by Yvonne Jocks
She was sorry, too. Turning her head to lean her cheek against his broad, hard chest, her tears stinging her eyes in the cold air, Mariah felt sorrier than she had in a long, long time.
When someone cal ed, “Mariah Garrison!” she barely saw old Mr. Parker, halfway down his own walk. “What are you thinking? Does your family mean nothing to you, girl?”
He was just a neighbor—one of several who had appeared on their porches. Once, she would have thought they were watching out for her. Now it seemed they were just watching, and with far less benevolent intentions.
Stuart eased her away from him, despite her mew of protest. “I am Stuart MacCallum,” he cal ed, since even folks who'd heard of the scandal might not recognize a lowly sheep farmer. "Mariah Garrison is my fiancée, and I am taking her home to her family right now."
Mr. Parker made a “hrmph!” sound, perhaps in part because when Stuart offered Mariah his arm, she cuddled back into the crevice between his arm and his chest instead.
“Mariah!” he protested, low—but held her. “People are watching.”
“I don't care. I don't want to worry about what they think anymore!”
Stuart's voice somehow smiled when he murmured, "Well you may not, lass, but I've hardly recovered from the consequences of our last indiscretions."
As if Mariah could laugh at something like that.
“Stuart,” she said, as he eased her into a walk. “I don't want to go home. I want to come live with you.”
He stopped and stood still—almost as still as she felt inside, to have said something so very weighty as that. But how could she not prefer living with Stuart now? They meant to marry anyway. If they just went ahead and did it, everyone's protests would become moot. People would have to accept them.
In any case, how could she go on living in luxury provided by a man who had hurt him—on purpose? A man who'd threatened all along to do more than hurt him!
Her own father ...
“Live with my family, you mean?” Stuart prompted with strained nonchalance, easing her homeward again even as he asked.
“With you Stuart. Let's marry, right away, before anybody can stop us.”
He sighed, hard enough that she felt his body shift with it. “I'll not do that to you, Mariah. Nor to us.
You know full wel what people would say.”
"They would say that we had to marry but... but phooey on them! Some are already saying it anyway."
“Bad enough that. But they might also say that only you had to marry, lass—and that I was the only man desperate enough to take you in such circumstances.”
She looked up at him, appalled. How could anyone think something so terrible as that?
But she'd underestimated Stuart's grasp of people before, al too recently. And she had just returned from a long trip, where nobody in town could real y say what she had been doing ... nobody except the Wrights, and she certainly would not count on them to speak on her behalf.
“And then,” Stuart added, "I would have to go find anyone who would speak so against you and beat them senseless, and you would be just as angry with me as you are with your father. Where would we be then?"
She had not fallen in love with Stuart for his marginal sense of humor—why did he have to attempt jokes about such horrible things as this?
“I'm not simply angry with my father,” admitted Mariah, suddenly bone-tired. World-tired. “It's worse than that. I'm ...”
Disillusioned. Betrayed. Adrift.
“I always thought he was one of the good guys, Stuart.” Her voice thickened and the world blurred around her, even as she said it. “I thought we deserved to live like a storybook!”
“Don't go making me defend your father,” protested Stuart softly, into her hair. Never had they walked so close. Their hips bumped every few steps. "No matter how dearly I love you, or how much it pains me to see you hurting, I'll not defend a cattle baron."
“You can't,” Mariah insisted dully. “Not anymore.”
Stuart said nothing at all .
“If we mustn't marry yet... may I come live with your parents, then?” she asked. Part of her hated the idea of leaving her home and family again, and so soon. But it wasn't the home she'd thought it was anyway ... was it? “Will they be willing to take me?”
“You're my future bride,” Stuart reminded her. “That makes you family. Of course they will be willing.”
“Can we go there now?”
He squeezed her shoulders once, tight. But he said, “I'll not be accused of abducting you, nor will I see you accused of running away.”
Thank goodness she had Stuart to think of such dark possibilities—and plan against them. “No,” she agreed, if without enthusiasm. “Of course not.”
