Montana Bride

by Joan Johnston

  It was plain from his letters that Karl wanted more than a physical relationship with his wife. Hetty figured there was no reason why she couldn’t begin sharing a bit of conversation with him before they retired for the evening.

  Since she’d come to the valley, Hetty had been spending her evenings with the children, instead of Karl, because it was so easy to talk with them in the guise of caring for them, and so difficult, because of all the lies she’d told, to speak with Karl about anything at all.

  Tonight, that was going to change.

  The only problem was, Hetty had absolutely no idea what she should talk to Karl about. She couldn’t tell him about her past, so discussions about her family were taboo. She was also intimidated by Karl’s education and intelligence. What could she possibly tell him that he didn’t already know?

  Miranda had described both her behavior and Hannah’s as flighty and scatterbrained, and her past actions seemed to confirm that. So she couldn’t imagine what she and Karl Norwood would ever find to talk about. He was so smart. And she was so…pretty.

  But Hetty was determined to try.

  Dinner was over and the dishes were done. Grace had agreed to get Griffin into bed. Hetty’s palms were sweaty, and her heart was racing. She’d taken special care to tame her hair in a sedate bun at her nape, although several curls had already escaped at her temples. She took off her apron, laid it across the back of a kitchen chair, then shook out her skirt to rid it of any flour from the biscuits she’d made for supper that might have caught on the hem.

  Karl was already sitting in one of the two willow rockers in front of the fireplace in the parlor. If Hetty hadn’t read his letters, she would never have realized that he’d been wishing all this time that she would join him there.

  As though she did it every night, Hetty crossed to the empty rocker beside him, sat down, and began rocking. Too late, she realized she should have brought something with her to hold in her hands, like one of Griffin’s socks, which eternally needed to be darned. She knotted her empty hands in her lap, so Karl wouldn’t see how they were trembling.

  He glanced in her direction, but instead of speaking his head remained bowed, and he continued reading the book in his lap.

  Why hadn’t he said something? Where was the desire for conversation he’d written about in his letters?

  Hetty bucked up her courage and asked, “What are you reading?”

  He turned the book so she could see the tiny print. “It’s Dickens.”

  Hetty had heard of Charles Dickens, but she wasn’t familiar with much of his work. She didn’t want to show her ignorance, so she replied with a neutral, “Oh?”

  He smiled sheepishly and said, “It’s A Christmas Carol.”

  Hetty sighed with relief. “Oh.” That was a story she knew.

  “I thought it might be nice to read it to the kids in the days leading up to Christmas.”

  “What a wonderful idea!” Hetty had a feeling that neither Grace nor Griffin had experienced the joy of listening to a story being read to them before the fire. The Wentworth children had often gathered together in the evening to hear their father read, and those were some of her fondest memories of her childhood.

  Hetty glanced sideways at Karl. It seemed he’d been plotting ways to get everyone together in the evening, not just her. She felt the tension ease from her shoulders.

  She kept rocking. And waiting. But Karl seemed content to read his book. Hetty wondered petulantly if he’d used those sentences about conversation in front of the fireplace to fill up his letters because he didn’t know what else to say. He certainly didn’t seem inclined to talk.

  When neither of them had said anything for a while, Karl asked, “Would you like something to read?”

  “No. I’d like to talk.” She heard the brusqueness in her voice and inwardly cringed. This was supposed to be a loving gesture, not armed combat. She was grateful when Karl closed his book and set it aside on the table between the two rockers. She attributed the look of concern on his face to the sharp tone of her voice when she’d spoken.

  He focused his brown eyes intently on her blue ones. “I’m listening.”

  That was no help at all. That meant Hetty had to talk. What should she say? Should she ask him a question about his day or talk about hers? She pursed her lips and dived in. “How are things going on the mountain?”

  “Better than I expected,” Karl replied. “I think I finally convinced Buck—he’s the giant you met that first day—that bruising faces is not the best way to get the loggers to work harder.”

