Smoke River Bride

by Lynna Banning

  Going to bed with him made her nervous. He would never force himself on her, but she didn’t know that. He didn’t want to explain his reticence; it had too much to do with Hattie.

  It would take time until he could muster the courage to risk his heart again. Something inside him knotted tight at the thought of caring about Leah too much, but he knew he couldn’t make love with her only for physical release.

  Leah’s soft, clear voice startled him out of his meanderings. “I looked over your bookshelf today. Perhaps I could read aloud?”

  Thad grabbed at the offered distraction. “Sure. Choose any book you like.”

  “I dowanna listen to a dumb old story!” Teddy announced.

  Leah sighed. What was it Lao-zu said about progress? Two steps forward, one step backward? With Teddy it seemed all the steps were backward.

  She ignored the boy’s outburst, sent Thad a half smile and settled his leather-bound copy of Ivanhoe in her lap. With a surreptitious glance at Teddy’s hunched shoulders, she began to read.

  “In that pleasant district of merry England,” she began, “there extended in ancient times a large forest—”

  “Aw, Pa, this is boring.” Teddy stomped across to the loft ladder and started to climb.

  “No, it isn’t, son,” Thad returned in a quiet voice. “Just listen.”

  Leah skipped some pages ahead. “They stood before the castle of Cedric, a low irregular building containing several courtyards and turreted and castellated towers.”

  Teddy plopped down on the bottom rung of the ladder. “What’s ‘cast’llated’ mean?”

  On the back of an old calendar, Thad quickly sketched a castle with square stone towers, surrounded by a moat. “This is where Cedric the Saxon lives. Looks a bit like Scotland,” he commented.

  Leah glanced up at him. “You have read this, have you not?”

  “Yeah. When I was about Teddy’s age. That copy belonged to my father.”

  “What’s a Saxon?” Teddy blurted.

  Leah explained about Saxons and Normans, and Thad sketched the Battle of Hastings and a Templar knight in full armor. Teddy pulled his face into a scowl but kept listening.

  She continued reading until the boy’s eyelids drooped. Finally, at his father’s suggestion, he dragged his thin frame up the ladder, and Leah found herself alone with Thad.

  She waited for him to say something. Instead, he stood up, stuffed his hands in his jean pockets and began to pace from the living room to the kitchen and back, studying the floor.

  What was wrong? Why would he not meet her eyes?

  “Thad?” He kept pacing.

  “Thad, have I done something wrong?” Perhaps she should not have made the biscuits for supper? Or read from Ivanhoe? Goodness, there were so many things in America she did not know about. How was she ever going to live in this house with him and his angry, hurting son, in this unfamiliar town, without making mistakes?

  “Thad, what have I done?”

  He stopped abruptly and swung to face her, his expression shuttered. “Wrong? Leah, you’ve done nothing at all wrong. Except,” he added with a fleeting smile, “maybe yesterday’s coffee.”

  “Then why are you walking back and forth like that instead of—”

  “Going to bed,” he finished. “Damned if I know. Just worried, I guess.”

  “Is it about our marriage? About me?”

  “Naw, not about you. Not exactly, anyway. I’ll explain later.”

  Before she could think what to say, he was out the front door, his boot heels rapping down the porch steps. She choked off an involuntary cry.

  Something was wrong. Something he would not tell her, which made it more disturbing. She could do nothing if she did not know what the problem was. She thought back over the evening. He had liked their supper, or at least she thought he had. And he did like Ivanhoe, otherwise he would not have drawn those pictures of the castle.

  And then she remembered Verena Forester’s words. I’d never forget a man like Thad.

  It was frightening, this not knowing, like feeling eyes upon her, following her every move. She could not escape the fear, but she could not let it smother her.

  She sucked in a breath, pushed the black, frightening thoughts to the back of her mind, and resolutely made her way down the short hallway to the bedroom.

  Chapter Nine

  Leah lay unmoving on the far edge of the double bed, her mind in turmoil. She knew Thad was not asleep; she could hear his measured breathing in and out, and she guessed that he lay staring up at the ceiling, as she did.