“Tomorrow or the day after will be soon enough, won't it?”
No. Of course not. She wanted to leave now—with her father's betrayal as fresh motivation, before she had to face her sisters' disappointment. But that would be cowardly. Stuart did not deserve to marry a coward.
Somehow, Mariah would wait.
Two days later, Mariah's mother drove her and her trunk toward the MacCallums' ranch. Looking out across the seemingly endless, snow-dusted plains northeast of town, holding a sleeping Elise close to her side, Mariah wondered if they had yet crossed the unmarked “deadline” that divided cattle country from sheep land.
At the moment, al she saw was a distant herd of antelope, bounding away over yet another rise on the wavy sea of winter grass. With the mountains behind her, it felt like riding into a rolling, gray-skied nothingness.
“He doesn't want you to go,” Mrs. Garrison told her oldest daughter, handling the traces with practiced ease. Her cheeks glowed in the November wind. "Just because he won't say anything doesn't mean he approves. I want you to know that."
“Papa's approval no longer matters to me.” Mariah hoped that saying it could make it finally true, but instead the words made her sound petulant.
“I don't agree with men using violence to solve problems either,” her mother said "And I understand why you're angry. But your father clearly thought he was doing the right thing. He thinks he's protecting your future—and your reputation—by rejecting this engagement."
“Neither Stuart nor I did anything truly bad,” Mariah insisted. “We fell in love.”
“Behind our backs,” noted Mother, only her gentle tone keeping the words from cutting.
“If I'd fallen in love with Alden Wright without telling you, met with Alden Wright in secret, would Papa have hurt him?”
“I wouldn't be surprised,” cautioned her mother. “But I'll admit, your father has an unattractive prejudice when it comes to sheep. In fact, I'll tel you a secret. They scare him.”
Then she clucked exasperated reassurance to their buggy horse, who'd nervously tossed his head and pranced several steps. “Come on, Rue; it's just a dust devil.”
Mariah ignored the dust devil, staring at her mother over Elise's tucked head instead. Papa? Afraid of anything?
“Oh, men have fears too,” said Mother, reading Mariah's expression too well . "But they aren't to show it. Since it has to go somewhere, they get angry instead. Your father has put his entire life into cattle. His family raised them before the War. After that, he worked as a trail boss until the railroads threatened to put him out of business. He and Benj Cooper risked their lives driving enough head north to start the Circle-T when this area was a wilderness, while most of the country were still cowering back East at the memory of the battle of... of Custer's last stand. Everything your father has, he's fought for. Because of the homesteaders, the small-time ranchers—and the sheep—he's afraid of losing it. And the more he has to fear, the angrier he gets."
“That doesn't excuse him,” Mariah insisted. “He shouldn't have sent men to hurt Stuart.”
"No. But Stuart threatened to take something even more precious than your father's land or cattle —and now he has."
Mariah hesitated to think of it tha
t way. She was going to live with Stuart's family now—where she could see Stuart more often, learn to love his mother and sisters as she loved her own, focus on her joyous future. She must not start questioning her decisions now.
“Just try to be tolerant until everything works itself out,” insisted Mother. "I went through more than you can imagine to keep your father in your life, early in our marriage. I don't intend to sit by while the two of you ruin that."
But Mariah was no linger fully listening. Instead, she said, “Oh!”
Their buggy had just topped another rise and come into sight, her first sight, of the MacCallums' ranch house.
Elise, waking, sleepily asked, “Does Mariah have to live there?”
Mariah sternly shushed her younger sister.
But for the briefest moment—shameful and guilt-ridden though it felt—she found herself wondering the same thing.
Chapter Eleven
Stuart sneaked furtive glances across the table at Marian as they ate his mother's mutton stew.
Sometimes she peeked up through her lashes at the same time, and their gazes met.
Acknowledging. Accepting. Appreciating.
Then one of his younger brothers or sisters would giggle, or whisper, or kick him under the table, and he would look back down at his tin dinner plate.
