Flint Hills Bride

Autore

Cassandra Austin

Letto da

17,5K

Capitoli

Autore

Cassandra Austin

Letto da

17,5K

Capitoli

🔺 Love Triangle

Chapter One

Kansas, 1881

“Am I to understand I’m under arrest?” Emily’s gaze went from the deputy’s badge to the serious green eyes.

“Well, I’m not sure, ma’am. You say you’re Emily Prescott, but you don’t fit the description. I was expecting a tomboy in braids.”

“Very funny, Jake.”

His flash of a smile faded as she glared at him.

Noisy activity surrounded them on the train depot’s platform. Emily barely noticed. She wrapped her cloak more tightly around her and regarded Jake Rawlins with growing irritation. “My parents sent you, didn’t they? I can just hear them. ‘Take her to her brother’s ranch, and see that she stays there.’ ‘Telegraph immediately if she doesn’t get off the train.’ It amounts to house arrest, Jake!”

She brushed past him to find her trunk. He followed, of course. She hadn’t expected to get away from him, merely to be out from under his scrutiny long enough to get her temper under control. None of this was Jake’s fault.

“I’m not your guard,” he said softly. “I’m just your ride to the ranch.”

“And that explains why they sent you, Deputy?” She found her trunk. A sudden wave of exhaustion made her turn and sit on it, clasping her gloved hands on her lap.

He moved to stand in front of her. “I volunteered, Emily. I’m headed the same way you are. Remember, my parents live on your brother’s ranch.”

She sighed, regretting her short temper as she always did. “I remember, Jake. But I visit the ranch regularly, and I’ve hardly seen you the last three years.”

A somber nod acknowledged the truth of the statement. “I’m trying to correct that,” he said. “I heard you were coming early for Christmas, and it seemed like a perfect excuse to take a vacation and spend time with…my family.”

Emily noticed the hesitation. Perhaps there was a rift between him and Martha or Perry that she had not been aware of. Perhaps he would be more understanding than she had expected. She cocked her head to one side as she looked up at him. “So that’s all they told you? That I would be coming in today?”

After a long moment, he slowly shook his head.

The anger swept over her again, and she came to her feet. She didn’t know if she wanted to scream or run. Before she could do either, he placed his hands on her shoulders. She was momentarily surprised by how gentle the touch was, then wondered why. Jake had never been anything but kind to her.

“We’ve known each other since we were babies, Emily. I thought we were friends. Have things changed so much?”

His soft voice dissolved her anger, leaving only defeat in its wake. “Everything’s changed, Jake. Look around you. When my parents were separated, I came here once or twice a year to be with my father. This was a little place called Cottonwood Station. Now it’s a town called Strong.”

He was eyeing her quizzically, and she had to laugh at herself. “Which has nothing to do with anything, I suppose, except that all the way here I kept wishing I was still the little girl you remember. I wanted to get off the train and find everything as it was, for life to be simple again.”

The deep worry that was always with her rose to the surface. She turned away to keep from revealing it to Jake. She had grown accustomed to hiding it with anger until she didn’t like herself anymore. “I’m ready to go now,” she said. “And, Jake—” she turned back to face him “—it’s good to see you again.”

Jake made Emily wait inside the depot near the stove while he loaded her trunk into the boot at the back of the buggy. He had ridden out to the ranch the day before to bring the buggy into town. Emily’s brother, Christian, had suggested he use the wagon since Emily might have more than one trunk, but Jake had declined. The buggy offered more protection from the cold wind than the wagon. He would make two trips if he had to, but Emily would be as comfortable as he could make her.

He hadn’t really been too busy to come home for holidays the past three years. He had avoided the ranch when he knew Emily would be there. His hopeless attraction for her would fade, he had reasoned, if he didn’t have to look at her. The irony was it had almost worked. Then he had heard she was in trouble, and reason had gone out the window.

In three years she had only grown more beautiful. At eighteen, her face had lost a little of its plumpness making her dark brown eyes more striking. They sparkled when she teased, as they always had, and her expressive lips that smiled and pursed and pouted looked as kissable as they did in his fantasies.

