Yankee Wife

by Linda Lael Miller

  The clerk nodded again, and scurried off. Harrington was never happy unless he had some crisis to fuss about, be it manufactured or otherwise, but he did his job well enough, and that was all Brigham cared about.

  Reaching the bench where the water buckets sat, lined up and kept brimming by a full-grown Chinaman no bigger than Millie, Brig dipped out a ladleful, lowered his head, and poured the icy liquid over the back of his neck. He spat out a swear word at the chill and then shook his head, sending droplets flying in every direction, like a dog that's just been sprung from a washtub.

  He was hot and bone-tired and, for the first time since the start of Isabel's decline, he was actually looking forward to going back to that grand house he'd built with such confidence. He went into the office, gathered up a stack of ledger books, and started for home.

  Millie was swinging on the gate at the base of the walk when he reached the fence, and the delighted surprise in her small face shamed him. So did the worried expression that quickly chased the joy from her eyes.

  “Are you sick, Papa? Did somebody get hurt up on the mountain?”

  The questions stung, and he would have hoisted the little girl up into his arms if he hadn't been covered in fir sap and drenched with sweat. “No, child,” he said, ruffling her hair as the gate creaked backward, carrying her with it, so that he could pass.

  Millie hurried after him, and he slowed his pace so she could keep up. “We could go fishing,” she said, with such breathless daring that Brigham stopped in midstep and crouched to face her. “The sun will be up for a long time yet, and I'll bet the trout are biting real good.”

  Brigham smiled. He wanted a bath, a drink, and some time to assemble his thoughts, but he couldn't bring himself to extinguish the eager light in his daughter's eyes. “Do we have any poles around here?” he asked.

  She bounced on the balls of her feet in her excitement, and Brigham thought of all the times he'd told himself it was enough to provide well for his daughters. Foolishly, he thought, he'd expected Charlotte and Millie to realize he loved them because he gave them food and shelter. “Yes!” she cried. “They're out in the shed, and I know where to dig for worms, too!”

  Brigham kissed the child lightly on the forehead and rose to his feet. “You go and find what we need, and I'll clean up a little. Then we'll catch a mess of trout for dinner.”

  With a whoop, Millie shot off toward the rear of the house, a streak of blue calico crossing the lawn, and Brigham followed at a slower meter. He had never guessed that so little notice from him would please the child so greatly.

  Reaching the back porch, he entered the empty kitchen, filled a large basin from the hot water reservoir attached to the big cookstove, and went back outside. He'd stripped off his shirt and was splashing his upper body industriously when he became aware of her, stiffened, and turned his head.

  Lydia was standing directly behind him, still as a doe scenting danger, her arms full of kindling, her glorious, tousled hair like a honey-colored cloud around her face. Her breasts rose and fell with the rapid course of her breathing, and her cheeks were as pink as if he'd caught her in some scandal.

  He felt his heart thud against his chest, as though trying to break free and somehow bond itself with hers. He shook his head, to clear his mind of the fancy, flung the contents of the basin into the blackberry bushes, and reached for the towel he'd hung over the railing beside the step.

  She approached the porch resolutely, giving him as wide a berth as she possibly could, but in the end the whole effort proved futile because he didn't move and neither did the kitchen door. Lydia hesitated again, glanced from Brigham to the doorway and back again, then started for the steps.

  He waited until she was so close he could have touched her by taking a deep breath, then stepped back to let her pass. He felt her skirts brush against his thigh, even through the thick fabric of his trousers, and the contact sent a subtle heat surging up into his groin. The scents of castile soap and pine pitch lingered behind her, and suddenly Brigham was overwhelmed by a desire so keen that he broke out in a fresh sweat.

  After a few moments of effort, Brigham went inside the house. To his isappointment, as well as his relief, Lydia was nowhere in sight. He climbed the rear stairs, strode along the hallway to his bedroom, and found a clean shirt. When he returned to the back porch, Millie was waiting patiently, a wooden fishing pole in each hand, while Charlotte stood a short distance away, watching.