  She could not begin to sort out her own feelings, let alone Thad’s. Was he disappointed in her? She thought she had made some progress toward being a wife. With the help of Miss Beecher’s book She was learning to cook the American way. She could learn to milk the cow and ride a horse. She could even learn to ignore the hurtful and unsettling comments from the dressmaker, Verena Forester, and Carl Ness at the mercantile in town.

  She tightened her lips. Given enough time and luck, she might even befriend Thad’s disgruntled son. Perhaps he would want to hear more about Ivanhoe. Perhaps she could learn to make cookies. American boys liked cookies, did they not?

  No matter what, she was not going to give up.

  But at this moment, lying here with Thad close enough to touch if either of them moved an elbow, she did not know what to do or say. Did he want to touch her? Did she want him to touch her?

  He had returned to the house very late, undressed in the dark and climbed into bed without a word, his chilled skin smelling of pasture grass. She drew in a long, slow breath. She was not going to give up on Thad, either. After all, he had been her husband for only two days.

  His low, rumbly voice washed over her roiling thoughts. “You’re kinda quiet tonight, Leah. Anything troubling you?”

  She thought for a moment. Should she be honest or evade the question? “I am trying hard to be a good wife and a good mother to Teddy, but—” she clenched her fists beneath the covers “—for each thing that goes right, something else goes wrong.”

  He chuckled softly. “Did you expect to learn everything in just one day?”

  She turned her face toward him. “I do not know what to expect. You walked out of the house as if something was troubling you, as if you were not pleased with me.”

  “You’re wrong, Leah. I am pleased with you.”

  “But are we not…I mean, did you intend our marriage to be in name only? Many Chinese have such an arrangement,” she added quickly. “But I thought that here, in America, it would be different.”

  Thad released a soft groan. “Is that what you expected? A real marriage?” She reached out to touch his shoulder, and he covered her hand with his warm, callused palm. “Is it?”

  “I do not know,” she said. “I must be honest, Thad. I am a bit frightened of it.” She waited, not breathing, for him to say something. Outside, a hen cackled, and she could hear the wind pick up, rustling the pine and maple trees near the house.

  Very slowly Thad rolled toward her. He did not touch her, but the heat of his body spread over her skin like warm oil.

  “Come here,” he whispered. He laid one arm across her waist and pulled her close. “You know that I was married before. Hatt—My wife was killed in a train wreck a year ago. I guess I haven’t gotten over it yet. In a way, I still feel married to her.”

  His voice dropped to a whisper. “I like you, Leah. That’s one reason why I married you. In time, I hope it will be good.”

  Leah turned slightly, and her bottom brushed against his groin. She ignored his sharp intake of breath and the low sound that followed.

  He pressed his lips to the back of her neck. “I like you a lot,” he muttered.

  A jagged line of fire rippled down her spine. Oh, yes! This was what she wanted.

  As if he’d read her mind, he tightened his arm about her waist. “Good night, Leah.”

  She lay without moving, wondering at the pleasure his touc
h brought. Wondering why he did not want more. After a time his breathing evened out and she knew he slept.

  On Friday, Thad was busy repairing the fence around his wheat field, so Leah went into town with schoolteacher Ellie Johnson to pick up her new skirt and shirtwaist at the dressmaker’s. Verena was her usual frosty, blunt-spoken self, but Leah stiffened her resolve and tried not to let the woman’s obvious disapproval and her odd, veiled hints about Thad upset her.

  “Don’t look right,” she said when Leah donned her new garments. “A fine skirt and a ruffled shirtwaist on a Celestial. Thad always said he liked a woman who looked like a woman. You know, English, or maybe Scottish.”

  Leah clamped her lips together and kept silent. The seamstress meant one that looked like a white woman. Leah knew Thad’s wife had been friends with Verena, but was there something else, something since Hattie’s death, that she did not know about?

  It was worse at the mercantile. Inside it was warm and cozy; the air smelled pleasantly of wood smoke from the potbellied stove and coffee from the pot sitting on top. But the proprietor, skinny, sandy-haired Carl Ness, dogged her every step up and down the aisles, as if he expected her to steal something.

