Reluctant Brides Collection

by Cathy Marie Hake

  She splashed water on her face and repinned her hair into its usual strict bun, which had gotten a bit scraggly during her nap. The only advantage of having the straightest hair in Chicago had been that keeping it styled was fairly easy. Her hair was never tempted to curl, so she’d made the knot of copper at the nape of her neck into her trademark hairstyle. Even for parties, she wore the same style and added a velvet bow as decoration.

  She hadn’t packed many velvet ribbons for her visit to Jubilee.

  With a resolute poke of the final pin into her hair, she stood up straight, put her hands on her hips, and stared at her reflection in the gilt-edged mirror.

  Her father’s words came back to her. They’d been standing at the station, waiting for the train that would take her away for six months, when he pulled her close and boomed, “Well, Rose Kelly, you’ve done it now. You’ve put yourself in the midst of it, right into the wildest of the wild. The Dakota Territory. You won’t be finding the parties and elegant dresses you’re used to, not there.” Then he grinned. “And I think, my darlin’, that you’re going to be the better for it. I’m proud of you.”

  Her mother had simply hugged her, tears pooling in her pale gray eyes. “God be with you.”

  Six months. She could do it. She would do it.

  The enticing fragrance of baked ham drew her to the dining room of the Territorial. It was small, with the tables placed close together. The tables were topped with clean, starched white cloths that looked like thick cotton, and the sole decoration on each was a simple glass set of salt and pepper shakers.

  Just last week she’d had lunch with a social belle at one of Chicago’s newest restaurants, a tiny place along the lakeshore with an unpronounceable French name, where she’d dined on pheasant sautéed in some lovely sauce.

  The baked ham here, though, smelled just as delicious.

  A table by the window was empty, and as she made her way toward it, conversation in the room ceased, and in unison all heads swiveled toward her. A more reticent person might have ignored the obvious reaction she was causing, but Rose Kelly had never been reticent.

  She smiled at all of them. “Hello, everyone,” she caroled. “Is the food good? It smells wonderful!”

  The other diners relaxed and smiled in response and once again began to talk at their tables. She proceeded to her seat, satisfied. This, she’d always believed, was the way to live. Being straightforward almost always worked best.

  Bits and pieces of their discussions floated toward her.

  “Arrived today…”

  “Chicago…”

  “Eric Johansen…”

  She tried not to be too obvious as she shamelessly eavesdropped. Her eyes lit with a puckish glow as she realized that her fellow diners were, indeed, already linking her with Eric. It was too charming.

  Matchmaking, were they?

  Interesting…

  One last swing of the hammer, and the floorboard would be fixed. If only those Nielsen children would quit their constant wiggling during the service, the wooden slats might hold up better. They were the squirmiest young ones he’d ever seen.

  But children would be children, he reminded himself, and no matter how rambunctious they might be, they were a blessing from the Lord. The Nielsens came to church every single week to hear the Word and offer praise, Michael and Grethe leading their seven children in a stair-stepped line. He could only imagine what it must be like to get seven children dressed for church.

  He dropped his head and offered a quick prayer for the family: Dearest Father, please bless the Nielsen family for their constant faithfulness to You. He peeped at the mended board and added, And help me not to be so judgmental about fidgety children. Amen.

  Voices from the kitchen at the back of the church broke his reverie. He knew that a group of women were there, scurrying around in preparation for Sunday’s after-church dinner.

  He sniffed the air appreciatively as a tantalizing aroma drifted his way. If his senses weren’t deceiving him, the women were making lefse, the delicious Norwegian treat. Maybe they’d have some to spare—for a man who was giving up his Saturday evening to mend a floorboard. He stood, unfolding slowly as his muscles, cramped from bending over so long, relaxed.

  “Hello!” he called as he limped back to the kitchen, the feeling in his legs slowly returning. He was getting too old to be sitting on the wooden floor of the church, bent like a broken spring. “Do I smell lefse?”