  Brigham whistled as he led the way toward the pond high on the hillside, beyond the old cabin and the Indian burial ground. “Come along if you want, Charlotte,” he said easily, and she immediately fell into step beside him, although she kept her chin high and offered no comment on the proceedings.

  When they reached the pond's edge, Millie rushed off to dig for worms, and Charlotte and Brigham sat side by side on the grassy bank. Brig was making sure the hooks were secure on the fishing lines, and Charlotte started weaving wild honeysuckle into a chain.

  “Are you going to marry Miss McQuire?” she asked presently, without looking at him.

  Brigham smiled to himself, making certain his amusement wasn't audible in his voice. “No, Charlotte, I don't think so.”

  The girl sighed and went on with her weaving, frowning intently as she worked. “She wouldn't be suitable,” she declared. “Miss McQuire was a nurse in the Great Civil War and she's seen naked men.”

  This time Brigham couldn't help chuckling. “And that makes her unsuitable?” he asked, setting the poles aside, stretching out on the grass with a sigh and cupping his hands behind his head.

  Charlotte looked over at him with soft brown eyes. “Of course it does, Papa,” she said, enunciating the words carefully, as though he'd lost either his hearing or his good sense since breakfast. “No proper lady has ever seen a man without his clothes!”

  He raised himself onto one elbow. “In a way, Charlotte, I'm glad you hold that particular opinion. But there are exceptions, and tending the sick and injured is one of them. Miss McQuire could hardly be expected to treat only wounds that weren't hidden under clothing.”

  Charlotte's high, finely sculpted cheekbones flushed with color, and she averted her eyes. Once again Brigham was quietly angry with Isabel for leaving their daughters the way she had. There were certain things he simply didn't know how to discuss with them.

  “You like Miss McQuire, don't you?”

  Brigham sighed, recalling the way he'd reacted when Lydia had stepped past him on her way into the kitchen earlier. “I think she's a bullheaded little tyrant with a high regard for her own opinions,” he answered honestly. Then, sadly, he smiled. “Yes, Charlotte. I like her.”

  Charlotte had finished twining the honeysuckle into a floral wreath, and she laid it on top of her head like a crown. “Well, I've decided to keep my distance,” she said, making a face as Millie came running back with a handful of squirming pink and brown earthworms. “You can just bet Miss McQuire will decide she misses her naked men and go right back to the war.”

  “The war is over, Charlotte,” Brigham said, grinning as his younger daughter thrust the bounty of the soil into his face. He took a fat worm and baited one of the hooks. “And all the naked men have put on their clothes and gone home.”

  Millie's gray eyes went wide. “What naked men?”

  Brigham laughed, rolled to his feet, and cast a line into the calm waters of the spring-fed pond. “Never mind,” he said.

  Charlotte flung herself backward with a dramatic sigh and cried, “Oh, life, oh, life, thou art agony of the keenest sort!”

  Millie looked askance at her sister, after tossing her own fishing line in after Brigham's. “Oh, Charlotte, oh, Charlotte,” she countered, in a high, prissy voice, “thou art stupid as a stump!”

  “Enough,” Brigham said sternly, when Charlotte jumped up, prepared to defend her honor, and Millie let out a shriek of delighted terror. “You'll scare away the fish.”

  As it happened, they returned to the ho
use an hour and a half later with enough fresh trout for a fine supper. Millie was wild with excitement, her cheeks sunburned, her hair all a-tangle, and Charlotte was absorbed in one of the parts she was constantly playing. Brigham's bruised heart felt as though it had been dipped in light.

  There was a feast of fish that night, even though Jake Feeny had fixed a pork roast, and everyone ate their share—except for Polly, who was pale and distracted. Lydia saw Devon toss a worried glance in his mate's direction every so often, and she hurt for them both. Mrs. Chilcote remained in her room, claiming a case of the vapors, and Millie chattered incessantly. Charlotte was pining over something, but she seemed to have a good appetite, and there was a quietness about Brigham, an ease she hadn't seen in him before.

