Jonah stood staring at her uncertainly. Her words had a kind of forced politeness about them. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had damaged something that was very valuable indeed. He shook his head. I have explained to her what I need. She knows. She’s agreed. There is nothing more to do.
Feeling like a cad, Jonah wished Bianca a good night and left her on the porch. Before he made his way down the stairs completely, he turned to let her know that the cows would be milked by five in the morning and he would need breakfast by six so that he could be on the field by seven. Bianca bowed her head in a show of understanding before quietly shutting the door.
As she lay in bed that night, Bianca finally let out the tears that she had held back for so long, since the day she saw her parents’ and Betty’s bodies on the ground.
When she turned to the side, she saw her father’s Bible on the top of the garments in her trunk. She got out of bed and opened it. It was bookmarked at Psalm 31. Her father had underlined verses 23 and 24. Silently she read and re-read theses passages.
“Love the LORD, all you his saints! The LORD preserves the faithful but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride. Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the LORD!”
A strange calm filled her mind and Bianca began to pray. She poured out her hurt and fear to the Lord. While feeling the pain of losing her family and the helplessness she felt in a new land surrounded by no one she knew, she focused on the small hope that she could have a marriage filled with love. Finally, she asked him to lead her and give her strength to get through each day and to carve a life for herself with the man who was her unwilling husband.
The next morning, Bianca woke with the rooster’s call and made her way to the great house after performing her morning rituals. When she arrived, the back entry kitchen door was open. She took a quick glance around the areas of the house she could see, and was pleased by the simple elegance of it. Jonah was clearly a man of means though her family was probably far wealthier (in the end) than he had ever been. That was okay with Bianca. She preferred the humbleness her parents had modeled to the blatant pride her relatives had flaunted.
In the kitchen she found the pail of fresh milk and eggs. She set the milk to boil and rummaged the pantry for flour and yeast. When she found it, she set about making bread and set it aside to rise. She found a slab of salted pigs’ belly in the larder and cut off some strips of the bacon, setting them on a cast iron pan to fry. Then she cooked up some eggs and pancakes and roasted some dried coffee beans over an open flame. Once the beans were glistening with their oils, she ground them finely in the hand mill and strained water through them. In the cool box, she found what was left of butter and cream and set that out on the table with the coffee, milk and the rest of the meal. She took some of the milk and curdled it with a bit of lemon juice to separate the curds and whey for butter and cheese.
Jonah came into the kitchen with more stubble than he had sported the previous day and hair that was still glistening from his morning bath. He grinned at her and appreciatively smelled the scent of the breakfast she had put together.
“This looks wonderful, Bianca. I thank you. I’ve had to eat with the chuck wagon cook the last couple weeks since my last housekeeper left and the food – and I say that generously – tends to sit in your stomach like a rock.”
Bianca, ignoring the remark about the “last housekeeper”, laughed and encouraged him to sit down and eat. Jonah took his plate to the kitchen and brought it back loaded with food. He pulled a stool from the counter as well and sat down in the kitchen.
When Bianca looked at him questioningly, he simply replied, “I’ll keep you company” before beginning to eat.
Jonah shook his head as he ate. I’ll keep you company? Since when do you ever keep the housekeeper company? But he knew why he had changed his habits that morning. It had everything to do with the petite blonde who had danced around his mind all night long. My wife. God, she’s beautiful. And desirable. I wonder what it would be like to taste those sweet lips she keeps biting. Whoa boy. Back away. She is just your housekeeper, nothing more than that. You do not want a wife in the real sense of the word. A housekeeper, a companion even, but not a wife!
Jonah hurriedly jumped up and swallowed his coffee in a huge gulp that burned the roof of his mouth. “Sorry, I, uh, I just realized that I am running late this morning.” And with that Jonah ran out of the house.
