by Natalie Dean
Why couldn’t she think of anything better to say than that?
Jack replied, “That sounds perfect. Thank you.”
His masculine scent: leather, horseflesh, and sunshine mingled with just a faint trace of sweat stayed on the air long after he left the room. She got the fish out and onto a plate lined with a soft cloth to drain, quickly checked to make sure that the pan of beans she had put into the oven were good and tender, and then took them out of the oven and placed them on a trivet to cool and to be served from. She bustled around, trying to chase away all the thoughts running through her mind that revolved and centered on Jack but failing miserably.
I want him for a real husband. I truly do. But does he want me for a real wife? It’s very possible that he doesn’t. Perhaps his grief over losing his first wife is so great that he will never want me as a wife.
These thoughts were disturbing. Jeanne set the plates on the table and arranged knives and forks, cups and spoons. Even that busy work could not remove the small frisson of fear that ran up her spine as she realized that that might be the very situation in which she had found herself. She wanted Jack to make her his wife in every way. She wasn’t sure exactly what that entailed, but she did know that she wanted to find out. But if he did not feel the same, then she would have to hide those feelings from him, keep them submerged in order not to hurt him.
It was not at all fair to Jack to want more from him than he was willing to give. He had already given her a home, food, and a safe place to sleep. He asked her few questions about her past and did not seem to notice or mind that it was something that she did not particularly care to discuss.
She moved to the table, fussing a bit over a plate of sliced tomatoes, sliced onions, and cucumbers.
She took a step back to survey that table. Pride filled her. Not just pride at her handiwork but pride at the bounty that sat there. None of this would’ve been possible for her back in Philadelphia. Working at the factories meant often getting paid many days after things were needed. The company stores were always open, and everyone was in debt to them including her.
It was not just the lateness of her paycheck and the necessity that sent her to the company store. She and many others like herself went to work at dawn, before the stores opened. They left work far after dusk and again the stores were usually closing or closed before they could reach them. Often their only recourse was to go to that company store and to pay a higher fee. Because the company store did not accept cash, they had to sign for everything they bought. That meant that all of them had huge totals added on to what they owed the company at the end of every pay period.
She had to be very frugal in order to make sure that she did not overextend herself. She had found lodging in a small one-room tenement flat shared by herself and three other girls who worked at the factory. They had had little in the way of creature comforts within that room. They each had a small and thin mattress which they kept covered with their blankets and sheets, a small trunk in which to store their things, and a tiny little stove upon which they could cook their scant dinners and breakfasts.
All of them had been scrimping and pinching and saving. Planning for the day when they would be able to take what little bit of money they managed to actually wrest away from the factory’s grasp and keep out of the greedy grip of the landlord and have something better for themselves.
She had spent most of her free time writing letters, attempting to get a teaching position somewhere, anywhere. And she had been so close to getting one of those teaching jobs she so badly wanted…
If only she had not engaged in that heist.
Jack’s boots came jangling back across the floor, and she jerked out of the past and into the present. She hastily poured coffee into his cup and then into her own and placed the pot back on the stove. He entered just then and said, “This looks wonderful.”
They took their seats. The food must’ve been delicious, she was sure it was, but she couldn’t taste a single bite. Jack had shaved the stubble of the day away from his face, and his hair was slicked back and still slightly damp, showing the tracks of the comb that he had used so judiciously on it. He wore a clean shirt that emphasized his wide shoulders and broad chest, the supple motion of his well-muscled arms, and his flat stomach.
Just looking at him made her heart go racing away. Her pulse picked up speed as well, and for a moment she was terribly afraid that she was going to have a heart attack.
She had washed up as well, right there in the kitchen pitcher and basin. She had managed to neaten her hair and straighten her skirts. She’d washed her face and hands, but the heat had made her cheeks slightly rosier than normal. She was glad for that as she looked at him and more heat rose into her face, flushing an even higher tone of color across her cheekbones.
She hastily dropped her eyes back to her plate. She broke off a small bit of bread, buttered it and put it into her mouth and began to chew. Her thoughts were chaotic and churning. Could he read her thoughts? Did he know that she longed for him to make her his wife? Did he pity her for that? Was that why he was so kind to her?
Dinner ended, and he helped her with the dishes, as was his usual routine. She had protested more times than she could count but he always insisted upon helping her. She enjoyed the fact that he took the time to help. She washed the dishes and passed them to him, and he wiped them dry then stacked them neatly on the little open shelves above the dishpan. The scent of the strong soap that he used wafted over to her nostrils, and occasionally their bodies would bump each other, sending more of those little breathtaking thrills running all up and down through her body.
He asked, “Should we read the serial tonight or perhaps take out a book?”
“I have some sewing I need to do. I’d like it very much if you’d read from a book because I’m afraid my attention would wander too much for me to keep up with the story in the serial.”
“Then a book it is.”
With the kitchen tidied up and all the outdoor chores finished for the evening they adjourned to the parlor. Jack lit the lamps and then took up a place on the sofa. She had discovered that the rocking chair had been one that his brother had made for his wife and that they had left it behind because it was easier to make a new one than to find a place in the wagon for it.
