High Country Bride

by Jillian Hart

  “Yep. That’s what I’m calling him. I got another one, too.” He pointed to the second horse he had been playing with on the floor. “That’s Sky. They are best friends.”

  “Did you thank your uncle?”

  “Yep. About five times.” James wrapped his arms around her in a quick hug.

  There was Daisy, on the sofa next to Noelle. Together they were dressing her rag doll in new calico dresses. “Ma! Look! Anna has lots to wear. And a nightie, too!”

  It was like Christmas morning. Joanna didn’t need anything more than this, to see her little ones so happy. Material things were not what mattered; she knew that more than most. But the loving people around them, welcoming them as family, were worth everything. More than she had ever dreamed could be.

  She had been on her own for so long, even in her first marriage, that she had forgotten the comfort of a caring smile against the cruel harshness that came to a person’s life. She had forgotten the simple pleasure of having someone hold out a hand, wanting her to join in.

  “Come over here with us and see,” Noelle offered.

  Joanna picked her way around the pasture James had made on the center of the floor and left him there to play. Thad had also carved fence posts and a gate. There were other little things for Daisy, Joanna saw as she settled down beside Noelle. A doll-size knitted blanket, a calico sunbonnet and a ruffled apron.

  “Thank you,” she told them all. “This is…unexpected but wonderful. Too much, but wonderful.”

  “I had the most fun crocheting and knitting up these wee things,” Noelle confessed.

  “So did I.” Ida smiled in her infectious, beaming way. “Noelle, this is good practice for you. You may be making a lot of wee little things of your own one day. You never know.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a blessing?” Thad’s wife lit up at the thought. “In the meantime, this was great fun. Joanna, we have something for you, too. You have no notion how Ida and I had to hurry to get this done in time.”

  “We weren’t sure we would,” Ida interjected. “It was nip and tuck. But we did it.”

  “Here, this is for you.” Noelle lifted a wrapped bundle from the cushion at her side. “We are so happy for you and Aiden.”

  She said it with great conviction, as if she had no notion that this marriage was not genuine. Joanna’s hands trembled as she tugged at the white ribbon holding the wrapping together. The tissue paper fell away and on top was a beautiful, snowy-white bedcovering, crocheted in a breathtaking pattern of rosebuds and leaves. Beneath that were folds of matching lace scarves for the bureau and bedside tables, and delicate curtains.

  Tears swam in her eyes.

  “We understand what Aiden told Thad,” Noelle said gently. “That this was an arrangement between you. But it is my wish for you both that one day, along with great happiness, you will find great love. Ida and I put our hopes and prayers into every stitch.”

  A movement beyond the doorway caught Joanna’s eye. It was Aiden, standing like a shadow. Then he stepped forward, into the light. There was pain etched in his face, but it was a different pain from what it had been there before. As if he were forcing himself into living again, he eyed the folds of soft, frothy lace and nodded once—just once.

  “So, this is where everyone is,” he quipped. “Can’t a starving man get a meal around here?”

  “Yeah,” Thad agreed with a wink. “Where’s the food? I’m looking forward to dessert. Ma made angel food cake.”

  “You’ll get it when we’re good and ready, you two,” Ida quipped right back. “Mind your manners.”

  “Manners? I don’t have any. It’s my ma’s fault. I was raised up terrible.” Tiny smile lines creased the corners of Aiden’s eyes.

  The warm glow of caring Joanna was trying to ignore sparked a little more brightly. Like morning after a long hard night, that’s what Aiden was for her. She gently refolded the exquisite lace. He could not know what she was beginning to feel. That the brand of caring she held in her heart was changing into something richer.

  She rose, striving to hide her affection. Tucking away what she did not want seen, she slipped out of the room and followed Ida to the safety of the kitchen.

  “You should have seen the looks on those boys’ faces.” Ma paused over her slice of cake to laugh with the memory. “There they were, swooping blueberries into their little pails as fast as they could go. Thad would shovel a handful into his mouth every once in a while. His mouth was stained blue.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t that much.” The man was blushing, fidgeting in his chair at the table, looking sheepish.

