High Country Bride

by Jillian Hart

  He was mighty glad to have that moving business done with. Aiden tightened the last of the buckles and gave Clyde a pat on the neck. “Good old fella.”

  The draft horse nickered and rubbed his head against Aiden’s chest, knocking him back a foot. “Careful there, boy. You don’t know your own strength.”

  Clyde gave a woof of expelled air and lifted his head. They had company. There was Joanna’s son, standing just outside the barn door. His little shadow fell into the main aisle.

  “Does your ma know you wandered away from the yard?”

  “No, sir.” The boy’s voice sounded small and forlorn. “I haven’t left the yard. I’m just standing in the dirt is all, instead of the grass.”

  “You know to keep within sight of the windows.”

  “Yessir.” The boy paled but held his ground. “Ma can still see me.”

  Aiden took Clyde by the bits to lead him forward. “You know not to wander off, right?”

  “Yep. I gotta stay close and watch my sister.”

  “That’s right.” Aiden was near enough to see past the narrow angle of the doorway to the span of yard toward the house. There was Joanna’s daughter, sitting in the shade, changing her rag doll. “You know there are dangerous animals around. They don’t come close to the houses, but I’ve seen them in the fields now and again.”

  “Yessir.” The boy edged to the side to make room, his gaze and attention switching to the horse. “I reckon you know all the harnessing.”

  “Yep.” Aiden steeled himself because he knew what was coming.

  “I sure would like to learn that.” The kid breathed that out in a sigh of longing, the question he was too afraid to ask lingering in the silence between them.

  He hadn’t shored himself up enough; the boy’s wish hit him square in the chest. Aiden thought of all the reasons it would be better to ignore the boy and keep on going. All the reasons why it would hurt too much to stop.

  His feet made the decision for him. He was handing over one strap of the reins before he had thought it through. “Can you lead Clyde over to the house?”

  “I sure can, sir.” Excitement snapped across his features. Hope sparkled. “I’ll do a real good job, too.”

  “Walk him slow.” He kept his hand on the horse’s neck, but there was no need. Clyde gave a snort of pleasure and followed the boy, lipping his hair affectionately. The wagon wheels creaked, the boy giggled and the old Clydesdale plodded toward the house.

  “Keep to the wagon tracks,” Aiden cautioned, and noticed Joanna on the back doorstep. There was gratitude on her soft oval face and something else that made his pulse skid to an instant halt. Something that made him close his eyes. But the image remained on the back of his lids—the image of her lovely face watching him with adoration.

  Maybe it was for the boy, he told himself. Of course she adored her son. That was it, he thought in a panic, opening his eyes and seeing the ground at his feet. Little patches of mud remained from the storm, but already the dust was returning, puffing up with each step he took. He concentrated on that, and when he looked at Joanna again it was to help her into the wagon.

  She looked good, and when he took her hand, he felt his spirit stir, as if it was still there, after all, when he had thought that part of him was gone.

  It felt right to help her up onto the front seat. “You’ll sit up here with me,” he told her, and since he now had enough experience with her to know what she might say to that, he added, “please.”

  That earned him her smile. He didn’t think there was a more beautiful sight than Joanna at that moment, grinning down at him from the high wagon seat. The sun sat behind her like a jewel, framing her with gold. She was like a completely different woman. Gone were the lines of strain and worry. Fallen away was the worn-down look of hardship.

  It felt good to think he had a hand in that. That his life amounted to something, after all. It was hard to believe an used up man with no life left could make a difference. Maybe God wasn’t done with him yet.

  She held out her arms and he turned to find the girl at his knee, clutching her doll.

  “You’re next, little girl.” He hiked her up with no effort at all. She was no burden. She went to her mother’s arms, leaving him to face the boy.

  Aiden held his feelings still, tricking himself into thinking he didn’t have any, but before he could offer help, the boy was climbing up on his own, nimbly and easily. Aiden couldn’t say why he stood there, watching to make sure the little guy was safely over the rail, before he moved away. Joanna was watching over her son, too, making sure he settled safely onto the backseat. That’s what Aiden respected about her most of all—that she knew what was precious in this world.

  He gathered the reins together and hopped up next to her. It was strange having Joanna at his side. He gave the leather straps a gentle slap and Clyde ambled forward. Aiden couldn’t rightly say why he felt as if a roll of barbed wire was lodged behind his ribs. All he knew was that Joanna was doing this to him, making him ache more with every breath.

  “I didn’t know where to put the lovely things your mother and Noelle made us.” She turned to him, obviously unaware of her effect on him. “I didn’t want to put them in my and the children’s room.”

  “You should. It seems fitting.”

  “Sticky fingers,” she explained, and there was that smile again. The soft, captivating look of fondness. “They might fare better in your room.”

  “I have no use for frilly lace. No offense.”

  There was her smile again, wide enough to reach her eyes and to touch his worn-out soul. He liked that he could make her smile like that. That meant he’d done the right thing, although judging by how he was feeling, it didn’t seem that way.

  “I simply wanted to know what to tell Ida and Noelle. Their gift was thoughtful and beautiful, and I wanted to be able to tell them where I intend to display their handiwork. How about the parlor?”