  Hetty smiled. “How did you do that?”

  “You don’t want to hear about my work. I can tell something is troubling you. Is there some way I can help?”

  He could help by answering her question, Hetty thought crossly. He’d written in his letters that he wanted to talk, and now getting him to talk was like pulling teeth.

  “I was wondering if we could have a Christmas tree. At Christmas, I mean.”

  Karl smiled. “Of course. My mother always made a point of decorating our home in Connecticut. Garlands on the banisters. Pinecones on the mantel. A tree that reached almost to the ceiling, with beautiful colored-glass balls.”

  “That sounds a lot like my home growing up,” Hetty replied.

  “Where was that?”

  Hetty’s mind raced to decide whether she could tell the truth. Could she talk about the long-ago past and not get caught in a lie? “Chicago,” she said at last.

  “Do you still have family there?”

  Hetty shook her head. “They’re scattered to the four winds now.”

  “Sounds like you miss them,” Karl said.

  Hetty turned away to face the fire, so he wouldn’t see the tears forming in her eyes. “I do.”

  “How did you end up in Cheyenne?” he asked.

  Hetty took the leap and told the truth. “I came west on a wagon train.” To keep him from asking more details about her past, she said, “What made you decide to study botany, of all things?”

  He laughed. “That’s a long story.”

  She looked into his eyes and said, “I have all the time in the world.”

  He looked thunderstruck, as though it had just occurred to him that here she was, fulfilling his dream of what married life might be like with his mail-order bride.

  “I have a better idea,” he said.

  Before she could ask what it was, he stood up and took the few steps to reach her. He caught one of her hands, pulled her to her feet, and said, “Let’s continue this conversation in bed.”

  Hetty was startled into laughter. She almost blurted, I thought you wanted to spend evenings talking to your wife in front of the fire. Clearly, after surveying the situation, her highly intelligent husband had come up with a much better idea.

  He grabbed the lantern and led her eagerly toward the bedroom, talking nonstop. “Did I ever tell you Dennis’s father was the head gardener on my father’s estate? I think I spent more time with Mr. Campbell than Dennis ever did. Mr. Campbell talked about trees and shrubs and flowers as though they were animate objects.”

  Hetty was still trying to figure out what animate objects were as Karl raced on.

  “One summer he planted pink peonies along the terrace and had me keep a record of when the buds appeared and how large they grew and when they bloomed. Have you ever seen a peony, Hetty?”

  Hetty was so entranced with what Karl was saying that she never noticed that, the whole time he was talking, they’d been undressing in front of each other. That was something they definitely hadn’t done before.

  Hetty flushed when she realized she was wearing nothing but her chemise and a skirt over her pantalets. She was in the act of unbuttoning her skirt, which would have left her in nothing but her pantalets. She raced to the wardrobe, grabbed a nightgown, and pulled it on over her head without putting her arms in the armholes. She removed the rest of her clothing within the concealment of the long flannel nightgown, listeni
ng raptly to Karl the whole time.

  Karl was apparently oblivious to the fact that he’d stripped down to his long johns in front of her. “I think peonies are the most beautiful flower God ever made. Layers and layers and layers of petals. My mother used to say, with considerable disgust, that all those petals just made more places for the ants to hide.” He grinned. “She never allowed a single one of those beautiful peonies into her house.”

  “What a shame,” Hetty said. “If they’re as beautiful as you say they are.”

  Karl grabbed her hands, which she’d finally poked through the armholes of her nightgown. “You can’t imagine, Hetty. And the smell of them. Intoxicating!”

  Hetty had never seen Karl so exuberant. His excitement was infectious, and she smiled back at him. “Will you plant some peonies here, Karl?”

  He looked surprised at the proposal. “The growing season is short, but I don’t know why we couldn’t.” He hugged her and said, “That’s a great idea, Hetty. I would never have thought of doing it if you hadn’t suggested it.”

