Then again, he couldn’t face her rejection of him, either.
“Well, I suppose I can keep the stuff about bein’ your keeper to myself…” The words tasted bitter on his tongue.
She ducked her face to hide her grin. “Also…well, I didn’t listen to your advice about the school.”
At the mention of her school, he felt the tension in the room rise.
No! They were just getting to a good place again—he’d already given her what she wanted.
“Why don’t we talk about the school tomorrow, once we’ve had some rest. I don’t want to chance us goin’ to bed angry again.”
Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath – Ephesians 4:26. He mentally quoted the Bible verse from memory, as it was a passage of Scripture his own parents had often quoted.
She hesitated, her gaze flickering between wanting to argue and realizing he was right. Finally, she nodded. “That’s fine.” She stood, taking the flatware and pie dishes to the wash basin. “Once I’m done with the dishes, can we do something?”
Rising from his seat he walked up behind her, sliding his arms around her waist and pulling her back into his chest.
Perfect.
“Sure. What would you like to do?”
“Can we do more kissing?”
His belly clenching tightly, he grinned wolfishly. “I think we can do that, wife.”
Chapter Thirteen
Katriona hummed as she scrambled the eggs in the pan. Last night had been an amazing change of pace. Not only had she and Race actually come to a place of understanding—albeit a little long in coming—but they’d also…well…they’d done a lot of kissing afterward.
A flush heated her cheeks as she dished the steaming eggs onto two plates beside crispy bacon and freshly baked biscuits. She’d finally made her way to the mercantile two days ago and bought some provisions, though, she honestly hadn’t thought she’d be using them for anyone other than herself. She’d been ready to dig in and live her life alone while still living with her husband.
Turning around, she found Race sitting at the table, staring at her. When she caught him looking, he grinned—not an ounce of guilt in his expression. She chuckled.
“Looking your fill?” she asked teasingly.
“I doubt I’ll ever get enough of lookin’ at you,” he replied, making the butterflies in her stomach take flight.
She placed the heaping plates on the table and took her seat.
“It looks and smells, delicious,” Race said, staring down at his plate. “If this is what I missed that mornin’ I stayed at the barn, I am doubly sorry.”
Laughing, she took up her fork and dug in. Race did the same, mmmm-ing and groaning with every bite. Katriona wanted to grin like a fool at his appreciation of her efforts to please him; it felt down right marvelous to know she had made him happy, even if was just with food.
“So, when can I expect you home tonight?” She knew it was a tricky question, mostly because she wasn’t sure if there’d be a repeat of all the previous days.
He chewed the bite of food in his mouth, swallowed, then replied, “I’ve decided to take the rest of the week off.”
Surprise shook her, and she reeled back. “But that’s two days.”
“That’s right. Two full days of just me and my beautiful wife.”
Blushing—which she seemed to do a lot over the last twelve hours—she blurted, “Well, good.”
Race chuckled. “That means we can take a lazy mornin’ gettin’ to know one another better.”
He took another bite of eggs and sat back. Once he swallowed again, he said, “You told me you had twenty-five sisters, all named in order by the letters of the alphabet.”
Having finished her bacon, she forked a helping of eggs. “I did tell you that.” She ate the eggs off her fork and went in for another helping.
“I want to know about them—from A to Z. It was just me and my parents, though I did have a few friends at the foundlin’ school. But none of them ever felt like family to me.”
Buttering her biscuit, she intoned, “I can understand that. It takes a connection, and not everyone has that. My sisters and I, well, we all came from different places across the city.”
“Where did you come from?”
She stopped buttering and bit her lip, thinking back to her first day at the foundling home. She couldn’t remember much from back then, but what she could remember was the warmth.
“Madame Wigg told me one of the bakers on 40th Avenue found me wandering the alleys when I was only four years old. The baker took me to Madame Wigg because she’d heard there was a wealthy widow taking in lost and abandoned children.”
“Were you lost?” he asked, his eyes poring over her face. He was listening with intent, and she liked that he actually wanted to know about her.
He should! He’s your husband.
Brushing aside that shrill thought, she answered, “I don’t know. My memory of that time is hazy at best. I do have flashes of images of my mother…she always looked tired. Then one day…she wasn’t there. I don’t know what happened to her or how I ended up in that alley, but I am more than grateful that I ended up where I did.”
His smile gentle, Race drawled, “I am, too.”
They finished their breakfast in companionable silence, but once the dirty dishes were in the wash basin, Race asked another question.
“Tell me about A.”
It took her a second to figure out what he meant, then she laughed.
“Abigail,” she replied. “She’s the oldest of us, a widow. She has two kids of her own.”
And that was how the rest of the morning went; Race asking about her sisters, and Katriona blabbering all she could about her wonderful family.
“X,” Race said, lounging on the couch beside her. She was curled up into his side, thoroughly enjoying the strength and heat of his body.
“Xenia,” Katriona remarked.
“Tell me about Xenia,” Race coaxed.