Even without visual proof, Stuart took comfort in Marian's presence. If the MacCallum home had proved too spare for her refined sensibilities, surely she would have bolted already. In moments of shameful uncertainty, he'd wondered if she would truly leave her storybook life for the honest hardship he could offer. But upon her arrival, Mariah had not flinched from the sight of the U-shaped homestead, its main log cabin flanked by two cut-lumber additions, low-roof covered in sod for better insulation against the winter cold. She'd complimented his mother on the curtains, cooed over the old family dog, Bruce. She'd even seemed pleased that she would share a room with Stuart's six sisters. “I won't be lonely that way!” she'd said.
But that was Mariah, cheerful to the end. Stuart still would not have wanted to gamble, as he rode back for dinner three nights later, on what he would find. He felt more uneasy than he'd expected with the burden of taking the woman he loved away from luxuries she deserved.
But when he sneaked another glance and caught her watching him, she did not look sad at all . Her golden hair did not curl much tonight—she had drawn it back into a simple ponytail, and wore a plainer work dress than those she had for church. Her only jewelry was the engagement ring, winking in the dull light of the kerosene lantern. But her gray eyes shone at him. She'd never looked so pretty as here amidst the family he loved, across from him— where she belonged.
Stuart smiled, a silent attempt to tel her that, and after she smiled back she hesitated, parted her lips. Then his mother cleared her throat, and they both looked quickly back to their respectably silent dinners.
As soon as they'd finished, though, and the girls stood to clear the table, Stuart caught Mariah's soft hand and drew her firmly out of the main bustle. He did not release her hand, either. "All's well with you then?"
He hadn't had a chance to ask before dinner, because almost as soon as he crossed the threshold, his mother had the family seated and speaking grace. Even if his parents did not disapprove of conversation during the meal—not unwise, considering the chaos that could ensue otherwise—
Stuart would not have asked this in front of the others.
“Of course it is,” Mariah assured him, lowering her free hand to four-year-old Rose's carrot-colored curls when the child attached herself to Mariah's skirts. "I'm hoping to learn from your mother how to be a good sheep farmer's wife."
He'd never smiled so easily as around her. “And lama good sheep farmer,” he teased.
She laughed up at him. “I should hope so. Only the best sheep farmer will do for me.”
Twelve-year-old Kevin crowded in on their right, making smoochy noises. Stuart covered the boy's freckled face with one big hand to push him away. “Ma's not asking too much of you?”
“On the contrary! In fact...” She glanced over her shoulder, to where Emily was pouring water into the wash pot on the stove.
For the briefest moment, Stuart had—a feeling. Nothing more than that, just an unsettled sensation deep inside him that all wasn't as happy as he'd thought. Hoped.
He narrowed his eyes, studying her more closely.
“A minute of your time, son,” cal ed Da from by the fireplace, where he liked to enjoy his after-dinner pipe. Six-year-old Ian caught Stuart's free hand and began to plead for a ride.
“We have company, Ian,” Stuart chided, waiting for Mariah to turn back. When she did, he saw uncertainty in her eyes—but no dishonesty. Not Mariah.
“I am not company,” she reminded him. “So I should help with the dishes. Go ahead.”
Stuart squeezed her hand before releasing her, as pleased to see her pitching in as to be able to touch her without fearing for his life. Surely he'd imagined that unsettled feeling.
Mariah ducked her head and blushed so prettily that he watched her walk to the stove—Rose still attached to her swaying skirts—then watched her wipe her first dish, before he even noticed Kevin resuming the smoochy sounds.
In fact, the boy had the right of it. How many weeks had passed since their last secret meeting, under their bridge? Stuart longed to kiss his fiancée with an almost physical ache, and now he intended to. He intended to kiss her every time he came for dinner, and every time they got back from church together. He doubted kisses would completely sate his years-old need for her ... but they'd certainly make a start of it.
