by T. S. Joyce
“There’s nothing like this place around Chicago,” I breathed.
“Course there isn’t,” Jeremiah snorted. “It’s a city. Cities kill places like this.”
I turned to find Luke’s glorious eyes resting on my bouncing bosoms. The dress really did leave little to the imagination up top. Clenching my hands, I stifled the instinct to cover my chest with my arms. Generally, I didn’t mind men looking. It was part of the job after all, but with Luke, a tiny piece of me, one I thought long buried, wanted to be a lady for him. I wanted him to see me differently than the howling, spitting men at the bawdyhouse did.
His eyes met mine for the briefest moment, and confusion swam in them before he turned away. From where I sat, I could’ve sworn Jeremiah was smiling, but I couldn’t be sure.
Dark was falling as the homestead became visible against the backdrop of the setting sun. It was a sizeable house, surprisingly so, and I made a conscious effort to close my mouth as I stared. It was raised on stilts and had a large front porch. The home was made of dark, aged wood, with some kind of white sealant plastered between each board to keep the bugs and weather at bay. The different colored wood in back said the house had been added onto over the years and a large barn nearby stood stark against the waning light. A horse nickered a welcome, followed by a second from the corral beside the barn.
Luke hopped out and lit a candle that sat in a fruit preserve jar hanging by the front door frame.
Jeremiah turned. “We have to put the team up and I’ll talk to him then. Make yourself at home inside.”
I tried to struggle my floral carpet bag out of the back but he waved me off. “Leave it. We’ll get it on the way in.”
I waited for the punch line.
“Go on,” he said impatiently.
Okay, so a man was really going to get my bag and without me asking him. That may have been a first in my entire life. I hesitated only a second more and slid out of the back like a noodle. My body was officially unimpressed with travelling. Stumbling to the front porch, I smiled shyly at Luke as he passed. He tipped his hat and muttered, “Ma’am,” before walking to the barn after the receding buggy.
What had this man done to me? I’d bedded dozens of johns and none of them gave me the queer jittering feeling this man did. I could talk every one of them under the table and never spare a blush. If I was good at anything, it was talking to a man, and here I was going all weak in the knees for some person who spared a cordial word for me. That had to change. Right after I stopped ogling his backside as he disappeared through the barn doors.
The heavy front door intimidated me off of actually going inside. Jeremiah had said to make myself comfortable, but I’d rather have the grand tour before claiming a room. So instead, I sat in a rickety old rocking chair on the porch and watched the bugs swirl lazily around the candle jar.
It was quite peaceful until the yelling broke out. The sound of the brother’s fighting filled the barn right up until it overflowed and drifted to me on the breeze. I only caught bits and pieces of the furious conversation, but it was enough. It seemed Luke wasn’t keen on settling down.
Now I prided myself on my happy disposition, but that isn’t to say I’m not affected by rejection, and this was the second one for the day. Jeremiah then Luke, and how could I blame those fine men for not wanting a plain ex-working girl for a wife. Even if they were country, those Dawson boys were well-bred. Anyone with eyes in their head could see that. I was definitely diluting the breeding stock.
Jeremiah emerged from the barn, slapping his hat against his thigh in a motion that seemed more agitation than habit. “He’ll come around,” he said gruffly before disappearing into the house with my bag.
My chest was so tight I couldn’t breathe. I was stuck in the wilderness, in Indian country no less, with two men I didn’t know—neither of whom wanted to bed me, much less marry me. The predicament I’d managed to carve out for myself was impressive.
Oh, stop it! I’d been in much worse situations than this, and moping and moaning never saved anyone. No one was going to rescue me. It wasn’t the way of the world. I had to help myself.
****
Luke
I’d never been so tricked and betrayed in all my life.
