Marry Me

by Susan Kay Law

  Kate needed no more urging than that. She shot out the door so fast her skirts stirred up the spilled flour into a low, dusty cloud.

  They were debating just how far away was an appropriately safe distance—Emily maintained they needed to be near enough to help, should her husband require it, which she interpreted as a meager ten feet; Kate was holding out for a minimum of a half mile, which she considered scarcely sufficient—when a blaze of brown darted between them, spinning Kate around.

  “You missed him,” she said to Jake when he ambled up.

  “He’s a quick little thing. Off to ride steer, most likely. He’s right fond of them, rides better’n half of the cowpokes around here, though he shies at the horses. He’ll find his way home when he gets hungry.”

  “Bull-riding monkeys?” Kate murmured in a daze.

  “Now then, Mrs. Goodale.” He took her hand, kissed it with an elegant gesture that showed he’d had some practice with the niceties. “Emily has been so looking forward to your arrival.”

  “I’m sure she has.”

  “Yes. I’m delighted that you’re here.”

  “Kate will do,” she murmured, while she assessed her new brother-in-law. “If we’re to be family.”

  Right up until this moment, Kate had not truly believed in his existence. He’d been no more real to her, no more likely to insert his live, breathing presence into her life, than Santa Claus. She didn’t know how she’d come to that conclusion, but a part of her had truly thought that she’d simply blow and he’d disappear into the air like frosted breath, and she could take Emily home, safe and sound.

  Oh, but he was a handsome one. Easy to see why Emily’s head had been turned. She wasn’t so old—mature…well-seasoned…oh, there wasn’t a good word for it, was there?—that she didn’t still have an eye for, and appreciate, a fine specimen of a man. She did like the big, brawny ones, and he certainly had the potential for it, shoulders as wide as a barn door even though a bit narrow through the waist and hips.

  But he sure had the looks, in spades. And Emily, sweet, trusting Emily, had been ripe for the fall. Kate had admittedly sheltered her, kept her away from most of the flirtations most girls her age might have had, on the theory that Emily’s soft heart needed to grow up and harden a bit before being exposed to the machinations of men. But that might have been a mistake, Kate acknowledged now. It had left her with no defenses against the first handsome scoundrel she smacked into.

  He moved a shade closer to Emily, put his hand at her elbow, and she jumped. But then she settled down again, even smiling up at him shyly, a hint of rose in her cheeks, and Kate wanted to whack him. You’ve got no right to put your hands on her.

  But he did, didn’t he? Emily had given him that right.

  “Emily, how about that supper you promised me? I find my stomach’s calmed down nicely, and now I’m ravenous. I’d just as soon feed it before it acts up again.”

  “Kate, I’m so sorry! You must be famished. Though it might take a while to get the kitchen clean enough to cook.”

  “Oh, let it sit for a moment. I’m much more interested in eating than waiting for you to cook something, though I’m sure it’d be wonderful. Can’t you just rummage up a snack first? I’m sure we’ll all work much better with something in our stomachs.” She gave Jake her best smile. “And while you dig out some crackers, Jake and I will wait right here and he can tell me all about himself.”

  Emily and Jake exchanged a long look, and then spoke together.

  “I really could use his help—”

  “Don’t you think I should be taking the buggy back—”

  They both clamped their mouths shut, and neither said another word until Emily gave him a small nod.

  “Nothing I’d like better,” Jake said. “Though I’m sure I’d much rather hear all about you than natter on about myself. Still, we borrowed the buggy and horse from our neighbors, and I’d best get it back. Wouldn’t want to take advantage of their generosity.”