  “It was, too,” Aiden insisted, pointing at him with his fork. He remembered well all the faults of his brother. It was an older sibling’s right, after all. “It wasn’t just your mouth that would be blue, but your chin and the front of your shirt.”

  “I was seven years old.” Thad laughed good-naturedly.

  Ma continued to regale Joanna with the family story. “There I was, trying to keep an eye on Finn, but he was running everywhere, and faster than greased lightning to boot. I had one hand on my pail, the other stripping berries from the bush, all the while looking over my shoulder at my youngest. Then I look the other way to check on my older two boys and I see this big grizzly sitting up on his haunches, looking at them with the most puzzled expression you ever saw.”

  Aiden watched Joanna’s jaw drop. “But weren’t you terrified?” she asked.

  “Worse than terrified.” Ma delighted in telling a good family tale, and she sparkled with the fun of it. It was great to see her looking truly happy. “In my mind’s eye I already saw that bear munching down Thad like one of those berries, and holding Aiden in the air with his enormous, dangerous paws.”

  “Since I’m here,” Thad interjected, “you can tell the story ended fairly well.”

  “For you, maybe,” Aiden took the last bite of his piece of cake.

  That caught Joanna’s interest, because she fixed her gaze on him. Those big blue eyes of hers seemed to reach out to him, so full of life. He felt dark and dour by comparison. He couldn’t help feeling that she had gotten the short end of the stick in this marriage deal, but he was going to do his best to make it up to her.

  “I think that bear had never seen little boys before,” Ma continued, putting down her fork, leaning forward, getting into the spirit of the story. “He watched them, a little aghast, as if he was trying to figure out if they were a different kind of rabbit or something.”

  Joanna laughed, a light musical sound, and Aiden studied her. She looked so different from the sad-eyed woman he’d seen that day at her pa’s wake. She was no longer so painfully thin, and color had come back to her complexion. The heat made her hair curl up around her pretty face, and there he went, feeling drawn to her again. He pushed back the chair and rose to his feet. Time to get another cup of tea.

  “Then he must have realized that most of his berries were gone from his favorite bush,” Ma was saying. “Why, I had grown ten feet, or so it felt like, and I don’t even remember dropping my bucket or crossing those few yards of that hillside, but suddenly I was right in front of that bear. He was enormous, bigger than a man by far, and I remember looking down at him.”

  “You were fearsome, Ma,” Thad stated in that easygoing way of his. “Joanna, I remember being too scared to move. I froze with a big handful of berries in my mouth. I was no help. Aiden, he grabbed a stick and went up to help Ma, but he was too late.”

  “I’m not sure what good that stick would have been against that bear if he had a mind to take offense at us.” Aiden lifted the cool pitcher from the counter. “I remember thinking that animal was going to hurt Ma.”

  “He wouldn’t have dared.” Ma pointed her finger, in the way of scolding mothers everywhere. “I shook my finger at him and I said, ‘Now, you leave us alone. You go eat your berries somewhere else.’ He looked me up and down, bowed his head and waddled off.”

  “He left? Just like that?”
Joanna asked.

  “Thank the Lord.” Ma nodded. “I was shaking so hard afterward I sat down and couldn’t move for a good twenty minutes. Aiden had to help me get back to the wagon.”

  He heard his brother answer, his sister-in-law comment, which made them all laugh again, but he wasn’t really listening. Outside, the clouds were building fast and coming closer. He thought of the field of cut hay drying in the summer sun, and the forty acres of growing wheat. He prayed there was no rain in those clouds, or hard wind and hail that would damage his main crop. He had to make sure Joanna had the security she needed. It was the one thing he could give her. The only thing.

  He took a long pull of tea from his cup before setting it down on the counter. “I’m going to head out and start bringing in the hay.”