Ordering some woman like you were shopping in a catalog for window glass? That was Jeremiah’s thing. He’d had a woman of his own before and lost her, now he wanted to feel again. Good for him. Not good for me. I’d watched the animal in him rip Jeremiah up from the inside out after he lost Anna. I’d be damned if I’d let a woman affect me in such a way. They were fragile, weak, helpless creatures who died much too easily. Catch your finger on a nail out in this territory and you could perish of blood poisoning before you ever found a doctor sober enough to tend your wound.
The woman’s footsteps were ridiculously loud and highlighted how inept she was for living in the wilderness.
“No!” I yelled before she even opened the barn door. “I need time.”
She threw it open anyway and looked around the barn with a fierceness that bordered on desperation. She wouldn’t find me down there. I was up in the rafters with my leg dangling down, and it was too dark for her to see that far in this kind of light. I, on the other hand, could see her just fine.
She wasn’t a bad looking woman. Healthy enough for a saloon liaison, and she didn’t smell of sickness or even sadness the way most of them did. She wasn’t pin thin, but I’d never been attracted to fragile looking women. A small waist gave her a figure like one of the hourglasses for sale in the general store. Her hair was wild and curly, and the color of beach sand I’d once seen. Her face was still to be determined. I couldn’t get a feel for her with all that blasted rouge and powder she wore.
She punched tiny, angry fists to her hip bones and yelled, “Where are you?”
Feisty little woman. I lifted my chin. “Up here.”
Her mouth opened and shut again like a floundering catfish as she lifted her face in my general direction. “How the devil did you get way up there?”
“What do you want?” I countered.
“I’m hungry.”
This wasn’t where I thought the conversation would be going. “There’ll be food in the house. Ask Jeremiah to show you where.”
“I don’t want to ask Jeremiah because he isn’t the one who’s supposed to be showing me around. You are. So if you’re quite done throwing your temper tantrum, show me around your house so I don’t have to ask where everything is.”
Thank the heavens she couldn’t see in the dark because a smile burst out of my face before I could stop it. She was a sassy little thing.
I cocked my head to the side. I had a perfect view of those perky breasts she’d probably been famous for wherever she came from. They heaved attractively when she was angry.
“Look, this isn’t what I signed up for either,” she said. “I thought I was marrying Jeremiah, but he doesn’t want me. And I know you don’t either, but I aim to stay here so one of you needs to man up. I might not be exactly what you boys were looking for in a wife—”
“I wasn’t looking for a wife at all,” I interrupted under the flare of another wave of searing anger. “And I don’t aim to be pushed into something I don’t want to do.”
“Well I can’t just live here in sin! A woman out here with two unmarried men? It isn’t right!”
“But you’re a whore. Living in sin obviously hasn’t bothered you until this very moment.”
The sound that screeched forth from her throat drew me up short. When an animal made that caliber of noise in the wild, a wise man didn’t mess with it.
“I’m not a whore anymore.” She made the word sound like a curse and it left a bitter taste on the end of my tongue. “I’m changing my life. I’m going to be a proper lady here. I left that grit behind and I don’t want the town shunning me for keeping old habits.”
She spun on her heel and bolted for the door. I was to her before she even left the barn and grabbed
her elbow. Her terrified scream had me hunched in pain with my hands over my ears, and she fell onto her backside with a thud. A little dirt explosion filled the air and she coughed as she scrambled farther away from me.
“How’d you do that?” The whites of her eyes shone all around what looked to be cornflower blue colored irises.
I cursed softly. My intention hadn’t been to frighten the danged woman. I just didn’t know my own speed sometimes. “Stop running,” I growled.
How could a woman so frustrating make me feel like a monster? I hadn’t felt this way in years. As I grabbed her ankle, she sucked air to scream again. My ringing ears couldn’t take another helping of terrified woman so I clamped a hand over her mouth and pressed my weight on top of her. She chugged breath through her delicately flared nostrils like a racehorse, and the animal in me liked the way her figure felt writhing against mine.
“Stop it,” I said. “You keep wiggling around like that and it ain’t gonna be good for either of us, okay? I’m not going to hurt you. I swear it.”