“Well, the last I heard she was in Kansas. I think she ended up there working with a traveling oddity exhibition. The Winchester Bros. Oddballs & Aberrations. She helps the owner, Dean, and his brother Samuel, keep the books. She’s always been a wonder with numbers.”
Tucked into him as she was, she could feel it when his stomach protested.
“Goodness! We’ve been so busy talking I plain forgot to make us some lunch,” she blurted, trying to pull out of his embrace.
He held fast. “I have a better idea,” he drawled, his deep baritone rumbling through them both. She shivered.
“What’s that?” she asked, her voice husky.
“What say we go into town, get lunch at the hotel restaurant. Then, you can show me where you’ll be buildin’ your school.”
Her heart in her throat, she peered up into his face. Katriona held her breath and she waited for him to recant his suggestion, and when he didn’t, she asked, “You mean it? You actually want to see where I’m building the school?”
A slow smile spread out over his beautiful face, his violet eyes twinkling.
“Sure, I mean it. Let’s go.”
They were on their way the minute Race returned with the surrey.
The journey into town was pleasant as they continued their conversation from earlier.
“Z.”
“Zara. She’s the dreamer of the bunch. She attacks life with more energy than anyone else I know—except Tilly, that is.” She chuckled, thinking about Tilly and how lively she was. “Zara loves to get the children excited about the everyday things, but she also encourages them to think big. Unfortunately, sometimes she lets her mind wander.”
“Oh?” Race inquired as he directed the surrey the last stretch before town.
“Well, there was one time I was attempting to teach her how to boil eggs. She got so lost in her daydreams, all the water boiled out, leaving the eggs burned to the bottom of the pot.”
Race threw his head back and
chuckled, his thick neck muscles working.
“We couldn’t get that smell out of the house for days afterward,” she finished, laughing with him.
It was nice, this comradery. This is what it should have been like from the beginning.
And as they pulled into town, many eyes and curious faces on them, Katriona couldn’t help but loop her arm through Race’s, claiming him as hers.
Their late lunch at the spectacularly elegant La Beau Bayou was beyond delicious. She’d had the meatloaf, and he’d had the salmon. They both wanted to lick their plates clean. Lunch conversation consisted of him talking about his parents, their parcel of land, and how he’d hired on with a local ranch. He hadn’t wanted to be a blacksmith like his father, and there weren’t many other opportunities in Porter’s Grove, so he’d settled on ranching.
“Luckily, I found I enjoyed it; the hard work, the connection with the land, the brotherhood of ranch hands. I worked on St. Luke’s spread until I got word they were lookin’ for a foreman on a ranch in Texas. I jumped at the chance to broaden my horizons—as my ma would say. Billy hired me on within the month, and this is where I’ve been since.”
Her elbow on the table, and her chin in her hands, she’d listened just as intently as he had to her. His life sounded wonderful—loving parents, small town, travelling across the country. Of course, she’d traveled from New York to Texas, but she’d at least had some idea what she was getting herself into. Race had left the only home he’d known to follow his dream to Texas.
Why can’t he support my dream, too?
That sharp reminder of their first argument sucked the joy from her heart.
They still hadn’t talked about her school, and about how she’d gone on to set it up despite his opinion on the matter.
That’s not what partners do. Then again…partners also talked through their decisions together. Neither one of them had seemed all the interested in conversating. Until yesterday.
A new day. A new start.
With that in mind, Katriona declared, “Guess it’s time to show you my school.”
Chapter Fourteen
The plot of land before him was a moderate size—less than an acre, and it would hold a good-sized building. Always thinking about how much work something would take, his thoughts were occupied with specifications of the build; the amount of lumber needed, the number of hours, the number of men. It could take months to finish.
Race listened to her talk, her face alight, her passion for her dream spilling from her in brilliant waves. She spoke about the instructors she’d already lined up, how she got the yearly stipend from Mr. La Fontaine, how she planned to run each basic skills course for two weeks at a time, focusing the student’s attention on one trade at a time. That way, they were immersed in their learning rather than fed a lot of different subjects at once.
“With the courses running one at a time, the children can choose which course they want to take based on their interests. And each instructor will be paid a rate based on the number of children they teach per course.”
Having hit one of his concerns on the head, he asked, “Speakin’ of pay…where did you get the money to start all this? I know it didn’t come from me.” He had more than enough squirreled away, but she hadn’t asked him about money the whole time they’d been together, and if he were honest, he was a little upset that she hadn’t asked him for money. He was her husband, her provider; it was his duty to make sure she had everything she needed, whether for herself, the home, or… Well, he hadn’t exactly been all that happy when she spoke about her school before, so it made sense that she wouldn’t bother coming to him for funds. It still hurt the pride a bit, though.
She shrugged. “Madame Wigg offered each of us a good amount of money to leave the foundling home and get married.”
Startled by her admission, Race couldn’t stop the next question from bursting from his mouth. “You were paid to marry me?” His heartbeat thundered in his ears as he stared down at the woman who’d been offered money to marry a poor, lonely ranch foreman. Anger burned in his chest, flooding his throat with sour bile.
Katriona clicked her tongue. “Now see here, it wasn’t like that at all.”