  Finally she turned to confront him. “Mr. Ness, would you have any green tea?”

  “Green tea?” He snorted. “Never heard of green tea. Only for Celestials, I s’pose. I sure wouldn’t put it on my shelves.”

  Leah worked to keep her voice polite. “Do you have cinnamon, then?”

  Ness peered at her with a frown across his angular brow. “Whatcha want with cinnamon, I’d like to know? Kinda fancy for a Celestial, ain’t it?”

  She put her tongue between her teeth and bit down. Tears stung her eyes, but she managed to speak in a civil tone. “That, Mr. Ness,” she said evenly, “is none of your business. I will need a large tin of cinnamon. Powdered, if you please.”

  An even more hurtful encounter came later, when she and Ellie stopped for tea at the hotel dining room. Ellie spotted two friends seated in the far corner. “Darla and Lucy,” she confided to Leah as they crossed the room to join them. “They were my bridesmaids when I married Matt last summer.”

  The two young women stopped their chatter when Leah and Ellie approached. “Darla, Lucy, this is Leah MacAllister.”

  Both women looked up but did not speak.

  “Mrs. Thad MacAllister,” Ellie added. “Leah, these are my friends, Darla Weatherby and Lu—”

  Before Ellie could finish the introduction, Darla and Lucy plunked down their teacups, snatched up their shawls, and brushed past them without a word.

  “Darla? Lucy?” Ellie called after them.

  The one in a dark green wool skirt and matching jacket spun around. “Your eyesight must be suffering, Ellie. She’s Chinese! A Celestial.”

  Pain lanced into Leah’s chest, so sharp it shut off her breathing.

  Ellie’s blue eyes snapped. “It’s your eyesight that is failing, Darla. Mrs. MacAllister is an American, just like you and me.”

  “Oh, no, she’s not,” the one called Lucy hissed. “She will never be one of us. Never.”

  Leah stepped back as if she had been struck, sank onto a chair and sat stone still with her eyes on the carpeted floor.

  Ellie bent over her. “Oh, Leah, I do apologize for them.”

  Numb, Leah could say nothing. She started to rise, but Rita, the plump, red-haired waitress, appeared at her elbow with a cup of hot tea.

  “I’ll bring another cup for you, Miz Johnson, if you’re stayin’.”

  “Thank you,” Leah said, her voice not quite steady. “We are most certainly staying.”

  Rita grinned and hurried off toward the kitchen. Ellie sat down across from Leah, her lips twisted. Unexpectedly she reached across the table and took both Leah’s hands in hers.

  “There is an old saying in my family, Leah. ‘The enemy of my friend is my enemy, too.’”

  “Oh, Ellie, you must not—”

  “Yes, I must. Don’t argue, Leah. This is important. I think perhaps—” she lifted Leah’s cup off the saucer and swallowed a gulp of tea “—this is going to be war!”

  Rita came with a second mug of tea, and the two women raised their cups and chinked them together.

  Rita moved off to one side and shook her head in sympathy. “If there’s gonna be a war,” she muttered, “I sure know which side I’d pick.”

  It was raining hard when the two women arrived back at the house. Leah scrambled out of the buggy, grabbed up her new skirt and raced toward the front porch, while Ellie drove off down the muddy road. On the first step, Leah turned to wave, and stopped short.

  Across the rain-swept pasture strode a tall, long-legged figure wearing a water-soaked gray Stetson. Thad. She watched him for several seconds, wondering why he wore no jacket or rain poncho in the downpour. He marched through the stinging drops, apparently unaware of the rain pelting his chest or the rivulets of water streaming off his hat brim.

  Without slowing down or even looking up, he moved steadily through the sopping grass, splashing through spreading ponds of rainwater without altering his pace. Then he raised his head for an instant and Leah caught her breath. The piercing gaze that usually missed nothing was focused on something in the far distance.

  The set of his shoulders was so stiff it sent goose bumps up her arms, and he was so distracted he walked right into a low-growing coyote bush. Her heart began to hammer. Thad MacAllister was a courageous and kind man. A man she was beginning to care about. She cringed at the obvious distress in his face.

  What could be wrong? Had Teddy done something without his approval? Had she?

