by Yvonne Jocks
As always, Papa still commanded silence to say grace, the same simple words he'd used since Mariah had memory. Mother divided her attention between her husband and their daughters until the “Amen.” Then she passed platters of meat and bowls of vegetables around the table so that everyone except the very youngest children could serve themselves.
Other mothers waited on their families, Mariah knew, but hers was not like other mothers.
Younger than Papa— still brown-haired and pretty—Mother was a progressive. Even now, she teased Mariah by asking, “So were you wooed by any handsome noblemen abroad?”
Papa stopped chewing to stare at her, and Mama winked— winked! —back at him.
“No, ma'am,” assured Mariah, trying not to blush. She had, after all , been wooed, in a simple, earnest way. But it had been in writing, and in secret—and by Stuart MacCallum.
Laurel asked, “By any ugly noblemen?” When Mariah huffed in protest, Laurel grinned her same old, sassy grin. “I'm just joshing! You'd be loco to have truck with any fancy-pants shorthorn, less'n he was ornamental.”
“Watch yer language,” warned Papa drily—as always. Hardly a meal had ever gone by without him chiding Laurel for something.
“Cowboys say pants,” challenged Laurel, also as usual.
“You ain't no cowboy,” noted Papa right back, and he held Laurel's rebellious gaze until she finally capitulated.
“Yessir.” But Laurel's capitulations lost no sass, even if she wore long skirts now.
Victoria, dark-haired like Laurel, filled her usual role by asking endless questions—Did Mariah meet any noblemen at all ? Noblewomen? Did she ride in a gondola? Mother called Victoria the eyes and ears of the family, because of her penchant for gathering information. When she took inappropriate measures to do so, Papa cal ed her the nose of the family.
Mariah answered as best she could, between bites of pot roast—far tastier than any of the remarkable things the French had thought to cook up. But her anecdotes felt increasingly unreal, even as she related them. What did gondolas and Alps signify when she had true happiness right here in Wyoming, around this table?
And, perhaps, waiting at the bridge . ..
She ate a little faster.
Audra, who was fair-haired and well-mannered like Mariah, sat as quietly as ever, happy to just listen. Occasional y Mariah smiled at her, and Audra smiled back.
Kitty, small and frail for her seven years, squinted at her plate with unnecessary concentration.
Kitty was the dreamer of the family.
And Elise ... of course, Elise had grown a great deal from the three-year-old baby Mariah had last seen to the four-year-old child she was now, but even she seemed the same. The family beauty, Elise had golden curls, blue eyes, Mother's pert face and features.. . and since infancy, she had grasped her special position. Today she bounced in her chair, kicked the table leg, pushed at her food—and once even interrupted the conversation—until Papa made her walk around the table to stand beside him.
“Behave,” he ordered. She nodded with such big-eyed repentance that he lifted her onto his lap to finish the meal there, where he could keep tighter rein on her. Of course she behaved perfectly then. She'd gotten what she wanted, and everyone at the table—except maybe Papa—knew it.
Home, thought Mariah, luxuriating in the familiarity of it al . I have come home.
And even now, Stuart MacCallum might be waiting for her at the Kissing Bridge.
Perhaps a good daughter would pretend to forget their tryst, stay home and help her mother, cling to the security of her homecoming a little longer. But a good person did not leave friends waiting.
The need to extend her homecoming to Stuart resonated far too deeply.
Besides, now that she was eighteen and Stuart had his claim, they could finally speak of the future.
Surely loving him did not make her less of a proper daughter. Mother would understand. So would Papa, even, if she just presented it correctly.
Everything would be fine. She knew it would.
“May I go along to the schoolhouse?” she asked, as they bundled her sisters up for their afternoon classes. It only hurt a little, that fib ...
Papa said, “You ain't walkin' home alone,” just as she expected he would; proper young ladies did not roam the downtown streets on their own.