  Mrs. Jenkins poked her head out of the doorway, her snowy hair a bit disarranged and a smudge of flour across her cheek. “Eric Johansen, you’re just in time. We’re trying out a new takke that Grethe just got from her family back in Bergen, and we’ve finished the first batch. We need your opinion.”

  He had to smile. Just two years ago, nothing she said would have made any sense, but now that he was totally immersed in this heavily Norwegian community, it was absolutely clear.

  “What’s a takke?” a woman asked behind him. “And where’s Bergen?”

  “Miss Kelly,” he said, recognizing her voice immediately. The impish smile on Mrs. Jenkins’s face told him that the gossip mill had already started turning, and he groaned silently. This was the last thing he needed now, just when the land was taking up almost every moment of his waking hours—except those used mending cracked floorboards in the church: a woman in his life.

  He turned and pasted on what he hoped was a pleasant yet noncommittal smile, but the woman before him nearly took his breath away.

  Early evening sunlight, thick and rich as it came through the single stained-glass window in the church, poured across Rose’s shoulders and head, casting ruby and emerald and sapphire shadows on her russet hair. She looked as if she had stepped right out of heaven.

  Whoa, Johansen. Bring it under control. He dug one fingertip into his thumb to remind him that this was no dream, and she was no vision, and as a matter of fact, they were standing outside the kitchen of Redeemer Church in Jubilee with an overly interested audience. “It’s very nice to see you again. I trust you’re finding your lodging to your liking.”

  “The Territorial is an ideal hotel for my purposes,” Rose answered, and she tilted her head slightly, questioningly, for a moment. Finally he realized that she was waiting for him to step aside so she could go into the kitchen. When he did, she touched his arm lightly with a tiny hand.

  He didn’t dare move. That hand on his arm was unexpected, and he had no idea what to do. Leave it there? Brush it off? Step back?

  It’s not a spider, Johansen, he scolded himself. What’s the matter with you? She’s just a woman.

  Just a woman. Well, that was the problem right there.

  “Thank you for your help. I truly do appreciate it,” she said, apparently unaware of the effect she was having on him, and she dropped her hand.

  Before he could answer, she swept past him toward Mrs. Jenkins. “Hello,” she greeted the older woman, who grinned back at her with delight. “My name is Rose Kelly, and I’m visiting from Chicago….”

  Almost as if an invisible force pulled him, he trailed after her.

  “Series of articles…homesteading…newspaper.”

  He didn’t catch all of the sentences, but he heard enough to piece together what her purpose was in Jubilee. So she was a newspaper reporter. That made sense—he guessed.

  She certainly didn’t seem the kind to be happy on the frontier, though, carving out a life in a prairie-dust town like Jubilee. There was something about her that bespoke money and class and comfort.

  Maybe it was that ridiculous little bag she carried. He had no idea what it contained, but it was too tiny to hold anything of value, like the tine from a harrow or a bag of oats or even a cheese sandwich.

  Maybe it held her money, but he hoped not. Certainly she would have taken care of that aspect with Matthew at the hotel and put her funds securely in the Territorial’s safe.

  “I’ll be here for six months,” Rose was saying.

  Six months
? He found himself counting—and then shaking his head. She was planning to leave when winter had settled in? Whose idea was that?

  “So tell me what a takke is.” Rose looked around the kitchen, and he was sure that even the tiniest detail didn’t escape her examination. “I’ve never heard of one before. Where’s Bergen, by the way?”

  Mrs. Jenkins looped her arm through Rose’s and walked her across the tiny kitchen. “Bergen is a town in Norway. That’s where Grethe Nielsen is from. A takke is a pan we use to make lefse, and she’s letting us use hers. She’d be here now except she has seven children, so she has her hands full as it is. But she’s the champion lefse maker of Jubilee.”

  “Lefse. That’s a new one for me. How do you spell it?” To Eric’s amazement, she opened the rose-embellished miniature bag and pulled out not only a pen but a notebook as well. “And what is it?”

