It had taken a bit longer for Edgar to settle and realize he had a permanent home with Jonas, Breanna and the other adopted boys. Over a year to erase that sense of worry about where the next meal was coming from, where he’d sleep tonight, having a place of his own…
Jonas blinked away the memories. Perhaps working on Walt’s homestead was just what Penny’s brother needed to settle him as well, but Jonas hoped the older man was equipped to handle a sulky teen.
Jonas glanced up and realized Miss Castlerock was waiting for him to help her up onto the wagon’s bench, an inscrutable look on her features. Her gaze reminded him of being eighteen again and having a flock of tittering girls in colorful dresses watching him lay bricks. The same mortification—embarrassment that he was so far below their station, unease because he thought them beautiful—filled him now, but he stuffed it away. He was a grown man, a man with a family to take care of. If not respected by the people in his community, he at least made his own way. And that was something to be proud of.
As he boosted her up onto the seat, he wasn’t prepared for the heat of her hand in his, even through her soft, white glove.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
He cleared his throat, but didn’t respond as he crossed in front of the horses and used the wagon wheel to lever himself into the seat.
She swished her skirts and smoothed them, and part of the fabric brushed his calf and almost sent him jumping out of the seat. Had the seat always been so small? He felt awkward and too large next to her.
Behind him, Breanna was questioning Sam Castlerock, who responded in nearly unintelligible grunts. With seven brothers, his daughter was used to teen boys and wasn’t letting this one’s sullenness deter her, if her chatter was any indication.
Jonas released the brake and snapped the reins, and the horses began to move. Miss Castlerock’s shoulder bumped his as the wagon crawled into motion.
“You’ll have to excuse my brother,” she said softly. “He’s been…difficult as of late.”
She paused, then went on. “I think perhaps my mother hopes some time with our grandfather will straighten him out.”
Jonas agreed. “Hard work never hurt a body. Walt’s got plenty to do around his place.” He’d learned about hard work growing up on the streets, then found there was plenty of it to be done in the West just the same as there had been in Philadelphia.
The reminder of the past between them, and what she must think of him, was sharp in his chest. With a glance over his shoulder to make sure Breanna was still engaged, Jonas spoke quickly in a low voice.
“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t speak of Breanna’s mother or the…circumstances under which I left Philadelphia.” He planned to tell Breanna before she was grown, but right now she was just a little girl.
This close, he could see the curiosity and something else pass through Miss Castlerock’s clear blue eyes. “As you wish,” came her soft reply after a long moment when he didn’t dare breathe.
And just in time, because Breanna popped her head up between Jonas and Penny. “Miss Penny, your brother is funny.”
Miss Castlerock turned to address his daughter and her knee bumped Jonas’s. Jonas opened his mouth to prevent her saying anything rude to his daughter, who had a tendency to be a bit precocious, but the young woman spoke before he could.
“Why, you’ve made a little nest for yourself.”
She must’ve spotted the little gap Breanna had created amongst the boxes and bundles. Miss Castlerock went on, “Hmm, I suppose Sam can be funny sometimes, although I don’t always appreciate his humor. Just the other night he was trying to play a prank and ruined an entire chocolate sheet cake that I really wanted to taste.”
Breanna’s eyes grew big in her face. “He sounds like Ricky! My brother pulls my pigtails all the time in church and sometimes I wish he wasn’t my brother, but Pa says we have to be patient with all the brothers.”
Staring over the horses’ ears, Jonas caught the curious slide of Penny’s eyes toward him. What must she think of him? Of Breanna talking about her brothers? Penny couldn’t know he wasn’t married, and yet Breanna referenced more children?
Before Penny could ask him any questions, Breanna rambled on.
“Have you ever been on a train, Miss Penny? Yesterday Pa took me to see the train come to Calvin and it was so noisy and loud.”
Jonas started to caution his daughter that maybe her new friend didn’t want to talk so much, but before he could speak, Miss Castlerock was talking again.
“Why, yes. My parents sent me to finishing school back East. In Philadelphia.”