“Jealous, are you?” he teased Kevin, knowing full well the insult a twelve-year-old would take that as. Then he scooped a squealing Ian up under one arm and gave him a ride as he went to see what Da had to say. He crouched and scratched old Bruce behind his near-deaf ears.
Then, when Da said, “That Johnson fellow's been threatening more sheepherders,” Stuart felt just as glad that Mariah was across the room.
Whatever the latest trouble was, he would prefer she not have to worry about it.
Mariah would prefer Stuart not have to worry about how homesick she felt. So she did everything she could not to feel homesick.
“Ma says you needn't help with the chores,” protested Bonny, not for the first time, but Mariah stood firm.
“And what if I want to?” she asked, hoping her smile carried more cheer than challenge. “Think of how much faster the work wil go, with all of us helping!”
Almost reluctantly, Bonny handed her a corner of the flour-sack towel she was using and Mariah began to help dry the tin plates, conscious all the while of Mrs. MacCallum's silent gaze.
Surely Mariah imagined any censure she saw there. Stuart's mother was a plain, angular woman, sober to the extreme. But she'd been kind enough to take Mariah in and had at no point spoken sharply to her, not even as sharply as she spoke to her own daughters. In fact, Mrs. MacCallum consistently treated Mariah as a pampered guest. Not once had she asked Mariah to lift a finger around the homestead. And yet, when Mariah's sense of fairness compel ed her to help anyway, Mrs. MacCallum's protests carried with them an edge of... well , of disapproval.
Was Mariah imagining it?
“I shouldn't want you to spoil your soft hands,” Mrs. MacCallum would say. Or, “You're not likely used to carrying water.”
“I'd best get used to it,” Mariah would reply cheerful y, unwilling to take offense to such indulgences lest nothing snide was meant. But that continued sense of uselessness, of a difference between herself and the others, unsettled her more than any of the hardships here at the MacCallum ranch. Yes, she did miss having a pump in the kitchen! She missed her mother's big, beautiful iron stove with two ovens and a cistern for heating wash water. The gloomy light of kerosene lamps hurt her eyes and gave her headaches, and the outhouse remained an unpleasant necessity. But such incidentals could easily be endured in cheerful silence, especial
y on nights when she knew Stuart would visit.
The sense that she was walking on eggshells, however, only one step from proving some unpleasant truth about herself which Mrs. MacCallum knew even better than she, was making Mariah as skittish as a bit-up foal in fly time.
“Dinner was delicious,” she said now, determined not to seem standoffish.
“You like mutton, then?” asked Stuart's mother, wiping Anna's face.
“Yes, ma'am.” Mariah did not admit that she'd never had it before this week—but somehow, Mrs.
MacCallum stared at her as if she knew.
Then Emily drew her mother's disapproval by saying, “You won't after a few months!”
“You'll be grateful for any food the good Lord sends us, Miss Emily!”
Emily said, “Yes, ma'am.”
But as soon as her mother drew Rose away, to put her, Caroline, and Anna to bed, Emily whispered, “But I surely do hope Da or Stuart shoots a goose or antelope sometime soon!”
Grateful for the familiarity, Mariah whispered, "I felt the same way about beef, when I was younger."
Jenny looked aghast. “About beef?”
“Do you miss it?” asked Bonny.
Yes, Mariah missed beef too—especial y the way her mother fixed it. She missed lively conversations at the dinner table. She missed laughter and songs. She missed Laurel's obstinacy and Victoria's nosiness and Audra's determined good behavior. She wondered daily about Kitty's continued health, Elise's continued temperament, and whether Papa had come to terms with her engagement, at last. And yet...
Mariah glanced across the main room to where Stuart stood near his father, one booted foot hitched up on the bench by the fireplace hearth, in serious conversation. His suspenders somehow emphasized the taper from his broad, working shoulders to his narrow waist and hips. He'd rolled up his shirtsleeves, revealing soft, light-brown hair dusting his forearms. He looked solid, and real... and here.
Tonight made twice that they'd dined together. They real y were engaged; real y were to be married. And that was why she willingly forewent everything else.