  She glanced down to where the wet hem of her new gray melton skirt poked out from under her coat, hiked it up and started across the yard toward him. In the next instant she found herself running.

  “Thad! Thad!” Her voice did not carry over the drumming rain. She was within three arm lengths of him when he stopped and raised his head. Leah stumbled to a stop in front of him.

  His surprised voice rumbled deep inside his chest. “Well, now, what’s all this?”

  “Where is your jacket?” she said in a choked voice.

  “In the barn. Wasn’t raining when I started out.” Awkwardly he reached out and ran his hand over her damp hair. “You’re soaking wet, Leah. What are you doing out here?”

  “I—I saw you from the porch, and I wanted—”

  What? What did she want?

  The answer came in a flash of understanding.

  “I wanted to be close to you,” she blurted. “I—I mean I wanted to come and meet you.” She dropped her head in the submissive gesture she had learned from long years of training at her mother’s hand, then slowly lifted it until their eyes met.

  His face looked tired, his eyes worried. His gaze wandered, focusing on her forehead, then on her nose, her mouth, her hair. “You’re wet, Leah,” he said again.

  “So are you, Thad. I saw you coming across the field and I… You looked worried about something.”

  “Lord in Heaven, I am worried about something. I’m half eaten-up inside with worry.”

  “Your wheat field?”

  His eyes had an odd, haunted look, and he was trying hard to slow his breathing. “If this storm keeps up, all my new-sprouted seedlings are gonna wash away. And there’s nothing—nothing—I can do to stop it. Dammit, I don’t like feeling helpless.”

  Leah nodded, took hold of his arm and tugged him forward. “Come into the house, Thad. I…” Oh, what could she do to take his mind off his worries? “I—I planned to bake cookies for Teddy, and I might need some help.”

  She had no idea where that thought came from, but it did not matter. She could do little to comfort Thad outside in this driving rain; inside the house it would at least be warm and dry.

  Thad took another step forward. She latched on to his hand and urged him up the porch steps and through the front door.

  The house smelled of the bread she’d bak
ed this morning. Not hard, brittle Chinese bread, but yeast bread, soft and fragrant with crisp, golden crusts. Leah slipped off her coat and started toward the kitchen. “I will make you some fresh coffee.”

  Behind her, Thad made a strangled sound. “What in the—? What happened to your regular clothes?”

  “Ellie Johnson and I visited the dressmaker this afternoon. Verena Forester made this skirt for me, and the shirtwaist, too.” Leah twirled in place and waited for him to say something.

  His gaze slid over her, but almost at once he looked away. “Your hem is soaking wet, Leah. I’ll light the fire.” He bent to touch a match to the kindling and small logs she had laid in the fireplace.

  Leah ran her forefinger over the wisp of lace at the collar of her new percale shirtwaist. “You do not like it?”

  “Well, it’s—uh, it’s just that you look…different.”

  She knotted her fingers together so tightly they hurt. “I am trying to look different. I am trying to look like the other women in Smoke River.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” His voice was flat. He turned away and strode into the kitchen. “I’ll make the coffee.” He hadn’t even bothered to shed his rain-soaked garments.

  She felt like screaming. Did he not like her dressed like other women? Or was it that underneath he did not like her, his misfit half-Chinese wife? In the next minute she heard the grating of the coffee mill in the pantry.

  Thad kept grinding the beans until the receiving box overflowed, sprinkling aromatic grounds over the clean pantry floor. He should sweep up the mess he’d made, but damn! First he needed coffee.

  He swallowed hard. He didn’t want to look at Leah wearing a breast-hugging shirtwaist and a skirt that swirled gracefully over her hips. Her cheeks were flushed with pleasure, and suddenly he found it hard to breathe. Leah was more than attractive. She was downright beautiful.

  Damnation, what did he do now?

  Keep his mind off her, for one thing. Don’t look at her. Don’t get close enough to catch the spicy, lemony scent of her hair. And for heaven’s sake, don’t touch her! He already knew what her skin felt like, smooth and warm as fresh cream. But he was afraid if he let himself lay a single finger on her, he’d be lost.