“Philadelphia? Pa, Miss Penny’s been to Philadelphia.” Breanna patted his shoulder, her excitement evident.
Jonas had to clear his throat. “I heard.” He shifted on the seat, uncomfortable. His daughter had steered the conversation right where he’d asked Penny not to. What would she say?
“Pa and I rode the train from Philadelphia to Denver, and then a wagon and then we came to our homestead and lived in a little cabin, but I don’t remember any of that because I was just a baby.”
Breanna sucked in a breath, offering a short reprieve from her chatter. It didn’t last long.
“What’s a finishing school? Did you learn sums and reading and such?”
* * *
Penny could sense Jonas White’s tension in the stiff set of his shoulders. What did he think she was going to do, tell Breanna that he’d gotten her mother with child outside of wedlock? It wasn’t her place.
Turning to face Breanna, Penny accidentally knocked her knee against Jonas’s leg again. Drat the small seat on this wagon.
She resettled her skirt to ensure her ankles weren’t showing and couldn’t help but take in the condition of the conveyance. It seemed to be the same wagon Breanna had just mentioned that had brought her companions west years ago, with wheels that had obviously been repaired and were bleached white from the sun.
The horses seemed to be of good quality. Penny almost wondered if they were some of her grandfather’s stock.
Penny forced herself to pay attention to the conversation instead of thinking of the Whites’ monetary situation. She told the young girl, “A finishing school is a special school for young ladies to learn skills to help them maintain a household. To make them more eligible for marriage.” Not that it had helped her catch a mate. Even with Mrs. Trimble’s training, Penny was too outspoken, too Western, for the men she’d met in Philadelphia.
It was a stark reminder of how she’d disappointed her father. So much that now he’d decided to match her with Mr. Abbott. Penny pushed away the unwelcome thoughts.
“What’s that mean? To maintain a household?” Breanna’s nose crinkled adorably with the question. “Is it like sweepin’ floors and makin’ supper?”
The man beside her coughed, his frame shaking.
“No. Not like that. More of dressing the table and how to make polite conversation with dinner guests…arranging flowers…” As she said the words, Penny realized how trivial they sounded. Would she even know what to do to help her grandfather? She hoped so.
But the little girl hadn’t seemed to pick up on that. “Pa, I don’t have to go away to school, do I?”
Jonas glanced at his daughter’s concerned, upturned face. “No, miss. Not unless you grow up and decide you want to catch a rich husband.” He winked, and Breanna giggled.
He still didn’t look directly at Penny. Had he meant the words as a slight? She couldn’t tell.
“Do you have a rich husband, Miss Penny?”
A wince she couldn’t hide. “No.”
An hour later, the little girl was noticeably drooping, her questions slowing. Sam had long since dropped off to sleep and was snoring in the back of the wagon, chin tilted to his chest.
“Why don’t you curl up and take a nap?” Jonas asked his daughter. “You’ve got room there. Do you want my hat to shade your face?”
“Mmm…thanks, Pa.”
<
br /> Jonas handed the little girl his hat, and she lay down. Quiet, at last.
Penny observed Jonas as he leaned back to tuck Breanna’s skirt around her legs and tilted the hat to make sure she could breathe easily. It was obvious he loved his daughter deeply. She wondered how he’d fared with an infant after leaving Philadelphia. Had he found someone to help care for Breanna? Or had he managed to care for the infant girl by himself? It seemed impossible…
“She’s a lovely little girl,” Penny commented when the silence between them stretched. Unable to contain her curiosity, she asked, “Was there—did you…marry after you left Philadelphia?”
“No,” came his short answer. “I’m not married.”
But hadn’t Breanna just mentioned having brothers? Was it possible he’d fathered more children out of wedlock? Suddenly uncomfortable, Penny glanced over her shoulder to see if Sam still slept. Should she wake him?
Turning back to face front, her eyes met Jonas’s and his gaze narrowed.
Penny rushed to fill the awkward silence. “Sam and I are very grateful for the ride to my grandfather’s place. It’s very kind of you.”
