Abigail bristled, snatching the contract out of Zacharias Hamilton’s grasp. “You already made your position on this matter quite clear, Mr. Hamilton.” Did he have to look so handsome and heroic standing there? He made poor Mr. Beekman look like a mouse in comparison.
A mouse with kind brown eyes, Abigail reminded herself firmly as she gained her feet and pushed her way past the boulder in her path. Not that the boulder moved so much as an inch. She had to contort herself around the bench to squeeze by and chase down her prospective groom. Because a mouse with kind brown eyes was infinitely better than a kitten with a bobcat for a mother. She’d rather not spend her days dodging Mrs. Ormandy’s swiping claws and sharpened teeth. Holding one’s breath to avoid halitosis was definitely the lesser of two evils. And her lesser evil was getting away.
“Please, Mr. Beekman, ignore him. I just need a few minutes of your time to explain my predicament.”
But he was already shaking his head and backing toward the boardinghouse. “I’m sorry, Miss Kemp, but I really don’t think I’m the one to assist you. Mr. Hamilton seems better suited to your needs.” He tripped over an empty milk bucket that had been standing by the back door. The clanking of tin echoed loudly in the charged atmosphere. Elmer reddened but didn’t slow his retreat. He latched on to the door handle and, without much more than a hasty dip of his chin, disappeared into the boardinghouse.
Abigail’s shoulders drooped as the door closed on her best hope for a peaceful marriage.
“So, can I look at those papers now?”
The deep, masculine voice stiffened her spine faster than ice hardened butter.
She spun to face him, snapping the contract behind her back. “What are you doing here? Was rejecting my offer not enough humiliation for one day? Did you decide to heap on a second helping by chasing off my best chance at an actual acceptance? I know I’m not the kind of woman men like you want, but I might have convinced Mr. Beekman that a wife with extra padding and a business to keep her out of his hair wasn’t such a bad deal. Just because I couldn’t tempt you with the offer doesn’t mean no man would be interested.”
He stood there like the boulder he was, stony-faced, hard, and implacable. Then he raised a single brow. “You finished?”
Abigail scowled, wishing she had more charges to harangue him with, but she couldn’t come up with anything at the moment. She lifted her chin. “For now.”
“Good.” He advanced a step, bringing him nearly toe-to-toe with her.
She had to crane her neck back to see his face, then regretted it, as his dark blue eyes sparked with an indignation that made her rethink the wisdom of challenging him.
“First off,” he said, “I’ve never intentionally humiliated a woman in my life. Scared more than a few and riled more than my share over the years, but never humiliated them.”
Abigail’s forehead scrunched. Was he admitting to purposely frightening females? That didn’t fit what she knew of him at all. Of course, neither did her charge of humiliation. Just because she’d felt humiliated didn’t mean he’d set out to embarrass her.
“Second, what’s this nonsense about you not being the type of woman men like me want? What do you know about what I want, anyway? You talk about yourself as if you’re some kind of penalty or consolation prize. Any man who has to be convinced of your value is an imbecile and not worth your time.”
Abigail blinked. Had that been a compliment? It was hard to tell amid all the grouching and lecturing, but the way her heart fluttered made her suspect there might have been one tucked in there. Her pulse gave a little leap.
“And speaking of fellas not worth your time, if Elmer Beekman can’t even stand up for you during a friendly discussion, how in the world do you expect him to stand up for you with the city council? He’s not the man for you.”
“Neither are you,” she murmured, “according to your response earlier today. I believe your exact words were, I’m not your man.”
The intensity of his features softened slightly, and for a moment she swore she saw a touch of red beneath his swarthy skin. “Yeah, well, I might have misspoken.”
Might have . . . ? “What exactly are you implying, Mr. Hamilton?”
“The name’s Zach.” He grabbed the back of his neck and shifted his weight. Then he blew out a breath—one that did not smell of garlic and onions, she was happy to note—and met her gaze. “Can I look at that contract you got hiding behind your back or not?”