  So the two of them didn’t want her alone with Jake. Too bad. There’d be plenty of chances for her to catch him by himself.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “No!” he said quickly. “It’s a healthy walk back. Be hard on you in those skirts and shoes. Not to mention the bugs come out at twilight. I’m sure we’ll have many opportunities to get acquainted.” He frowned. He did a lot of that, Kate had noticed; he looked like a man who’d done some smiling in his time, but you couldn’t tell it by his expressions so far. Was this a classic case of opposites attracting, then? Emily, who never stopped smiling, and this man who never started? If there was one thing she’d wished for Emily, it would be to marry a genial and good-natured man who adored her. Kate knew too well what it was like to marry a man who was none of those.

  “You will be staying awhile, right?” he said with enough of an edge to have Kate suspecting he’d rather she turned around and went back home this very instant.

  “Long as I’m welcome.”

  The nudge Emily gave his ribs was better disguised than she would have given Emily credit for.

  “You’re always welcome,” he said, and she thought he might have choked on the words.

  “Long enough to make certain my sister is well and happily settled.”

  He threw his arm around Emily’s shoulders, a big, hearty gesture that nearly sent Emily toppling. Didn’t he know to take care with her? She needed protection. Yes, he looked like he could do a fair job of fighting off bandits and wolves and whatever else was out here, but what good would it do if he didn’t curb his strength with her?

  “Well, then you could go home right now, ’cause you can see she already is,” he said jovially. “Not that that’s a hint, you understand.”

  “Oh, I understand.”

  “Then I’ll leave the two of you for now. I’m sure you’ve got lots to talk about.”

  Kate missed Mrs. Birovchak. There’d been drawbacks to being married to William Goodale—plenty of them—but having an army of servants floating around to do the heavy housework, and Mrs. Birovchak to oversee them, was not one of them.

  Kate prided herself on being both clear-minded and clear-sighted. She saw the good and bad in things, and was capable of appreciating one while ruing the other.

  However, there was nothing good she’d been able to discover in this situation as of yet. It was unlikely she ever would.

  She put a hand on her aching back as she pushed herself to her feet, dusting the remains of the flour barrel from her skirt. She’d changed before they’d started to clean, but even her simplest dress wasn’t designed for physical labor.

  “I’m done,” she said. “At least for tonight.” And she didn’t care one bit how much was left.

  “It looks better, doesn’t it?” Emily opened the door and emptied a pan of sweepings into the yard. “It wasn’t nearly as hard as I expected.”

  Not as hard as she expected? Kate looked around her, at the inadequate and dreary house; the battered, drab, and terribly insufficient furniture; and the scraps of supplies they’d salvaged. She looked at her sister, streaks of grease on her face, her clothes much worse for the wear, and she wanted to cry. Oh damn it, Doctor, she thought, why couldn’t you have lived just a few more years? Then she and Emily’d be safely back in Philadelphia, giggling and shopping, plotting what she was going to bring to Bryn Mawr.

  “Emily,” she said, “let’s go home.”

  Emily carefully set aside her broom and dustpan, folding her hands over the soiled length of dishtowel she’d wrapped around her waist in lieu of an apron. “I can’t.”

  “Of course we can,” Kate said briskly. “We just pack up what you want to take back—there must be little enough of that—buy a ticket, get back on the train, and be gone. Nothing could be simpler.”

  Emily just shook her head, face set into grave, serious lines. She never looked like that, not sunshiny, happy Emily. Had this land, this marriage, already taught her that expression?

&nb
sp; “Whyever not?” Kate waved away Emily’s objections before she could voice them. “Because of your husband? I grant you, I can see the initial appeal, for he is very different from the men you’re used to, and you’ve had little enough experience with them at that. Maybe that was a mistake on my part. But it’s not the kind of appeal that would wear well. And you’ve scarcely been married long enough for it to count. No reason to cling to it just out of pure stubbornness.”

  “You make it sound like it was a regrettable purchase that can simply be returned to the store, not a marriage.”

  “More like a business contract that can be dissolved. Happens all the time.”

  “Why didn’t you, then?”

  For an instant Kate thought her heart seized, froze up like a pump in winter. “My marriage contract functioned precisely as it was intended to, exactly as I planned from the day I entered into it.”