  Mrs. Jenkins’s words were a background of sound as he leaned against the doorway to the warm kitchen and watched Rose learn her first lesson in Dakota living. “Lefse is a Norwegian pastry,” the older woman began. “It’s made of potatoes and flour and butter and cream and—”

  “Potatoes?” Rose interrupted. “Potatoes? You make a pastry out of potatoes?”

  She leaned over and studied the pile of potatoes at the end of the metal table as if they held the secret to eternal youth. With the blunt end of her pen, she gave one an experimental poke and made a note on her pad.

  Eric suppressed a grin. City girl, he thought.

  “Oh yes, and potatoes make a lovely thick mix.” Mrs. Jenkins loosened her grip on Rose long enough to point to a pile of dough. “There’s some already made up. We take a bit of the dough like this and shape it into a ball. Then we roll it out evenly, as thin as possible, and carefully pick it up and put it on the takke. That’s the hot grill there. Yes, we use that stick to pick up the dough and to turn it on the grill so it doesn’t tear. See how it slides under the dough and lifts it just so…And when it’s done, we call in Eric to test it.”

  Rose turned toward Eric and smiled widely.

  He stepped into the room and reached for the lefse that was still suspended on the stick. “Yum,” he said as he tore off a piece of it. “Lefse is good anytime, but when it’s still warm, then it’s the best. Try it.”

  He offered her the rest of the flat bread and watched as she popped it into her mouth. Would she like it?

  “We sometimes put butter and sugar on it,” Mrs. Jenkins said.

  “I don’t know why,” Rose said, finishing it. “It’s so good. Interesting, though. It doesn’t taste at all like potatoes.”

  Mrs. Jenkins smiled. “No, it doesn’t.”

  “May I ask another question? Why are you making so much of it?” Rose pointed to the piles of already-prepared lefse on the counter.

  Mrs. Jenkins expertly lifted and turned another piece on the grill. “We’re having a dinner here tomorrow. You’re welcome to come.”

  “May I? It sounds like fun!” One of the last rays of sunlight slanted through the door, illuminating Rose’s smile even more.

  Mrs. Jenkins beamed. “You’ll enjoy it. You’ll find plenty of good food. Most of the folks in Jubilee have Norwegian roots, and that’s why we make so much lefse. We don’t do much lutefisk, though.”

  The other women in the small kitchen laughed.

  “Lutefisk?”

  Eric shook his head in amusement. “They’re teasing you. Lutefisk is a Norwegian dish, and while some people say it’s wonderful, others refuse to eat it. Or to even be in the same room with it.”

  “Why?”

  The women laughed louder.

  “Well,” he said, “it’s rather…fragrant.”

  “But what is it?” Rose asked, her pen poised over her notepad.

  “Mrs. Jenkins? Do you want to explain?”

  The older woman said, “It’s fish, usually cod, that’s been dried and then soaked in lye.”

  The expression on Rose’s face was wonderful. She looked from person to person, studying their faces. “You’re joking with me, aren’t you? There isn’t any such thing as this lutefisk.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Kelly,” he said. “It’s true. But most of us prefer lefse. There aren’t any surprise ingredients in it, and it smells much better.”

  “Lutefisk? Sounds like it’d kill you,” she muttered as she put her pen back in her bag.

  “You might wish that, if you had to be around it,” he said, and Mrs. Jenkins swatted him with a towel.

  “Get out of my kitchen,” she said, her words laced with laughter. “But first make sure that Miss Kelly knows that she’s to come to the dinner tomorrow. I’m afraid she’s fearful that there might be lutefisk.”

  “That’d be something to fear, all right.” He turned to Rose. “There won’t be any lutefisk tomorrow. You can expect chicken and ham and beef, but no lutefisk. Trust me. That stuff has a powerful stink.”

  “Eric, be nice.” Mrs. Jenkins shook her finger at him. “Make Miss Kelly feel at home here. You’re the first person she met in Jubilee, you know, and it should count for something.”

  Laughter bubbled through the woman’s words, gentling the scolding with fond teasing.

  Rose tilted her head and smiled at him.

  He could feel his resistance crumbling, and he knew he should simply say something vague that no one could read anything into, bid them all good-bye, and turn around and walk away. That would be the best idea.