So Mariah asked, “May I walk them as far as the bridge, then?” which felt better, more honest. To her relief, Papa—distracted by Elise—nodded curtly. The bridge was not halfway to the school, before they would even reach Main Street.
A flurry of hugs and kisses fol owed. Mother made happy “Mmmm” sounds with every tight embrace and Papa, with Elise on one arm, touched a steady hand to each daughter's shoulder in turn, warning Laurel in particular to “Behave.” Mariah collected her hugs last—first from her pretty mother, with her visible love and subtle strength, and then from her solid father, with his visible strength and subtle love. Just like always.
Papa did not, she noticed, warn her to behave. That, more than anything else, made her stomach cramp with sudden guilt.
But not nearly guilt enough to keep her home.
Hidden in the shadows of the bridge over the rushing Goose Creek, Stuart realized he was clenching his jaw. He made himself stop doing that. But how did one react to such a strange, discomforting sensation as the doubt that had eaten at him since the train depot?
He refused to borrow trouble regarding the gunman, without more knowledge. So why could he not stay as calm about Mariah?
Waiting out the time it would surely take for her to escape her parents—assuming she escaped at all —he settled into a comfortable crouch and reread her last letter to him. Her neat hand reassured him that she was making the best of her tour, which pleased him—his own sisters would never get such a chance, nor would she have such opportunities after their long-presumed marriage. As long as they'd had to wait, why should she not enjoy herself?
He easily found his place in the worn letter, read of her adventures, her discomfort over the Wrights' apathy in the midst of European unrest—and her desperately missing him. He hadn't imagined that. Just because she didn't want to upset her homecoming with her father, and just because she'd smiled at that strangely familiar greenhorn at the depot....
Stuart stood and stuffed the letter back into his pocket, impatient again. This business of lurking under bridges had been bad enough in his youth. Now he had adult responsibilities—ewes to breed, hay to cut for winter. The sooner he spoke for Mariah, the better.
Unless her father really did kill him for it. That seemed extreme, even for Garrison.
Unless he hired in an outside man to do it.
Stuart heard the Garrison girls before they reached the bridge, even over the rushing water. “... at the Inn, to welcome you home and for my birthday. The whole town is invited!”
“Surely not the whole town.” That voice he knew, after months' absence, and even in his impatience Stuart felt his shoulders lighten at the sweetness of it.
Mariah was with them.
“Just about,” noted the voice he knew as Laurel's. “You know Mama.”
Their footsteps tapped across the wood over Stuart's head. Careful not to move, he felt guilt at the forced eavesdropping. The sooner this secrecy stopped, the better. The sooner he and Mariah made their courtship honest...
He tried not to picture how that fellow at the depot had taken her arm, tried not to remember the expensive cut of the man's suit.
“You can't go any farther,” insisted a smaller voice. “Papa said.”
“Telltale,” scolded Laurel.
“I am not a telltale!”
“Do-gooder.”
“No, Audra's right,” insisted Mariah, quieting their tempers as simply as that—Stuart heard a shuffling of feet and the occasional kiss. “I'll see you after school.”
For what seemed like a small eternity, Stuart listened to the sounds of the sisters moving on—the cal ed goodbyes and I-l
ove-yous, even one set of footsteps hurrying back for one more hug.
“Welcome home,” said a young voice, and Mariah said, “Thank you, Kitty.”
Stuart was not the only one grateful for Mariah's return.
He was, however, the only one hiding under a bridge.
The creek continued to rush past him; a flock of geese honked overhead. His jaw began to ache.
This bridge was relatively sheltered by trees, thus its reputation. How long could it take before the girls were out of sight?
Then Stuart heard the crack of a twig and looked up to see Mariah's kid shoes descending the creek bank; her shapely, button-lined ankle—
He ought not be staring at her ankle. He seemed to have lost his ability to control himself, though, and stared anyway.
Her skirt, the edge of her cloak—and then Mariah herself peeked under the shadow of the bridge, as if unsure what she would find there.