Disbelieving, he ground out, “How was it then?”
Sighing heavily, she stepped up to him, pressing the palms of her hands against his chest. He wondered if she could feel his heart thudding erratically.
“Madame Wigg is old. With her time close at hand, she worried about us girls. She wanted to make sure that we were settled, living our dreams, before the Lord called her Home.”
The wind out of his sails, he murmured, “What about the money?”
She rubbed his chest as if she were attempting to calm a grizzly. “The money wasn’t payment for marriage. Think of it as an inheritance. Each of us girls gets money, no matter who we marry. It is insurance that, once we’re settled in our new homes, we will have the funds to start our schools. Because mail-order brides have no guarantee that they are marrying the man as he advertised himself in the catalog, there’s no telling if the man would have the funds—or the fortitude to help his new wife build her dream.”
He had to admit, it made sense. It was no more mercenary than a worried parent packing an extra pack of jerky in their child’s saddle bag, just in case they got extra hungry. And he didn’t miss her veiled reference to him, the husband without the fortitude to help her build her dream.
That was the old, Race, though. The new Race understood where his wife was coming from, and why she was so adamant about building a vocational school. The new Race could see that his wife was passionate about something that would actually help the children of the town.
The new Race wouldn’t deny his wife her dream.
“Let’s get home…I want to know more about this school.”
As he watched his beautiful wife’s eyes light up, he knew he’d made the right decision.
The next day, they spent hours in bed, just talking about nothing. Later that evening, over a meal of steak, potatoes, and beans, Race talked about the colt he’d saved, how the little creature was taking over the ranch, and how he’d grown up to be one fine stallion.
That day ended as perfectly as it had begun. Too bad the following day he found himself back at the barn, unloading hay from the wagon. He’d much rather be home with his wife, as they had been the last two days, but he had to make a living, and Katriona had more planning to do for her school.
The two ranch hands with him were working just as hard to get the hay unloaded so they could move on to spreading it out over the floor of the stalls. There were two other mares who’d been bred, so they’d need somewhere comfortable and clean to bed down at night.
Aikman, one of the newest hands, dropped the last of the bales on the ground then stretched his back, groaning as the pop, pop, pop sounded.
“You should call yourself a pistol for all the shots that just went off,” George, the other hand, said, grinning.
“You’d sound like me too if you spent your time workin’ instead of starin’ at the clouds like a little miss on a picnic blanket,” Aikman grumbled.
Thankful for the break and levity, Race chuckled, slapping Aikman on the back.
“You both work dang hard, so give each other a break, will ya?”
They looked at each other with lopsided smiles, then George opened his mouth. “How’s the married life treatin’ ya, Race? I hear the missus wears the pants in the family.” He laughed at his own joke, not noticing the glare Race sent his way.
“You’d best keep your thoughts about my wife to yourself, George, or I’ll make it so you can’t think at all,” Race growled, his heckles rising.
George held up his arms in a motion of surrender. “Didn’t mean no offense,” he blurted. “Matter of fact, I kind of respect your wife.”
Aikman nodded. “Me too.”
Race looked at both men with a wary eye. “Oh?”
George leaned against the side of the wagon
and Aikman sat on the bale.
“I heard ‘bout the school she’s buildin’ in town, ‘bout the stuff she wants to teach,” George offered.
“Yeah?” Race prodded. “What about it?”
“I think it’s a swell idea.”
Aikman grunted in agreement before adding, “Me, too. Though, at first, I wasn’t too sure ‘bout it. I mean, who goes to a school to learn ‘bout gardenin’ and sewin’ when that’s stuff your ma can teach you?”
Marveling at the direction of their conversation, Race found himself saying, “But not everyone can learn from the parents, and not every parent has the time to teach those skills.” It was what Katriona had said, and the more he thought about it, the more he realized she was right.
Aikman remarked, “Nope. I know my ma didn’t know a thing ‘bout gardenin’. She killed everythin’ she tried to grow. But if Mary can learn to create a healthy garden for her family someday, I want that for her.” Mary was Aikman’s eldest daughter, and one of three daughters.
“And Johnny wants to learn about makin’ clocks. I know your wife probably doesn’t have a clockmaker to teach at the school, but I’m sure the boy will take to blacksmithin’ and carpentry courses like a fish to water.”
Listening to these men talk about his wife, and how they were glad of the opportunities for their children made Race want to gallop on home and give his wife a big ol’ kiss. He was proud of her.
Tell her… He squashed that thought quickly. Certainly, he wanted to tell his wife that she was doing a great job, but it still rankled that he’d been wrong. He just needed a little more time to let the sting dissipate, then he’d tell her.
Soon, their conversation turned to getting the materials to fix the fence along the creek line before the herd of Holsteins discovered the weak link in the barrier. Their break over, they got back to work.
It was growing dark by the time Race mounted Twister and headed home. Katriona was home, the smoke billowing from the chimney told him she was making supper, and his belly growling told him he should have gone home for lunch.
Katriona’s Keeper: Alphabet Mail-Order Brides #11: A Dry Bayou Brides Novella Page 8
