“She’s not my mama.” Lizzie stomped her foot.
“I am not going to argue the point with you. Right now I want both of you to put the clothes on the floor of the wagon. You’ll both be walking today.”
Lizzie dragged her little sister to the pile, all the time glaring at Adelaide.
“Very good.” Adelaide studied him. “See, it doesn’t have to be a whipping to punish the girls. I agree they’ll be a bit uncomfortable today since the clothes they’re wearing will get muddy from moving the dirty clothes in the wagon, but hopefully they will learn a lesson.”
Why did the handling of the girls seem easier, already?
He and Adelaide did an acceptable job of keeping their smiles to themselves when the girls arrived for breakfast in wet, muddy clothes. They winced as they walked and sat gingerly on the ground to eat the biscuits and gravy Adelaide had prepared.
“It’s time to thank the Lord for our food.” Adelaide bowed her head, the girls following her example.
Miles sighed with relief. He had no idea what awaited him in Santa Fe, but already he felt better with a hot meal in front of him, his daughters already suffering the consequences of their actions, and a pretty woman he hoped to get into his bed sometime soon.
Real soon.
Chapter 5
“Oh, my goodness.” Adelaide examined Beth Ann’s legs, red from walking in wet, muddy clothes all day. Both legs were red and most likely sore.
“Take off your pants, Lizzie, so I can see your legs.”
The girl flashed her a defiant glare, but to Adelaide’s surprise, dropped her trousers to the ground. Adelaide turned her around and gasped. Both her legs boasted a rash. Apparently, having the girls walk in those clothes had not been a good idea.
The wagon train had stopped for the day and Beth Ann had come up to her with tears in her eyes that her legs itched something fierce. Even though they were little devils, they were still children and Adelaide’s heart would not allow a child to suffer.
Supper would be delayed until she could ease the girls suffering. “Come over by the water barrel, the both of you, and I’ll see what we can do to make you feel better.”
The three trudged to the barrel attached to the wagon. After finding soft cloths in the wagon, Adelaide rinsed the girls’ legs and patted them dry. Then, mixing a paste of baking soda and water, she patted it on their legs, and after a few minutes rinsed it all off. “There, that should make you more comfortable. Put your nightgowns on so the air can soothe your legs.”
To Adelaide’s surprise, Beth Ann reached out and hugged her. “Thank you.” Then she abruptly stuck her thumb into her mouth and hurried to follow her sister into the wagon.
Her heart twisting, Adelaide sat back on her heels and studied the opening the girl had disappeared into. The hug from Beth Ann not only surprised her, but scared her. She didn’t want to become attached to them. It was better when they were misbehaving. Then she could close her heart. Not allow their little girl smells and smiles fill up the empty space where her heart used to dwell. An empty heart could not be broken.
That was the position she was in when Miles rounded the corner of the wagon. “Are you all right?”
She stood and brushed her skirts. “Yes. Fine. I think we made a mistake in allowing the girls to walk all day in those clothes. They both have rashes on their legs.”
Miles’ shoulders slumped and he ran his fingers through his hair. “That’s why I hate disciplining them. I always do the wrong thing.”
She shook her head. “No. We both allowed them to do it. I’m as much to blame as you are.” Reaching out to touch his arm, she said, “Maybe they learned their lesson.”
“I hate to cause them pain. You have no idea how hard it is to watch your child suffer . . .” His words drifted off as he most likely remembered who he was speaking with.
Unbidden, tears flooded her eyes as she remembered night after night bathing little Mary, praying her fever would go down. Then, the horrible night that she would never forget when the little girl gave out her last breath and died in Adelaide’s arms.
With a choked sound, Miles made a motion to touch her, but Adelaide drew back and hugged herself. She didn’t want comfort. She wanted to always feel the pain, to remind herself how much she resented the role Miles had cast her into. “I’ll start supper.” She scurried away, her body awash with anguish.