Stuart swept his hat from his head. By all that was holy, she was beautiful. He had always thought her pretty, but her time overseas gave her the air of a world traveler, a princess, someone he never would have imagined could want a simple man like him.
Yet here she stood, against all the rules, peering at him where he stood in the dirt under a bridge.
Stuart swallowed, hard, then nodded. “Miss Garrison.” His voice did not crack. Since that did not seem sufficient, he added, “Welcome home.”
She took a step closer to him, he took a step closer to her—and then somehow, like so many times before, they were in each other's arms. Her soft, warm body pressed against his, filled his embrace even as her fingers dug furrows into the back of his coat. Her exquisite face turned up to his, her sweet lips meeting his own.
“Oh, Stuart,” she breathed into his mouth, and he inhaled his own name, continued to kiss her in a way that was downright sinful—a way that he could not seem to stop, no matter what.
Since he could not stop himself from devouring her kisses, could not fight the way his hands slowly slid down her back toward more dangerous territory, Stuart did the next best thing. "We're old enough, now,“ he gasped. ”I have land, sheep. Marry me."
He barely formed those basic words—not even managing a “please”—before one of his hands dipped onto the roundness of, well , of a place he ought not be touching before they made their vows. He managed, through sheer force of will , to fist that treacherous hand and drag it up to the small of her back again, but that did not undo his indiscretion.
Mariah laughed sheer pleasure against his cheek—he assumed at his proposal, not the indiscretion. “Yes,” she whispered, lacing her words with little kisses up and down his jaw. “Yes, yes, yes. There has never been another man for me, Stuart MacCallum. Never. You know that.”
And he did. Any lingering memories of the light-haired fop at the depot vanished.
The years of waiting no longer mattered. The hiding no longer mattered. Mariah was home and in his arms, for good, and Stuart had life by the tail with a downhill pull.
Then he said, “I'll cal on your father this afternoon,” and her lips faltered against his.
'This afternoon?" she whispered.
Life yanked free of Stuart's hold and sent him tumbling.
“This afternoon?” Mariah repeated, a sudden hesitance warring with the excitement that had made her so reckless in Stuart's arms.
Picturing her father at the same time that she was tasting Stuart's salty skin hardly helped. She could imagine Papa's reaction, if he knew what she was doing right now, much less with whom. He would be furious—worse, disappointed in her.
And rightly so. She had always assumed she would have time to ease him into the idea.
She drew back from Stuart's embrace. To his credit, he let her go. “So soon?” she asked.
Even as she said it, she recognized her mistake. Stuart's jaw set. His eyes, already dangerously dark, narrowed. “I am in town,” he pointed out with terse logic. “And so is he.”
“Well yes, of course! But Stuart—” How could she make him understand? "I only just got back.
How can I surprise my family with something like this, and me not home for a day?"
“He'll be no more receptive to the idea a year from now, and you know it.”
“I know no such thing! Nor do I mean to wait a year, but—”
“What we just did—” He spread his hand at the ground between them, the ground where she had risen onto her toes, pressed herself against the broadness of his chest, kissed him until she felt so dizzy that only his tight, tight hold on her had kept her from crumpling.
Mariah blushed.
“I thought—have always thought—I behaved so with my intended,” Stuart finished.
His meaning stunned her. “So did I!”
Stuart scowled a silent challenge to her words.
Well ! Unsure whether she felt more hurt or anger— both roared louder than the creek in her ears, tightened at her throat—Mariah reverted to propriety. If only she had remembered herself long before now. “If you mean to insult me, Mr. MacCallum, you have succeeded.”
Her lips still tingled, cooling as they dried, and her face burned all the hotter to notice that. He had compromised her honor in more ways than one—but oh, so had she.
Stuart's scowl wavered, but he said nothing.
Mariah turned away, determined not to cry in front of him. “How is it insult to ask your father for your hand, even should he refuse?” His words sounded sullen, but at least he had spoken them. “If we truly are intended, he must know it. Would you have us elope?”
