Love by the Letter (An Unexpected Brides Novella)

by Jagears, Melissa

  He could provide Rachel with much prettier vistas in Kansas, but a woman who lived in a house like this wouldn’t be content with a hovel that might not even have a window, let alone a glass one.

  Did Patricia know what kind of house Everett intended to build? He couldn’t imagine that blond bundle of giggles in a soddy. He’d have to question the next lady he wrote about her living condition expectations.

  Rachel glided back in and grabbed two books off the shelf. They were thick, too thick. “Would you prefer a seafaring adventure or a haunted house? Or rather, what the heroine imagines is a haunted house.”

  Couldn’t he start with a much smaller book? He glanced around the shelves but they all seemed bulky. “Ah . . . the sea.”

  “Robinson Crusoe it is.” Did she actually skip a little on the way back to the shelf? She put away the thinner book, twirled, and slid the larger one across the table before sitting. “Go ahead and read the first page.”

  He clamped his hand over the book to hide his shaking and dragged it toward him. Curse the courage that had prodded him to come today. He flipped past the exorbitant amount of fine blank pages to get to chapter one, then pressed the book flat. He grimaced at his sweaty hands and stopped to wipe his palms on his pant legs.

  Why did it have to be such fine print? The lines wouldn’t stop congealing, and concentrating harder wasn’t keeping the words still.

  This would be more taxing than the time Miss Christmore threatened him with a ruler if he didn’t come to the front of the class to read. He hadn’t been able to squirm his way out of every fix back then, and it didn’t look like he could now—and this time, he’d asked for it.

  “Read aloud, so I can hear you.”

  He cleared his throat to keep from laughing. Did she think he’d been reading in his head? He hadn’t even pinned down the first word.

  “Don’t be afraid to be wrong; I can’t help unless I can discover a pattern to what you’re misreading, so don’t try too hard.”

  Easy for her to say. Hard was the only way he got any reading done. “All right.” He focused on the first page and tried to breathe calmly. The first line proved no trouble. He wiped his brow. But the second?

  “. . . my Father being a foree—foray . . .” How was he supposed to say that? He had no hope of getting through this book with any pride.

  “It’s all right if you get the word wrong. But on this one, it might be better to guess at what you think it might be. Use the other words in the sentence to help you.”

  He was supposed to guess? How was that reading? Her warm fingers settled on his, and his jitters jumped double time.

  She smiled. “I need to hear what’s giving you trouble.”

  He had trouble with everything, especially the feel of her silky skin against his calloused knuckles.

  With a start, she snatched her hand back and stuffed it below the table with her other. “And I won’t correct you since that’d make it harder for you to concentrate.”

  That she sat close enough to hold his hand was enough to mess with his focus. If he didn’t stop looking at her, he’d get no reading done. He pulled the book closer and stared harder.

  “. . . my Father being a foregg—foreggner.” That wasn’t even a word. He looked again.

  “No need to fix anything, I’d rather you not think too hard and just read.” She scooted closer and peered at the page over his arm.

  The floral scent of her hair was making a muddle of his brain. He could barely think at all. How did she expect him to read this way? “I’m sorry, but I can’t keep going until I figure it out. It might be important.”

  “Then go ahead.” Rachel bit her tongue and moved her eyes off the page to keep from saying the word for him.

  For a second, their eyes locked, but he returned his focus to the book, folding back the front cover as if strangling Robinson Crusoe with his giant hands would wrestle the story into submission. “Just tell me what the word is if I’m supposed to guess.”

  “Foreigner.”

  “. . . foreigner of Brem . . . en?” He looked up at her.

  She nodded. “Keep going.”

  After he started reading fairly fluidly, she noted he omitted or misread simple words like a and the, and apparently his brain skipped the middle letters in some words and substituted another word with the same beginning and ending sounds, like ramping instead of rambling, even if it didn’t quite make sense. Just like Allen.

