Her Silent Burden (Seeing Ranch series) (A Western Historical Romance Book)

by Florence Linnington

  Wakefield looked up at him. He didn’t make any move to agree or disagree.

  “Maybe you should pour yourself a drink as well,” Vang suggested.

  “No,” Wakefield replied sharply.

  Van arched an eyebrow. “No? You’re strung awful tight, my friend.”

  Wakefield pushed his fingers through his hair. “I don’t think a drink will help me much.”

  “Or maybe it’s exactly what you need.”

  Vang sipped his whiskey, and Wakefield could almost feel the liquor warming his own blood. He wished to the high heavens that he had what it took to quit after one drink. Years of serving others while staying dry, and it wasn’t until this summer he felt he would lose his mind if he didn’t get a stiff drink in him.

  “I’m not good at cutting myself off,” Wakefield said.

  “Right. How about I pour you a drink, then? Just one.”

  No formed on Wakefield’s lips, but he held back. What if he could stop at one drink? Put enough in him to ease his worries a little?

  He’d messed up big time the other night when he’d started drinking and not stopped. Maybe he did have the willpower to control himself, and he hadn’t exerted it yet?

  “One drink,” Wakefield said. “And then we’re closing the bar and getting out of here.”

  Vang nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Taking a glass from the shelf, Wakefield pushed it across the bar and watched Vang fill it to halfway. The first taste warmed him from head to toe, sinking into his soul like a delicious antidote to every worry to ever plague man.

  “You look better already,” Vang commented.

  Wakefield eased back onto his stool. “One drink.”

  He didn’t trust himself with any more after that.

  “Answer me this,” Vang said. “What would you change if you could?”

  “No baby.” Wakefield winced at how fast the answer had come.

  “Just you and Mrs. Briggs, living up here until you grow old?”

  “Maybe.” Wakefield paused. “No.”

  “No?”

  He swirled the amber liquid around in his glass. “I never had much of a long-term plan. Most of my life, I’ve been looking to survive until the next day.”

  “But now you have a wife. A baby on the way.”

  Wakefield took a sip. A home life was nothing new to him. He’d had a wife before. Life in Cheyenne had been the most orderly it ever was. But even that had seemed to come to be through coincidence. He hadn’t planned for that order at all.

  “Sell me the saloon,” Vang said.

  Wakefield guffawed. “This again.”

  “You’ve been thinking about it, haven’t you?”

  He eyed Vang. “Been thinking about it. The wife is happy here.”

  “She’s happy?”

  Wakefield didn’t like that question, but not because of how Vang put it. It reminded him of his own failings.

  “I thought about your offer some,” Wakefield reiterated. “But, I just opened up Outpost.”

  “And it’s more than you can handle right now.”

  “It’ll get better.”

  Vang said nothing, and the doubts hung in the air between them. Would things get better? The baby would be here in a few months. What was his plan, anyhow? To hope that Thea would accept him for not accepting her and the baby?

  That was a despicable expectation. She deserved better, and it was Wakefield who was all twisted up. He didn’t have what it took to let her go.

  “Let’s talk about it another time,” Wakefield said. He went for another sip and found the glass dry. Sometime during the conversation, he’d downed the entire drink.

  “Well’s dry,” he announced, setting the glass down and shelving the liquor bottle.

  Vang drained his tumbler. “You’ll do what you need to do, Wakefield. Every man does.”

  Wakefield nodded. His mind had slowed down, and he felt more relaxed than he had in a long time. He wanted another drink.

  Bad.

  But he wasn’t gonna have one. He’d made a promise to both Thea and himself to stay off the bottle. One drink was risky enough.

  Jamming his hat on, Wakefield led Vang out the door. Locking up behind himself, he pocketed the key and looked in the direction of home.

  Was Thea there now?

  His lead legs and heavy heart didn’t want to let him go find out.

  “You have a good day,” Vang said. Tipping his hat, he took off down the road. Wakefield stayed on the porch, watching till Vang slipped around the bend.

  Home. He needed to go there.

  And yet he couldn’t make himself. There was nothing in that cabin but disappointment. Pain.

  Pulling the key from his pocket, he unlocked the saloon and went back inside the only place he really felt right.

  Chapter 31

  secret was being kept

  31. Thea

  Chapter thirty-one

  The chickens were in their coop. The day’s goods had been taken from the garden. The cabin had been swept.

  As Thea had found, in Wyoming it was hard to observe the Lord’s Day by not working. In order to survive, one had to always be doing.

