He’d absorbed it all, his face becoming a mask of rage before he calmed down.
His eyes had strayed to Heather’s huddled figure against Anna who rocked her back and forth like one would a small child. The depth of love that melted away the rage made Delilah sigh. Tom loved Heather so much it was a tangible thing.
Would she ever experience a love like that for herself?
“How much do you owe him?”
“I don’t owe anything.”
“I know, but just tell me.”
She did and he nodded. “Let me work on it tomorrow and we’ll see if we can take care of things for ya.”
A determined look came into his eye. She knew that whatever it was that Tom would do, it would be in her favor.
Staring down at her bare hand, she nonetheless felt the ring that should be there. They had married by proxy via the marriage agency, all perfectly legal with Tom acting as the stand-in for Esau. Included had been documentation with the man’s signature needed for the legalities. Although she didn’t understand it all, it came down to the fact that she was now Mrs. Esau Caldwell.
Reverend and Mrs. Esau Caldwell. It sounded good in her mind.
The smile on her face couldn’t be overtaken. Despite all the uncertainty that lay before, she felt free for the first time in a long while.
It wasn’t that she found the Society horrible. They had taken her in and kept her when her mother abandoned her. With their guidance, they had instilled in her a love for God and a dependence on Him for all her needs. She’d learned skills for life, and she would always be grateful for that.
Most importantly, they kept her from a life of immorality. Matron had told her over the years that the blood of the mother lies in the daughter. She was destined to become like the woman, but she’d overcome that now.
She traveled in the stagecoach, the ride uncomfortable and rickety. She’d heard tales of stagecoach robberies, but so far they hadn’t been accosted at all. Looking across at one of the passengers, who drifted to sleep, she thought about Anna.
Leaving Anna was the hardest thing she’d ever done. She’d always imagine that she would have been the one saying goodbye as Anna went away, not the opposite. Despite their tears, Anna was happy for her.
“Go and take care of that child,” she’d said. “Maybe one day, I’ll come and see you.”
“I love you, my dear friend and my sister.”
They’d held each other close as a thousand memories of yesterday surged through them. Images of little girls growing into women. The matron had allowed Anna to remain, and for that, Delilah was grateful. How long the invitation would last was anyone’s guess. At least for now, her friend had a place to stay.
The carriage almost lifted off the ground after running over a rock. Delilah pressed her mouth together to suppress the little squeak. The other passengers in the coach said little, for which Delilah was thankful. Heather and Tom had decided to stay a few extra days in Philadelphia to tie up some loose ends, although Delilah suspected they really wanted to make sure that Simon North couldn’t cause any more trouble to them again.
Delilah smiled. She’d never think of Simon North again.
Glancing out the window, she saw they were drawing closer to their destination. The small town in the Montana territory didn’t have an official name. It was called several different names, but one hadn’t stuck to it yet. It was here at the stagecoach depot that she would meet her husband.
What type of man was Esau Caldwell? Granted, she should have considered that before signing the papers to marry him. Perhaps they should have struck up several months of correspondence before embarking on this life together. In this; however, Delilah felt a little bit like Abraham. She would follow the Lord’s guidance and trust that He knew what was best.
Her smile widened. She couldn’t stop smiling.
She hoped her husband was a decent-looking man. Delilah had no expectation for an exceptionally handsome man. She had decided that this would be a marriage in fact as well as deed. Although Reverend Caldwell needed a mother for the little babe, a man also needed a wife. She’d kept her own virtue, proving that she wasn’t like her mother, so it was now hers to give to her husband.
On the eve of her departure from the Society, Matron had come into her room and spoke to her about the intimacies of marriage. “A man is not gentle with his bride when it comes to the marriage bed. Often, he is more concerned about seeking his pleasure than yours. As his wife, you must do your duty to him. As unpleasant as it will be, what is more important is that you allow your husband his rights.” She’d cocked her head to the side. “You don’t wish for your husband to seek his pleasure elsewhere like so many men have done with your mother, do you?”
No, Delilah vowed, she would not give her husband cause to seek his pleasure elsewhere.
When she arrived at the stagecoach depot, a bittersweet feeling came over Delilah as she exited the stage. Life from this moment on would never be the same.
Her eyes roved the depot, looking for her husband. A few men loitered about, but it would be easy to figure out which one was hers. He’d have a baby in tow.
“Delilah? Delilah Hampton?”
A deep voice sounded behind. It sent a shiver along her nerve endings.
She whirled around and came face to face with the marble brown eyes of the most beautiful little baby she’d ever seen.
“My son,” she breathed, tears forming in her eyes. “My son.”
Without being conscious of her actions, she reached her hands out, wordlessly asking for her child.
Her eyes were focused on the baby, although some part of her acknowledged he was held against the solid wall of a man who loomed above. In a peripheral way, she felt the heat strokes of long dark fingers brush against her knuckles as the baby exchanged hands. Her nose, wrinkling at the child she was settling in her arms, registered a warm, spicy masculine scent that titillated her nostrils and made her inhale the aroma greedily.