She took a deep breath, soothed by their shared distaste for elopements. Neither of them wanted to do the wrong thing; they had that in common. Perhaps they could discuss this after all . "It isn't.
And I wouldn't. But to surprise Papa so soon ..."
"Would waiting help? Your father hates sheep farmers worse even than nesters. He will hate me sight unseen, no matter when he finds out."
She could not keep her back to him, not through that bitter confession. When she turned, he looked as stubborn and resentful—hurt, real —as she had feared. "You can't know that, Stuart!
Papa doesn't hate anyone, especial y not you. He doesn't even know you."
“He sees me and mine in church every Sunday.”
And he hadn't behaved hatefully once. When Mariah reached both hands for him, to her bone-deep relief, Stuart took them, steadied her. She also felt relief that he did not use the grip to draw her back against him right away, because she would not have been able to resist if he had.
Relief, and a naughty whisper of disappointment.
“It is true that Papa dislikes sheep,” she admitted, wincing slightly at the understatement. Papa might not hate people, but like other ranchers, he did despise what he called them hooved locusts.
“And it's true that if he sees you only as a sheep farmer, his ... bias ... might cause difficulty. But if he knew you as a person first, as the responsible, worthy man I do, then perhaps ...”
Stuart stared at her, incredulous.
“Do not underestimate my father's intelligence,” insisted Mariah, drawing herself up.
Stuart opened his mouth—then shut it, seemingly unable to frame the right response to that.
Finally he took a chance on, "And just how do you intend we familiarize your father with my finer qualities?"
“Don't tease me!” She snatched her hands from his, turned away, but—as she had more than half hoped— Stuart's arms encircled her from behind and he drew her back against him.
“Mariah ...” he whispered, as if inhaling her name off her hair. He wanted to marry her, she reminded herself through the tingling warmth of his embrace. She had assumed as much for years, of course, but this time he had actual y asked. Her storybook life just kept getting better.
“Perhaps you can introduce yourself after church this Sunday,” she suggested, closing her eyes ... her words seemed to blur in her mouth, unfocused by the solidity of Stuart
's chest at her back and head, his breath on her cheek. “You could ... you could say hello on the street, if you see him.”
“He would not answer.”
She feared he was right. Papa did not waste words. "You never know until you try. Please, Stuart.
For me.
Please let me ease the idea of you—of us—onto him before you ask to marry me. If you ask too soon he'll just say no, and once Papa makes a decision he hardly ever takes it back. And to go against him... Please don't make me do that."
Stuart stood very still behind her. Then he said, “But you would? Go against him?”
The possibility stuck in her chest so that she could barely breathe. Unlike her mother, Mariah never wanted to be progressive. She loved her father, and took pride in her reputation....
Except with Stuart. She rarely ever remembered her family or reputation, rarely ever behaved properly with Stuart. Him official y asking for her hand would be the first proper thing they had ever done. But if he did not succeed...
Mariah nodded. For him, and how she felt with him, she would even go against her father. But she should not, would not have to. Everything would be fine—somehow.
Stuart kissed her temple. Mmm. She tipped her head toward her opposite shoulder, all owing him better access to her throat, and he kissed the sensitive skin beneath her earlobe. She sank weakly back against him, her strength draining from her at the ecstasy of his lovemaking. As sweet as his kisses was the certainty that she had won her bid for more time. Stuart would do anything for her, and so would Papa. If she just approached them right.
And in the meantime—they were now secretly engaged.
“I canna be with you like this,” Stuart murmured into her shoulder, his work-thick arms tightening around her waist and ribs, scandalously close to her bosom. She shivered at the tickle of his words, at how he slipped into the faint brogue of his kinfolk when truly overcome. “I canna be this close to you and not... It will ruin the both of us.”
He spoke the truth. They were behaving—rather, misbehaving—reprehensibly. And she loved it. In Stuart's arms, beneath his kisses and the feverish need to be with him in ways she did not even understand, she had little or no self-control. Apparently, neither did he.