  “But—”

  “That topic is not open for discussion.”

  “Then neither is mine.”

  It was so easy to look at Emily and see the child she’d been. On the outside she’d changed very little, all big, earnest eyes and round cheeks and tiny body. “You were always the most tractable of children. When did you become so stubborn?”

  “I always have been. I had a good teacher.” Emily smiled as if it were a compliment instead of an insult. “It’s just that we seldom disagreed, and I even more seldom found something that was worth opposing you on.”

  “And this is?”

  “Oh yes. Every bit as much as working with Dr. Goodale was.”

  Deliberately, Kate let her concern show. “I miss you.”

  “Kate.” For a moment Kate thought appealing to Emily’s susceptible heart would be enough. “You’d have missed me, too, if I was off at college.”

  “Yes. But it’s not nearly so far away. And I wouldn’t have worried about you a fraction as much.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Emily…”

  “That’s enough for one night, Kate. There’ll be plenty of time for you to scold me tomorrow, and I’m sure you’ll have a lot more energy for it then.” She slipped her arm around Kate’s waist, the way Kate had done to her a thousand times. “For now, I don’t know about you, but those crackers and cheese we had earlier aren’t going to hold me all night long. And it’s certainly not going to keep Jake until breakfast. How do you feel about biscuits and sausage gravy?”

  Kate watched her new brother-in-law make a bed on the floor. Though bed, to Kate’s way of thinking, was a charitable term. A thin tick stuffed, she thought, with straw or field grass or somesuch—how long after grass was picked did it take for all the insects in it to die?—laid on that hard floor, covered with a few worn blankets.

  Things could be worse, she reminded herself. At least the floor was wood.

  He worked quickly, silently. He was a silent man, was this Jake Sullivan. And a serious one. One might even call him gloomy. She’d done her best to charm him at dinner; on the chance that—and she was not giving up, not in any way, she just considered it prudent to have a back-up plan—Emily remained with him, she wanted to know enough about the fellow to believe that Emily was in reasonably good hands. Not as good as her hands, of course.

  But he hadn’t given her so much as a hint. Surprising; few men could resist her when she was really bent on getting something from them. He ate quickly and with complete focus, like a man who’d not always had as much as he wanted to eat, but someone had taught him a few table manners along the way, which was more than she’d dared hope for.

  But every question she asked, no matter how simple or how large, no matter how pointed, he deferred to Emily. As frustrating as her inability to pry any useful details from him was, the fact that he did defer to Emily without any hesitation reassured her a bit. Most men took more training than that before they deferred to their wives.

  They weren’t easy with each other. There were none of the secret smiles, the unspoken communication common between long-married couples. Once when Emily passed behind him to fetch more coffee, she bumped his shoulder with her elbow and he jumped half out of his chair.

  It seemed…a little off to Kate. But she couldn’t discount the possibility that might be wishful thinking on her part. And truly, what did she know about how newly wedded couples acted together in those first days of marriage? Her own marriage was useless as a comparison. Perhaps it wasn’t unusual for them to be a touch awkward with each other.

  “Well.” He got up from squatting beside the bedroll and rubbed his palms down the front of his denims. “I guess I’ll—” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder, toward the door. “I’ll be outside for a while. Give you ladies time to, um—” He looked to Emily for help.

  “We’ll let you know when it’s safe to come back.”

  Despite his promise, Kate found herself hurrying through her toilette. After tugging on the biggest, thickest, most all-concealing nightdress she found in her luggage—which would undoubtedly have her sweating in no time, and wasn’t that attractive?—she gave her hair the cursory brushing and refrained from smearing on her night cream for fear he’d come back unexpectedly. She promised herself she’d do better tomorrow night. She had to protect her looks, the way a singer might protect her voice or a seam-stress her hands.

  Emily’s nightgown was every bit as voluminous as Kate’s, swallowing up her small figure, her face pink from a fresh scrubbing and her hair tied up in a blue ribbon.