“Hello, little one,” she breathed, bringing the child close. She’d no idea what her son would look like, but he was everything she hoped for and more. Beautiful, silky black hair. Pudgy cheeks begging for kisses. A squeezable well-fed body, evidence of good nourishment. Strong legs that kicked, showing off his strength.
His eyes full of intelligence and curiosity.
The baby’s face scrunched as he looked up her. His mouth opened to begin a caterwaul of crying when his cheek brushed the softness of the swell of her breast. The child froze, his eyes wide. Had an almost forgotten memory been awakened by the softness of her, Delilah wondered? She had no time to figure it out because the next moment, the child nuzzled his face against her, burrowing deeper into her body.
Something like a sigh of contentment blew from the child’s mouth. His dark eyes stared up into her own, his hands outstretched to touch her face.
Delilah fell in love for the first time in her life.
“He’s so beautiful,” she smiled. “Just the most perfect baby in the entire world.”
“I’m glad you think so…Delilah.”
She lifted her eyes from the preoccupation with her son to collide with the most handsome man to ever stand on the face of the earth.
Immediately she could tell he was a man of mixed races, Indian and white. Those traces of blood had combined to create a man of such masculine beauty it was enough to steal her breath away. Tall and dark as she had imagined with an air of restraint about him. He looked down at her from his incredible height, his eyes a strange molten brown gold. His darkly tanned skin exuded vitality.
This was Esau Caldwell. He was nothing like she expected and everything she could have dreamed of and more.
For the second time in her life, Delilah Hampton fell in love.
***
“I hope Tom found a woman who looks like something run over by a carriage,” Jacob had snapped this morning as he packed his belongings. He planned to spend a month or so with a trapper friend in a smal
l town in South Dakota. “I hope you can’t stand the sight of her.”
Esau gazed down at the woman the Lord had sent as his wife. If Jacob had been there, all his hopes would have been crushed.
Delilah Hampton was lovely, pure and simple. Pale skin topped with a flowing crown of blonde hair stuffed under a bonnet. Dressed appropriately for the Montana winter in heavy wool garments, they nonetheless emphasized the slenderness of her figure.
Her brown eyes impaled him, and something jolted up his spine. She smiled, a generous wide smile that could melt the ice from a frozen heart and warm the coldest day.
“What is his name? Tom never told us.”
Her voice had a lyrical quality. Clear and high, with measured words as if she thought about everything she would say before she said it. He liked the way it sounded.
Her question brought Esau back to the matter at hand. The Lord had sent a mother for the child.
Not a wife for himself.
“The child doesn’t have a name yet.”
Those brown eyes of hers widened. “But he’s almost five months old. He must have one.”
Briefly, Esau told her about the mother’s wishes. “In light of that, I believe we should name the child together.”
Her soft brown eyes watered and Esau swallowed the lump that formed in his throat.
“Are you going to be all right, Delilah? May I call you Delilah?”
She sniffed and held the child closer. “It’s just so wonderful that we have the honor of taking care of him, although it happened in such a tragic way. And, yes, please call me Delilah. I’m your wife after all.”
“Also, I want to apologize for my twin brother’s absence.”
Her eyes widened. “I didn’t know you were a twin. Do you and your brother look alike?”
“No, bless the Lord.”
She grinned. “Who’s the oldest?”
“Jacob is by a few minutes. But that’s a matter of birth order, not of mind.”
“Will he be living with us as well?”
That was a good question. “For now, Jacob has gone to a little trapping town in South Dakota called Evansgrove. He’ll be there for a while to give us a chance to…have time to ourselves.”
Esau glanced around to see they were drawing some attention. Although he hadn’t any qualms with some of those people around, word would get out soon that he had a wife.
“Shall we continue the discussion back at the cabin? We should get out of the cold.”
She blinked. “Of course! How silly of me.”
“Not at all.”
The wagon he used had a low bed and he was able to assist Delilah into it and then place the well-covered baby in the basket and set it next to her for his protection. “Normally, you would sit up there with me but with the child, I want you to meet him and for you to get to know each other as soon as possible.”
“I understand.”
He got up into the seat and with a click of his tongue to the horses, they set off toward the cabin a few miles out of town. It was chilly but not terribly so, almost pleasant for a Montana winter. His eyes scanned the snow-covered scenery as he gave thanks.
Lord, she’s a beautiful woman. Thank you for sending her to me—to the child.
He hurried the horses along as fast as he could. Jacob’s visage floated before him as they traveled home from the depot. Last night, just once more, Jacob tried to reason with him. “Esau, you can’t do this. Nothing but bad can come from it.”
“That’s what you think, brother,” Esau had said.
“It’s what I know, Esau. You doin’ this ain’t gonna change nothin’ about who you are and what those folks did a long time ago.”
Images of blood, and the phantom screams echoed in his mind. “I don’t think that it will. Vengeance belongs to the Lord.”
“The Lord never did nothin’ about what happened back then. And you sittin’ up here like you ‘bout to have a family ready-made when you know you still angry about it.”