He grunted, now refusing to look at her, squinting in the sun without his hat. His hair was matted to his head where the hat had been, a ring of darker blond showing where the hat had rested on his head. Penny was surprised to note he was quite handsome. She had been too absorbed with her own need to escape Calvin that she’d hardly paid attention to her companion, but she was unable to ignore the sculpted chin and finely arched brow.
The realization was discomfiting. Especially in light of Jonas White’s moral deficiencies. The man had fathered one—or more—children outside of wedlock. And he appeared to struggle for money, lived on a homestead. In short, he wasn’t a man she would consider a suitable match. In addition, she wanted to fall desperately, powerfully in love the way her grandparents had.
To distract herself from uncomfortable thoughts, Penny continued making conversation. “How did you come to be in Calvin? Isn’t Bear Creek closer for purchasing supplies?”
He thought about his answer for a considerable amount of time. “It is. I had business with your father’s bank, and with other banks as well.”
“That’s right. Was your business concluded in a satisfactory manner?” Jonas hadn’t been in her father’s office for very long, she’d noticed, even though she’d been waiting on customers.
“No. Your father didn’t grant me the loan.”
His blunt, quiet answer seemed to end that vein of conversation.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, staring down at her gloved hands. She didn’t know all the circumstances, but the man’s disappointment was palpable. She remembered her father’s anger when Jonas had interrupted his party and wondered if that had anything to do with his denying the loan. Surely not. “Then I’m doubly grateful you agreed to convey my brother and me to Grandfather’s homestead.”
A long silence settled between them. Penny stood it for as long as she was able, but finally felt compelled to make further conversation.
“How did you come to be in Wyoming?”
He frowned and glanced back at his daughter, who still slept. “I was…encouraged to leave Philadelphia.”
Ah. Because of the scandal with Millie, though he did not say it in so many words.
“But how did you choose Wyoming? And…is it…do you raise cattle?”
“Some.” He paused for a long time and again she wondered if he would answer. “I once heard someone read a story about Wyoming in a dime novel. With nowhere else to go, one place seemed as good as another.”
“Hmm.”
She hoped her interest would encourage him to go on, but he stubbornly went silent again. Well. If he wasn’t inclined to make conversation, she would simply endure the quiet.
But what a coincidence that they’d ended up in the same state, near in geographic area. As he’d said, with nowhere else to go, it didn’t much matter where he landed, but how had he come to be Grandfather’s neighbor?
An hour passed without a word spoken between them. Breanna woke up. She seemed quieter, more reserved, and this seemed to worry Jonas, if the crease on his brow was any indication. He insisted they stop awhile under a clump of trees. Sam roused, too, though he remained taciturn and kept to himself. They ate a small picnic in the limited shade from the wagon before continuing on their way.
Breanna did not chatter this time. Penny idly wondered if the trip was a mistake—she already missed conversing with her friends from town. The summer sun made her drowsy, and she was half-dreaming about her father forcing her down the aisle to meet Mr. Abbott when a startled exclamation from Jonas roused her.
“Breanna? Do you feel ill?”
Breanna did not answer, but Penny turned in time to see the little girl collapse into the wagon.
Suddenly, the placid, quiet man next to Penny leapt into action.
“Whoa!” He pulled back on the reins and set the brake as the wagon rolled to a stop. Instantly, he scooped Breanna into his arms from her prone position in the wagon and maneuvered himself off the bench seat. Breanna appeared to be shaking. She hadn’t seemed sick at all this morning…
Alarmed by the girl’s pallor, Penny blurted, “What can I do to help?”
Sam jumped from the back of the wagon, shaking his head as if he’d been drowsing, too. “What’s wrong?”
“Jonas?” Penny questioned again, forgoing propriety.
Jonas ignored Sam as he settled the girl in the small patch of shade cast by the wagon itself. He spoke to Penny instead. “Can you get the canteen? It’s under the bench there. And find a piece of fabric to wet her face?”