  She stared at his profile. His jaw was awfully tense for reading aloud. The slight crick in his nose she’d never noticed before didn’t detract from his overall handsomeness, but rather added to it.

  He stumbled on a word and cut his eyes toward her. A blush crawled up her neck. She quickly located his place on the page and pointed to it, hoping to distract him from her heightened color. “That would be competent.”

  So much for promising not to correct him.

  “Competent.” He growled. “Now I’ve lost my place.” His finger started at the top of the page and slid down each line until he found competent, then he started reading again.

  Each word hummed in his low bass voice, and she couldn’t help but smile at some of his mistakes. Oh, why hadn’t he come to her earlier when she might have had time to help?

  And maybe catch his eye.

  What other man in town was as responsible and hardworking as Dex? Livelier girls might have been turned off by how mellow and relaxed he was, but he was the most mature man around by far. And his handsome face wasn’t in the least disappointing.

  She shook her head; she was more enamored than ever. This spur-of-the-moment decision to tutor him would only end in heartache—hers.

  “So it’s not strongly?” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he squinted at the page and pulled the book closer.

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t shaking my head at you. It is strongly, as you said.” She reached out a reassuring hand but stopped herself. She’d never touched a man outside of her family—well, except for occasionally being helped down stairs or onto a buggy seat—yet she’d almost laid a hand on him a second time. Clenching her fingers, she blew out a breath.

  He shut the book. “I’m sorry I’m doing so poorly. This was a bad idea.”

  “Oh no.” And her hand was on his again. But if she snatched it back, she’d draw undo attention to where her hand ought not to be—again.

  Surely her touch reassured him, though the opposite sensation coursed through her skin: a warm, prickling awareness mixed with cold shivers. “I’m afraid my mind wandered. I was only reprimanding myself.”

  “And what were you reprimanding yourself for?”

  “Is it hot in here?” She jumped from her seat and went to the window. “Spring seems a bit muggy this year, don’t you think?” She lifted the sash and let the entirely too cold air in. Suppressing a shiver, she ignored the impulse to slide the window back down.

  “Do all women have malfunctioning furnaces under their skin?” He chuckled, the sound drawing out the gooseflesh already decorating her arms. “Mother often fought me over leaving windows open and then got mad at me later for shutting them.”

  Cupping the side of her neck, Rachel looked askance at the man driving her internal furnace up a notch past normal. Or maybe five notches. “Your mother was a lovely woman. I don’t think I ever gave you my condolences.”

  “That’s all right.” He abruptly stood and rambled over. “You do look flushed. I should head home so you can lie down.”

  She took a step back. She’d seen his tricks before. The few times Miss Christmore had asked him to read in front of the class, he distracted the teacher with some outlandish behavior that earned him a spell in the corner or made everyone laugh so the teacher forgot she’d called him forward as she tried to regain control.

  Miss Christmore hadn’t seen through his tactics, but Rachel had. However, with his deep green eyes only a foot away and that strand of brown hair falling across his forehead, she understood how easily a woman could be di
stracted.

  Dex reached up and tugged the mischievous strand back into place. “I think I’ve lost you.”

  No, Dex. You can’t lose what you never wanted. Pushing away from the windowsill, she returned to the table. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking clearly.” And it was time to do so. If Dex hadn’t wanted anything to do with her before, he didn’t now. She was still, maddeningly, under the spell of his handsome face.

  But it was time to put away childhood fantasies—a man with homesteading dreams would never consider marrying a girl who’d spent more time translating Latin than learning how to bake a variety of breads.

  She sat and pointed at the book. “You can’t get out of reading that easily, Dex.” His name felt better on her lips than she imagined.

  She grimaced. Get yourself together; you’re supposed to be helping, not entertaining the daydreams you’ve given up. “I want you to read another page before you go.”

  He dragged himself away from the wall and sat as if his seat were a pin cushion. “How is this doing any good? You’re not teaching me anything.”

  “I’m assessing your needs.”

