The Blushing Bride

by Judith Stacy

  “Well, certainly, Mr. Kruger. It’s kind of you to ask.”

  Jason led her to the center of the room, settled her in his arms and off they went. She was glad she’d selected her pale yellow dress to wear tonight, especially now that every eye in the room was on the two of them. It was her favorite dress and she hadn’t worn it on the mountain before.

  Amanda smiled up at Jason as they waltzed around the floor. “I didn’t know you could dance.”

  “I haven’t done it in a while,” Jason admitted. Then he grinned. “In fact, there’s a few things I haven’t done in a while that I’m anxious to get practiced up on.”

  “If you do them as well as you dance,” Amanda said, “they should prove a delightful experience.”

  Jason’s expression deepened and a flash of heat emanated from him. Amanda thought for a moment he would say something, but he didn’t.

  The song ended and they stopped at the far end of the dance floor. A little round of applause followed for the musicians. Immediately, they took up another song and Jason swung Amanda onto the floor again.

  “Oh, look, Jason,” Amanda said as they danced past the line of loggers, “the men are moving.”

  Jason looked back over his shoulder at the three men crossing the floor. Another group of two followed, then others trailed after them.

  “It would suit me to have the place to ourselves,” Jason said, smiling down at her.

  Amanda basked in the warmth of the moment, of his smile, of the feel of his hands on her. She’d missed him. Being close to him now was like coming home. As if this was the one place in all the world she belonged.

  The dance floor filled up quickly as other couples joined in. Some of the men who didn’t dance ventured across the room to the brides and stood talking.

  When the song ended, Jason took Amanda’s hand and led her out the open double doors onto the porch. The air was cool out here, away from the press of the other dancers. A full moon hung over the tops of the trees.

  “It was thoughtful of you to do that,” Amanda said, moving away from him. “You saved my social.”

  “Is that why you think I asked you to dance?” Jason asked. “Just to get the other men on the floor?”

  “Well, yes.” Amanda glanced back at him. “Why should I have thought otherwise?”

  Jason walked closer and put his hands on her shoulders. He turned her to face him, and grinned. “Maybe I just wanted to dance with you?”

  An energy sprang up between them. Amanda felt it now, as she’d done before. She put her palms against his chest, as comfortable in his embrace as she’d ever been. As if they hadn’t exchanged harsh words, as if he hadn’t said he was sorry she’d come to his mountain, as if she hadn’t felt sorry to be there.

  When they were together, just the two of them, everything seemed right with the world. And Amanda wanted to be no place but in Jason’s arms.

  He eased closer. He lowered his head. Her mouth quivered, awaiting the kiss she knew was coming. Amanda’s heart thumped harder in her chest.

  “Stop,” she whispered.

  Amanda pushed against his chest and leaned her head back, unable to escape his reach but far enough away to discourage him.

  Jason didn’t discourage easily. He pulled her closer. The heat of his body seeped into hers. It weakened her will. His lips brushed hers, and her knees nearly gave out.

  But she turned her head away.

  “I don’t want you to kiss me,” she said.

  Jason stopped and gazed down at her, his brows drawn together. “Why not?”

  “Because things aren’t settled between us, and this will only complicate matters.”

  He backed off then, releasing her. “All right, then, let’s get them settled.”

  She was surprised he’d said that so quickly, so easily. “I don’t like it when we don’t talk. It doesn’t solve anything when you’re upset but refuse to speak to me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s childish.”

  “So is name-calling.”

  She looked up at him, realizing that she’d done just that. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. But you have to—”

  “Change?” Jason demanded. He stepped a little closer. “Isn’t that what this is all about? Me not doing things to suit you? You trying to change me?”

  In the dim light she saw the anger in his expression, and the hurt. He’d told her before he wouldn’t bend his life to suit the will of a woman, as his father had done for his mother. Amanda didn’t see this as the same thing.

  “No,” she said quickly. “It’s not that at all. It’s just that we can’t solve our problems unless we’re willing to work at them.”

  “Unless I’m willing to do it your way, you mean.”

  Amanda stopped, gazing into the tight lines of his face. “No, Jason, that’s not what I mean.”

  “Yes, it is,” he insisted, drawing closer, crowding her. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? For me to change the way I do things? Do them like you want them done?”

  “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask you to talk about things rather than—”

  “I’m not going to change. Not for you. Not for any woman.”

  “I’m not worth it? Is that what you’re saying?” she asked.

  Jason drew back, as if surprised by what she’d said.

  “Are you still sorry I came to your mountain?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “But you meant it. Didn’t you?”

  “I liked things the way they were,” he admitted. “They were simpler.”

  Amanda searched his face in the pale moonlight hoping to find some softness there, but saw none.

  “Well, then,” she said quietly, “I guess we have nothing to discuss.”

  Amanda gulped down the tears that sprang to her eyes and walked into the dormitory. She felt Jason’s gaze on her but he didn’t call her back.

  The dance floor was crowded with couples now. A few men and women lined the perimeter of the room. Amanda didn’t want to talk to any of them. Her chest ached. Her heart hurt. And she was about to cry.