Everyone picking up on her mood, supper of beans and biscuits was a quiet affair. Miles tried to catch her eye several times, but she was not in a forgiving mood. His careless words had not only pierced her heart, but reminded her of his duplicity when he proposed marriage to her. Frankly, the man could not be trusted. And trust was such an important part of marriage. What had she gotten herself into?
“Girls, once you’ve finished your supper, I’d like you to get your school books out and we’ll do some work. I don’t want you to be too far behind when you return to school in Santa Fe.” Tired of pushing her supper around her plate, pretending to eat, she placed the dish on the ground.
“Pa, do we have to do school work?” Lizzie raised beseeching eyes to her father.
Adelaide was sure with Miles trying to make up for his blunder, he would agree to just about anything Adelaide wanted to do. “Yes. Your mama is right—“
Adelaide never heard the rest of his sentence because the word ‘mama’ rang in her ears until she thought she would bring up the little bit of food she’d eaten. Jumping up to the startled looks of her family, she began picking up dishes and frantically cleaning up from the meal.
She didn’t want the girls to think of her as their mother. Perhaps she could convince them to call her Aunt Adelaide. Or perhaps just ma’am. She scrubbed the dishes until they shined, but she couldn’t scrub away her pain.
Miles had gone for a walk and the girls sat quietly next to the fire with their school books on their laps. They cast her anxious glances, causing her to feel guilty on top of everything else. She had to pull herself together. Whatever had happened to her was not caused by these two little girls. She was an adult, and had to behave like one.
All she had to do was keep her heart closed. Since it was dead already, that shouldn’t be such a hard task.
Miles strode from the wagon into the cool night air. He took a sniff and determined they were in for some rain. Hopefully, not the nasty kind this part of the country could suffer. The last thing he needed was severe weather.
He was so angry with himself he could have punched one of the trees he passed. Except a broken hand wouldn’t be very helpful along the trail. How could he be so stupid as to tell Adelaide she had no idea how it was to watch a child suffer? The devastation on her face would remain with him for a long time.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid.” The chant did nothing to diminish his anger, and only made him feel worse. He never should have cajoled Adelaide into marriage after she’d told him about her daughter. But he’d been desperate and scared at being left alone with his two daughters minus the support of the wagon train.
So instead of facing my problems, I dragged an innocent woman into the mess.
“What’s yer hurry?” The wagon master walked toward him, his lazy gait in stark contrast to Miles’ strides.
“Just out for an evening walk.”
“You pound the dirt any harder, son, and you’ll find yourself in a ditch.” He took in Miles’ belligerent stance and whistled. “What’s stuck in your craw?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
Easton rocked back on his heels. “Seems to me with a pretty new wife in your wagon, you’d have a lot more ways to work off whatever it is that’s got you so tied up in knots.”
Miles grunted. Another problem he was wrestling with. It would probably be easier if he could take his wife to bed for the first time in an actual bed. So any frustration he’d been feeling with an untouchable, soft, pretty woman on this trip would have to be smothered. Some days he felt as though the Good Lord put the female species on this
earth to merely torture men.
“Yeah, well it’s not easy with two little girls and a small wagon.”
Easton switched a wad of tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other. “You got a point there, boy.” He gestured to the wagon they stood beside. “The preacher there got himself one of those brides, too. Like you, married her before we left Fort Dodge.” He placed his hands on his hips and spit on the ground. “Only two gals left, along with the woman chaperoning them. I don’t imagine she’s looking for a husband, but I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t mind crawling under the covers with that one. She looks like she knows what’s what.”
Miles thought of his conversation with Nellie when he’d first married Adelaide. Yes, she was certainly a handsome woman. A little old for his needs, but nevertheless would certainly keep a man’s toes curled.
At least the short conversation with Easton had gotten his mind off his troubles. He should probably take a stroll back to the wagon and see if he could made amends with his wife. “Well, I wish you a good night, Easton. I think I’ll finish my walk and turn in.”
