let me go first, in case you slip. I don’t want you to fall.”
Grace glanced over the edge of the loft, which seemed a lot higher looking down than it had when she was climbing up, and felt a little dizzy. “All right,” she agreed.
Andy hurried down the ladder. “All right, Grace. Come on down.”
Grace felt frightened as she stepped over the edge of the loft onto the ladder, so she didn’t look down as she descended the rungs. Near the bottom, her skirt caught under her shoe. When she let go of the ladder to try and tug it free, she lost her balance.
Grace screamed in terror as she plummeted, arms and legs akimbo. She was grasping for anything she could find to stop her fall, so when Andy caught her in his arms, she clung tightly to his neck with both hands.
“I have you, Grace,” he said. “You’re safe. I have you. Are you all right?”
Grace could feel Andy shaking. She leaned back to look into his face and realized his blue eyes were filled with fear—for her. She hid her face against his neck, afraid she might fall into those two deep blue wells and never want to come out again, and heaved a half sob, half sigh of relief that she wasn’t hurt.
“I should have stayed right behind you when you came down,” he said. “I should have been more careful.”
She kept her face hidden as she said, “It wasn’t your fault. I slipped and fell. You caught me, and I’m fine. That’s an end to it. You can put me down now.”
As he set her carefully onto her feet, Grace realized something. Andy might have narrow shoulders and slender arms, but he’d been plenty strong enough to catch her and hold her and keep her from harm.
“Grace, are you in there? I heard a scream. Are you all right? I’ve been looking everywhere for you. When you didn’t come right back from the cookhouse I got worried.”
Grace turned and saw Hetty striding toward them like a schoolmarm anxious to break up a schoolyard tussle. Except, she and Andy weren’t even touching anymore. She was standing beside him as though nothing had happened.
But something had happened. Some thing had passed between them. She’d trusted Andy to catch her, and he hadn’t let her down.
“I went up in the hayloft to see the kittens and slipped on the way down the ladder,” Grace explained. “Andy caught me as I fell. I’m fine.”
Grace wanted to laugh at the censuring look on Hetty’s face, as though Andy was in the wrong somehow for being there to rescue her.
As Hetty escorted Grace out of the barn, Andy touched his wool cap with his fingertips in salute and said, “See you later, Grace. Maybe one of these days you’ll get to meet Oats and Barley.”
Grace took one look at Hetty’s face and figured it would be a cold day in hell before her stepmother let Grace out of her sight again.
In days gone by, Grace might have gone along to get along. But since she’d met Hetty, she’d learned that there was more than one way to skin a cat. Not that Grace ever wanted to skin a cat. But when all was said and done, there was no way Hetty was going to stop her from being friends with Andy Peterson.
After three weeks of sleeping in the same bed as Karl, Hetty knew his nighttime ritual, which should have ended with the two of them cuddled up together or engaged in other intimate activities enjoyed by newlyweds. Except, Hetty had asked for a reprieve until Christmas to get to know Karl, and Karl was holding true to his word, so they were on opposite sides of the bed.
That didn’t mean their nights in the same bed hadn’t been filled with hope on his side, and fraught with trepidation on hers. The palpable tension kept her awake most nights long after Karl had finally dropped off to sleep.
Tonight was different. Hetty felt relaxed and drowsy, even though Karl was still awake. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what had changed. She only knew that she was no longer quite so terrified of what Karl might do or say if—or when—he discovered she was a virgin. Oh, he was certain to be angry about the deception. But she’d learned some things about Karl Norwood today that had made her believe that, even if he discovered the worst, he might still be able to forgive her.
That reassurance hadn’t come from anything Karl had said or done. It had come from a stack of letters Grace had given her.
Hetty had marched Grace back to the house after she’d found her stepdaughter in the barn with Andy, intending to give her a stern warning about spending time alone with rowdies from the bunkhouse, when Grace had turned to her and said, “I have something I should have given you as soon as you agreed to marry Karl.”
Hetty had stared in confusion at Grace and asked, “What is that?”
Grace had raced to her bedroom and returned to the kitchen breathless and bearing a short stack of envelopes. “Here,” she’d said, handing the papers to Hetty.
“What are these?”
“They’re Karl’s letters to his mail-order bride. The one he thought he was corresponding with in Cheyenne. I’ve put them in the order he wrote them.”
Hetty gaped. “These are private correspondence. I don’t think I should be reading them.”
“They were meant for his bride,” Grace replied. “You’re his bride, Mom. He wanted his wife to know these things about him.” Grace had blushed and added another stack of letters tied with ribbon. “These are copies of my letters to him. I made them for Lucy, so she’d know what I’d written, in case Karl asked, but she never bothered to read them.”