  He was wearing a shirt now, of course, but in her mind's eye Lydia still saw him half naked in the dooryard, splashing his powerfully muscled torso with water. She had seen plenty of bare, hairy male chests in her time, of course, but the sight had never quite affected her in the same way. She'd wanted to lay her hands to those graceful, corded muscles, to feel them move beneath her palms and fingers.…

  A surge of embarrassment struck Lydia then, and she closed her eyes against the onslaught, feeling color pound in her cheeks. When she looked again, she found Brigham watching her, his mouth solemn, his eyes full of humor.

  It was almost as though he knew what she'd been thinking, Lydia reflected harriedly, but that was impossible, of course. No one could truly know the mind of another.

  She reached for a bowl of sliced beets and took a second helping. The serving spoon clattered against the dish as she replaced it, and Brigham's gaze lingered, seemingly on the hollow at the base of her throat. Which, of course, was hidden by the fabric of her dress.

  Because it was Lydia's habit to charge when retreat seemed to be the only safe course, she spoke up in a clear voice. “I would like to speak with you privately after dinner, Mr. Quade,” she said to Brigham.

  He smiled, still amused, and Lydia wondered what it was about her that aroused such merriment. “As you wish, Miss McQuire,” he answered.

  Lydia quite literally felt Polly's gaze careen across the table to catch hers. Polly's lovely face was white with fear; she obviously thought Lydia was about to betray her confidence. An almost imperceptible shake of Lydia's head had to serve as reassurance.

  When the meal was over, Lydia rose and cleared her place at the table. The doors of the study stood open to the rest of the house when she reached them, and Brigham was at the hearth, one booted foot braced against the brass fireguard. He watched the flames solemnly, as though they were telling some fascinating story.

  Lydia folded her arms and set her feet a little apart, for there was something about this man that made her flood with weakness just when she most needed her strength.

  “I will require six dollars salary per month, instead of the four you offered me through Mr. Harrington,” she announced, “and you must build a schoolhouse. There is no reason, of course, why the structure couldn't serve as a church and a community meeting hall as well.”

  Brigham slowly turned his head to look at her, and she was at a disadvantage because of the way the shadows played over his face, cloaking his expression. “You want a whole building for two children?”

  Lydia tried to stand a little taller. “Yes, Mr. Quade,” she said with patience, only too aware that her voice was shaking slightly. “It's rather the same principle as hanging a birdhouse in one's garden. At first the entire enterprise might seem futile, but in time one bird appears, and then another. Soon, there are swallows or finches or robins everywhere.” She paused, spread her hands as she summed up her point. “If you make a place for children, Mr. Quade, you will make a place for families.”

  He folded his arms and turned toward her, one thick shoulder resting against the mantelpiece. “I built six fine houses, facing the harbor,” he pointed out, arching one eyebrow, “and they stand empty. Do you have another theory to explain that?”

  Lydia sighed. “You'll need those and more as soon as there's a heart to the town. A meetinghouse would provide that.”

  Brigham was silent for a long time, thoughtful. Once or twice he rubbed his chin with the fingers of his right hand. “Six dollars a month is too much,” he said after a long while. “How do I know you're worthy of such a salary?”

  She stood her ground. “You probably pay that much, or more, to the men who tend oxen and mules in your lumber camps. Is the care of your daughters less important?”

  He stared at her for a long moment, as if amazed at her audacity, then gave a low burst of laughter. “Five dollars and fifty cents,” he countered. “My daughters are certainly more important than the livestock, but they're also easier to handle. Most of the time.”

  The bargain sounded good to Lydia. After all, she'd been offered four dollars salary in the first place, and now she was getting five and a half. “And the building?” she pressed.

  “You'll have your meetinghouse by autumn,” Brigham conceded.

  Lydia smiled. “Good. That's exactly when we'll need it. In the meantime, Charlotte and Millie and I will explore the woods and shore and make a study of science.”

  Brigham shifted his foot from the fireguard. “Science,” he repeated, somewhat derisively. “Teach my daughters to sew a neat stitch, Miss McQuire. Teach them to cook. Those are the things they'll need to know.”

  Lydia's patience was sorely tried, and only moments before she'd been riding the swell of triumph! “It seems to me, Mr. Quade,” she said evenly, “that there are a number of things you need to know. The world is changing. Women want a new place in that world, and they'll have it.”