  Instead, his mouth opened, all by itself, and began to speak. “The dinner is being held here on the lawn after church tomorrow.” He could feel the women’s gazes locked on him, and without looking at them, he knew that they were all smiling as they watched the tableau unfold before them. The words continued to pour out of his lips. “If you’d like to join us, we’d sure be glad to have you.”

  No! No! He didn’t want to do this. What was he thinking? He knew the answer immediately: He hadn’t been thinking.

  Quickly he tried to recover his dignity—a task that was probably pointless, he thought, seeing the look on Mrs. Jenkins’s face. “You may not go to church. I don’t know. Especially out here in the Dakota Territory. We don’t have the same grand churches you’re probably used to in Chicago.”

  His words sounded ungracious, but Rose tucked her notebook back into that absurd little pouch and said, “Miss church? You must be joking. Patrick and Kathleen Kelly would have my own little head on a plate if I skipped a service. My parents raised me as a Christian, and I’m glad of it.”

  She looked directly at him, her eyes as green as a mossy rock, and added, “Everything I have, I owe to the Lord. Of course I’ll go to church here. He doesn’t forget me. Why should I forget Him?”

  Chapter 3

  Every community has its own spirit, its own identity.

  The kind of place we call home tells us more about who we are than about where we are. Likewise, this visitor finds definition of who she is by determining who she is not.

  Rose leaned across the stove and studied Eric. Even this early in the season, his skin was tanned to a dark honey by the sun, and his fingers were work-hardened with cuts and scrapes. His trousers and faded brown work shirt confirmed the image of him as a farmer.

  But underneath the earth-stained man of the prairie, she sensed something else. A very solid thread she couldn’t identify bespoke of a life beyond the prairie.

  He’d be perfect for the assignment.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Johansen. Might we talk privately? I’d like to propose something to you.”

  As soon as the words popped out of her mouth, Rose regretted them. They’d come out all wrong—and with an audience, too. When would she ever learn to think first and speak second? She should have formulated her approach—that would have minimized the chances of his refusal.

  This wasn’t Chicago, she reminded herself, where she was known—and where her outspoken style was almost legendary. There, it didn’t matter how blunt her words were. She was expected to spe
ak her mind.

  Here, though, she needed to be more prudent in what she said.

  Mrs. Jenkins and the other women in the room exchanged a silent but expressive round of glances. Silent laughter shook their plump chests, and from the discreet elbow nudges and the peeks at Eric and then her, she knew what they meant. They were pairing her off romantically with Eric.

  She lowered her eyelids and studied him surreptitiously. You could do worse, came the unbidden thought. As a matter of fact, you’d be hard pressed to do better.

  Wrong! Wrong! She was here to work, not to find a man. Chicago was full of men. If she wanted to go shopping for love, she should do it there. But there was something about this man, something interesting. Something, she chided herself, that makes him a good subject for my articles.

  She realized she was staring at him. His cheeks were flushed, and he seemed to be uncomfortable with the attention.

  The women quickly averted their gazes and turned their attention to the smoking griddle.

  His clear blue eyes were clouded with a hint of wariness. “I’m probably going to regret this,” he said in a low voice, nodding slightly to the women huddled over the takke, “but let’s step outside.”

  He led her out of the small church into the summer evening. “I’d lay my life down for those women,” he explained as they walked toward the hotel, “but they’ve been scrutinizing every woman who’s set foot in Jubilee. Apparently they think I can’t get my own woman.”

  “Can you?” Aghast at what she’d just said, Rose clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, I am so sorry! I didn’t mean…Of course you can…”

  To her amazement, he grinned. “That’s all quite encouraging, but the issue is really that I’m not in the market. I have no intentions of bringing any woman into my life.”

  “Why? What would be so wrong with that? Do you have something against women?”

  He didn’t answer but continued to walk.

  Rose scurried to catch up with his long-legged stride. “Or is it marriage?” she persisted. “Do you have a grudge against marriage?”