Hands trembling, Abigail handed over the papers. He took them from her and started reading. His lips moved slightly as he read, like a young boy not terribly confident in his ability. The unexpected vulnerability in one so fierce utterly enchanted Abigail, leaving her more bemused than bewildered.
She had no idea why Zacharias Hamilton had changed his mind or how he happened to find her outside Mr. Beekman’s boardinghouse, but she wasn’t so foolish as to look a gift horse in the mouth. He was here. Reading her contract. And scaring off the competition. If God could part the Red Sea and lead his people across, she supposed he could send a reluctant bachelor across town. She wouldn’t question the how or why. She’d just pray that the miracle continued.
After he’d finished the second page, Zach sought her gaze. “I don’t see anything in here about relations.”
Relations? “You mean my sister?” Rosie was her only living relation and not yet at the age of her majority. “She’d live with us, of course. Continue working in the bakery.”
He shook his head. “Not those relations.” He cleared his throat. “Marital ones.”
Marital . . . ?
Oh.
Fire lit Abigail’s cheeks. She’d been so concerned about preserving her business, she hadn’t stopped to consider the more personal aspects entailed in marriage. “I, ah, hadn’t given it much thought.”
“Well, it’s a pretty big piece of this whole arrangement, so I need to know what I’m getting myself into.”
Good grief. What had she gotten herself into? Discussing marital relations in the middle of a public thoroughfare? All right, in a private yard several feet away from the public road, but still. Not exactly a topic of conversation young ladies received training in.
Yet she couldn’t dismiss his concerns. Uncomfortable they might be, but they were also legitimate. And really, his desire to get things out in the open at the start boded well for how the two of them would get along. No guessing and tiptoeing around. Just a practical, straightforward addressing of pertinent issues. She could do this.
Abigail stiffened her posture. This was her chance to set ground rules, boundaries her mother never had the chance to establish. “I’m a businesswoman first and foremost, Mr. Hamilton, and this arrangement is of a practical nature.”
“Speaking from a purely practical perspective, Miss Kemp,” he interrupted, “a man can’t be expected to live like a eunuch when the woman he’s married to looks like you.” His gaze scanned her from head to toe, lingering ever so briefly on the places where her curves were most prominent. Curves she’d always believed defined her as fat. Yet under his regard, she suddenly wondered if voluptuous might be an adjective that could apply. “Too tempting by half.”
He actually found her attractive? The ground beneath Abigail’s feet must have shifted, for all sense of balance abandoned her.
“I’m willing to sign your contract, but only if you agree to include marital relations in the bargain.” His face looked as soft as granite at that pronouncement. Not a touch of romance or sentimentality to be seen. But then, she was the one who had emphasized the practical nature of their arrangement. And it wasn’t as if they were truly courting.
Nevertheless, she couldn’t agree to his demands with nothing but cold practicality between them. To do so just felt . . . wrong.
Besides, she’d sworn not to repeat her mother’s mistakes, and this might be her only chance to negotiate terms that would allow her to uphold that vow.
Abigail nibbled on her lower lip. The bakery h
ad to come first. Her livelihood. Her passion. The key to Rosie’s future. Perhaps it would be better to give him the agreement he wanted. They could work out the details later.
Abigail discarded that idea as quickly as it had formed in her mind. She respected Zach too much to trap him into a lifelong commitment without full honesty between them. If he’d been content with a marriage of convenience, things would be different. They could simply go on as friends, their separate lives only intersecting at meals and social occasions. No need to go into more personal matters. But such an idealized plan had been woefully naïve.
Zach seemed willing to sign the contract—to relinquish his freedom and save her bakery. All he asked for in return was a real marriage. The one thing she wasn’t sure she could give. As much as she loved the bakery, she couldn’t forget what had happened to her mother. Either she would forfeit her vow and come to resent her husband, or she would hold firm and earn his resentment instead. Neither boded well for a lifetime of cohabitation.