She nodded slowly and I released her soft lips from my grip. And then she screamed again before I could cover the sound.
“What the hell are you doing to her?” Jeremiah asked from above us.
“I’m trying to get her to stop shrieking. She’s killing my ears.”
“Well, you heard her. She’s a lady now, and ladies don’t want no hanky panky before they’re wedded, right?” he asked the woman.
She nodded frantically.
How did I become the bad guy in all of this? Had everyone lost their danged mind but me? No, I wasn’t trying to force her, but what was the big deal with hanky panky before the wedding night? She wasn’t exactly fit to wear white on her wedding day. Incredulously I said, “But she’s a whore.”
She slurred something behind my hand and I lifted it slightly. Her eyes burned with fury. “Lady,” she argued.
“Whatever,” I muttered and pushed off of her.
Whore, lady, or mongoose, that woman was trouble.
Chapter Three
Kristina
Luke offered me a hand but I refused it primly. I hadn’t ever needed a man’s help before now, except for the coins that lined their pockets, and I certainly wouldn’t need one’s help to stand. He gave a frustrated grunt and held his arms up like I was the one being unmanageable. I dusted my dress off as best I could and straightened my spine.
I didn’t know what was wrong with him, but something was. He was an ornament in the barn rafters when I started my escape and then suddenly he was there behind me. It didn’t take him but a second to cross all that space.
I tried to keep the quiver from my voice. “Are you evil, sir?”
The small light from the front porch gave enough of itself to flicker across his striking features. All of the beauty in the world meant nothing if his soul was ruined.
“What?” he asked. To his credit, he did look genuinely taken aback.
Slowly I asked, “Are you evil?” The answer mattered.
“I don’t make all the right decisions and I ain’t gonna be nominated for sainthood anytime soon, but no. I’m not evil, far as I know.”
“And you swear not to hurt me? Both of you swear it!”
“We swear it,” the Dawsons muttered in unison.
“Now, I don’t know what’s going on here, and right now, I don’t really care. I’ve been traveling for days, my backside feels like the south side of hell, I’m exhausted and I’m starving.”
It was Jeremiah who braved the reprimand first. “I didn’t cook today on account of being in town since this morning. We have some leftover bread from yesterday though.”
My stomach growled at the mention but it wouldn’t be enough. “Are there any eggs I can fry up?”
“I thought you couldn’t cook,” Jeremiah accused.
“Frying an egg isn’t really cooking, now is it, Mr. Dawson?”
His eyes were shrouded in the night’s darkness but if I had to guess, I’d say the look he was giving me wasn’t a happy one. “Luke, show your fiancé where to get the eggs.”
Something whirled inside of me at the word fiancé that was fit to rival a twister. I didn’t know if it was good or bad, but it was one of them. Luke didn’t even argue, but from the slump in his shoulders, I thought maybe it was because he was just tired of fighting.
“This way,” Luke muttered as Jeremiah strode off in the direction of the house.
I’d never actually seen a chicken coop, but I hadn’t in my wildest imaginings ever come up with what I found around the side of the barn. The chicken coop was more like a chicken prison, made with steel enforced bars and railroad ties. They didn’t seem to mind though as they roosted happily on ledges and in nests, clucking absently in the quiet rest of evening. Maybe they felt safer in their impenetrable chicken castle.
Luke opened a latch and swung the door wide. “Well, go get ’em,” he said testily.
Never in my life had I touched a live chicken, so I didn’t know what the protocol for stealing eggs out from under them was. Did one say please? Open sesame? Should I just reach under there and snatch one quickly? That sounded right. I picked a great white hen shining against the dark. Surely she warmed a thousand eggs under her plump bottom and wouldn’t miss a few.
“Hello clucky,” I crooned as I slid my hand across the rough hay of her nest box. She let out a loud bagawk! and pecked me right on the wrist bone.