  Seeing peonies through Karl’s eyes had made her want to hold one in her hand, to examine its many petals, and to sniff its intoxicating scent—watching out, of course, for the ants!

  Hetty realized Karl was still holding her close and that she could feel the male part of him, hot and hard against her body. How had he become aroused? All they’d done was talk!

  Hetty wasn’t sure what she should do now. She wasn’t ready to do more than hug, but she didn’t want to break the wonderful mood Karl was in. So she simply stood where she was. She slid her arms around Karl’s waist and pressed her breasts against his chest as he leaned his bristled cheek against her neck.

  “I’d forgotten how lovely the peonies were,” Karl murmured against her throat. “Thank you, Hetty, for reminding me.”

  “You’re welcome, Karl.”

  He took a step back and let her go.

  Hetty tried not to look at the part of him that was now very obvious behind the fly of his long johns, but her glance flickered there long enough to see that he was fully aroused. He must have noticed her looking, because he turned abruptly and said, “The room is cold, Hetty. Get under the covers. I’ll put out the lantern.”

  Hetty hurried around to her side of the bed and slid under the covers. The sheets were icy, and she shivered as she pulled the blanket all the way to her chin.

  Karl added a few more logs to the fireplace, then put out the lantern before joining her in bed.

  Hetty lay on her back staring at the flickering shadows on the log ceiling, wondering whether they would continue their conversation in bed, as Karl had suggested. Or not. And whether he would take her in his arms as was their custom now. Or not.

  Hetty waited, but Karl remained silent. And a mile away on the other side of the bed. She was afraid she knew what he was thinking, but she decided to ask anyway.

  “What are you thinking, Karl?”

  “You don’t want to know what I’m thinking.”

  “Yes, I do,” Hetty persisted.

  She felt him turn on his side toward her. “Come over here, Hetty. Where I can hold you in my arms.”

  Hetty hesitated maybe half a second. Then she practically threw herself into his embrace. Karl actually grunted as their bodies made solid contact. She snuggled close, her nose against his throat, breathing in the scent of him, which she thought must be as intoxicating as the peonies in his mother’s garden.

  “I always dreamed of moments like this,” Karl murmured.

  “Lying in bed together, you mean?”

  “Sharing memories. Making memories.” He chuckled and said, “I’ll never forget the look on your face when you realized you were half undressed and I was standing right there in front of you. Did you know I could see the outline of your nipples right through your chemise?”

  Hetty gasped. “Karl Norwood, how could you!”

  He laughed and his arms closed more tightly around her. “This is what marriage is supposed to be like. I know it. I feel it.”

  Hetty stiffened in his arms as bile clawed its way up her throat. She’d felt the magic, too, but it couldn’t last. And it might end much sooner than either of them hoped.

  Because of the lies.

  “Hetty? Have I spoken amiss?”

  She shook her head. “I feel it too, Karl.”

  He pulled her close and whispered, “I’m glad.”

  Hetty leaned her head against his chest and listened to his steadily beating, not-quite-so-lonely heart.

  Karl couldn’t believe he’d let Hetty talk him into bringing Griffin onto the mountain to work. She’d given him some cock-and-bull story about Griffin needing to spend his days around men, instead of being stuck at home with his mother and sister. It had done no good to mention that it had only been a few days since the boy’s little toe had dried up and fallen off, that his hands and feet were barely healed, or that he was too young to be involved in such dangerous work.

  Hetty had insisted, Grace had urged him to agree, and Griffin had argued, “I hardly have any limp at all. I want to go with you.”

  To Karl’s surprise, Griffin had proved himself a quick study with a short ax. Maybe it was all his experience with a whittling knife, but Griffin could now buck the small limbs off a ponderosa pine as fast, or faster, than any of the grown men assigned to the job. He was more grudging about carrying the chopped-off limbs to a nearby slash pile to be burned later, but he did it.