She needed to tell him, to explain. If they could somehow find a middle ground, maybe they could both get what they wanted.
Glancing at the bench, Abigail dredged up her courage, then forced herself to meet Zach’s gaze. “Can we sit for a minute?”
CHAPTER
9
Zach nodded and lowered himself to the bench. If he’d learned one thing from raising Evie, it was that females felt better when they talked a problem to death. They didn’t necessarily have to solve it; they just wanted to spill out their worries and hopes and have someone listen. Seemed like a waste of time to him. Better to slap on an answer and get busy fixing it than chewing it to a pulp, but he wasn’t the one in charge of this particular predicament. Abigail was calling the shots. So he’d play by her rules.
’Cause the other lesson his baby sister had taught him was that his chances of getting the response he wanted exponentially increased if he let her yak a spell. Shortcutting the process and demanding an answer up front had a tendency to inspire obstinacy and flare tempers. Since he actually wanted Abigail to like him at the end of this discussion and come around to his way of thinking, it seemed prudent to keep his trap shut and his ears open.
Besides, when she sat down next to him, her knee rubbed against his in a way that made him want to grab her waist and scoot her closer so he could feel the entire length of her against him.
Yep. Relations were a must.
Then she turned those golden-brown eyes on him, and the vulnerability in her gaze sucker-punched him in the gut. Pain—old, deep, and tender when prodded. He knew the type. Something besides maidenly modesty lurked behind her hesitancy, and that realization made him feel like a heel for pressing the issue.
“My father always wanted a son,” she began. “He ignored Rosie and me for the most part when we were small, then tolerated us when we were old enough to be useful.”
The man sounded like a fool.
“My mother died when I was fourteen.” Abigail glanced down at her lap, then slowly raised her face and pinned him with her gaze. “After her seventh miscarriage.”
Zach winced at the number.
“After the fifth loss, the doctor warned her that another pregnancy could kill her. That her body was just too worn out to carry a babe. Yet my father craved a son, so they kept trying. And failing. The first was a stillborn boy who came two years after me. Then Rosie. Then a series of seven pregnancies over the next decade that never lasted past the fifth month.” Abigail set her chin and fisted her hands in her lap. “He killed her, and she let him.”
Zach stared at his knees. What was he supposed to say to that? Reassure her that he wasn’t the callous beast her father had been? Tell her that she was made of sterner stuff than her mother? Yeah, ’cause putting down her dead mother would win him points. And with his luck, she’d probably take his comment as an insult, with all her skewed ideology about men wanting delicate filigree instead of solid mahogany.
Wasn’t there some proverb about how even a fool looked wise if he kept his mouth shut? Zach locked his jaw in the upright position and left Abigail at the reins.
“If we are to include relations in this agreement,” she said, impressively looking him in the eyes despite her obvious discomfort with the topic, “I’ll want to set some ground rules.”
Well, she hadn’t completely closed the door. That was something.
“What kind of rules are you proposing?” He kept his voice as nonchalant as possible. He didn’t want to give away too much bargaining power by letting her sense his level of investment.
“Well, for starters, I’d like time to get to know you better on a personal level before we broach certain . . . intimacies.” Her courage finally gave out, and her gaze dropped. “Due to my business circumstances, we are jumping straight into marriage without the usual courtship period. But I don’t want to be made to feel like a . . . a woman who . . . sold her virtue for the price of a bakery.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Or treated like a . . . a . . .”
Prostitute. She didn’t have to say it. Zach knew exactly what she meant. And if he’d been alone, he would’ve slammed his fist into the back wall of the boardinghouse for making her feel that way for even a moment.
“Abigail,” he demanded, his voice gruffer than it should have been, “look at me.”
She lifted her face, the shame in her light brown eyes hurting him worse than that wall would have.