  “My needs?”

  Why did his question sound so breathy? “Yes, how you read lets me understand what might help you.” Though if he read and wrote like Allen, a handful of lessons wouldn’t do much good.

  “You make me sound like a science experiment.”

  “More like a puzzle.”

  “You like puzzles, do you?”

  She stopped rubbing her hands together. “Yes, and research is awfully fun too.”

  “You’re too smart for this town.” He frowned. “Too smart.”

  He picked up the book as if she’d asked him to eat a cow patty, then abruptly put it down. “I should save us the time and call this what it is: a dumb plan. I haven’t even finished one page.”

  “No, don’t give up.” Maybe it was a dumb plan. It was certainly dumb for her heart to pine . . . but he needed her. “I’ll help as much as I can.”

  Hours later, Dex tugged on his sleeves as he stepped onto the church lawn where tables of food and a small dance floor were set up for the wedding’s reception. He’d looked all over the sanctuary for Rachel’s family while the mayor’s daughter married a friend of his, but he hadn’t seen any of them. Surely they’d attend since Mr. Oliver supported Mayor Isaacs’s reelection campaign.

  He jammed his hands in his pockets, scrunching the sleeves to the middle of his forearms where they always crept up anyway. He needed a suit with longer sleeves, but what was the point? Soon he’d be more worried about his shirts holding together until his crops turned a profit than whether his sleeves fit.

  A fiddle sounded and another out-of-tune one joined in. The fiddlers were huddled together, tuning and checking the sound against Everett’s guitar.

  Everett. His eyes were always glued to Patricia, and Rachel couldn’t be far behind her sister.

  What would he say to her if he found her anyway? Would she turn pretty pink like she had this afternoon? She’d blushed a lot even after the open window had sucked out all the warm air and he’d butchered two paragraphs of Robinson Crusoe. Or had she really been overheated?

  Dex stopped next to his friend and turned to scan the crowd. “Where’s your girl?”

  Everett had won Patricia with very little effort. And they made a pretty pair—the two blond, blue-eyed angels belonged together. Whereas a girl genius like Rachel needed someone who could read more than seed catalogs that had pictures and do fancier math than count the skimmed gallons of milk every day.

  Everett adjusted his guitar to match the fiddles. “Haven’t seen her yet.”

  “I know this is a strange question, but how long did it take you to win over Patricia?” Dex kept his eyes pinned on the people spilling out of the church.

  The silence grew so long, he looked down at Everett, whose foot was hooked on his knee as he rested his arms atop his guitar. “I’ll tell you when you tell me why you’re bothering with a mail-order bride service.”

  He dropped his hands from his hips. “Who told you that?”

  “You’re avoiding my question.”

  Grant. He’d have to strangle his thick-necked brother when he got home. “I’m twenty-four. You no more than turn eighteen and Patricia is ready to follow you to the middle of nowhere on nothing but a promise.”

  “I can’t give her anything until I have something.” He turned a peg on the head of his guitar and strummed.

  He didn’t have much either, and yet Rachel hadn’t snubbed him even after listening to him trip over every other word on an entire page. Maybe she might consider a man who couldn’t pass a test to get into college—not even a ladies’ college. He touched the back of his hand where hers had landed not twice but almost three times.

  He was letting a little hand touching get the best of him. A girl as smart as Rachel wouldn’t throw away school to turn over Kansas dirt even if she did like him a little. But maybe after she had her degree, and he’d built a home . . .

  “I don’t get why you’d try to write for a girl though. Any woman agreeing to marry through the post has something wrong with her.” Everett’s eyes wandered to the left of the dance floor.

  Dex followed his gaze and found Patricia, swathed in flounces of white with pink ribbons strung along every conceivable edge. Flushed with youth, she waved exuberantly when she saw Everett.

  Dex sighed. His friend wouldn’t be able to do much beyond strum and stare now. “I’m going to find Neil. He can’t be far behind his sister.”