“Ouch,” I yelped in surprise and retreated. “She pecked me.” My feelings were hurt. I’d been nice and polite and she’d hurt me.
“You’re bleeding.” Luke didn’t ask. It was a statement.
As a matter of fact, there was a dark spot swelling up against the thin skin across the bone. My hurt expanded a little more.
Luke sighed loudly and scratched his forehead with the back of his thumb before entering the chicken coop. “Let me show you.” He pushed the hen out of her nest, to her squawking surprise, and snatched the five eggs nestled inside.
“I was trying to be nice about it,” I told him defensively.
“Being nice out here will make you bleed.”
I glared at his receding back. Touché. By the time I latched the door behind me, Luke was half way to the house with his long deliberate strides. Hefting the hem of my dress, I jogged to catch up. I followed him up the steps and walked through the front door of the cabin for the first time.
The den was open with three oversized chairs placed near the stone fireplace. A bearskin rug smothered the smooth wooden floors beneath them. Four swaybacked chairs sat haphazardly around a knotty pine table. A wood burning stove stood in the corner of the room next to a set of shelves and a huge, potbellied sink full of dishes.
Luke paused to set the eggs on the table, then removed his hat and placed it over a peg on the wall. He shook out his dark hair and ran two hands through it to straighten it out of his face. A trill resonated through me with the realization that the hat had hidden some of his masculine allure. He unbuckled the leather belt that housed his pistol and hung it on the nearest chair.
Even still fully clothed, it was intimate to watch him get comfortable in his home. I was an invader watching a dance he’d done hundreds of times, unable to take my eyes away from the spectacle.
“Here,” he said gruffly, snatching my arm.
My instincts screamed to flinch away, but for whatever reason, I was bear grease in his capable hands. He dragged my arm under one of the hanging oil lanterns and eyed the small dot of blood on my wrist.
“You’ll live,” he announced with a spark of humor in his green eyes.
He wiped the drop off swiftly with the sleeve of his shirt and released me, to my heart’s annoying disappointment. Jeremiah, meanwhile, had been dutifully stoking the fire in the stove and shut it with a clang. He pulled an iron skillet from the sink and placed it on the hot surface.
Unsanitary.
“Let me just wash this,” I said, stealing the crusty pan from the wa
rmth of the stove top.
The brothers both looked downright amused, but I’d be hanged if I was getting stomach gripes from their questionable hygiene. Luke brought me a bucket of water that had been sitting by the door and I scrubbed the pan as best I could with a full sink. Once clean, I put it back in its rightful place on the stove and cracked the eggs into it. After they were all fried up a minute later, I handed a plate of the crunchy eggshell portion to Luke and told him, “Happy engagement.”
His eyes tightened at the corners but he ate it without complaint. When he came to the shells, he simply spat them out and took another bite. Maybe cooking for them wouldn’t be so hard after all.
The meal with the leftover bread was just what I needed to feel human again and sighing happily, I leaned back in the chair.
Luke was staring at my décolletage again.
“Do you mind?” I asked, placing a hand over my cleavage.
“I don’t mind at all. If you’re going to wear dresses that show off every square inch of skin on your top half, I’m going to look.”
Unapologetic oaf.
“It’s the only dress I have.”
Jeremiah leaned back on two legs of the chair with a frown before he strode determinedly into a room down the hall. When he returned, he held a length of beautiful gray and red floral fabric and a thin booklet of dress patterns of the much more modest variety. “Can you sew?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“Well, I suggest you learn. The dress you got on ain’t gonna do you any favors out here.”
I couldn’t keep my traitorous fingers from touching the softness of the cloth. It really was quite beautiful. What in the world were two bachelors doing with such fine fabric within arm’s reach? And dress patterns? The mysteries that surrounded the Dawson men were piling up by the wagon load.
“Are you sure?” Luke asked his brother.
Jeremiah shrugged. “She needs a new dress,” he said, and with that, turned. His boots echoed off the hollow floor and he slammed the door to the bedroom behind him.