She didn’t mind being relegated to the rocking chair. It was quite comfortable with its little cushions and its runners. She often found herself rocking away in it, gently and soothingly, as they took turns reading or while she did her sewing. She took up her sewing now as his deep and mellifluous voice began to toll out into the room.
She didn’t hear a single word he said. She was too busy studying the way his eyelashes fell against his cheekbones, the way the lamplight played against the planes of his face, heightening them. Everything in her wanted to put her sewing down, cross that room, and ask him to kiss her!
Or just up and kiss him!
The last thought literally shocked her nearly to tears. She knew, of course, that women were not supposed to just kiss men. Her whole life her father had been the guiding force in her family. While his manners had absolutely dropped away the minute the door had closed behind him his tenents and philosophies most certainly had not. Women did not talk sharply to men. Women did not kiss men. Women were not to be forward. Women were mostly to be seen and not heard.
Breaking free of him, being able to actually speak and not worry that at any minute she would receive a slap to the back of her head for daring to do so had been a freeing experience for her. But there were still so many things that she had yet to experience because all of his words stayed imprinted upon her brain and hammered at her constantly.
She looked down at her lap and realized that she had finished the last piece of sewing. The lamps had burned low, the oil rapidly dwindling away. Jack was still reading, but his voice had slowed, and his head occasionally nodded as he drifted toward a doze.
Darkness had fallen outside, and she could hear the buzz of
insects and night birds out there. It was odd, even that vast silence had its own particular brand of noise. He lifted his head and said, “I think I should probably hit the hay.”
She tucked her needles away carefully into the cloth in which she kept them and stood, dusting her hands together.
Her heartbeat far too fast as he came toward her, the book still held loosely between his hands. He reached one arm over her shoulder and set the book on the shelf neatly and then said, “Good night Jeanne.”
“Good night.” She watched him leave the room, and the only thing she could think of was that she should have kissed him!
Chapter 5
Jack lay awake, truly confused. He wanted, more than anything else, to go to Jeanne’s bedroom and ask if he might engage in some marital activities with her. That he was so weak bothered him. She was pleasant toward him, most certainly. They enjoyed each other’s company. But that did not necessarily mean that she wished to share a bed with him.
He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. The days were long, starting right before dawn and they would just get longer with winter coming. There was about to be a huge flurry of activity on the ranch. The cattle would have to be taken to the long series of buildings not far from the main house where they would be able to reside in safety and comfort throughout the winter. He had started off with mostly calves, and he had very few that were old enough or fat enough yet to go to market. That weighed heavily on his heart. There was plenty of hay to make too, in a very literal way. A hundred head of cattle and a hundred head of sheep made for a lot of work and necessitated a lot of feed.
Jack’s eyes closed and he meant to consider all of the things that he had to do before winter, but before he knew it, he was out like a light. When his eyes opened again the predawn light filtered through the curtains that Jeanne had made for all of the windows.
That pearly, opalescent light told him that he needed to get up and get moving. There were cattle to set to grazing in different parts of the acreage. There were sheep that had to be checked. There were cows that needed to be milked and horses that had to be staked out. There were irrigation lines from the creek and the wide oak barrels in which he collected rainwater to water his livestock that all had to be checked. Anything could kink up one of those slim wooden houses that he made to pipe the water directly into their troughs.
He sat up, putting his feet on the floor. Weariness swept through him. Cattle ranching in Montana had never really been his plan. It had been Lillian’s dream, and he had been determined to make it come true for her, and he had. But was it worth it?
He wasn’t sure anymore.
He’d grown up on a ranch, true enough. The ranch his parents had owned, however, had been situated near a large town filled with several thousand people. It had been lively and fun. The weather had been far more amenable. He had not ever had to do anything alone. When he’d first arrived in Montana, he had thought it not so bad. Especially given that his brother and his sister-in-law were there with him. The loneliness had gotten to them though, and the winters were so harsh that the thought of living through another one made his whole body ache with fatigue. Even with Jeanne there he felt the loneliness of the place and he worried, and probably rightfully so, that she would feel that loneliness too hard against her heart.
I miss Texas. I miss my family. I came here for the wrong reasons. I came to get away from Lillian’s memory and to create a dream I never really believed in. I always thought of it as idle talk, really but after she died I was so wild with grief that it seemed like I had to do it, had to make that dream come true for her because her dream of being a wife and mother was cut off so sharply and so early.
He dressed slowly, his thoughts circling round and round, and went to the kitchen. Jeanne was awake and poking at the fire in the stove. She was dressed, and her hair was neat and tidy, but there were slight lavender circles under her eyes, and he stared at them, guilt cropping up.
He spoke without meaning to. “I’m sorry. This must be very different from the life you are used to. It must be terribly lonely for you here.”