Bianca stared at him in shock. The clock read 6:15. He had told her he didn’t need to be in the field till 7. Bianca just shook her head wryly. I guess I have a lot to learn about men. My but they are strange creatures. At the station he was so nice. Then at the house he was so cold. Now I could swear that he was watching me in that way men do when they like how a woman looks, but then he just ran out like he saw a ghost. Now Bianca, don’t you go getting your hopes up. He made his wishes very clear. He only wants a housekeeper.
Over the next several weeks, Jonah sat with Bianca in the kitchen but didn’t talk much. He just watched her work. One morning, Bianca came into the kitchen to find that the milk and eggs, which were usually waiting for her, were absent. She grabbed a basket and went to gather the eggs from the chicken coup. On her way back, she passed the outhouse shower and was stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of a strongly muscled back and rippling arms.
Jonah.
He was wearing only a rough pair of worn jeans. His shirt was hanging on a tack nearby and he was washing his arms and face in the trough. He moved to grab a towel that was hanging near his shirt when he caught sight of pink lace out of the corner of his eye. Turning around, he paused in the action of wiping the water from his face when he saw Bianca watching him. Her eyes were rounded and her lips were parted. She was carrying a basket of eggs under one arm. The rising sun painted her in a soft glow and she had never looked so fetching.
He slowly walked to her, drinking in the sight of her slim body, modeled very attractively by the gown that seemed made just for her curves. He stopped inches in front of her and waited for her eyes to rise from his chest to his face. Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips just as Jonah’s own mouth suddenly felt very dry. His hand reached out and caught hold of the long braid that hung loosely over one of her shoulders.
“I have been thinking about doing this for a while,” he whispered roughly as he leaned down. Slowly, gently, he brushed his lips over hers. He felt, rather than heard, her swift intake of breath against his chest. He did it again. Her lips opened ever so slightly and he nipped at the fullness of the bottom one before dabbing it lightly with his tongue. He saw her eyes flutter closed and she leaned against him more fully. He wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her closer. He pressed his lips against hers even more until she opened to him. His tongue swept inside and she trembled. His own breathing was becoming ever more rapid by the second. He pressed his other hand behind her head to draw her in even more when something sharp pierced his abdomen and he jerked away from her.
It took him a minute to comprehend that it was the basket that had poked him. When Jonah looked up at Bianca, her face was flushed and her breath was coming out in soft gasps. She was looking at him in a dazed manner. She looked as if she couldn’t quite comprehend where she was.
As he continued to watch her, it hit him exactly what he had done and he became upset with himself and at his lack of control.
“What are you doing out here?” He asked harshly. “Acting like a common trollop where anyone can see you? I told you that I only needed a housekeeper, did I not? Next time stay in the house where you belong! And don’t bandy yourself about where any man can see you.”
“Ex-excuse me?” Bianca stammered. “I came out here to get some eggs. I didn’t say a word to you. And what do you mean, ‘common trollop’? You, husband, kissed me. You approached me. You touched me. How dare you accuse me of behaving like a tart when you are the one who initiated a kiss out in broad daylight?”
Bianca tossed her braid
back over her shoulder, hoisted the basket higher and flounced off. Jonah stared after her in bemusement. She has a temper? Where did that come from? She’s been as quiet as a church mouse all this time.
Jonah ran his fingers through his hair. She was right. He had advanced on her. He was the one who had set the boundary and broken it too. He knew why he was so upset and it had nothing to do with Bianca and everything to do with himself.
He had grown up watching his Father drink away his life and his money. Frank would come home and beat his wife, every night. And Jane took it to protect her son. By the time he was fifteen, Jonah was bigger than Frank and his mom was still trying to protect him but Jonah had seen enough. One night, on Jonah’s sixteenth birthday, when Frank came home, Jonah was waiting for him on the porch with gun in hand.