  “Good solution.” He pushed his hat back and guided Clyde onto the main road, although the big guy knew his way. It gave Aiden something to focus on beside the woman and her smile. Summer had bronzed the prairie. Everywhere he looked was the amber of ripening wheat, the russet of wild grasses and the yellow-gold of wildflowers nodding in the breeze. It would be harvest soon. “I didn’t get a chance to look at the orchard.”

  “Nothing for you to worry about.” Joanna glanced over her shoulder to check on her children, safe and quiet on the seat. “The apples were the hardest hit. We picked up what fell, didn’t we?”

  He kept his attention on the road, but knew the little ones were nodding. The girl’s sweet, high voice filled the air and the boy’s somber one added a comment or two. Aiden’s chest tightened.

  He eased Clyde as far to the right as he could go. A driver and wagon were headed their way. It was Stevens. Aiden nodded a greeting to his neighbor as they passed. Stevens waved back, tipping his hat at Joanna, a neighborly show of respect.

  Aiden was glad for that. “I don’t suppose you met him when you were living with your pa?”

  “No. None of the neighbors took a liking to my father. He was a hard man.”

  “I can’t argue with that. Stevens is one of the men I trade work with when threshing time comes. There’ll be about six of us plus the hired help to feed. I suspect you know how it works.”

  “I do.” She smoothed the folds of her skirts, as if she was working herself up to say something. “You don’t have to worry, Aiden. I was married to a wheat farmer before. I know what’s expected. I know the hard work you need done.”

  “I wasn’t saying I needed you in the fields.” One day he was going to have to learn how to say what he meant. “I was talking about the meals. Cooking for that many men.”

  “Me, too.” She laughed, a gentle, welcoming sound, one that tugged at the lost places within him. That lured him like the sunlight, like the prairie, into noticing.

  She drew him where he could not help following. He felt alive,
as if he was breathing in air for the first time.

  “For a minute there you had me worrying you planned to be out in the fields helping me.” It felt right to laugh along with her. “The joke was on me, I guess.”

  “I have talked so much about working in the fields. What else were you to think?”

  “I’m glad you don’t have to work that hard, Joanna. I don’t want you to. Do you understand?”

  The laughter faded from her face, but not the smile. It remained, wide enough to reach her eyes and real enough to touch what remained of his soul. That felt right, too.

  “You have done so much for me and my children, Aiden.” Serious now, she laid her hand on his sleeve.

  He swallowed at the connection, at the tug of emotion within him he did not want to feel. “I’ve only done the right thing is all.”

  “I wish I could do as much for you.” Her fingers lingered on his sleeve, and in the heartbeat before she pulled away, there it was again. That fondness he’d spotted before.

  For him this time. Clearly for him.

  Joanna closed the worn book, quietly laid it on the bedside table and turned down the wick. The lamplight faded into darkness, leaving only the faint light from the sickle moon spilling in through the cracks between the curtains. It was enough to see the shadows of her little ones tucked into their beds. Daisy lay on her side, clutching her doll, looking like perfection, so still and sweet. James, on the other hand, stirred, fighting sleep.

  “Sweet dreams,” she whispered, and kissed his forehead, hoping that would settle him.

  Instead his eyes popped wide-open. “Ma, I can’t hardly sleep.”

  “Yes, but you must. Tomorrow is another good day.”

  “This sure is a great room.” Even in the dark shadows, it was simple to see the contentment on his face and hear the gladness in his words. “I like this house the best. Mostly because we really get to stay here.”

  “That’s right.” No more worries for her children. No more want. She thought of the man who had avoided her since he’d helped her from the wagon at his brother’s place. The strings of her heart knotted tight. “You get some sleep, now.”

  “I like my new pa.” There was something else there exposed in his words and hidden by the dark. “He let me lead Clyde. Did you see?”

  “I saw.” She remembered the picture the three of them had made, the small boy, the big man and the giant horse together. “You did a real good job with him.”

  “I know. I like Clyde. He’s a good old fella.” James imitated Aiden’s intonation.

  So much need. How did she explain it to a boy who wanted a father? “It was nice of Aiden to take the time with you, but you know he’s terrible busy this time of year.”

  “I know. That’s why he didn’t come home with us. Or to supper. He had to help Uncle Thad with his wheat. And tomorrow Uncle Thad is gonna come here and help with ours.”

  “That’s right.” She had to find the right words, the right way to handle this. She had to protect James from disappointment. She had to protect Aiden from James caring too much. Tonight, when she knelt down to pray, she would ask for the Lord’s help. Just as he had led them here to Aiden, surely he was continuing to lead them.

  She brushed James’s bangs from his eyes. “We must be careful not to burden Aiden. He did a good deed taking us in. You sleep tight, sweetheart.”

  “Do you think he’s home yet?”

  “Not yet.” She stood, full of love for her children and for the man who could never love her in return. “For the last time, go to sleep.”

  James gave a little giggle. “Okay, Ma. I’ll try.”