  “You look exactly as you used to when you’d come to my room frightened by a storm. Remember?”

  “Of course. You were always dead asleep until I came and woke you. How is it the thunder never disturbed you but my first step into your room did? I tried so hard to be quiet.”

  “Thunder didn’t scare me.” And you always did. Or rather, the thought I might not be enough for you, might not do right for you; that terrified me from the moment Mother died.

  Emily poked her head out the door. “Jake? We’re done. You can come back now.”

  He ducked his head, his hair damp and deeply waved, came into the room, and took it over, his presence overwhelming. He thumbed open the first button on his shirt, then looked at them and let his hands fall. He shrugged, turned for the makeshift bed on the floor, and Kate made her decision.

  “I thought that was my bed.”

  His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “I assumed—I mean, well, I figured you’d be sleeping with Emily and I’d take the floor.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” She’d made the decision, and now she poured it out as fast as she could before she changed her mind. They’d obviously been sharing a bed before her arrival. So she would swallow her instinctive protest and try her best to be adult about it. And anyway, it wasn’t as if, honeymooners or no honeymooners, they were likely to do anything with Emily’s big sister dozing only a few feet away. And if he tried she’d just have to have a sudden, very loud coughing fit, wouldn’t she? “Do I look the sort to come between a man and his new bride?” She beamed a smile—not a bad one, all things considered—at Emily. See what a good sport I’m being? “And anyway, I have a trick back, don’t I, Emily? Always better if I rest on a very firm surface.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, I do.” What was the matter with her? Emily was usually much quicker to pick up on hints. And she was looking a bit peaked around the edges, her eyes wide, skin pale as it could be considering all the color she’d picked up out there. Well, it couldn’t be a comfortable situation for her, poor dear, any more than it was for Kate; neither one of them had so much as peeked at the bed.

  “Well, yeah, that’s right considerate of you.” He shuffled his feet and shot a quick, worried glance at his wife. It was rather endearing, to see this glowering, supremely contained man discomfited. And he suddenly appeared much younger than she’d taken him for; perhaps he was not all that much older than Emily after all. “But truly, Em’d be right put out with me if I made her sister sleep on the floo
r.”

  “But it’d be silly for both of you to sleep on the floor, while I took the bed. No, no, I insist. I’ll be fine. Look!”

  She plopped herself down, a whoosh of night-gown, and patted the blankets into smoother order. This kicked up a musty cloud of dust, and she pinched the bridge of her nose to keep from sneezing. “There, you see? Comfortable as can be. I’ll be fine.” She flopped backward, valiantly suppressing a wince when her spine hit hard wood scarcely cushioned by blankets that wouldn’t keep a horse warm in July.

  Jake stared glumly at Emily. Kate wondered about that; was he hoping Kate would offer to sleep somewhere else, so they could be alone? She was sacrificing enough here; that was truly above and beyond the call of duty. He could just rein himself in for a few days. Yes, they were newly married, but in her experience men whined far more about that particular subject than it called for.

  Finally Emily lifted her shoulders and spread her hands wide. Now what? He frowned fiercely at her, and fierce, on Jake Sullivan, was downright intimidating.

  He made a low sound. Kate imagined a waking grizzly bear emitted the very same tone. “I don’t—”

  Swiftly Kate rolled over, so her back was to the bed, and slammed her eyes shut. “I’m sleeping,” she sang out.

  She heard nothing for a long time, until a drawn-out sigh and the scuffle of feet. She opened her eyes a crack. Just before someone snuffed out the lantern, she caught a glimpse of the floor, studded with gaps and dozens of knotholes the size of a fist. Large enough for all sorts of nasty creatures to crawl through in the middle of the nigh to nibble on un-or rather, suspecting ladies from Philadelphia.

  She thought longingly of her bed, beautifully crisp, sunshine-scented linens over drifts of soft feathers, as her hip protested the floor. Emily, I certainly hope you appreciate what I’m doing for you.