“I’m not angry,” Esau had denied, although his lips had tightened at the corners.
“That’s what you think. It ain’t right for you to be with this woman and that’s that.” Jacob had turned away from him, his body rigid, although a fine subtle trembling had taken hold of him.
“Why?”
A hard, tense silence had laid between them. Memories he didn’t want to dwell on threatened to come up to the surface. It was already bad enough that he had nightmares during sleep, when he had no control over his mind. He could and he would take control of his mind when awake.
“Everythin’ we ever loved was taken away from us, Esau. It’s better not to have nothin’. Then you ain’t gotta worry about anyone takin’ it from you.”
“That’s how you choose to live your life, Jacob.”
“The thing is that you do too, brother.” Jacob had faced him. “I see what you do when you go around to this ranch or that, preachin’. You only doing that because ain’t nobody here. You bring that woman here and things are gonna change. You may start to care for her and the boy. Well, you already care for the boy now. If something happens,; however, and they get taken from you—”
His brother had stopped talking, his face a hard mask filled with anger and something more.
Despair.
“Go on,” Esau invited. Why had his hands clenched and unclenched at his brother’s words? Why did something hot and sour burn the back of his throat?
“You not gonna be able to hide behind that religion of yours, like ya been doing.”
Esau eased around a snow drift as the memory of Jacob’s flushed face and tight, narrowed eyes flashed in his mind.
“You can’t be angry, Jacob. You have to let it go.”
His brother had stared with a hard look. “You know what your problem is, Esau? You think you ain’t angry. You think you’re not upset. Pretending like you don’t want to raise your fist to the sky and demand an answer for why we have to be in so much pain? We ain’t never did nothing to deserve it.”
“How much further is it?”
Delilah’s voice broke through his reverie. Thankfully, the horses knew the way as well as he did.
“About three more miles. Is the child okay?” He didn’t hear the babe crying but that could be because he was so heavily covered.
“He seems to be, but I’d like to get back to the cabin to be sure.”
They said no more the rest of the way.
What would Delilah think of his home? Thinking of the place, he found it restful. His brother had shared it with him for a long while. Now he would share it with his wife.
Wife.
How odd to think this woman was associated with him in that manner. They had to set some rules though. First and foremost, she was a mother to the child. When the child slept, they would talk about his and her expectations.
The cabin finally came into view. A low-roof house silhouetted against the afternoon sky. The barn lay not too far from it where he kept a few livestock and an underground well as a source of fresh water.
It wasn’t what she would be used to, he was sure. He hoped she’d one day see this as a home she could enjoy.
“We’re here,” he announced as he drew up to the front of the cabin.
Delilah and he were going to be alone.
A dose of fear…and something else he didn’t want to acknowledge flooded his system. What would it mean for them? Could they ever come to an understanding? Was this truly the mother for his child.
Assailed by doubts, he paused and said a prayer. Lord, please let this have been the right decision.
Climbing down from the wagon, he went around to the back of the bed, and helped Delilah down. The first snowflakes of the evening started to fall. “I’ll take care of the horses. You and the child go inside.”
Esau hadn’t planned on being that long outside but by the time he led the horses into the barn and unhitched the wagon, he was waylaid by chores. Rubbing the horses down, feeding the
m oats for the night, putting water in the trough, as well as other minor chores that needed to be seen to. By the time he’d finished, a quarter of an hour had passed.
When he opened the door to the cabin, all he heard was the sound of the babe crying.
His heart leapt in his chest as it started to do lately whenever the child cried. “What’s wrong?” he asked as he took off his coat and boots and set them near the coat tree.
Delilah had taken off her outer garments as well. Standing in the center of the room before the hearth, a halo of fire surrounded her figure. The baby cried and wiggled about in her arms.
“I don’t know. He hasn’t stopped crying ever since we walked in here.” Her voice was plaintive.
“Here, let me take him.”
She gave the babe to him. The child, upon seeing his face, immediately stopped screaming. He pressed his cheek to Esau’s chest, making small hiccupping noises.
“I see.” Delilah smiled. “I guess he just wanted his father.”
Esau’s breath caught in his throat as he gazed down at the boy. The baby gummed his fingers as he set his large marble eyes on him. “Is that what it is, my son? You wanted…your father?”
How extraordinary to think that this child had bonded to him in such a fashion in such a short time. It made his heart do all sort of flops within his ribcage as he lifted the boy to his shoulder and rubbed his back in a circular motion.
“The babe doesn’t know you well enough yet,” Esau said practically, as he paced the room. “But he will come to know you.” He cleared his throat and then said, “You are now his mother, and he will come to recognize you in that light.”
She nodded. “I’m sure he will.”
The child’s head rolled on his shoulder as Esau stopped at the table. He’d fallen asleep, his tiny mouth askew in a baby snore.
“Let me put him in his crib and then we’ll get to the first order of business.”
Delilah cocked her head to the side. “And what is that?”
“Probably the hardest part of all,” Esau murmured philosophically as he went over to the crib to lay the boy to rest. “Giving our son a name.”
A Bride for Esau Page 6