She stopped fiddling with the fire in the oven and closed the door. She faced him. The rosy and sheer light washing in through the window between the halves of the open curtains highlighted just how lovely she was and he felt a pang of absolute want for her rocket through his entire system, jarring him.
She came toward him, all sweet lilac and rustling skirts. Her body pressed against his and her face met his chest. Everything that he had been holding back since the moment he had seen her came rushing in, flooding through him. Her head tilted up, and his mouth came down on hers. Her lips were soft and warm. He could smell her soap and the sachet that she put into the drawers of the trunk that she still stored her clothes in.
That kiss was wild, desperate. His heart beat so hard that he could feel the steady drum of it against her chest.
The kiss drew out. It was easy to tell that she had never been kissed before, or if she had it had been seldom. His hands moved up her arms and to her neck, then his thumbs rested gently just below her jaw, tilting her head so that he could kiss her more deeply and fully. He knew he should stop. This was not what she had bargained for, and he had no idea if it was what she wanted or not either.
But he couldn’t stop kissing her. Kissing her was not just exciting, and it didn’t just fill the loneliness within him, it set free some unseen and unnoticed weight that had been lying against his heart for a very long time.
As he kissed Jeanne, he realized several things all at once. He had really loved Lillian. There was no doubt about that. But he had grieved his way past that and moved on. He didn’t know when or how but he had. While he loved the fact that he had managed to do something so incredible as to start of homestead in the wilds of Montana he no longer wanted to live there.
He wanted to go back to Texas. He missed it almost as much as he wanted Jeanne. He had known that for some time now, and he had just been hanging on to the ranch because he had not wanted to face down Lillian’s memory back in Texas.
Jack broke the kiss off. She stared up at him, her face alight with both something close to reverence and laughter. She said, “I thought you would never get around to kissing me.”
His feet made a little shuffle on the floor. “I was afraid you wouldn’t want me to.”
She turned away and put the coffee pot on and then turned back to face him. Her hands clasped together at her waist, and she said, “I do. I want you to kiss me, but before you kiss me again, I need to tell you something.”
His heart sank. It was official. She was lonely and the work was too hard. Even with the few women who were around and who were always eager and willing to help out one of their own she wanted to leave. He blurted out, “I have something to tell you too. I think Texas is the place to go. In all honesty, I’m not sure winter here is something I can stand again.”
Jeanne drew a deep breath. “I would follow you there if you wanted me to, but before you say anything else I need to tell you why I left Philadelphia.”
He took a seat at the table. She turned away and fetched cups, the little creamer container, and the sugar dish. She brought those things to the table and settled them. They sat there looking at each other, sipping their coffee slowly. He knew that time was something he did not have. There were so many chores, and he was only one man. Jeanne did all she could to help, but she could not help with the heavy work outside. Still, he sat and drank his coffee in silence, knowing that she was gathering up the courage to tell him whatever it was that she had to tell him.
She spoke softly. “I had to leave because I sort of… Well, there’s no sort of to it… I did it, but I had no idea that that was what I was doing. I was quite tricked, and I’m very angry at myself for falling prey to such trickery but…”
Everything in him tensed. Was she about to tell him that she was already married to another man?
Her next words shocked him nearly senseless because they were nothi
ng he could’ve ever imagined, especially when it came to her.
She said, “The factory I worked for had a company store. You know how those work don’t you?”
He nodded. “There are plenty of those in the world, and they’re not always just attached to factories I imagine. Men out here get into debt at the store because they’re gambling on selling their cattle, or the crops growing well.”
She looked down, her eyes fastened onto whatever was at the bottom of her coffee cup. “I lived in a room with several other women. We all worked together. The room was cold and bare. It was smaller even than this kitchen. We had one stove and to get water we had to go outside and fetch it from a well spout. There were thirty rooms in the house, and they were all filled with women who worked in factories or elsewhere. Everybody had a difficult time of it. I was foolish enough to go along with what they said was a prank. A simple thing, a way to get back at the factory for always stealing so much of our time and money.”
Her fingers tightened around the cup, and he could see that this was something she had struggled with for a long time. That she really needed to clear her conscience and he said, “It’s all right. You can tell me. I won’t be shocked or upset, I promise.”
Truthfully, he wasn’t really sure he wouldn’t be shocked or upset, but he could sense she needed to be told that at that moment. Her chest moved up and down as she struggled to draw her breath in and out. Her fingers were wrapped so tightly around the cup that her knuckles were standing up in high white ridges, a clear indication of just how upset she was. “I will understand if you don’t want to be married to me anymore Jack.”
His mouth fell open. “I don’t think anything could make me feel that way.”
She burst out, “I’m a thief! I didn’t mean to be. It was to be a prank, you see. One of the girls that I lived with knew, rather intimately I’m ashamed to say, one of the men who was a clerk there at the company store. He was the one who totaled up all the receipts. The prank was that we were supposed to… Oh, how I was so foolish I just don’t know! She was meeting with him for dinner, and he always carried with him a small case, one that contained all of the week’s receipts. It had a lock and key, but it was easy enough to just take the case.”