She reached for the canteen tucked under the bench seat and hiked up her skirts before stepping down on top of the wagon wheel to dismount. As she pulled her other leg from the wagon, her boot slipped on the smooth wheel and she tumbled to the ground, knocking her chin on the way down. She ended up sprawled inelegantly on her backside, the canteen rolling away.
And face-to-face—albeit across the wagon—with Jonas. He was gentleman enough not to laugh at her. He only grunted, “You all right?”
She chose not to reply, instead reaching underneath her gown and ripping off a piece of her petticoat. She stood and rushed around the wagon to join Jonas kneeling near Breanna in the soft spring grasses. The girl lay on her side, her entire body convulsing.
“Will she be all right?” Penny asked, voice breathless from her fall and the suddenness of Breanna’s episode.
“Yes, in a bit.” Jonas did not look away from Breanna’s face. He’d loosened the neck of her dress and Penny caught sight of the girl’s undergarment, so worn it appeared gray.
When Penny pressed the now-damp piece of cotton from her petticoat into his hand, he used it to swab Breanna’s brow. “It’s all right,” he murmured. “Your pa is right here, and so is Miss Penny. Just rest easy, sweetheart.”
After what seemed an eternity, in which Jonas continued speaking soft words to his daughter and soothing her with a gentle touch at her forehead, the girl’s body began to calm.
Sam squatted nearby, silent but watchful. Penny reached out and touched the back of his hand, hoping to offer some comfort, but he snatched his arm away and stared out at the horizon.
“Mmm, Pa?”
The whisper of Breanna’s voice was the sweetest sound Penny had heard.
“Yes, sweetheart? I’m right here.”
The girl’s eyelashes fluttered and she opened her eyes, which were slow to focus on her father bent over her.
“Did…Miss Penny see?”
Chapter Four
Jonas knew immediately what was behind the timid question from his daughter: she was afraid her new friend would draw away because of the seizure. It had happened before, when someone didn’t understand that Breanna had a medical condition she couldn’t control.
It was another reason Breanna deserved the corrective treatment. His bright, beautiful daughter
shouldn’t have to worry about people rejecting her.
Jonas sent a warning glance over his shoulder, but Miss Castlerock’s face was turned to the side, hiding her expression. She shuffled closer, dress bunching around her knees. He averted his eyes from her shapely calves and stopped her with a hand on her forearm.
“Breanna’s always a little disoriented after a seizure,” he warned, keeping his voice low.
Miss Castlerock looked up at him, blue eyes guileless. “All right.” She started to turn back toward his daughter, but Jonas wasn’t reassured that the banker’s daughter would treat Breanna with enough care.
“She’s just a little girl,” he reminded her, tugging her arm once again.
“I understand.”
Regardless, he stayed at Miss Castlerock’s elbow, putting himself between her and his daughter.
“Miss Breanna.”
His daughter’s brown eyes opened and he experienced a desperate urge to shield her from what Miss Castlerock would say.
“You scared me a little, honey,” the woman beside him said, taking his daughter’s small hand between both of hers.
“Oh.” Breanna gulped, and a tear slipped down her cheek. Miss Castlerock wiped it away and gently brushed back one of the damp brown curls at Breanna’s temple.
“But your papa knew just what to do, didn’t he? He hopped right out of that wagon and got you settled here in the shade. Are you thirsty? I’ve got the canteen here—let me help you hold your head up…”
And to Jonas’s astonishment, she cradled Breanna’s head in the crook of her elbow and helped the girl sip from the canteen. Breanna responded to the woman’s gentle ramblings, her eyes brightening even though she remained lethargic and would be for several hours.
No one but Peg Nelson, Walt’s late wife, had ever shown such compassion toward Breanna during one of her episodes. Even Mrs. Clark had been uncomfortable when Breanna had seizures. When his daughter had had a seizure during the Sunday children’s lesson, the teacher had firmly requested of him not to bring her back.
And now the one person he might’ve expected to treat Breanna callously was holding his daughter close and offering her comfort.
The Homesteader's Sweetheart Page 4