He shook himself and hurried into the depot. Emily was chatting with another patron, and he let her finish as he collected the blanket he had hung over a chair near the stove. “Are you ready to go?” he asked when she turned toward him.

She moved to walk outside with him. “Do you need anything in town?” he asked, handing her up into the buggy. “Are you hungry?”

She shook her head. “Mama sent a lunch with me,” she said. “But thanks.”

It was foolish to cherish the smile she gave him, but he would readily admit to being a fool where Emily Prescott was concerned. At least her anger of a few minutes before seemed to be forgotten. He climbed up beside her and unfolded the warm blanket, tucking it across her lap.

“That was sweet of you, Jake,” she said. She sounded more amused than grateful.

“Easy enough to do,” he said, shaking the lines and starting the horse forward. Now he was feeling foolish to the point of embarrassment. She had an annoying knack for doing that.

She laughed, and he risked a glance at her. The teasing grin took him back so quickly he could have sworn he was seventeen and she twelve.

“You better be careful or you’ll spoil me,” she said.

“Oh, no, not me. Somebody—everybody—else took care of that long ago.”

She laughed, wrapping herself around his upper arm. “Didn’t you help them at all, Jake?”

The face that turned up to him was so appealing he wanted to kiss it. Or at least throw off his glove and run his fingers down her soft, pale cheeks. He gripped the reins more tightly. “I guess I did my share,” he admitted softly.

The teasing light went out of her eyes, and she turned her face away. He was being too serious, and their relationship had never had much room for that. But he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t worried about her.

He took a deep breath, letting the bite of the cold air clear his head. His voice was even when he began. “Emily, your parents sent you here because of some young man.” She let go of his arm and moved away from him, and he was sorry. “Tell me your side.”

“My side! Did they write to you? Tell me what they said!”

Jake kept his voice quiet. “I talked to Christian. He said the fella’s unemployed, reckless, wild—”

“What!”

“And in jail for tearing up a neighbor’s yard.”

She kept her face turned away from him, hiding even her profile behind the hood of her cloak. He waited patiently for her to speak.

“It was an accident,” she murmured. “It’s all a big misunderstanding.”

“He accidentally rode through their rose garden on horseback? He accidentally pulled up a fence? He—”

“Enough!”

Jake waited for her to decide what, if anything, she would tell him. It was a long ride to the ranch, and he had hoped she would confide in him. He couldn’t imagine why he had thought she would. What was he to her anyway? A childhood playmate? Something less than a brother? Certainly not what he wanted to be.

The team clopped along the road, creating a monotonous rhythm. A rabbit darted across their path and disappeared in the tall grass. The buggy creaked and rattled softly. Jake heard his back teeth grind together and made an effort to relax. After several minutes he gave up hope of hearing any more from Emily.

“I don’t believe it happened the way they say,” she said, startling him.

“What do you believe?”

He heard her take a deep breath. He didn’t dare look at her for fear she would read the pain on his face. He kept his eyes on the track and waited.

“Anson is a good man,” she began. “He isn’t reckless and wild. He just believes in having fun. Old people can’t understand that. He’s going to work in his father’s flour mill, but there isn’t any room for him yet.”

Jake cast her a skeptical glance, but she was turned away.

“The neighbor that accused him of tearing up his garden is a grouchy old man who doesn’t get along with anyone. Even Papa doesn’t like him.”

Jake resisted the urge to turn toward her, hoping she would continue, afraid she wouldn’t if she knew what he was feeling. He turned his gaze toward the sky. It was blue, he thought irrelevantly. Blue in December. It should be gray, damned gray.

When she had remained silent for several minutes he tried to prompt her into more details. “Your parents objected to Anson Berkeley before this incident.”

“They want to keep me a baby and would have objected to anyone. His parents have at least as much money as mine do. There’s no reason to treat him the way they do.”

Jake schooled his features and turned to watch her. He was rewarded a moment later when she glanced at him. He hoped she read the honest concern in his face; he read indecision in hers. “Emily,” he said softly, “I’m your friend. Tell me about him.”

