Betsy blushed and went back to her jam. “I always did have a tendency to live other people’s lives for them. Just tell me to butt out.”
“No, you’re right,” Cici replied. “It’s not Kelvin that makes me hesitate.”
“What is it, then?”
Cici stared into the flames burning in the fireplace. “It’s the cottage. He fixed up this beautiful little cottage on the ranch for us to live in. It’s the nicest little house you ever saw, and the very first time I saw it, I wanted it. I wanted it so bad, I didn’t want to wait another day to start living in it.”
“So what happened?”
“The whole thing fell apart,” Cici replied. “Kelvin lost the ranch, and now his whole future is in jeopardy. If we stay here or if we leave, I have no guarantee I would ever find a place as nice as that again. You probably think me low and shallow for caring about something like that, but not everybody gets to come home to a house as nice as this one.”
Betsy sat down on a chair next to Cici and squeezed her hand. “I don’t think you’re low and shallow—quite the opposite. You came out here thinking Kelvin had a good job on a prosperous ranch. Then he showed you the house so you could see where you would be living if you married him. Now both of those things are gone—at least, the house is gone. It must have been pretty nice, if you got your heart set on it so fast.”
“It is,” Cici muttered.
“You’ll just have to decide whether you care about Kelvin enough to marry him in spite of all that,” Betsy replied. “I’m sure if you decide not to, he’ll understand.”
“He will. He already said he would, but now with all this treasure business complicating things, how can I possibly marry him? I would have to be pretty foolish to sign up for all this.”
Betsy laughed out loud and went back to moving around her kitchen with expert ease. “Honey, you don’t know how many times I have thought those very words since I first met Jed Wilcox outside the Brimstone Hotel. Sometimes I still ask myself, ‘I would have to be pretty foolish to sign up for all this, wouldn’t I?’”
She laughed again at her own words and shook her head over the jam. Cici gazed up at her in wonder. How could a woman who so obviously loved her husband admit to questioning her marriage to him? “So what am I supposed to dos? The smart thing would be to let Kelvin down easy and start planning what to do next, but I don’t know if I should do that. What do you think?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Betsy replied. “I don’t like to see your hopes dashed. I don’t like to see Kelvin’s hopes fall through, either. He’s put everything he had into finding a wife, and now everything he built up is crumbling around his ears. I don’t like to say so, but I have to say you’re right. The situation doesn’t look good.”
Cici looked away. “Thanks a lot. You’re supposed to be encouraging me. You’re supposed to tell me what a prize Kelvin is and I should never let him out of my sight again.”
“You already know he’s a prize,” Betsy replied. “If you don’t know enough about him to marry him by now, then you shouldn’t marry him at all. If you can’t see what a decent, hardworking man he is and how kind and generous he would be to his future wife, then you’re not the woman I thought you were.”
Cici didn’t answer. This wasn’t the conversation she needed right now. She didn’t need anybody telling her what a kind and generous and decent man Kelvin was. She already knew that.
What she really wanted was someone to make the decision for her so she didn’t have to think about it anymore. That would be really helpful right now, but that was asking too much.
“I’ll take you back to the Hotel now,” Betsy told her. “You can think things over before you date. Otherwise you’ll just clutter up my kitchen with all that thinking.”
Cici didn’t argue. She had too much to think about before she saw Kelvin again. She hung back and kept silent while Jed and Betsy hitched a horse to the buggy. Jed went back to pounding his hammer, and Betsy drove Cici to the Hotel.
Cici got out on the porch. “Thank you for the hospitality.”
“You’re welcome anytime.”
Cici shrugged and looked away.
“As long as you’re in town,” Betsy went on, “you might as well come down to the laundry sometime and meet Abigail and Catherine. They’re the only other two women in this town, and we get together during the day, just to talk and say nasty things about people out of earshot. You should come by if you have nothing else to do.”
Cici bit back a grin. “Okay. I’ll come. Where is it?”
“It’s down there near the Jail,” Betsy told her. “Once you get down Main Street, you’ll see a small alley between the buildings. Go down the steps and paddle your way through the steam until you find somebody.”
“All right,” Cici replied. “Will you be there?”
“I’ll be there at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll see you there.”
Cici watched Betsy out of sight. Then she walked on wooden legs up to her room. She got there at five o’clock in the afternoon. She sat in a chair and stared out the window until six-thirty.
She had plenty of mending to do. She could have written letters o family back home to tell them she arrived at her destination in one piece. If she thought about it, she could have come up with a thousand ideas to fill an hour and a half of empty time.
She didn’t think about it, though. In fact, she didn’t think at all. Her brain refused to function, even to mull over the terrible decision before her. Maybe that’s why it refused to think, so she wouldn’t have to face the decision she had to make.
She didn’t look at anything in particular. She just sat. The breeze wafted the lace curtains in front of the window. Her vision blurred, and so did all her other senses and her mind. What was she becoming? She was already half dead, and she hadn’t been in this town more than two days.