  But now, as the daylight vanished, Thea found she had done everything she could for the day. Sunday dinner had passed at the Mullins’, and then Thea had arrived home to prepare supper.

  A supper which now sat warming on the cook stove untouched. Whether Wakefield would come home to eat it or not remained to be seen.

  Thea almost did not care anymore. At this point, she was nearly too exhausted to have an opinion on anything.

  She had not been sick since vomiting in the bushes that morning, but since then an increasing fatigue had set in. Each hour was harder to get through than the last. Maybe it was the pregnancy. Or maybe it was life.

  Sitting down at the piano, Thea lifted its cover and trailed her fingertips over the keys. The piano still needed tuning, and now it might never receive one. The thought saddened Thea even further.

  Hope still lived in Thea, especially thanks to the morning spent praying, but there was also more practicality there as well. Things might change for her and Wakefield, but she needed to think about a future where they did not. She had to be prepared for anything.

  If she left him, the only place to go would be back to South Carolina. The shame would be unbearable. Tongues would wag at the rate of a wildfire in prairie grass. Everyone would talk about the woman returning from the West with a baby and no husband.

  Thea ground her teeth together. It didn’t matter what people said. She needed to do what was best for her and the baby.

  There was no work where she had come from, but perhaps she could start her own business. She could sew. Perhaps travel to Charleston to sell garments she made.

  Tears blurred Thea’s vision, and she let her hands rest on the keys. If she went this route, that meant her journey to Wyoming would have been for nothing. She would have gained naught but lost time.

  A loud bang against the door made her jump. Turning on the stool, she looked across the cabin.

  “Hello?” she called.

  No one answered.

  Thea’s heart thudded. Had it been the wind?

  She held her breath, waiting for more noises, but nothing happened. Her gaze leaped to the rifle sitting above the front door. She knew how to use it, but it would take her valuable time to get it down.

  Standing as carefully as she could without making any noise, Thea crept across the room. Everything around the cabin remained deathly quiet.

  Swallowing, she stood on her tiptoes and grabbed the rifle off its hooks. It was heavy in her hands. Loaded. Wakefield had shown her that.

  The rifle in one hand, she carefully opened the door.

  A body tumbled in and onto the floor.

  Thea screamed. A second later, she realized the person was Wakefield. Setting the rifle against the wall, she fell to her knees and lifted his head.

  “Wakefield?�
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  He blinked. “Thea.”

  The thick smell of alcohol wafted off of him. Thea’s temper rose, and she didn’t know whether she wanted to scream again, cry, or slap him.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

  She closed her eyes and began counting breaths.

  “I’m sorry,” Wakefield said again.

  Thea continued to stare into the darkness underneath her eyelids. It was better than facing the man lying in front of her.

  “Don’t go,” Wakefield said.

  That was more than she could take. Opening her eyes, Thea gingerly rested his head on the floor, then put the rifle back on its hooks. Summoning all the strength she could, she hooked her hands under Wakefield’s arms and dragged him further into the house.

  “I can stand,” he slurred, pulling himself up to sitting.

  Thea closed the door. “Please do not be sick in here. I have only just begun to get over my own bouts of nausea. I will not be able to handle cleaning up after you.”

  Wakefield ran his hands down his face. He’d either left his hat at the saloon or lost it somewhere between there and home.

  “I suppose you don’t want any supper,” she said.

  He eased himself back onto the floor, where he reclined on his back and stared at the ceiling.

  “Wakefield.”

  He made an unintelligible noise.

  “Get into bed. I will fetch you some water.”

  Despite everything that had happened, Thea still had the desire to care for him. He was her husband after all. They had made a promise to each other, and she knew he loved her no matter what.

  Yes, she was thinking of dissolving their vows, but she did not truly want things to come to that.

  Wakefield stayed where he was. Swallowing all of her disappointment and pain for the time being, Thea stepped around him and poured a cup of water.

  She bent to offer it to him, but he rolled over onto his side.

  “Fine, then,” she sighed. “At least get into bed.”

  Wakefield pushed himself onto his knees, and Thea took hold of his arm. He was so much larger than her, her tugging on him likely did little good. But, gradually, they made it into the bedroom.

  Wakefield collapsed on the bed, his face to the window. Thea got busy pulling his boots off and setting them at the foot of the bed.

  “The baby will die.”

  Ice ran through Thea’s veins. Slowly, she stood up and looked at him. The room was dark, and all she could make out was a lump of a man on the mattress.