“Looks like we might get some bad weather,” Easton said as Miles moved away. “Better get ready for it.”
By the time he returned, after being waylaid by two other travelers, the girls were in the wagon, and Adelaide sat by the dying fire, poking at it with a stick. She no longer looked as stricken as when he left, but it was obvious from the slump of her shoulders that she was still despondent.
He sat on a log alongside her. “The girls asleep?”
“Yes. They chatted for a time, but I haven’t heard anything for a while.”
“Adelaide . . .” He took her hand in his. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am for what I said.”
She shrugged and continued to poke at the fire. “No matter.”
He pulled the stick from her hand and tossed it aside, then took both of her hands in his. “Yes, it does matter. I should not have tricked you into being a mother to my daughters after you told me your history. It was cruel and flat out mean.” He tucked a curl behind her ear. “I can’t say that I’m sorry I married you, because I think we will be good together, but if I could undo what I did . . .’
“But you can’t, so it doesn’t matter, does it?” Once more tears glistened in her eyes. “It was so, so painful watching Mary suffer and being unable to help her.” She looked at him with quivering lips. “She was my baby. I loved her so much I prayed with my whole heart that God would take me and spare her.”
Miles pulled her into his arms. “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how you suffered, and I feel terrible at bringing it all back to you.”
“And . . . and Gerald had just died that morning. I hadn’t even made arrangements for his funeral when I was faced with burying both of them.” She shook her head, her wet cheeks rubbing against his shirt. He rubbed her back and held her in his arms as the tears started and then turned into a deluge of pain and sobs.
He held her like that for at least ten minutes before her weeping stopped and turned into soft hiccups. In her pain, she’d gripped the front of his shirt, which she now released. “I’m sorry. I think I wet your shirt.” She looked up at him with a crooked smile and swollen eyes and something inside of him shifted.
This woman was his wife. She was not merely a mother for Beth Ann and Lizzie. She was a flesh and blood woman who had likes and dislikes. He knew nothing about her, aside from her losses, and for that he felt guilty. He needed to court her, even though they were already married. Every woman deserved that sort of attention.
Maybe she would never love him, nor he her, but he needed to try to make her happy. “Do you feel better now?”
“Yes. I thought I’d been all cried out, but now I feel a sense of relief. You know, you’re the first person I talked to about this. At the time, my neighbors all came by to help, but I was too numb to talk about it then.” She took the handkerchief he handed her and wiped her cheeks and blew her nose. “I’ll wash this before I return it.”
He waved away her concern. “I think we should start over.”
She tiled her head and frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I was so anxious to find a wife so Easton wouldn’t throw me and the girls off the wagon train, that I grabbed you and tricked you into marrying me. Oh, I know you were ordered by the sheriff to marry, but I never gave you a chance to pick your own husband.” He cupped her cheek. “For that I am very sorry. You deserve so much more than someone hustling you to the Judge to meet his own needs.”
Since she blushed at his comments and glanced down at her lap, he realized her mind was thinking of his needs differently than what he meant, which immediately had his blood racing to his lower parts. That issue was something they would deal with later on. When they were settled in a comfortable bedroom at his parents’ home.
“Not just that, although I admit with as pretty as you are, watching you crawl into the wagon with me below you has not been easy.”
Her blush deepened, but he caught a slight smile teasing her lips. Yes, it had not been easy on his mind and body thinking of her out of her clothes and sleeping right above him in the wagon. She would be wrapped in a nightgown, all soft and warm. He would reach out for her, then kiss her until she squirmed and her skin flushed. Then he would slowly ease her nightgown up . . .
“I know nothing about you.” Her words dashed cold water on his imaginings. “You mentioned your parents’ farm, but not much more than that. Is it a big farm?”
“It is.” He leaned back and linking his fingers, cupped his hands over his bent knee. “I am not a farmer by nature. I worked it for a while, but left several years ago. As I told you before, I took a job as a sheriff I a small town in Missouri.”