  Quickly, she made her way to the opposite end of the building and into the kitchen. The room was warm from the big cookstove Gladys and Polly had used to prepare tonight’s refreshments. She headed out the back door, but voices stopped her.

  Meg and Ethan stood by the pantry on the other side of the room. Pausing in the doorway, Amanda had a clear view of them, but neither Meg nor Ethan saw her. Small wonder. Looking up at Ethan, Meg’s face had gone white. He stood a few feet away from her as if afraid to get too close.

  “I’m not asking you to choose, Meg,” Ethan said, his voice soft but rich in sincerity. “McGee is your husband and I respect that. I’m just telling you how it is so you can make your choice.”

  Ethan took a step closer to her. “I love you, Meg. I’ve loved you since the minute I first laid eyes on you. I’ll take care of you. You and your son both. I’ll never abandon you. You’ll never want for a thing as long as I’ve got a breath of life left in me.”

  Meg didn’t say anything and Ethan looked as if he didn’t expect her to.

  “But regardless of what choice you make, Meg,” Ethan said, “I’ll always love you.”

  Tears splashed onto Amanda’s cheeks. She tore the kitchen door open and rushed outside, up the hill toward her cabin.

  Oh, to be loved like that….

  She’d hoped she’d found it with Jason. But no, it was not to be. It just wasn’t meant to be.

  When his office door opened and slammed shut, Jason expected to look up from his desk and see Amanda standing over him. In fact, he wished it were Amanda. He hadn’t seen her since she’d left him standing on the porch outside the dormitory at last night’s social.

  Instead it was Meg McGee walking through his office door. She was frowning just as Amanda would have done, looking none too pleased with him.


  “This is for you,” Meg said, and tossed an envelope on his desk.

  “What’s this all about?” he asked.

  “It’s from Amanda.”

  Jason frowned and picked up the envelope. “Amanda?”

  “She’s gone.”

  “Gone?” He came to his feet.

  “Yes, gone. Gone back to San Francisco.”

  “But she can’t leave. The weddings are taking place today.”

  “She never goes to weddings,” Meg said. “That’s what she told me. And she asked me to give you that letter. She left on one of the freight wagons heading back to Beaumont early this morning.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Beaumont seemed big and alive as Amanda gazed down from her hotel window at the streets clogged with horses, wagons and buggies, and the boardwalks filled with all manner of people. When she’d first gazed out one of the hotel windows several weeks ago upon her arrival from San Francisco, Beaumont had appeared to be a very different place. Had it really changed so much?

  Amanda stepped back from the window. No, Beaumont hadn’t changed. She had.

  Pulling the curtains together against the midday sun, Amanda sank onto the brass bed. All those weeks ago she’d arrived in Beaumont heading up to the Kruger Brothers’ Lumber and Milling Company with purpose and drive and big plans for her future. Today she was leaving with a broken heart.

  Oh, Jason….

  Amanda pressed her lips together, refusing to cry another tear. She loved him, but she was leaving him.

  Part of it was Jason’s own stubbornness. He was so sure he was right. And so bullheaded that he wouldn’t talk to her about his anger. How could anything be solved that way?

  But part of her reason for leaving was her own. Amanda pinched the bridge of her nose, pushing away the hurtful memories. She couldn’t stay on the mountain for the weddings today. She simply couldn’t.

  Rising, Amanda paced the room tugging on the sash of her wrapper. When she’d arrived in Beaumont this morning she’d learned that the stagecoach wouldn’t be through until supper time. So she’d checked into the hotel, changed into her nightgown, and tried to rest until it was time to go to the depot.

  Amanda huffed impatiently. She may as well have stayed in her whalebone corset and stood in the middle of Main Street in the heat of the midday sun for all the rest she’d gotten.

  Absently, she stood in front of the mirror on the bureau and tucked stray tendrils of hair into their pins, thinking of the trip back to San Francisco. She’d thought it a rough one, until she’d made the journey up the mountain to the lumber camp. And met Jason.

  A little knot of anger formed in Amanda’s chest. He’d turned her world upside down. She’d been content to live in San Francisco. She’d been content with the gentlemen there, too. In fact, she’d been happy with every phase of her life in the city.

  Until she met Jason Kruger. Now she wasn’t happy with anything.

  When she’d left the camp this morning, she’d given Meg a letter to pass along to Jason. It simply stated that she was going home, her work on the mountain done.

  Now, with the anger in her chest growing, Amanda wished she’d told Jason Kruger exactly what she thought of him. Somebody should do it. And nobody on the mountain had nerve enough. Except for Ethan, perhaps. But right now he was too consumed with his own problems.

  “Oh!”

  Amanda clenched her fists, pacing at the foot of the bed. She couldn’t walk away without telling Jason how she felt. Even though she was certain he didn’t want to hear it, she had to tell him—and she would, too.

  She glanced around the room at her clothing spread out over the chair, the washstand, the bureau. If she hurried, she could catch one of the freight wagons going up the mountain. Tomorrow she could come back to Beaumont and take the stage home.

  Home.

  Amanda’s footsteps faltered. Home was her little cabin on the mountain, not San Francisco.