She wrapped her arm around his and rested her head on his biceps, sighing deeply. “I know you’re my friend, Jake. In fact, you may be my only friend. Everyone else is ready to judge both Anson and me.”

“Not me,” he lied. “You’re both innocent till proven guilty.” He had to swallow hard before he could ask, “Are you in love with him?”

Her sigh sounded different this time. “Yes, I love him. And he loves me. We’ve promised to love each other forever.”

Jake didn’t want to think about the implications of that statement. His pulse quickened. From her touch? From anger?

Unmindful of his pain, she continued, “He’s so handsome, and exciting. I’ve never known anyone like him.”

Jake heard his back teeth crunch together again. He spoke to the team, urging them to increase their infuriating pace.

“He takes me places,” she went on, “that I’d never get to go if my parents had their way.”

“Places?” He hoped his voice didn’t sound as furious as he felt. Where the hell had this bastard taken his Emily?

“Clubs. Where there’s music and dancing and laughter.”

“And drinking? That’s illegal now. They voted in prohibition last year, Emily.”

She pulled away from him again. “You’re no different than the rest.”

“Well, maybe all of us are right!” He regretted it immediately.

They rode for miles without either of them saying a word. The sound of the plodding hooves and creaking buggy was broken only by the brief chirp of a robin too stupid to have flown south. Jake watched it fly off into the ridiculously blue sky.

Jake knew he should have just listened, but his own feelings kept getting in the way. He told himself that if Emily loved this man he couldn’t be all bad. Her happiness was what was important. His jealousy was jeopardizing their friendship, and they needed to stay friends if he was going to help her.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally. “You’re right I have no call to judge. If Anson Berkeley is the man you want, then I hope things work out for you.”

She murmured her thanks, but didn’t move back toward him. He wanted to wrap his arm around her and pull her against his side, but he knew she would resist.

After many minutes he cleared his throat. “Ma packed some lemonade if you’re thirsty.”

“I don’t want any.”

“Well, Ma’s not going to buy that She’s going to think I forgot to offer it to you.”

She turned and glared. “Tell her you ruined my appetite.”

At least she was looking at him. “I guess I can accept the blame there. But I did apologize.” He pulled the basket out from under the seat. “If you don’t want any, I’ll have to drink all the evidence. If it’s a choice between a bellyache and being in trouble with Ma, well…”

She hadn’t smiled, but she was having to work to hold it back. “You could just pour it on the ground.”

“You would let me do that? With lemonade? You are mad at me!”

She finally laughed, and he felt relief that was clearly more than the situation warranted. He handed her one of the small jars from its straw nest in the basket.

She took it and drank a little before screwing the lid back on and placing the jar between her feet. She didn’t seem quite as tense as she had earlier, and he hoped that meant she had forgiven him. Still, as he waited for her to talk to him again, he tried to think of something to say, something neutral that would prove he was her friend. Finally he accepted the silence, though he didn’t enjoy it. The ride to the ranch seemed to take longer than it ever had before.

Emily wished she hadn’t told Jake anything. He was as closed minded as the rest. For a moment she had thought she detected some jealousy in his reactions. But surely she had imagined it. He was just being stupid and brotherly like Arlen had and Christian, no doubt, would.

Go where we say! See who we say! Do as we say! She was sick of it. Anson had come at just the right time to rescue her from the boring life they all had planned for her.

And she would be with Anson again. There was no question about that. One way or another, they would be together.

She let her mind drift back to the first time they had met, reliving the excitement of his eyes on her, the adventure of being included in his close little group, the wonder at being singled out as his favorite, then his love. She tried to push away the apprehension that prickled the back of her mind.

She was so lost in thought that when she felt the buggy turn off the road she looked up in surprise. The huge rock house with its many balconies filled her with sudden nostalgia. They rode up the hill and around the house to the second-level entrance. Before Jake had even pulled the buggy to a stop, Christian was there to greet her. He lifted her out, hugging her to his chest and spinning her around as he had done since she was a child.

He set her back on the ground but waited a moment to let her go, giving her his familiar dimpled smile. “Get inside where it’s warm, muffin,” he said, guiding her toward the door, with his arm around her shoulder. “Jake and I’ll get the trunk.”