  She closed the door quietly and padded downstairs. She had left the windows open to the night breezes, and the house was pleasant and smelled of ripening wheat and wildflowers. She went from window to window, closing up before she lit the lamps. There was no tidying left to do in the parlor, and the kitchen was spick-and-span, so she grabbed her sewing basket and sat down at the table to work.

  A moth beat at the screen door as she threaded her needle. She planned to work on the fabric she had picked up for James before the wedding. She had not made as much progress on his trousers as she wanted. Ida had pointed out today that school started in town in a few weeks’ time.

  As she knotted the end of the thread and double-checked the pins on the side seams, she thought of her little boy. He looked up to Aiden. It was natural for him to want a father. Of course that’s what he thought Aiden ought to be. He was too young to understand. It was his heart that was wanting what he had never had. Certainly not from Tom, when he’d been alive, and never even from her father in the year or more they had lived with him.

  How could James understand, when she didn’t understand herself? She didn’t know why the heart yearned to love and be loved. It was simply the way God had made hearts. She could not say it felt wrong that a skyful of love swept through her every time she thought of Aiden, powerful enough to fill her world from horizon to horizon, and every place in between.

  There was no hiding from it. No changing it. No way to go back in time and stop every step she’d taken that had brought her here. She slid the needle into the fabric, basting long, even stitches, working without thought. Her mind was on Aiden. On hearing the plod of a horse in the yard. Seeing his familiar profile as he rode one of Thad’s horses through the shadowy darkness. She longed for the moment when he’d walk through the door. She couldn’t wait to hear the rich timbre of his voice and simply to have the privilege of making his life easier.

  She finished the seam quickly and set down her work. There was the supper she’d saved aside for him, in case he was hungry when he came home. It was a pleasure to set out the big slice of the pie she’d baked for him—apple pie.

  There he was, striding through the darkness, outlined by the faint moon glow, more light than shadow. He pulled back the screen door and entered—her husband. He was the perfect image of everything good in a man, and she could not stop her heart from falling ever more in love with him.

  When he saw her, he froze. He did not smile, but changed to granite before her very eyes. He let the door close with a hollow slap, and turned away from her. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

  “I’m sorry, but I ate at Noelle’s,” he said, then went straight to his room.

  Chapter Fifteen

  She sat at the kitchen table, graced by lamplight. Washed and changed out of his work clothes, Aiden debated. Every instinct he had told him to keep his distance. And yet she was his wife now. She deserved more than that from him. Look at her, even at eight o’clock at night, working away with her head bent over her sewing, so intent that she didn’t notice him standing in the doorway like a statue.

  “Is that apple pie I smell?”

  That got her attention. Her needle stilled in midstitch and her head whipped up. Instead of the censure he deserved, there was only a gentle look, more a question than anything. Those places within him began aching again—from the past, for the future…he didn’t know.

  “It sure is.” She put her work aside and was already rising. Anxiety pinched the smooth skin around her eyes. “If you like it warm, it will take a few moments to heat. I just need to light the stove.”

  “Don’t go to any trouble. I’ll cut it, Joanna.”

  “I don’t mind.” She was already reaching up into the cupboards for a plate and a cup, quick to please. “I have tea cooled, or I can fetch cold water from the well.”

  He hung his head. This wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted a sensible, working type of marriage. Not one that made every piece of him hurt whenever he looked at her. He couldn’t miss the pain he’d put on her face. He felt as if a cinch were drawing tight around his chest and he couldn’t breathe. Like a man suffocating, panic set in. The need to protect himself from an endless pain.

  His hand trembled as he took a knife from the drawer. He steeled himself, heart and soul, before he moved closer to her. He wanted to tell her that he didn’t nee
d anyone. That he didn’t need her to slide a spatula beneath the wedge of pie he’d cut, and put it on a plate for him. That he didn’t need her fresh baked dessert or her kindness or the veiled look on her face that told him she was hiding her heart.

  He didn’t need love. He didn’t want love. It had only brought him devastation. He was still holding the shards of that life, unable to let go, unable to move on. Being near Joanna with the soft fragrance of baking clinging to her clothes, and her flower-scented soap, was tearing him apart. He wished he could forget the radiance he’d witnessed in her and what he’d seen of her heart. He wished he had something left inside him still able to care. He wished the twisting coil of turmoil within him would stop, simply stop, and leave him be.

  He drew a ragged breath, willing himself to walk calmly to the table and set down the plate. It took all of his might not to notice as Joanna swept close with a cup of tea. He felt as if he were breaking apart as he sat down at the table.

  “You worked a long time at your brother’s.” She lingered a moment too long.

  He could feel the emptiness within him like a sore tooth. He grabbed up the fork, trying to pretend everything was as it should be. But he was only fooling himself. “Thad’s fields weren’t as hard hit as ours. That was a blessing, at least. Still, it took the better part of seven hours to clean them up.”

  “It’s a hardship for him.” She swept away, taking all the air in the room with her.

  It was the only explanation he could come up with for why he felt as if he was gasping for breath. “It’s his first crop. I helped him break sod this past spring. The first yield is never good. He wasn’t expecting a solid crop until next year.”

  “But you were counting on the crop here, weren’t you?” Her voice was resonant with understanding, her concern rich with layers. “If things get hard for you…”