  Karl just wished everyone else was as committed to getting the job done as his stepson. He spent a great deal of his time urging the men to give their best effort.

  “Come on, Stefan,” he said with a smile of encouragement, “put your back into it.”

  Stefan was working one side of a crosscut saw, with Buck on the other side, cutting the trunk of a downed 150-foot-long pine into 1,000-pound sections that could more easily be skidded down the mountain by Andy’s 2,400-pound team of longhorn oxen. The crosscut saw was pulled by one man through the trunk of the pine, then had to be pulled—not pushed—by the other man in the opposite direction.

  Stefan wasn’t pulling hard enough or fast enough to keep the saw moving freely back and forth through the trunk. He stopped, mopped away the sweat on his sun-and-wind-ravaged brow with a red kerchief, and said, “If you think you can do better, Boss, you’re welcome to come take my place.”

  Before Karl could take him up on the offer, Buck said, “Pull the damn saw, Stefan. The sooner we get this last section cut, the sooner we can quit for the day.”

  Stefan muttered an obscenity, but he tucked the kerchief back in his coat pocket, bent his back, and began pulling the saw with a great deal more energy than before.

  Cutting down a tree had seemed like a simple job to Karl, until he’d learned all the variables that had to be considered. Where did you want the tree to fall? Did the tree lean? Was there a strong wind? Was the area where the tree would fall clear of obstacles, so it wouldn’t lodge on the branches of another tree twenty feet off the ground on the way down? Was there plenty of open space—at least double its length—to swing an ax? And, most importantly, did you have a clear path of retreat when the tree finally fell?

  There were dozens of mistakes that could be made, and Karl had seen most of them over the past month. Some of the loggers knew what they were doing. Others had lied about their experience to get the job. Karl was training them as fast as he could, but accidents happened every day.

  One of the loggers didn’t check his ax before he started swinging, and the loose head went flying. Another ruined the blade of his ax by cutting at roots on the ground and hitting a stone instead. A third left his ax lying on the ground, and another logger tripped over it and went flying.

  It was sheer luck that no one had been seriously injured or killed. Karl spent most of his day keeping an eye on everyone and didn’t get to cut wood himself as often as he would have liked.

  But he loved the smell of the wood chips when he swung his ax
and reveled in the flash of the sun off his blade. He had a heady feeling each time the straining muscles in his shoulders and back drove the razor-sharp ax deep into two-hundred-year-old wood.

  The blisters he’d suffered in the beginning had healed, and he was now growing calluses on his hands and building muscles in his arms and shoulders. He wasn’t as exhausted each day as he’d been during his first weeks on the mountain, either. He had energy left over now to lie awake in bed and imagine what it would be like to make love to his wife.

  Christmas was only a few days away. The reprieve he’d promised Hetty was nearly at an end. It might be tonight or tomorrow or the next day, or it might be next week, but sometime soon, he would have the exquisite pleasure of joining their bodies and making them one.

  That is, if she kept her promise.

  Karl worried that Hetty would find some excuse to delay again. For the past month, he’d spent every night holding her in his arms. But she’d made it clear, with that definite, “Good night, Karl,” that holding her was all she wanted.

  She also kissed him before he left each morning, the sort of peck an old married couple might give one another, but she stayed out of range in the evening. She talked with him. She laughed with him. She teased him each night with the promise of what they might share. But whenever his touches became intimate, she bolted like a skittish filly.

  He’d always been able to entice her back into his arms to sleep, but she never lingered there in the morning. He’d gotten into the habit of waking up before her so he would have a few moments to gaze on her face before she awoke and fled.

  Karl had no explanation for Hetty’s reluctance to make love to him. He thought she liked him. Maybe even a great deal. But there had been no encouragement in her eyes to consummate the marriage. He realized that sometime over the next few days he was going to have to take the bull by the horns—a particularly inappropriate metaphor, but the one that kept coming to mind—and do something about his sexless marriage.