As usual, Frank hollered for Jane to meet him outside and Jane went to him. Neither of them saw Jonah. Without ceremony, the man raised his fist to strike his wife; it was like an obsessive routine for him. He did not need a reason nor did he need a cause. If Jane begged him to stop, Frank loved it even more. So Jane always remained silent as Frank became increasingly violent, trying to make her cry out for mercy. Without hesitation he would start with her face. When she was down he would kick her in the abdomen, when he was dissatisfied with that, he would use his walking stick on her legs and feet and arms.
This time though, the second the man raised a fist; Jonah took aim and fired a warning shot just over his head. Frank froze. In his drunken state, he didn’t fully comprehend what the loud noise had been but Jane knew. She turned to Jonah and pleaded with him to stop and go inside. Jonah refused. Frank, when he heard Jane begging Jonah, turned her forcibly around to face him instead.
“Beg for your son, will you?” Frank sneered. “But you won’t beg for me? Think you are too good for me? Think you can protect that boy from me?”
Jane didn’t answer him. She knew any answer she gave would only result in more blows for her.
Frank backhanded her without warning.
Jonah let off another warning shot, deliberately aiming and successfully shattering the bottle of beer Frank still held in his hand. He stepped out of the shadows onto the candle-illuminated porch steps.
“I am warning you, Frank” he said – he did not have respect enough for the man to call him father. “Touch her one more time and it will be the last thing you ever do.”
“You’d kill your own Papa boy? For a worthless woman?”
Jonah seethed with anger. “You’re not my Papa, not anymore and Mama is worth ten times what you are. You have two choices. You can leave and not come back or you can try to strike her again and I will kill you.”
Frank, even in his drunken stupor knew enough to realize Jonah was dead serious and was not fool enough to risk his life. After long minutes he backed away and turned on his heel.
But that was not the last Jonah heard of Frank.
With Frank gone for the time being, Jonah was free to take the reins of the ranch in his own hands. He had been doing it already for over two years but everything had been overshadowed by Frank’s presence. The townspeople knew what kind of man Frank was and what he did to Jane and Jonah but they feared his temper too much to interfere directly. Whenever Jane was too sick and battered to take care of the home or to even cook, the women took turns helping her out. The men took Jonah under their wings and taught him the ropes about running his own ranch.
With Frank gone, Jonah and Jane flourished. Within two years, Jonah was well on his way to settling all of his father’s gambling debts and building a new home for his mother. Jane did not like to stay in the ranch house because of the memories it held, so Jonah built a cottage for her behind the home. For his own part, he stayed in the main house and restored it so that it was like new. He made sure he wiped out all traces of Frank Cassidy.
Three years after Frank left, Jonah woke up in the middle of the night to screams. He raced to the cottage with his shotgun in tow. When he reached the door, he saw Frank standing over his mother. Jane was bleeding heavily on the coverlet. When she saw Jonah she cried out to him to escape but Frank advanced on him before he could even register what he was seeing.
Frank slashed at Jonah and the boy felt a searing pain stretch across his belly. In shock, the boy struggled to get his hands up and fight the man off. Frank with the element of surprise on his side had the upper hand. He used the blunt edge of the knife to bash Jonah’s head. Jonah barely managed to fight him off. But Frank wasn’t interested in killing Jonah. He wanted him to suffer.
“Think you’ve seen the last of me boy? Think again. No one crosses Frank Cassidy and gets away with it.”
Jonah couldn’t answer. Frank hauled him up with surprising strength and pinned him against the wall.
“Look!” He said, pointing at Jane. “Look what you did to your mother boy. She’s dying because of you because you went and tried to interfere in our marriage. I used to be just like you, boy. Strong and hard working. We had a good marriage back then, Jane and I. But then you were born and you took her away from me. She had no time for me anymore. Well, I showed her.”
Frank turned his head to look at Jane. “Here that Janey girl? You never should have chosen this scrawny kid over me.”
Jane could only groan weakly in anguish.
He turned back to Jonah and pressed the tip of the knife into his face.