  Something else Jason had done. Mumbling, Amanda stalked across the room and grabbed a silk stocking from the back of the chair. That man was going to get an earful from her. If he was sorry before that she’d come to his mountain, wait until she got finished with him now.

  A knock sounded at the door, indicating the kitchen help had brought up the meal she’d requested. Amanda was hardly in the mood to eat it. She tossed her stocking aside and snatched the door open.

  Jason stood in the hallway.

  Amanda blinked twice, not sure she trusted her eyes. Finally she blurted out, “What are you doing here?”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded.

  She saw the deep scowl on his face, the hard lines of his mouth, and that made Amanda angrier.

  “I asked you first,” she told him.

  Jason stalked into the room, forcing Amanda back. He slammed the door.

  “I don’t give a damn who asked first, I want to know what the hell is going on.”

  “I’m leaving,” she told him. “Is that so hard to understand? I left you a letter.”

  He yanked it from his shirt pocket and Amanda saw that it was crumpled as if he’d crushed it in his fist.

  “You think this is enough?” Jason stepped in front of her, glaring down. “After all you put me through, you think you can leave me a letter, then sashay off to San Francisco as if nothing happened?”

  “Nothing did happen!” Amanda frowned up at him, her heart pounding. “Except that I was attracted to a man who thinks I ruined his life.”

  Jason backed off a step. “I never said that.”

  “Yes, you did. And you meant it.”

  “You just got caught up in a family problem. That’s all.”

  “That’s all?” she echoed, stunned that he minimized it so easily. “This family problem has run your life since you were a child. It’s why you won’t have anything to do with Brandon, why you didn’t want women on your mountain, why you don’t want me there.”

  “Look, Amanda, I was mad when I said that.”

  “But you still meant it.”

  Jason just looked at her, unable to deny what she’d said.

  Amanda continued, “You blame your parents for your unhappy childhood. Your father isn’t a strong man. Your mother is a strong woman. You’re like her, but you don’t want to accept it or admit it, but you’re just like him, too.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “It’s not. Among your brother’s belongings are letters from your father to your mother. Love letters.”

  He glared hard at her.

  “Yes, Jason, love letters. I came across them when I helped Brandon unpack. Letters written between your father and mother over the course of their marriage. Your father loves your mother. Loves her so much he follows her wherever she wants to go.”

  “Like a whipped dog.”

  “No, like a man in love,” Amanda said. “The same as you when you followed me here to Beaumont.”

  Jason sucked in a quick breath. His face paled. He backed away from her.

  “You didn’t give it a thought, did you?” she asked. “Just hopped in the wagon and came here.”

  “I came to get you back on the mountain,” Jason told her. “To have you finish what you started.”

  “I am finished.”

  “Like hell. There’s twenty-three weddings going on—”

  “I never attend weddings.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s none of your concern,” she said.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Look, Jason, you’ve got enough of your own problems. Don’t try to tell me how to handle mine.”

  “And you call me hardheaded?”

  The two of them stared at each other, both right, both wrong. Both angry, both hurt.

  “You are hardheaded,” Amanda said softly.

  “I can’t argue with that.” Jason heaved a heavy sigh. He pulled off his hat and held it in front of him, picking at the brim, then looked up at her and said softly, “But the t
ruth is, Amanda, I don’t want you to leave.”

  “But you don’t want me on your mountain, either,” she said to him.

  He looked at her for a long time before he spoke. “You didn’t belong on my mountain. I knew it from the start. You, a fine-looking city woman. Just too refined to live that kind of life.”

  Jason shook his head, remembering, then grinned. “When you knocked that miner into the water trough, I thought maybe there was more to you than I suspected.”

  “I don’t know what came over me,” Amanda admitted.

  Jason grew serious. “But when Brandon got hurt and you took over and started barking out orders, I knew you did belong on my mountain. And I wanted you there. I just didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t know how to admit it to myself.”

  “You shouldn’t keep things locked up inside you,” Amanda told him. “You should have told me what was on your mind those times when I tried to talk to you.”

  Jason nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

  “And you should stop blaming Brandon for what your parents did.”

  He glanced down at his hat. “You’re right about that, too. But, honestly, I don’t know what to do with the boy.”

  “Talk to him,” Amanda said. “He’ll tell you.”

  Jason shrugged as if he wasn’t convinced, but he’d be willing to try. “So, you’ll stay?”

  “No.”

  “Yes, you will.” Jason crossed in front of her. “I love you, Amanda.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes as she gazed up at him. “You do?”

  “Yes, Amanda, I do,” Jason said. “I tried not to. I fought it. I didn’t want to love you. But here I am all crazy in the head over you. Chasing you down the mountain, wanting to take you back home with me.”

  “You’ve been mad at me for days now.”

  Jason nodded. “I guess I’ve been mad at a lot of people lately for no good reason.”

  “I love you, too, Jason.”

  A big smile broadened his mouth and he walked toward her. Then, realizing he still had his hat in hand, he tossed it on the chair in the corner.

  His gaze darkened as he saw her corset, pantalets and chemise draped over the arms and backs of the chair. He noticed her stockings dangling from the washstand.