  He bent his head so close to hers that their foreheads were nearly touching, and she felt that strange, primitive need rush through her again, making her head spin and turning her knees to marmalade. “Are you so certain you know what women want?” he challenged in a low drawl; and then, suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, he kissed her.

  More than once before, a soldier, grateful and fancying himself in love with her, had pressed an awkward farewell kiss on Lydia, but there had never been one like this. The contact itself was hard and forceful, yet Brigham's mouth felt soft as velvet against hers, and persuasive as the scent of lilacs on a summer evening.

  With gentle, skilled motions of his lips, his hand splayed at the back of her head, he made her mouth open. The invasion of his tongue was both sweet and violent, and her own rose to greet his, to do battle, to welcome, to surrender. Her breasts were pressed flush to the hardness of his chest, her breath ached in her throat, and still he kissed her. Still he conquered.

  She might have sagged against him when he finally drew back, she was so dazed and boneless, but he gripped her shoulders and held her upright. For a long, humiliating moment, she could only stare up at him in drunken confusion.

  He touched her trembling lips with an index finger, then broke the spell with a chuckle. “Good night, Miss Lydia McQuire,” he said. “Sleep well.”

  There was a quiet arrogance in his words, too subtle to challenge, but Lydia was unsettled nonetheless. She hoped she hadn't set an unseemly precedent, letting Mr. Quade kiss her that way.

  Letting? she thought as she turned, nearly stumbling, to make her way out of the room, out of Brigham's sphere of influence. She hadn't only let Mr. Quade take an improper liberty, God help her, she'd wanted more. The thrumming heat he'd stirred in her still hadn't subsided.

  Since Lydia was so preoccupied, she got a fright when she entered her bedroom a few minutes later and found Polly standing at the hearth.

  “Did you tell Brigham about me?” the other woman asked, sounding desperate and a little angry.

  “No,” Lydia sighed. “And I don't intend to. But you can't keep a thing like this a secret, Polly. You must go to Devon and tell him the truth—now.”

  “He'll be furious.”

  “I have no doubt of that. But Devon's not an unreasonable man. Once he's
had time to think things through, he'll probably understand.”

  “Probably.” The word sounded miserable, hopeless. Polly sagged into a chair next to the fireplace. “Pa always said my sins would catch up to me, and I guess he was right. He preached the Gospel, and he claimed to know God's opinions on everything from the stars and planets to Mr. Lincoln's necktie.”

  Lydia sat on the trunk at the foot of the bed, still a little confounded by the kiss she and Brigham had just shared, and tried to focus her thoughts on the present moment.

  “I loved my Pa,” Polly reflected, gazing into the low flames burning in the grate of Lydia's fireplace. “Oh, he was meaner than a Pawnee with a toothache, Pa was, but I would have done most anything to get one fond look from him.”

  Lydia waited.

  “I was raised in Kansas, in Indian country,” Polly went on. “We had a sod house and a few cattle, and when Pa rode out to make the preaching circuit, I had to stay there alone. I told Pa I was scared the Pawnee would come, or maybe a band of outlaws, but he just said the Lord would look after me.” She paused. “Instead, the Lord sent Nat Malachi.”

  Lydia was drawn into the story, picturing the lonely sod hut, the wandering cattle, feeling the especially imaginative fears of a young girl. “The man who helped you deceive Devon,” she said, without rancor.

  “Yes,” Polly replied, with a nod. She seemed barely aware of Lydia as she went on with her story. “I told Nat he couldn't stay, since my Pa wasn't around and it wouldn't be proper, but Nat said he'd seen a half-dozen Pawnee just over the next rise and I'd be needing somebody to watch over me.

  “Nat has one of those wicked smiles that tempt a woman to sinful thoughts, even if he isn't handsome the way my Devon is. By the time a week had passed, he'd made me believe I loved him, and that I wouldn't be able to make my way in life without him.

  “He made love to me in the prairie grass, with just the sky for a blanket, and after the first time, I started to like the things he did to me, the way he touched me. I started to need it.