Though he felt a pang at hurting her, it was a relief that she seemed to have gotten his message not to attach any special meaning to the carving he’d given her.
“That might not be the best present for an infant,” she cautioned. “It’s dangerous to give her any object that’s small enough to fit in her mouth.”
Was that truly her reason for protesting against the idea? It must be. Though she might be disappointed, he couldn’t believe Mattie would hint that he should give the carving to her, instead. If the woman had a selfish bone in her body, he’d never seen any evidence of it.
And she did make a valid point. When he’d thought up this plan, he hadn’t even considered the little detail of what was appropriate for a child who was barely a week old. He didn’t have much experience with babies, but that was still no excuse for such an oversight.
It didn’t cast him in a very good light. Mattie might not trust him around his own niece now. “I’m going to hold on to it for her until she gets a little older,” he remarked, as if that had been his aim all along.
He tried to imagine how Emma might look a couple years from now—as an adorable toddler with big blue eyes and a dimpled smile like her mama’s.
In his mind, he kept seeing her toddling toward Mattie, who scooped her up for a hug...and then turned to him to share in the moment.
It was a foolish thought. Mattie would be long gone from their lives before Emma learned to walk. And yet, the image of Mattie’s radiant expression as she held Emma close seemed to be imprinted on his heart.
Chapter Seventeen
Although Josiah’s gift didn’t have the significance Mattie had attributed to it, she viewed this discovery as a minor setback only, not a reason to abandon her determination. She wouldn’t be disheartened by the first bump in the road.
True and enduring love took time to grow. It happened in God’s time, not her own. She had to be patient, though that wasn’t a virtue she possessed in much abundance.
As evidenced a few days later when she sought Josiah out for a private moment to discuss his brother’s troubling behavior again.
It wasn’t a mere excuse, as she truly was concerned. “He hasn’t held Emma since the day she was born, and that was only in the capacity of a doctor delivering her. He doesn’t interact with her, doesn’t look at her. Doesn’t acknowledge her existence in any way. He never so much as commented on the fact that you and I gave his child a name.”
If Elias had even noticed, he’d shown no signs of it. He didn’t seem to be aware of much that was going on around him. It was as if he occupied a world all his own.
“He completely ignores his own child,” Mattie continued. “His own flesh and blood.” It was unnatural. The newborn was beauty, innocence and lightness. How could her father not have fallen in love with her the moment he laid eyes on her? “Something needs to be done about the situation.”
Josiah released a weary sigh. “I thought we’d already settled this.”
“Yes, I agreed to help until Elias can take over her care. And I’m not going back on my word.” But the more time that passed without any change, the more bothered she became by the way things stood. Until she couldn’t stay silent on the matter any longer. “I’m not heartless toward his bereavement. I miss Rebecca, too. But their child needs him.”
Emma had already lost her mother. And right now her father was as good as gone, too.
Josiah shook his head in dispute. “All she needs for the time being is someone to feed her and change her, to hold her when she cries and rock her to sleep. It doesn’t matter who that someone is. She’s too young to know one person from another anyway.”
“That doesn’t make it right. Doesn’t excuse Elias,” she argued. “I know you said talking to him wouldn’t do any good, but I think you should try.”
Removing his hat, he ran his fingers through his hair, then resettled the hat on his head. “Pushing him is likely to do more harm than good. He’s made his boundaries very clear, and we should respect them. Besides, I know the pain he’s suffering. It’s not something a body gets over quickly. Nor something that can be mended on command. Though the Lord knows you try.”
What did Josiah mean, that he knew his brother’s pain? He spoke as if he had loved a woman who was no longer in his life. “Are you saying you were married before? That you lost your wife, too?”
“No, I was never married.”
She felt relieved that she had misunderstood his point and wasn’t facing the impossible task of competing with the ghost of a lost love. Mattie’s father had been forlorn when her mother died, and he had never remarried. No one could replace his beloved wife in his heart.
In the next moment, however, Mattie learned her feelings of relief had been premature.
“But I did lose the woman I love, when she married my best friend,” Josiah went on to explain.
From the sounds of it, he loved her still. He had used the present tense, indicating he still had feelings for the woman in his past. Which meant he couldn’t be falling for Mattie, as she’d believed.
She felt ambushed by this revelation.
And deceived, in a way. Not once, during all their conversations before now, had Josiah ever mentioned the other woman.
Which left Mattie wondering what else he might not have told her. Finding out that he hadn’t felt inclined to share something of such significance reminded her sharply of events in her past. And brought up her old insecurities. Had she made another error in judgment?
But as soon as the thought had formed in her mind, she realized she was permitting panic to cloud her reasoning. The current situation had very little in common with what had happened back in Saint Louis all those months ago.
Josiah didn’t owe her explanations about his past; it was his private business and nothing to do with her. So why had she imagined that he would have—or should have—apprised her? True, she had told him about her own failed romance. But that didn’t put him under any obligation to reciprocate.