  “But, Aiden, it’s your wedding day,” Ma protested. “And it would be breaking the Sabbath.”

  “God will understand my need to save my hay. Is this all right with you, Joanna?”

  “Yes. You now have two more horses to feed for the winter.” She pushed away from the table and stood. “You might need all the hay you can bring in.”

  “Exactly. There’s no telling how long or hard the winter will be. I’m glad you understand that.” He was already grabbing his hat off the hook by the door. “See, Thad? She’s a sensible woman.”

  “A real catch.” Thad winked at her as he ambled on past and hooked his own hat off the wall. “The question is, if she’s that sensible, why did she marry you?”

  “That, brother, is a mystery.” The men’s voices faded as they strode off across the yard.

  Not such a mystery, Joanna knew, as she watched her husband go. The gathering clouds were like giant anvils bumping up against one another in the southern sky. But as big as they were and as enormous the sky, they did not diminish the man walking beneath them.

  No, not such a mystery at all. Tenderness hit with such force she had to turn away. Letting herself fall in love with Aiden would be the worst mistake.

  She closed the screen door, stepped around James, who was on the floor playing with his new horses, and dropped a kiss on Daisy’s head as she dressed her doll. Joanna then began clearing the dessert plates from the table.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Exhaustion had burrowed deep and he felt as if he could never get it out of his bones, but he and Thad had beat the storm, first at home and then at his brother’s place. Aiden reined in Clyde at the barn as the first fat drops of rain fell. Good for the land, but not necessarily good for his wheat. He dismounted, knowing there was nothing he could do about that.

  “You were a good horse today.” He led the draft horse by the ends of the reins, going slow. It had been a long day for the horses, too.

  A surprise waited for him in the barn. One of the wagons was empty of hay. It just stood there, as if the wind had blown every scrap from it and left the other wagon untouched. The only telltale sign was the lantern carefully hung from the end aisle post, flickering low.

  The rain began pounding like lead bullets on the roof and a shadow raced through the back door and into the pool of light. Dotted with rain and her hair in one long braid, Joanna held his pitchfork in her hand. “That’s really coming down. I got the last stack finished just in time.”

  “The last stack?” Aiden hadn’t realized he’d left Clyde standing in the middle of the aisle. All he knew was that he was already at her side, tight with concern. “It’s late. That rain is cold. You aren’t telling me that you stacked the hay.”

  “I told you I’m pretty good at it. I thought, why not? The kids fell asleep early, they had such a busy day. I can see the shanty from here, and I wanted to help out.”

  She amazed him. He shook his head, flummoxed, feeling a few raindrops drip off his hat brim. “What am I going to do with you? You are supposed to be in the main house, making ruffles or embroidering or something. Not this.”

  “Are you going to tell me you don’t approve of women stacking hay?” Her rosebud mouth quirked up in the corner, and there was no mistaking her challenge.

  Yep, she surely amazed him. She was like no woman he’d ever known. He liked her for it. Lord help him, he liked her. “I’m going to allow you to stack hay if that’s what you want.”

  “Allow me?” There it was, the indignation on her face. The quirk of her brows, the rise of her chin. He was glad for the humor sparking in her eyes that told him she knew he was funning her.

  He shrugged, removing his hat to shake off the rain spatters. “Am I the man around here?”

  A handful of hay hit him square in the face. “Take that, Aiden McKaslin. That’s for that big fib you just told.”

  “I deserved it.” He was laughing. Unbelievable, but it felt good. “I couldn’t help it. You’re a mighty pretty woman when you get all worked up.”

  Pink swept across her face. “Now, that’s two fibs. What am I going to do with you? I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come.”

  “I wasn’t fibbing.” Even with her hair wet and plastered to her, she was beautiful. More so every time he looked at her. He reached out, hardly aware of it, his fingers brushing a strand of curls away from her eyes so he could see them better. “My family loves you and your kids. All evening long that’s all I heard. I couldn’t get away from it.”

  “I’m sorry. They have hopes for you.”