  “What?” she asked, her voice shaking. Why had he said that?

  “It’s dead,” he muttered.

  Thea swallowed, her pulse racing. Was he trying to scare her?

  No. What a silly thought. He wouldn’t do that. Also, he was drunk as a skunk. He was simply speaking nonsense.

  “Go to sleep, Wakefield. You will feel better in the morning.”

  Moving backward, Thea slipped from the room, leaving the door open a crack so she could hear if he called out for her. Hands shaking, she took a seat at the kitchen table.

  It seemed, though, that her life was now one continuous flighty moment. Standing, she moved to the piano bench. There was also no respite there.

  Going to the front of the cabin, Thea opened the door, wrapped her arms around herself, and stared out at the night.

  The baby will die.

  Since when had Wakefield become a prophet?

  He was out of his mind. Temporarily, anyway. She needed to remember that.

  Was that what he was afraid of? Losing the baby? Did all of his unacceptable behavior really boil down to that? Fear?

  How often did babies die after birth? Or before?

  Thea was not sure, but she knew that her mother had been lucky. She’d given birth to over half a dozen children without any major complications. Most women did not have it that well. Infants were lost all the time, either during birth or during their first year of life.

  And women, too, did not have an easy time with it. Thea knew of several women back in South Carolina who had died during childbirth. The whole situation was a risky one, indeed.

  But didn’t things turn out well for the most part?

  Thea wrapped her arms tighter around herself. The pit in her stomach deepened, and an awful feeling swept across her. It was that of being in the absolute dark. Something she knew nothing about was going on. A secret was being kept from her.

  Not only that, it was destroying her life.

  Chapter 32

  not even bothering to look back

  32. Wakefield

  Chapter thirty-two

  He knew before he even opened his eyes that he’d messed up. In a big way this time.

  So big that he might get out of bed and find his wife gone. He would find all her things packed up and nothing left behind but the piano she couldn’t carry with her.

  Wakefield slowly cracked open his eyes. Finding the light offensive, he threw an arm over his face as he sat up.

  His stomach rolled and he ached all over. No surprise there.

  The memories of the day before were foggy, but he had enough to piece it all together. After Vang left, Wakefield had gone back into the saloon. He’d told himself he was only checking the place over once more, making real sure there was nothing left to clean.

  But that hadn’t been the truth because he’d ended up pouring himself another drink. And then another. After that, he lost count. All he knew was that he’d stumbled home right after dark fell, and now here he was, waking up in bed. Not really sure how he’d gotten there.

  Every muscle hurt. Whatever he’d put himself through, it had been rough.

  Pulling his boots on, he went into the main room. It was empty, the door open to let in the sunshine.

  Wakefield had faced a lot in his years. He’d stared down the barrel of a gun more than once. He’d almost lost his life to a fever during his days on the railroad. But he’d never been more afraid than he was now, thinking about facing Thea after yet another day of getting everything wrong.

  She wasn’t in the front yard, but the excited clucking of chickens that told him it was feeding time filled the air. Going around the side of the house, he found Thea scattering feed from a bucket. She had a sullen look on her face, her eyes downcast.

  Wakefield cleared his throat. “Good morning.”

  Her face didn’t change as she looked up at him.

  “I know this might mean nothing, and I don’t expect it to, but I’m sorry.”

  “I know.” Thea turned and headed for the chicken coop.

  Wakefield followed. “I thought I could handle one drink, but I was wrong.”

  Thea paused her hand on the coop’s doorframe. “Is that all you’re sorry for?”

  “No. I’m sorry for all of it.”

  She tilted her head, scrutinizing him. “What are we going to do, Wakefield? What do you want me to do?”

  He shook his head, which made it hurt. “Only what you are.”

  “You expect me to stay here and live with this? With you drinking every time things get tough. What happens after the baby comes? A baby you will never love?”

  Wakefield felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. His shoulders sagged, and his gaze dropped to the ground.

  “I want to love it,” he said.

  “Wanting is not enough.”

  She sounded so tired, and he looked into her face to find real exhaustion there. He ached to reach out and take her into his arms, but he held back.

  “Do you remember last night?” she asked.

  He uncomfortably shifted his weight. “Some of it.”

  “Wakefield, you fell in through the door. It took me the longest time to get you into bed, and then, once I did, you told me the baby will die.”

  Wakefield’s heart stopped beating. “What?”

  Thea placed a hand on her hip. “Why would you say that? Is that what you’re afraid of?”