by Jenna Kernan
She hardly recognized him with his clean-shaved face and long hair neatly clipped. She stared at this stranger dressed in a formal uniform, clean white gloves folded over his black leather belt.
He reached for her. She stared at his familiar hands, strong and broad as paddles and then at his face. The corners of his eyes crinkled as his hands clasped hers.
“I found you,” he said.
Had he been trying? In that instant she recognized her father had deceived her again.
“Jake?”
He nodded.
She could think of nothing else to say.
Her mother stepped forward and took hold of her elbow steering her to a chair. Emma folded into it like a collapsing house of cards.
“Emma, look at me.”
She could not. Her gaze stayed glued to Jake’s strong face. Her mother’s voice seemed faraway.
“He can’t do anything to you. He can’t force you to marry him.”
“Marry him?”
Jake knelt before her.
“I want to. Will you marry me, Emma?”
Her mother tugged at her sleeve. “Emma, be careful. Marriage can be a terrible trap.”
A trap. Yes, that was what Jake thought. So why did he kneel before her like every suitor she had ever imagined?
She pulled her hand away. “You don’t want to marry me. You told me so.”
“I was wrong. I love you. I’ve been miserable without you.”
Miserable, yes, she understood that, but not the rest.
“Wrong?”
“I can’t live without you. I tried to get to you at the fort. Your father wouldn’t let me see you.”
She blinked. His words confirmed her suspicion.
She leaned forward. “You tried?”
“Yes, and then you were gone. I searched the Green and Bighorn. I talked to every trapper and Indian west of Fort Lancing. I never thought you’d go east.”
She smiled. “You followed me?”
“I hoped your mother might have some word. I thought you dead.”
The pain in his features as he revealed his fears, touched her. He suffered, too. All the while she thought her sorrow to be singular, and instead, Jake grieved believing her dead but still he had searched. In the deepest, safest places of her heart she had never stopped hoping he’d come.
Her mother’s voice held urgency and she glanced her way.
“Emma, he’s an army officer. Even if you do love him, you’ll spend your life trapped in some barbaric little fort. I’ve only just found you. I won’t have you return to that wilderness.”
Jake faced her. “I’ll resign my commission and take her to Jessup’s Cut. I can clerk for my father. He’s a judge now.”
Her mother smiled at this. Emma felt the trap snap on both of them.
“No.” She stood to face Jake. “You are not clerking for your father. I won’t have it.”
Jake’s smile broadened. “What do you want Emma?”
“I—I want to love you without trapping you. I want a lifetime of waking in your arms. I want to see the Rockies again and our valley.”
He nodded. “I can arrange that.”
“You can’t drag my granddaughter into that wilderness.”
Emma watched the smile drop from Jake’s lips. He looked uncertain now. The confidence faltered as he remembered their daughter.
Emma faced her mother, understanding the fear in her eyes.
“You are the one who told me to live my life, not just for my daughter, but for myself.”
Her mother could not deny it, so she remained silent, speaking only with her eyes. Emma turned away.
“I will not be the wife of a clerk, nor an army bride.”
“What then?” he asked.
“My husband is a cartographer and I am his partner.”
Hope replaced uncertainty, but some shadow of doubt still shone in his eyes.
“What about our child?”
“I’ll carry her on my back until she is old enough to ride.”
His smile lit the room. She opened her arms and he enfolded her in his embrace. His voice whispered over her.
“Are you sure?”
She murmured, “I can’t breathe in this city. I can’t even see the sky.”
He swept her off her feet, carrying her in slow, dizzying circles. “I’ll show you the Yellowstone. There’s no place on earth like it.”
At last he set her on the ground.
“Do you think the U.S. will take California?” she asked.
“Just a matter of time.”
“Then you could put in for a land grant.”
“I’m sure.”
“For our valley.”
He smiled and she knew he remembered the waterfalls cascading to the ground, the wide meadows and granite escarpments.
“Good hunting that,” he said.
She smiled at the understatement.
He lifted his eyebrows as if something troubled him. She hesitated, holding her breath.
“We can ask Jackson when we see him.”
She gaped. “What are you talking about?”
He gripped her hand and squeezed. “I have maps to deliver and I can’t go see the president without my partner, can I?”
“My daughter will see the president?”
Emma realized Jake had inadvertently gained her mother’s support.
Lucille beamed, clasping her hands before her. “You could mention the objectives of the Moral Reform Society.”
Emma laughed. “I’d be happy to.”
“Does that mean you’ll have me?” asked Jake.
“Yes, Jake. I’ll have you.”
He kissed her then and she relished the demanding pressure of his mouth. When he drew back, Emma was surprised to find herself still standing in the parlor.
Her mother’s eyes looked misty. “I suppose I’ll have to give you my blessing.”
Jake stepped forward to receive her kiss. When he straightened, he stared at her quizzically.
“You said there were two reasons you didn’t throw me out, Mrs. Lancing. I’d like to know what they are.”
She smiled. “Emma still loves you.”
A grin quirked the corner of his mouth. “And the second?”
“You came after her.”
Jake wrapped an arm around Emma, his gaze locking to hers. She warmed in the glow of his smile. The peace she felt, standing at his side came with a certainty of the rightness of this match. They were not her parents, nor his. They would blaze their own trail.
“Would you like to see our daughter?” she asked.
Jake’s eyes moistened and he swallowed hard. He pressed a hand over his mouth for a moment then nodded. When he spoke his voice cracked with emotion. “Lead the way.”
She took his hand and guided him up the stairs to the nursery where Francisca Lancing Turner waited to meet her father.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-3728-5
TURNER’S WOMAN
Copyright © 2005 by Jeannette H. Monaco
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