Hetty very much wanted to read Grace’s letters. It would give her a good idea what Karl had thought he was getting in a bride. But they would also reveal Grace’s private thoughts and feelings. Hetty handed back the second stack of letters and said, “It doesn’t matter what hopes and dreams you might have expressed to Karl. I have to look at his letters as though they were addressed to me and think of what I might have answered.”
Grace gave a huge sigh of relief and said, “Oh, thank goodness!”
Hetty laughed, gave her stepdaughter a quick hug, and said, “Thank you, Grace.”
Grace escaped to her room saying she needed to check on Griffi
n’s missing toe. She’d also escaped Hetty’s lecture, but Hetty knew there would be plenty of time for that later. Besides, she planned to keep Grace too busy in the house to find time for surreptitious meetings with any of Karl’s hired hands.
Despite the fact that Karl had written the letters to his prospective bride, Hetty felt odd reading them. She justified opening them because Karl thought she already knew what they contained. Then she told herself there was no hurry to read them. But curiosity won out.
She stepped into her bedroom and closed the door, then sat down on the bed and opened the first letter he’d written.
Dear Mrs. Templeton,
It feels strange putting down my thoughts about marriage on paper. But I want to be sure we have a meeting of the minds before we meet in person.
How direct he was. How forthright. How honest.
Hetty’s conscience immediately smote her for all the deceptions she’d perpetrated on Karl. She was tempted to fold up the letter and put them all away. But maybe if she read Karl’s letters, she could be a better wife to him, despite all the lies.
Karl continued, First and foremost, I expect to deal honestly with my wife. If there are things that concern you, I expect you to speak up and name them. I will do the same.
Karl had certainly done that, Hetty thought ruefully. He’d told her right off he valued fidelity. However, he hadn’t blamed her for what he supposed were past transgressions. He’d simply expressed his desire that she remain faithful to him in the future. In hindsight, Hetty realized that Karl could have held what he thought she’d done in the past against her. But he hadn’t.
That was her first inkling that Karl was willing to forgive, if not forget.
She read on: I love learning about new places and things. I look forward to discussing whatever subjects interest you and hope you’ll feel free to do the same with me.
Karl had certainly shared his love of botany with her and the children in a way that made learning fun. She tried to think of a topic she’d suggested they should talk about, and realized all she’d ever spoken about to Karl was the children.
Which made her wonder what other interests she might have that she could share with him. Hetty’s brow furrowed in thought, but nothing came to mind. Was she so frivolous, then? Was there nothing she could discuss besides Grace and Griffin?
She had the excuse that she couldn’t share her past with him. But the truth was, her formal education had stopped three years ago, when her parents died. Her sister Josie was the reader in the family. Miranda had spent her days taking care of Nick and Harry. Hetty and Hannah had dabbled in poetry and fantasized endlessly about the knight who would ride into their lives on a white charger and rescue them from the detestable Miss Birch.
Hetty realized that Karl was getting far less than the wife he’d wanted. He’d clearly been expecting to marry an educated woman, someone who could have intelligent conversations on a variety of subjects by the fireside in the evening. Even when she’d been in school, Hetty hadn’t been particularly interested in learning.
Before the Great Fire, she’d imagined a future where she married some successful banker or lawyer or businessman and spent her days at home loving and caring for their children.
She’d seen no point in spending her days with her nose in a book, like Josie.
It seemed, where Karl was concerned, there was far more to being a good wife than simply loving her husband and children.
Hetty read on.
I have one brother, but he’s almost a decade older than I am, handsome and ambitious and successful at whatever he does. Though I admire and respect him, we’re not close.
I would like our children to be born within a few years of each other, so they can be friends and playmates, as I suspect your seven- and nine-year-old children must be. I look forward to becoming a good father to Grace and Griffin.
What Hetty read into the first of those two paragraphs was that Karl had essentially been raised as an only child. Had he been lonely? Hetty couldn’t imagine her life without the constant boisterous chaos created by her sisters and brothers. The six Wentworth children had spent endless hours playing with each other, teasing each other, fighting and making up with each other, and driving each other crazy.
But she’d always known there was someone to talk to, someone who would care. Someone who would love her, no matter what she did.
Karl hadn’t had that.
She reread that first paragraph and found a word she would not have known was significant until she met Karl. His older brother, the one he admired and respected, was handsome. Hetty wondered if, all those years growing up, Karl’s appearance had been compared to his older brother’s by friends and family—and females—and found wanting.