When the clock chimed six-thirty, she roused herself. She washed her hands and face and scrubbed her neck. She combed her hair in front of the looking glass. For the first time, she considered her own actions. She couldn’t rouse herself to decide her own future, or to consider all the life-changing circumstances hemming in her in on all sides. She could only bestir herself for one purpose, and that was to see Kelvin again.
She looked into her own eyes in the glass. Was that the answer to her question? Was that the hidden secret in this situation? Of all the things tugging her in one direction or the other, she never questioned meeting him downstairs. She put a lot more effort into fixing herself up to make herself beautiful for him than she put into the direction of the rest of her life.
She went downstairs at seven to find him standing in the Hotel entrance hall. He held his hat in his hands, and from the looks of him, he went to a lot of trouble cleaning himself up for this, too.
His hair plastered down slick and wet to his head. He shaved and changed his clothes, and he polished his boots. He stole a furtive glance at her. “You look real nice.”
“Thank you,” she breathed. “So do you. Shall we step into the dining room?”
“I already gave instructions to the waiter,” he replied. “I got us a table on the patio.”
Cici whipped around. “You did? I didn’t even know this Hotel had a patio.”
“Most people don’t,” he replied. “That’s why it’s usually deserted. We’ll have it to ourselves—if that’s all right with you.”
“All right.”
He waved his hand. “This way.”
7
Kelvin showed Cici through the Hotel’s main dining room. He held open a glass door that led onto a wooden veranda behind the Hotel. Vines trailed from a trellis overhead and shaded a solitary table overlooking a gentle rolling bank of grass.
Below the bank, a bunch of horses raced around and played together in a fenced corral. Beyond them, a dark fringe of cottonwood trees rustled in the breeze. The sun drooped behind their winking leaves and cast the patio in tranquil shade.
K
elvin held out a chair for Cici, and she settled down at the table. He sat down opposite her, and the waiter brought them a pitcher of water with slices of lemon floating in it.
“This is real nice,” Cici sighed. “Thank you so much for inviting me.”
Kelvin leaned forward and put one elbow on the table. “Listen, Cici. I know a lot’s happened since you showed up in this town. I want us to put all that aside and forget about it, just for tonight. I don’t want to talk about the treasure, or the trouble on the ranch, or anything else. Let’s just focus on us, you and me, right here at this table tonight. What do you say?”
For the hundredth time, she saw him in a completely different light. He wasn’t the man she thought she knew. How long would he go on surprising her with one layer of depth underneath another, for as long as she chose to spend with him? She could live with him for a hundred years and never find the bottom of him. He didn’t even look like the same man, all gussied up and shining like a new penny.
She smiled at him, and before she knew it, she put her hand across the table to cover his. “I think that’s a splendid idea, Kelvin. Consider all that forgotten. It’s just you and me tonight.”
“Perfect.” His fingers tightened in hers. “Did you have a nice time today—without all that other stuff, I mean?”
She cast her eyes down at the tablecloth. “I had a wonderful time today.”
“You don’t look very happy about it,” he replied. “Maybe it wasn’t as wonderful as you make it out.”
“It was wonderful,” she replied. “I just can’t stop thinking about that cottage and all the work you put into making it welcoming and inviting to the woman you would marry. I…well, here I am, talking about it again.”
“Say what you were going to say,” he told her. “I want to hear it.”
“I wanted that cottage,” she blurted out. “I wanted it more than anything. When I saw it, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven, and then you told me you’d done it all yourself. I could hardly believe it, but I had to believe it. I had to understand what kind of man you were, that you would do all that for…. well, for me.”
“I did it all for you,” he murmured. “When I was writing you letters, I used to think about you while I worked on the cottage. I used to imagine you in it, and I used to imagine you saying the things from your letters, only you were standing there in the house with me and we were married.”
The words tumbled out of him, and he leaned so close she heard the air rushing over his lips and between his teeth.
His hand vibrated through her skin, so alive and close and real. “Kelvin, I don’t know if I can bear the pain of losing all that, now that…”
“I’m still the same man,” he interrupted. “I’m the same man that built that cottage, and I’m the same man who wrote you those letters. I’m the same man you travelled all that way to meet.”
“I know,” she wailed. “That’s what makes this so hard.”
He stiffened. “Did you come here to break it off with me? Did you come here to give me my walking papers?”
“No!” she cried. “I never thought of doing that. I mean, I thought of it, but I didn’t plan it. I came here…..” She stopped.
“Why did you come here tonight, then?” he asked. “Maybe you better tell me before we go any further.”
“I came here because I just had to see you again. No matter what happens, no matter how bad things get, I keep having to see you again. I tell myself I ought to break it off, that that would be the smart thing to do, but I just keep wanting to see you again. I think…..”
“You think what?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying. I think I’ll always have to see you again. I think I’ll have to keep seeing you again forever.”
He sat back in his seat, but he didn’t let go of her hand. His cheeks glowed, and his eyes shone. “That’s all right. I just had to hear it straight from you. You tell me the minute you decide you don’t want to go through with this. I’ll understand, honest. No hard feelings.”