“You are more like me then you know, boy. When you get married, I will be waiting. I will take away from you everyone you love, just like you did to me.”
Frank hit him over the head one more time and Jonah sank into unconsciousness.
When he woke, Frank was long gone. And so was Jane.
Jonah never forgot Frank’s threat. He tried to have him hunted down but no one was able to trace him. He would be tempted to believe Frank was dead and gone were it not for the occasional posts he received from the man. The short letters always made it clear that Frank was keeping tabs on his son and reminded him of his threat.
But there was no way he could or would explain all of that to Bianca. No, it was far better to keep her at a distance. It was safer for her and safer for him. All he needed was a housekeeper, nothing more, nothing less. No matter how beautiful or tempting she was.
Bianca was ashamed. Jonah had made it clear beyond a doubt that he wanted nothing to do with her. Over the past month, as they had spent more time together, she had fanned a spark of hope in her heart that perhaps Jonah wanted her to be more than just a servant.
Once when he had gone to the market, he happily came back with a small green hair ribbon for her. And their conversations in the kitchen as he ate his breakfast had become far easier and relaxed. She had even started to take her meals with him. They had laughed and joked together. He had asked about her life as if he genuinely cared.
She told him about the deaths of her parents and sister. He too told her that his mother was gone and that he never saw his father. She sensed that there was something he was keeping back, but it was obvious he didn’t want to discuss it, so she never asked him anymore about it.
Bianca’s mind was running in over-drive. She kept thinking about the kiss and Jonah’s reaction afterwards.
Well no matter. What’s done is done and I am not going to wallow over it.
That was an amazing kiss though. Who knew such a simple thing could produce such a reaction.
No. No. Don’t even think about it Bianca. He made it clear he viewed it as a mistake. Just swallow your pride and keep your head down.
Curse that stupid basket!
Thank God for that basket!
He did say that he had been thinking about kissing me for a while though. So he is attracted to me. He is holding back, but why? We’re already married. It’s not like it’s improper for a man to kiss his own wife for Pete’s sake!
He’s a puzzle, that one. He’s the one who wanted a maid and now he admits that he is attracted to me and then he pulls away.
Bianca rea
lized that this was just the opportunity she had to seize if she ever wanted a chance at making a real marriage out of this. She knew they could be friends because there was such an easy rapport between them already. He had pushed her away but she was not going to let him keep her in a corner. Friendship could always become something more. I just have to make him see it – and want it. But how do I do that?
As she stood in front of the mirror that night, she took a long hard look at herself. She had never been one to primp and obsess over her appearance. God knows, growing up, that was a luxury she did not have. But now, she did. She had money of her own. And Jonah had given her money as well to spend on herself in addition to what he gave her for the household expenses.
She always went shopping on Fridays and spent the day in town; after buying what she needed for the house, she was usually at the bookstore devouring dime novels. Bianca made up her mind. Tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow she was going to go into town and spend a sizeable amount of money on herself for once.
The next morning, Bianca was a nervous ball of energy. A plan had formed in her mind overnight and she had set a goal for herself. Christmas was a month away and it was the season for miracles. This year, she wanted her miracle to be one Jonah Cassidy. It was a huge gamble and she had never done anything like this before. If she failed, she didn’t know how she would face Jonah day in and out but if she succeeded, the rewards were worth far more than the risk.
Over breakfast, she told Jonah that she was going to be in town for the day as usual. He just nodded. She caught his gaze on her lips several times over the meal and she had to fight to hide her smile. I just may have more than a glimmer of a chance at getting my Christmas miracle.
Jonah for his part forced himself to focus on his meal. The food was delicious as usual but he couldn’t help thinking about the woman sitting across from him. Half of him wanted to reach out to her and pull her into him – physically and emotionally – but the other half of him remembered Frank’s threat. He would not dare put Bianca in danger.
[2016] A Bride's Journey Page 48