He hadn’t deceived her. From the beginning, he’d made it plain that their union wasn’t based on emotion or any deep and abiding feelings on his part.
Still, she had deluded herself. Blinding herself to reality. Again. She’d repeated the same mistake a second time, letting her dreams of love lead her off course as she chased after an illusion.
Rebecca had been wrong. Mattie had never stood a chance of winning Josiah’s affection. There was no possibility for a happy future together. How foolish of her to believe for even an instant that love might grow from a forced union. It was best that they ended the marriage and went their separate ways once they reached Oregon Country.
As was Josiah’s intention all along. That had never changed, though Mattie had allowed herself to forget it for a time.
So much so that she’d given him enough of an opening to sneak past her guard and into her heart. She was now paying the price for her carelessness. She hadn’t realized how deep her feelings for him ran until this moment.
It was yet another thing she had blinded herself to. But she couldn’t evade the truth any longer. She loved Josiah.
For all the good it did her. He would never return her love. That had been made clear by his last remark.
And the knowledge was like a knife in her chest. All her efforts to avoid heartache had come to naught.
Josiah would leave her once they reached Oregon Country. Go on to build his ranch and make a life for himself. Thoughts of Mattie would never cross his mind.
“I know you mean well,” Josiah continued, blissfully unaware of the devastation he had wrought. “But it takes more than a mind-over-matter approach to move beyond heartbreak.”
Mattie hoped he was wrong about that. For her sake as much as Elias’s.
Lord, please, numb my wounds so I don’t have to fe
el. Return me to what I was before, with a heart impenetrable to hurt.
But even as she silently cried out, she knew she was asking for the impossible.
She had merely imagined herself to be in love with her ex-fiancé, but her heart hadn’t truly been involved. Thus, it had remained intact and whole.
But not any longer.
Please, give me the strength to endure this, Lord. Guide me, and show me Your way.
* * *
Awakened by a baby’s cry, Josiah tossed back the covers and climbed from his bedroll. Glancing up at the dark sky, he noted the position of the moon and guessed it to be close to two o’clock in the morning.
He took only enough time to pull on his coat, then headed toward the campfire where Mattie was adding wood to the glowing embers in preparation for heating a bottle to feed little Emma. The fire snapped and crackled as flames licked along the dry kindling.
He watched her fill a pot with water and hang it above the campfire. His footsteps crunched across the ground as he neared her.
She turned at the sound and spotted him. “Did the baby wake you?”
“Yeah.”
A grimace briefly twisted her features. “Sorry. Can you hold her while I make sure this doesn’t get too hot?” She indicated the glass bottle in her hand and then moved to place it in the pot of water. “I know she’s too hungry to be settled, but perhaps rocking her a bit will help. I don’t want to wake up anyone else with her crying. There’s been some grumbling about it.”
Josiah knew exactly whom she meant. “Pay no attention to Hardwick. Most everyone else knows better than to expect a newborn to be silent.”
Gingerly, he scooped up his niece from her makeshift bed, treating her as if she was fragile as the most delicate glass. The baby’s face was scrunched up and flushed an angry shade of red from crying. Her mouth opened wide around pitiable squalls, exposing her toothless gums.
“Hush now, little one. Mattie will have your bottle ready before you know it.” He swayed back and forth, as Mattie had requested, his eyes locked on the infant in his arms.
She was growing bigger every day, but even at almost three weeks old, she still seemed impossibly tiny to Josiah. Whenever he picked her up, he feared holding her too tight and hurting her. Nearly as much as he feared not holding her tight enough and dropping her.
He felt more than a smidgen of panic every time he was charged with her care. Not so Mattie.
Perhaps it was a strictly feminine attribute, an innate maternal instinct that all females possessed. Adela often lent a hand with the baby and appeared perfectly at ease doing so. Even young Sarah Jane Baker, forever trailing after Adela, seemed captivated by baby Emma, wanting to help take care of her as if she was a living doll.
Mattie retrieved the bottle and tested the temperature, then set it aside and reached for the baby. “I’ll take her now.”
Her hands brushed against his arms as she lifted Emma away from him and settled the child comfortably in the crook of her elbow. Picking up the bottle, she nudged the top against Emma’s lips. The baby latched on instantly, her cries quieted at last, replaced by the sounds of her greedy sucking.
They made an arresting portrait, Mattie’s delicate features warmed by the glow from the flickering flames and his niece’s eyes closed in blissful contentment, her formerly scrunched-up face now relaxed and peaceful.
Mattie glanced over at him, the firelight reflecting in her amber eyes. “Thank you, but I can take it from here. You should head back to bed now. There’s no need for you to stay any longer.” She didn’t bother waiting for a response before she turned her attention back to the baby.
Plainly, he was surplus to requirements. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Good night.”
As he made his way toward his bedroll, he tried to figure out why her dismissive attitude troubled him. He should feel relieved she no longer protested caring for the baby in Elias’s stead. Nor looked to Josiah to urge his brother to face up to his responsibilities.