“Were you happy with that job?”
“Yes, it appealed to me. Something about making sure everything is running smoothly and people feel safe and secure in their homes and town pleased me. The sheriff who held the job before me was older, and let a lot of things slide. Consequently, once I arrived, there were some difficult situations I had to deal with. Plenty of the townsfolks had been glad to see me take over, but several, who had been skating the law, weren’t too happy.”
“Will you be happy on the farm if it’s not really what you want to do?”
He shrugged. “My parents need me. When I left Missouri I needed my ma to help with the girls.” Once again his hand covered hers. “Had I known I would take a wife before I reached Santa Fe that would have been one less concern.”
They sat in silence for a while, the final glow of the fire casting Adelaide in a golden wash. She was so pretty it made his heart ache. Her skin was smooth and creamy, with a slight wash of freckles across her nose. Her blue eyes looked out at the world with curiosity mixed with pain. He might have married her in haste, and wanted her for selfish reasons, but at that moment he promised himself he would be the best husband a man could be.
Adelaide covered her mouth a she yawned. “I’m sorry. I think I should turn in. I’m quite tired.”
Miles stood and pulled her up. Perhaps too roughly, since she stumbled and landed right into his arms. He gazed down at her moist lips, partially open in surprise. Before he could think better of it, he bent his head and took her mouth in a soft kiss.
Chapter 6
The next morning the sky appeared even worse than it had the night before. The sun emerged past the horizon, but the clouds kept the entire area swamped in twilight darkness. The wind whipped canvas covers and ladies dresses.
“I think this will be a rough day for us travelers.” Easton spoke to the gathered group before the wagons started off. “I don’t much like the look of the sky and for those of you who don’t know, Kansas is known for tornadoes. So keep close together and your eye on the sky.”
Adelaide made a quick breakfast of biscuits and apples, which they washed down with coffee and cool water from a spring. She kept glancing at the sky as they packed up to leave. With the sky much darker to the south of them
, they would be headed right into the storm. She’d seen a few tornadoes in her day, but never one close enough to cause the destruction she knew they were capable of.
“Adelaide, I want you and the girls to stick close to the wagon today. I know y’all like to go off and visit but not with his storm brewing.”
“Pa, do you think we’ll hit a tornado?” Little Beth Ann’s eyes grew wide and she chewed on her lip.
Miles bent on one knee and stared into his daughter’s eyes. “I don’t know for sure, honey, but whatever happens you can depend on me and your ma to take care of you and Lizzie.”
“She’s not our ma,” Lizzie shouted over the wind as she grabbed Beth Ann’s hand and tugged her away from her fathers’ grip.
Miles stood and placed his hand on Lizzie’s shoulder to stop her. “Just do as I say and stick close by today.”
Lizzie gave a curt nod and the two girls walked to the front of the wagon. Miles turned to Adelaide who had witnessed the exchange. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. They loved their mother very much, and it’s unfair of you to expect them to accept me so readily. It will take time.” She tied the strings of her bonnet tighter lest the wind whip it from her head. The entire time she was aware of Miles watching her.
She still had not recovered from the kiss they’d share the night before. Once Gerald had died, she’d lost any interest in men and the intimacies to be shared with them. But Miles’ kiss, so soft and gentle at first, then more demanding, had caused flutters in her middle that she hadn’t experienced for a long time.
Once she had realized they stood out in the open, she had pulled away and made to enter the wagon. He put his arm around her shoulders and walked with her to the opening. Before she could climb in, he turned her toward him and took her mouth again in a searing kiss that left her knees weak.
She’d grasped his muscled arms to hold herself upright as he ran his tongue along the seam of her mouth so she would open to him. He had already worked his hand up between them to fondle her breast before she realized what he was doing. She should have pulled away immediately, but it had felt so good, she’d allowed him to continue.
Wild Western Women Spring Into Love: A Western Historical Romance Box Set Page 12