  “Sure.” Everett made an effort to sort of glance at him before fastening his gaze on Patricia and flashing her a silly grin.

  Dex walked up to her and she frowned, as if his obstructing her view of Everett would make him disappear in a puff of smoke.

  “You look lovely, Miss Oliver. Where’s your brother?”

  “There.” She didn’t even look, just pointed behind her at the food-laden tables where Neil stacked a plate while juggling punch cups.

  No Rachel. “And your sister?”

  Patricia cocked her head to the side, causing a ringlet to slide off her neck. “You need to talk to her?”

  More than he’d admit. He rubbed the slight stubble on his upper lip. “Not really.”

  “Well then, I suppose it won’t make any difference if I say she’s not coming?”

  Why was she looking at him like that? He ran his tongue over his teeth. “I thought she said she was.”

  Neil sidled up beside his sister and held out a glass of punch.

  “She doesn’t dance anymore. Said if she isn’t getting married, there isn’t any point in dancing and she’d rather study.” Patricia rolled her eyes and took the drink. “Which she finds fun for some odd reason.”

  Never marry? He’d known she’d go to school, but he hadn’t thought she was that dedicated. For a second he’d thought maybe he could write her, but she’d evidently perused all the bachelors around town and found them wanting—including him. And that was before she knew he couldn’t read or write for nothing. “Of course she wouldn’t marry someone from around here. She’s too good for any of us.” Oh, how he wished the woman’s standards weren’t so high. But what had he expected?

  Neil took a sip of red liquid from an etched-glass punch cup, his eyes pinning Dex to an invisible wall.

  He needed to excuse himself before Neil figured out what he’d been thinking. “Too bad she isn’t here. I wouldn’t have minded a dance about the floor with her. Save me a dance if you would, Miss Oliver.”

  “Of course. I have plenty free since Everett’s stuck in the band.” She sighed.

  He’d stay long enough to dance a jig with Patricia and then go home and make sure his wagon was ready for the long, lonely drive over the Kansas plains.

  Chapter 3

  “I thought you and Allen said turning small words into pictures would help.” Dex growled, fidgeting in the straight back chair.

  “It’s not magic.�
�� Only his fourth lesson and he wanted her to conjure a miracle. Rachel clamped her hands under the little table, almost afraid to look at him. He turned downright trying with a book in his hand.

  “But I still missed the word.” He slapped the book down and glared at her as if she were a five-year-old questioning his authority. “And I know what the word from is. I use it all the time.”

  “Of course you do.” She hadn’t said anything to produce this testiness. Should she growl back at him? The mirth fighting to upturn her lips and the chuckle stuck in her throat were not helping the situation. “How about we move to the settee? Maybe if you were more comfortable—”

  “You think I’m stupid.” He raked a hand through his hair and winced when a split fingernail stuck in a strand. He grumbled while disentangling himself.

  “No, I don’t.” Her lips fought against her determination not to smile. She wouldn’t let them get the best of her, not if she wanted to suppress the laughter. She pressed her lips together hard. Really hard.

  “How can I not be?” By the way his hands snatched up the book, he was a second or two away from throwing Robinson Crusoe across the room.

  “Shh.” He needed to be gathered up and held tight. Like she’d do for a frightened little kitten. Three feet taller than his nephew, Dex seemed a hundred times more vulnerable. The laugh choking the back of her throat faded.

  She couldn’t imagine not being able to learn whatever she wanted to with ease. Her mother’s book collection, her father’s willingness to answer her every question, and her ability to soak it all in came without effort. What if her mind hadn’t been so quick? “We just have to find something that works for you. Maybe the picture thing only works for Allen.”

  “But it makes sense.” He grumbled and grabbed a cookie.

  She set another cookie on his plate and took two for herself. “Well then, maybe you need more practice. I certainly didn’t learn to read in a day.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  She stilled. She couldn’t remember not reading.

  He huffed and glanced at the mantle clock. “It’s been four days.”