She spared Jake one last glance and, though his father had joined him, his eyes were on her. She wondered what he was thinking then decided she would just as soon not know.

Christian’s pretty wife, Lynnette, opened the back door and welcomed her inside with a kiss on her cheek. Two little children peeked from behind her skirts as she helped Emily out of her cloak, scarf and gloves.

“Hello, Willa. Hello, Trevor.” Emily crouched down and tried to coax them out. “Do you remember me?”

Trevor grinned and buried his face in a fistful of his mother’s skirt, but Willa stepped forward. “I ’member you. You’re Aunt Emily. Trevor’s just a dumb ol’ baby and doesn’t ‘member nothin’.”

Lynnette pried her skirt free and lifted the boy, positioning him around her protruding belly. Another child was due in three months. “Let’s get inside by the fire,” she said. “You must be freezing.”

Willa took Emily’s hand. “Mama said it was too cold to go outside and meet you, but it wasn’t, was it?”

“It’s pretty cold,” Emily said. “I think I’ll ask Martha for some tea.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Lynnette said. “You go on in and make yourself at home.”

“It’s not too cold for Papa to go outside and meet you,” Willa observed, dragging Emily into the living room.

“Papa’s doing chores,” Emily said, laughing at Willa’s pout. She was a perfect combination of her parents, with her mother’s fine features and her father’s blond hair. Trevor was the opposite, a dark-haired version of Christian, dimples and all.

“I can do the chores,” the little girl insisted.

“I bet you can,” Emily said, moving to stand before the fire. “Though why you would want to is beyond me.”

“I’m almost five,” Willa said, explaining everything.

Christian and Lynnette hadn’t changed the living room much in the five years they had been married. Her father’s books and artifacts had gone with him to Topeka and had been replaced by some of their own. The room bore traces of little children, but the furniture and its arrangement was essentially as it had always been, making her feel for just a moment as if she had stepped back in time.

Lynnette, with Trevor on her hip, joined them. “Martha will have the tea ready in a few minutes.” She sat down and swung Trevor onto her lap. He grinned shyly at Emily.

Emily was trying to get him to say “Emily” when Jake and Christian brought her trunk through the room and up the stairs. She tried not to watch them. They had shed their coats at the door, and it was disconcerting to realize that Jake was a full-grown man. Though why this troubled her she wasn’t sure.

“I’ll help,” yelled Willa, running to catch up with the men. She pushed her little hands against the trunk.

“Run around in front, biscuit, and get the door,” Christian suggested.

Emily laughed. “She’s his biscuit and I’m his muffin.”

“All his favorite females he nicknames after food.”

Emily grinned at her sister-in-law. “And you are…?”

Lynnette grimaced and adjusted her snug dress. “Right now I’m his dumpling.”

Emily laughed. She hadn’t realized her gaze had gone back to the men working their way up the open stairway until Lynnette spoke again.

“Jake’s taking two weeks off to visit his parents. He tries to visit often, but he doesn’t usually stay long. They’ve really looked forward to this.”

Emily nodded. She hoped that meant his parents would keep him so busy she wouldn’t see much of him.

Emily made a face at Trevor, trying to coax another smile out of him. She didn’t want to talk about Jake. But she didn’t want to talk about herself, either. She wondered what her parents had said about her and Anson in the letter that preceded her. She would probably find out soon enough.

Trevor mimicked Emily’s wrinkled nose and scrunched lips, making Emily laugh. Willa’s high-pitched giggle and the sound of footsteps on the stairs caught her attention. Christian, with Willa on his shoulders, turned in their direction at the bottom of the stairs. Jake, without a glance at her, went the other way toward the kitchen.

“We’re glad to have you here, muffin,” Christian said, joining them. He set Willa on the floor, then kissed Emily’s cheek. “I’ll finish the chores then we can talk.”

As Christian left the room, Emily sighed and slumped into a chair. “Another lecture?” she asked her sister-in-law.

“From Christian? I doubt it,” Lynnette replied. “But you know your brother. He feels responsible for everyone, and he’s very worried about you. He wants to hear your side.”