Hetty thought back to her own reaction on first seeing Karl. He hadn’t been ugly, but he hadn’t been good-looking, either. She remembered observing wide-spaced, serious brown eyes in an average face. His hair was straight and brown, parted on the side so it fell across his forehead. He wasn’t short or tall or fat or skinny. His shoulders weren’t broad or narrow, but somewhere in-between. He’d had no disfiguring marks at all, nothing to distinguish him from a thousand other men.
Hetty realized that, five weeks later, she saw Karl very differently. When he looked at her or the children in a certain way, golden flecks appeared in his plain brown eyes. She’d spent a lot of time observing his lips, especially since he’d kissed her, wondering how they could look so stern sometimes and yet feel so soft to the touch. She’d had her hands in his hair, so she knew how soft and springy it was. She often itched to brush aside that lock of hair that fell constantly on his forehead, making him look less like the learned man she was discovering he was.
Karl did have one distinguishing physical characteristic she found endearing: that overlapping front tooth. It kept his smile from being quite perfect. And she’d noticed something else. When Karl Norwood smiled, her heart leapt.
Hetty reread the sentence where Karl said he was looking forward to becoming not just a father, but a good father, to what he’d thought were seven- and nine-year-old children. What forbearance he must have exercised when he realized Grace and Griffin were older than the ages he’d expected them to be. She’d finally admitted they were nine and thirteen. Thank goodness he’d never made the children suffer for the lies she’d told.
Hetty’s guilt caused her nose to burn and her eyes to well with tears. She’d treated Karl badly every step of the way, and he’d answered her with tolerance and understanding. She was keeping him at arm’s distance in bed when he had the right to a wife who really was a wife.
She read the last two sentences of the letter through eyes blurred with tears.
I must close this now, to continue work on the home I’m building for us. I hope you will come to love this beautiful land as much as I do.
Your obedient servant,
Karl Norwood
Karl had written that he was building not just a house, but a home to share with his wife and stepchildren. Hetty had always suspected Karl loved Bitterroot, but there it was in writing. He’d supposedly settled in the valley to run a lumber project for his brother, but Hetty wondered now if Karl planned to live there always. It seemed he might.
Hetty let herself consider the possibility of staying in the Montana Territory for the rest of her life and realized that, if she knew her family was safe and well, she would be happy to remain here with Karl and Grace and Griffin…and the other children Karl wanted, who would be born close enough together to be playmates.
Hetty had folded the letter and returned it to the envelope by feel, because she hadn’t been able to see through her tears. She’d learned a great deal from a single letter, enough to add layers of guilt to what she already felt. She’d been afraid to read more, afraid to see further into Karl’s heart. At least, until she knew she could be the wife he wanted.
Hetty rolled over onto her side in bed so she was facing Karl. She smiled when she saw hi
s brown eyes gleaming golden in the firelight. “Karl,” she whispered.
“What is it, Hetty?” he replied in the rumbling voice that always made her insides tighten and tingle.
“Would you…” A frog got caught in her throat, and Hetty took a moment to clear it before she tried again. “Would you hold me in your arms?”
Karl slid his arms around her as though she was made of eggshells that would crack if he held her too tight. When he was done, their bodies were still separated by several inches. Hetty realized he’d left the rest up to her. She could close the distance between them. Or not.
Hetty thought of Karl growing up without any brothers or sisters. No one to pull his shirttails or tie his shoelaces together. No one to take the blame when he cracked the teapot or offer to share the last piece of pie. No one to whisper secrets to when the lights were out. No one to bless him in nightly prayers.
She slid her arms around him until there was not one teeny-weeny bit of space separating them, so she could feel the heat of him and almost hear his racing heartbeat. His warm breath teased her ear, and she felt his voice all the way to the soles of her feet when he said, “This feels good.”
It did. It really did.
“Good night, Karl,” she murmured.
“Good night, Hetty.”
She fell asleep with her head pressed against his chest, listening to the sound of his lonely heart.
Over the next few days, Hetty made her way through all of Karl’s letters. Even though it was phrased in different ways, one hope appeared in every one: I’m looking forward to the two of us sitting in front of the fire in the evening sharing our thoughts.
Clearly, Karl had sought more from a mail-order bride than someone to bear his children. Which was a good thing, because Hetty was still desperately avoiding that shattering moment when Karl might discover the truth.
But she loved lying in bed at night with Karl’s arms around her as she fell asleep. She hadn’t realized that by performing an act so Karl would feel less lonely, she would feel less lonely herself.
Montana Bride Page 17