“I’d never want you to feel like you were being used. And if you ever did, that would be my dishonor, not yours.” He shook his head and searched for some pretty words to make her feel better, but none came to him. So he opted for plain speaking. “I’m a man,” he stated baldly, “and men tend to focus on the physical side of relationships. But if we do this, we’re equal partners. In all matters. You’d have the right to say no whenever you wished, and I would respect that. And if you want to postpone relations until after you get to know me better, fine. Though I have to warn you that you might not like all of what you learn.”
That brought a hint of a dimple out of hiding. “Well, I have a few warts myself.”
“Really? Where?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, not actual warts . . . I . . .”
He grinned to let her know he was teasing, and the shy smile he received in return zinged straight to his heart. He could think of worse ways to spend a lifetime than making this woman smile.
Growing serious again, he returned to the topic at hand. “As long as I have your promise that you will keep an open mind about the physical side of our union, I’m willing to consider this marriage scheme of yours.”
He might need to have a few private conversations with Reuben about the best way to seduce one’s wife. The man had six kids. He had to know a trick or two. But Zach would work out those details later. Right now he just had to convince this sweet innocent that if he met her at the altar, he wouldn’t pounce on her the moment they swapped I do’s.
Her chin went all pointy again as she set her jaw. “And what if I don’t want children—at least not right away? If I want to focus on the bakery?”
He wasn’t exactly sure what he could do about that, but he supposed he could research the matter. “I think that’ll be up to God more than us,” he said, “but I swear I won’t make demands of you that you’re not willing to fulfill.” He let out a sigh and shrugged. “In truth, I never expected to have kids. I planned to live life on my own. I’ve already done the parenting thing with my siblings, and I wouldn’t mind too much not repeating the experience.” Although he found the thought of Abigail swollen with his child more compelling than he would have anticipated. “But if we did end up with a young’un or two, I’d pull my weight and not leave you to carry that load by yourself.”
She eyed him skeptically. “You wouldn’t expect me to give up the running of the bakery to stay home with our children?”
Hadn’t he just said they’d be equal partners? Zach fought off a rising tide of disgruntlement, reminding him
self that the main example of husbandly devotion she had to compare him to was a father who’d apparently treated his wife like a broodmare with no consideration for her own goals and dreams or even her physical health.
“Look. Raising kids is time-consuming and hard work. I know. I’ve been there. I imagine it’s even harder with infants. Whether you had a bakery to run or not, I wouldn’t abandon you to shoulder that load alone. When I say we’d be partners, that’s what I mean. We’d share the family responsibilities. It’s obvious that the bakery is important to you. I wouldn’t expect you to give that up just because some little ankle biters showed up on the scene. What I would do is look for ways to help you. Reuben takes his kids to work one morning a week. We could work out something similar. Maybe rig up some sort of fenced play area in the kitchen for the youngsters when they’re with you. I could even hire you some help if need be. You know, with all that extra money I’ll be saving by living with you.”
That earned him another shy smile, and Zach breathed a shade easier. Then a tiny frown wrinkled her brow. “You raised your siblings?”
“Adoptive siblings, but yeah.” Honesty prodded him to paint a more accurate picture. “Well, Seth did most of the raising where little Evie was concerned. I just kept their bellies full and a roof over their heads.”
“Where are they now?” She looked concerned. Probably wondering if he’d dropped them off a cliff somewhere.
“Pecan Gap. Evie married last year. Seth too. They have neighboring farms.”
Those lines in her forehead deepened. “But how could they be adults? You’re not old enough . . .”
He ran a hand over his face. “I got an early start. But that’s a tale for another time.”
Hopefully a much later time. Never, would be his preference. Talking about his stint as a stand-in parent would inevitably lead to talking about how he’d managed to provide for said roofs and full bellies, and he’d rather Abigail not glimpse the darkness of his past. Better to focus on the here and now.
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