“Where have I heard that before?” she muttered.

“Emily, I’m the first one to say a woman should be allowed to make up her own mind, but you’re young and the things we hear about this young man are not good. We want to be sure it’s you making the decisions, not this young man.”

Martha, with a tray of tea and teacups, saved her from having to make a response. Willa declared it a tea party and kept the women busy moving tables and chairs to accommodate the younger guests. By the time the tea was gone Emily could honestly claim fatigue and retire to her room.

She sat down on the bed, her mind in too much turmoil to try to rest. She eyed the trunk that she knew she should unpack, but even thinking about it seemed to take too much energy. She let her eyes roam the room. The holidays she had spent here the past few years seemed to blend together in her memory, but the summers when she was a child were as distinct as separate photographs.

She sat and recalled when the quilt, the picture on the wall, the little writing desk had each been bought and added to the room. Her eyes fell on a doll propped beside a row of books on the shelf above the desk. She had been six when her father had bought it. She had taken it back and forth between the ranch and Topeka for several years. Then when she was twelve, she had left it here.

She lifted the doll from the shelf, unconscious of having moved toward it. She smoothed aside the mangled hair and smiled down at the painted face. This had been her baby. In a display of vanity she had named it Emily.

She felt tears forming in her eyes and tried to blink them away. It was too early to know, too early yet to worry. And besides, Anson loved her. It would all work out. They would convince their families somehow and be married before the baby came.

She put the doll back on the shelf, determined not to think about it, and resolutely turned her attention to her trunk. She was nearly unpacked when she heard a knock on the door.

“Can I come in, muffin?”

She slid the drawer closed as she answered, turned and waited for her brother to enter. He closed the door behind him and opened his arms to her.

She ran to him, accepting his offer of comfort. He stroked her hair and rocked her gently. “I’ve been worried since I got Pa’s letter.” She heard the rumble of his voice in his chest under her ear. “I guess I wish you’d stay a little girl forever.”

She drew away so she could see his face. “I can’t,” she stated. “I’m grown, and I’m in love. Why make things hard for me?”

“The man’s in jail.” He cut off her protest with a finger on her lips. “We don’t want to see anyone break your heart.”

“Let me go back to him.”

He shook his head. “It’s hard for me to deny you anything, but our parents have forbidden you to contact him, and I have to say I agree with them.”

She pulled out of his arms and crossed the room, moving aside the curtain that hung in front of the glass balcony door and looked down on the brown valley below.

“Emily, they’ll be here in two weeks. We can talk it all out then. If you still feel the same, I’ll take your side.”

“I don’t want to wait,” she said.

“If it’s love, it’ll survive two weeks.”

She swung around to face him. “But he needs me now!”

Christian seemed only saddened by her outburst. “I’m sorry, Emily,” he said.

She scowled at him as he left her room. Two weeks wouldn’t make any difference to her parents. Christian’s arguments probably wouldn’t, either. Even her pregnancy—if there was a pregnancy—might not make them see reason. One of her friends from school had confided in her parents and had been sent to a maternity sanitarium. She had come home after the baby was born—a baby she was never even given a chance to see.

No, she couldn’t count on her parents. Or Christian. If she was going to be with Anson, she would have to do something herself.

Emily had hoped to spend the rest of the afternoon alone, but only minutes after Christian left, there was another knock followed by a loud whisper. “Are you sleeping?”

Emily opened the door and Willa flounced in. “Mama put Trevor down for a nap, and now she’s writing.”

Emily smiled at the girl’s sour face. Lynnette wrote love stories under the name Silver Nightingale. It had created quite a sensation when the family had first heard about it, though they were used to it now.

“I know!” Willa declared, trying to snap her fingers. “I’ll go make cookies.”

“You will?” Emily was always surprised at the girl’s self-confidence. “Have you made them by yourself before?”

“No, but I can. I’ll show you how, if you want.”

Emily laughed and took the child’s hand. While they went down the stairs, one step at a time, Willa related all the times she had helped make cookies, cakes and pies. By the time they rounded the bottom of the stairs and went through the dining room, Emily was almost convinced that the girl could make the treat herself.