  “I know.” His fingers lingered at her temple. For some reason, he couldn’t pull away. Being this near to her felt soothing to him, when he had hurt for so long. “I heard what they said in the parlor. About the gift.”

  “You have to know I don’t feel the way they do. I know you don’t love me. I don’t expect that you would.” Her forehead creased, and she looked down.

  But she didn’t move away. The empty places within him stirred like ashes in a winter wind. As if something was there, after all. “My family is hopeful for me, but you have to know something of what I am. You have children, a son. What if that had happened to you?”

  Her face crumpled. Her gaze shot toward the barn wall, in the direction of the shanty. “I could not have come back after that.”

  “No, I can’t see as there is a way to be whole. Some things, once broken, can never be put back together again.”

  “Yes, I think you are right. Not when it’s real love.” She gazed up at him, seeing a man more substance than shadow. “I loved my husband in the beginning with all my heart. But the way he behaved and how he treated me wore at my love until it faded away. My heartbreak wasn’t sudden like yours. It came one step at a time, like losing little pieces until the polish and beauty of that love was gone.”

  “I imagine it hurts the same in the end.”

  “For different reasons.” She could see that Aiden had loved deeply and his love had been returned. Hers had not. That was a hard lesson to her. “You are safe with me, Aiden. I don’t have your family’s expectations.”

  “You mean, for me to love you eventually?”

  “Yes.” Sadness filled her, and no small amount of hurt. She caught his hand with hers, remembering how he had kissed her in the church. Tenderness twinkled like a new star in her heart. “I know you can’t love me. I don’t think it would be good for either of us to think it might be possible. I have my children to raise, and you have this land. We can help each other. That’s good enough for me.”

  He closed his eyes briefly, and she had to guess that it was relief showing on his hard face. “I would give you more if I could,” he murmured.

  His hand trembled beneath hers, so she let go and stepped away from him. Her skin felt chilled without his touch, and she was aware of the inches separating them. It may as well have been the expanse of the entire western prairie. “It’s all right, Aiden. No man could give me more. I’m not the kind of woman a man can love.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  He seemed puzzled, as if he had no notion, and the caring in her heart for him flared more brightly. It was no longer anything resembling caring. No,
not at all. She swallowed hard, trying to deny the truth even to herself. “Being loved is impossible for me. Look at me. All my husband really wanted me for was to ease his burdens in life. He saw me as a maid more than anything.”

  “When you had loved him.”

  She spun on her heel so she wouldn’t have to see Aiden’s face. Would it show pity? Or understanding? Either way, the truth remained. She did not possess great beauty or poise or city polish. What she could do was stack hay to shed even the hardest rain. That rain struck her now as she went to check on her handiwork. Her bare feet squished in the dusty dirt that had been quick to turn to mud. There were her half-dozen stacks, standing as tall and round and whole as the dozens Aiden had already built. She let the wind blow through her, wanting the cool gusts to scatter the emotions inside her. It didn’t work. Her love for him clung stubbornly to her heart.

  I love him. She swiped the rain from her face and stared out at the dark storm. Once again she had fallen in love with a man who did not love her. She was heading for heartbreak all over again. What was she going to do now?

  Deny it, of course. She lifted her face to the sky, welcoming the wonderful wetness. It washed away the sting of tears that could not fall, and the disappointment in herself. It’s different this time, she told herself. Better. At least she wouldn’t wonder why, in this marriage. She knew.

  His hand settled on her shoulder, comforting. His touch could make her spirit lift like birds at dawn.

  “I couldn’t have built haystacks any better.” He moved away to circle the stacks, and nodded once he saw how well they were shedding rain. “Who taught you?”

  “My ma. When I was a little girl, I used to help her with the work.”

  “I’m not surprised by that, as I knew your pa.”

  “He was not a hardworking sort.” She held her hands out, palms up, as if welcoming the rain. It sluiced down her face and dripped off her skirt hem. “I’ve always liked working outside in the fresh air.”