She bowed her head. “Thank you. I will.”
Just then, a waiter came out of the Hotel. He piled the table with rabbit pie and roast beef and boiled potatoes and mashed turnips and candied carrots and fresh hot bread and slabs of creamy yellow butter and pitchers of gravy and a whole lot more food than Cici could ever eat in one lifetime.
For a while, Kelvin and Cici didn’t speak. He served her a heaping plate of food, and they eyed each other while they ate. After a while, Kelvin waved his forkful of roast beef at the remaining feast. “Do you think we’ll ever eat like this for Christmas dinner?”
Cici laughed. “If we had about twelve children, plus their wives and husbands and their children, we might.”
Kelvin beamed. “You can just imagine them, can’t you? The boys running around yelling their heads off and pretending to shoot each other with sticks, the girls playing house in the attic, the grownups talking all night long in front of the fire….”
“It sounds like my idea of heaven,” Cici replied. “It sounds like all the Christmas days I’ve ever known.”
Kelvin nodded. “That’s the dream, isn’t it? I remember my great-grandfather at his log cabin back in Kentucky. He didn’t talk anymore at his age, and he used to sit in his chair by the fire while all the activity went on around him. The kids used to pound up and down the stairs and run outside to wrestle in the snow. The kitchen used to be packed with women all giving orders at once. The men would stand around talking livestock and plowing and weather and grain prices. The old man would sit there in his corner through it all, never saying a word, but he used to have the most beautiful smile of satisfaction on his face. You could just imagine how everyone in that house was a priceless treasure to him, and Christmas was the one day out of the year when he got to open the chest and admire it all.”
Cici blinked at him. “That is such a beautiful memory.”
“We’ll have that one day,” he remarked. “You wait and see.”
“Listen, Kelvin,” she began.
“No, you don’t,” he cut in. “We agreed not to talk about that. Just let the dream rest for tonight. You don’t have to say it. I know it’s just a dream, and that’s all it has to be.”
“I want to say this.” She made a determined decision to take his hand. “I like you, Kelvin. I really do. I never met anybody I wanted to marry more than I want to marry you, and I want you to know I’m going to do everything I can to marry you.”
He held up his hand to stop her. “Before you go any further, there’s something I’ve been meaning to say to you.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“I want to thank you for what you did for me when the Sheriff attacked me.”
“What I did?” she asked. “I didn’t do anything. It’s you that did something for me.”
“You helped me,” he replied. “I didn’t thank you right at the time, and I want you to know I’m grateful. I never met any woman I wanted to marry more than you, and I’m gonna do everything I can to marry you, too. I don’t expect you to after everything that’s happened, but I still want to. I want you to know that. I want to—more than ever.”
She realized she was squeezing his hand harder than she ought to. She loosened her grip. “Sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” he replied. “You can hang onto me all you like. I never want to let you go. I just…you know. I just want to make you happy and provide for you, and it doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to do that after all. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
“You don’t have to be sorry to me,” she returned. “I’m the one who’s sorry.”
“What do you have to be sorry for?” he asked.
“For getting you into trouble,” she replied. “If I hadn’t come to town, you wouldn’t be in this situation now. Oh, look, now here we are, talking about it again.”
“That’s all right. We agreed we wouldn’t keep any secrets from each other. I’m just gl
ad it’s not me that makes you question marrying me. I don’t blame you for questioning because of the other stuff. I’m just glad it’s nothing to do with me.”
“Of course not,” she replied. “You’re perfect as you are.”
He burst out laughing. “I’m far from perfect, Ma’am. You better learn that right now.”
She squeezed his hand again. “So am I, so it sounds like we’re made for each other.”
Now what in the world made her go and say a thing like that? She didn’t understand her own behavior. She didn’t understand anything but the overriding happiness of being with him. Seeing him and holding his hand across the table erased all the other unpleasantness, even when they agreed not to talk about it.
When she was with him, she saw herself with him and married to him for better or for worse. Only when she left the sunshine of his presence did she start to question.
They gave up eating long since, and the waiter cleared the table. She could go on gazing at him forever, but night fell and the stars came out. The waiter lit a candle in the middle of the table, and Kelvin and Cici talked until late into the night.
They talked about their families back home and their memories of growing up. They laughed and divulged secrets to each other they never shared with another living soul. The candlelight glistened on their eyes and warmed their hearts. Through it all, their hands never parted on the table between them.
The waiter finally came back and interrupted them. “The landlord wants to lock up the bar. Is there anything I can get you before that?”
Kelvin glanced at Cici, and Cici got the message. “I think we better call it an evening. It’s getting late.”
Kelvin jumped up and pulled out her chair for her. He accompanied her to the foot of the stairs, where she said, “Good night, Kelvin. Thank you for a lovely day and an even lovelier night.”
He took her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Good night, Cici, and thank you for the honor of your company. I’m sure we’re going to see a lot of each other over the next couple of weeks.”
The Forgotten Bride (Brides 0f Brimstone Book 2) Page 5