Except she was still working toward that aim. She had simply cut Josiah out of the equation and now dealt with Elias directly. Thankfully, she was subtle in her appeals, recognizing that a hard-nosed approach would only push him further away.
In contrast, she appeared to be purposely pushing Josiah away. Why did that thought hurt so much? Wasn’t that what he’d wanted? By his own choice, they would soon face a permanent split.
Yet, he no longer looked on it with the same equanimity he once had. Where before it had merely seemed the first step toward a new beginning, he now saw it for the ending it truly was.
But he couldn’t change course now.
* * *
Days later, Josiah’s muscles strained and sweat trickled down the side of his face as he held the rope that snaked through a pulley and connected to one of the covered wagons.
“Steady now, men,” Miles instructed. “Let the rope out nice and easy.”
Working together with several other men, Josiah helped to slowly lower the heavy weight down the steep side of a fifty-foot ravine. Around them, there were two other clusters of men doing likewise with two more covered wagons.
The group of travelers had reached the Blue Mountains of Oregon Country. The looming peaks to the west were the final obstacle standing between them and the Columbia River, which would carry them the last miles to their destination.
Shifting his eyes toward the bottom of the ravine, Josiah noted the men leading teams of oxen down the steep slope. And the group of women and children scattered about the surrounding area, watching the progress. Mattie wasn’t among them. Even from this distance, he would have no trouble picking her out from the sea of bonnet-bedecked heads.
He scanned the landscape and spotted her, wending her way around large boulders partway up the hill, with Emma cradled in her arms. The pair had clearly been left behind, as everyone else was already at the bottom.
Josiah guessed that Mattie was taking her time, in deference to the little one she carried. Over the past few weeks, she’d been a good caretaker to the baby. Protective and loving, she was the kind of mother he wanted for his own children.
The thought brought him up short. Why had it even crossed his mind? He wouldn’t have any children of his own because he didn’t intend to stay married, or to wed ever again.
Mattie didn’t belong in his picture of the future. It was true that his affection for her had increased over the course of their journey, but he didn’t love her.
Their marriage was only temporary. He shouldn’t have to remind himself of that. But, apparently, it was necessary.
They were heading in different directions. He had to accept that she didn’t want to stay with him.
As they neared the end of the trail, she clearly anticipated a parting of ways. Already, she had pulled away from him.
It was a pretty impressive feat, the sense of distance she’d created between them, given the fact that they lived and worked in such close proximity. But it wasn’t a physical distance, rather an emotional one. Though she still talked to him, their conversations were of casual, everyday matters. Nothing of any real meaning. She no longer shared her thoughts and concerns with him, and that left him feeling curiously shut out.
He was drawn from his musing by the sounds of men shouting, and his eyes darted around to ascertain the problem.
“It’s fraying,” one man yelled, his voice tight with alarm.
“It’s not going to hold,” another added, panic edging his tone.
Josiah realized almost immediately that they were talking about the rope keeping one of the other two wagons from careening down the steep grade.
A few men dashed forward to lend whatever aid they could, but most were like Josiah, who had his hands full maintaining control of a different covered wagon.
“Don’
t let go of that rope,” Josiah ordered the teenage boy next to him, when it looked as if Cody was about to do just that.
There was nothing he or any of the other men around him could do to help with the fraying rope. Acting without thought and releasing their hold on their own rope could lead to a worse situation in which they had several wagons dangling precariously in imminent peril.
Suddenly, the frayed rope snapped, sending the wagon barreling out of control down the hillside.
And heading straight toward Mattie and Emma.
A wave of horror slammed into Josiah at the realization that he couldn’t save them. Even if he were free to chase after the runaway covered wagon, he’d never get to Mattie and Emma in time.
He prayed for the Lord to spare his loved ones’ lives, and the Lord heeded his cry.
Maybe it was by the wagon’s wheels hitting a rock, which altered its path slightly. Or Mattie scrambling to the side to get out of the way. Or perhaps both of these things combined that kept them from harm. Josiah didn’t know or care. He was simply relieved that disaster had been averted at the last second.
His heart filled with thanksgiving that his family was safe. Thank You, Lord.
He inhaled, taking a deep breath of air laden with the scent of pine. Sweat had chilled on his skin, and he swiped his arm across his forehead to remove the moisture.
Then he suddenly froze as his mind went back over his recent thoughts. Including the specific words of his appeal to God.
He had numbered Mattie as a loved one. And was shocked to realize it was true.
He loved her.
His knees buckling, he staggered slightly before catching his balance. His damp palms slipped on the rough hemp rope, and he tightened his grip.
But while he got his body under control, his mind continued reeling. He had believed that he’d built a wall around his heart so thick no other woman could touch it. And all the while Mattie had been slowly slipping past his defenses, with him none the wiser.
How had he not recognized his feelings before now? He was a fool.
Wed on the Wagon Train Page 21