She pushed through the kitchen door with a chattering Willa behind her and came face-to-face with Jake. The little girl skipped around her and headed toward Martha at the other end of the room. Emily stood staring at Jake.

After a moment she realized that he was actually several feet away and the plank table separated them. Somehow their eyes had locked in such a way as to minimize the distance. It was disconcerting, and she made an effort to shake it off.

She tore her eyes from his face and only then did she realize what he was doing. On the table were several piles of Martha’s dried flowers and a half-filled vase.

She grinned at him. “Here’s a talent I wasn’t aware of. Is this how you keep yourself busy between chasing desperados?”

He looked down at the flowers as if surprised to find them there. “I’m afraid you’ve caught me,” he said. “I’m arranging flowers without the first idea of what I’m doing.”

She laughed and joined him on his side of the table. “Are these for the dining table?”

He nodded.

“And what are these for?” She slid a pair of scissors out from under a few dry stems.

“Trimming my nails?”

She chewed the inside of her cheek. It wouldn’t do for him to think he had actually made her laugh. She was still mad at him. “Dear little Jake,” she said, looking up into his face a good eight inches above hers. “Flowers on the table can’t be so tall as to block people’s view of one another. These must be trimmed.”

She lifted the flowers out of the vase and prepared to start over. “You can run along now,” she said, uncertain whether she really wanted him to go or not.

“Oh, no. If I leave this to you, Ma’ll find me another job, and you might not come help.”

Had she imagined his emphasis on you? She was suddenly warm. Did he really have to stand so close? She was starting to feel slightly light-headed. It was the faint scent of the flowers, surely. She trimmed two of the brittle stems to the appropriate length and handed him the scissors, forcing him with her elbow to move a step away. “Trim all of those,” she said, indicating a pile of flowers, “the same length as these.”

She watched him take four of the flowers, line their heads up and carefully measure them against one of her trimmed flowers. Snap. He handed her the newly trimmed bouquet, giving her a courtly bow.

The pleased look on his face made her want to laugh. He was acting more inept than he actually was. She dropped the flowers into the vase and waited for his next offering. It came quickly. He was having fun now, trying five and six at a time. Soon the vase was full, and she called a halt to his trimming.

He snapped the scissors in the air twice, as if unsatisfied. “Now what?” he asked.

“Now, nothing. We put it on the table.”

“We’re done? That wasn’t so hard.”

Emily lifted the bowl as Martha stopped beside the table. “That’s lovely, children. I think the two of you should make the Christmas wreaths, you work so well together. Why don’t you go set the table while I clean up here?”

Emily nodded and headed for the door. Jake went around her quickly and held it open. “See what you did,” he whispered as she passed. He followed her into the dining room adding, “Now we have to make the wreaths. You should have let me do it wrong, and we’d never be asked again.”

She laughed as she set the vase on the sideboard and bent to find a tablecloth inside. “What kind of attitude is that for a lawman?”

She rose and turned before he answered. She thought for an instant that the gleam in his eye was something other than teasing, but it was gone before she could determine what it was.

“Lawman,” he said. “There’s the key. One wrong move, and I was ready to arrest those flowers.” He took an end of the cloth as she unfolded it and helped her spread it smoothly over the table. “But gussy up a wreath with pine cones and ribbons? I don’t know.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun.” Emily retrieved the vase of flowers and set it in the middle of the table. She realized she was looking forward to working on decorations with Jake. For the past few minutes, while they had made up the bouquet, she had been able to forget her worries.

She looked up to find him watching her again, that strange light back in his eyes. He turned quickly and headed for the sideboard. In a moment he was back with a handful of silverware. He didn’t look at her, and she didn’t speak, afraid of what she would see if she forced him to turn in her direction.

She went to gather the plates and napkins, aware of Jake in a way totally different from a few moments before. She felt almost an attraction. But that was absurd. She was merely missing Anson. Or responding to Jake’s attraction to her.

How could this have happened, this sudden change in perspective? And she knew she wasn’t imagining it.