A Bride at Last

by Melissa Jagears

  “Why didn’t you come for her earlier?”

  He returned the woman’s glare. If her eyes weren’t scrunched with accusation and her lips curled with scorn, she’d be heaps prettier. “I suppose you fault me for the month I took to get here? I live in Salt Flatts, Kansas. I couldn’t leave my homestead unattended without ruining everything I’ve worked for. I got somebody to take care of my property as soon as I could, and yet I still . . . missed her.”

  He’d been walking outside for half an hour.

  Was Miss Dawson right? Had he missed apologizing to his wife by fifteen minutes because he’d dragged his feet attempting to settle his nerves?

  And why must this strange lady look at him so? What right had she to be mad at him? “Besides being named Miss Dawson, who are you?”

  She took one step back, but her chin tilted higher. “So you’re not here for any other reason?”

  “Do you find evading questions amusing?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I need to know.”

  “Why must I inform you?” He set his jaw. He’d told her Lucy was his wife, yet Miss Dawson hadn’t bothered to offer condolences, just a biting glare.

  Her son leaned over to peer at him from behind her, and Silas sighed. He couldn’t chide the boy’s mother in front of him. Nor should they be arguing beside a dead woman’s bed. He swallowed his pride, something he’d become good at these last ten years, and shrugged. “I came here for no other reason than my wife asked me to.” He held out his open hand indicating the door. “Why don’t we talk outside?”

  He led the way out, holding the door open for the mother and son to follow.

  Turning around in the middle of the hallway, Miss Dawson returned to glaring. “Did she say why she wanted you to come?”

  “I’m assuming now it’s because she was sick.” He glanced back into the room, noting the blood-speckled handkerchiefs, the tonics on the washstand, the disheveled cot below the window. Who slept there? “Was she not alone?”

  “Someone had to care for her. She was dying of consumption. Penniless. Unloved. Beaten down by the life you tossed her into.”

  He straightened. “I tossed her into?”

  “Do you deny sending her away?”

  “I do.” Why did this woman he’d just met think so poorly of him? “I don’t know what she told you, but I never asked her to leave. I wouldn’t have. She’s all I have in the world.” He swallowed hard. “Or had, anyway.”

  Miss Dawson relaxed, and he frowned. Why would his becoming a widower calm her? Her countenance hadn’t struck him as unkind. In fact, she was rather attractive. Maybe not like Lucy—her looks had enamored him from the moment she’d sent him her photograph—but this Miss Dawson’s face was pleasing enough.

  Well, more than pleasing if he were honest, with her pert nose and softly colored lips. Less than an hour ago, she’d flown past him in a sea of petticoats, hardly slowed by a jarring hit to the shoulder and a near tumble. She didn’t look strong, considering her soft feminine form, but her straight back, tilted chin, and peppery words would make any man cautious.

  “Well, Mr. . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t ask your name.”

  “Jonesey. Silas Jonesey.”

  “Ah. Jonesey.” She smiled even more. “Mr. Jonesey, I’m sorry if I caused any offense. I wasn’t certain you were—”

  “Then you’re not my real father?”

  Miss Dawson stiffened, and the boy came out from behind her.

  Silas licked his lips, watching the color drain from Miss Dawson. “I thought he was yours?”

  “He is.” She glared at the boy and gave him a quick shake of her head. The silencing gesture only made the boy cross his arms.

  Silas glanced at Miss Dawson’s fingers. No ring. Not that a lack thereof meant anything if they were as poor as they looked. He took a glance at the two of them again. Besides dark-colored hair, there wasn’t much resemblance—and the boy’s hair had no hint of red. Miss Dawson couldn’t be much more than twenty-five maybe, and the boy had to be . . . around nine.

  Nine.

  If the boy had blond curls, he’d have looked exactly like Lucy must have at that age.

  Silas put a hand to his neck and tightened his abdominal muscles against the slurry in his stomach. “I have a son?”

  Chapter 2

  “If you have to ask whether or not you have a son, I think that answers your question.” Kate glared at Anthony to shush the boy—he’d never been good at keeping his mouth shut, but he’d been awfully quiet while Silas had held his dead wife’s hand and called her Lucy as if he cared.

  But a man who only showed up at his wife’s deathbed couldn’t care. And if Lucinda had meant this man when she’d told Anthony she’d written his father, he would’ve known the boy was his.

  Mr. Jonesey’s eyes flashed fire. “I wouldn’t have known if she deliberately kept the information from me.”

  Had that blaze of anger in his pupils driven Lucinda away? She’d said he kicked her out . . . which he’d denied.

  But with Lucinda dead, he could say anything he wanted to.

  “Maybe there’s a reason you don’t know about the boy.” Kate glared back at Silas, with his big muscles and scruffy face. She hadn’t expected him to be so good looking, not after the way Lucinda described her husband from Kansas as a dirt-poor farmer. She’d need to keep from letting his attractive features make her forget what kind of man he really was.

  The muscle under Mr. Jonesey’s eye twitched as he held her gaze. Suddenly his posture softened and he turned to Anthony. “How old are you, son?”

  As though calling Anthony son proved anything. She tried maneuvering Anthony behind her, but he wouldn’t budge.

  “Nine almost ten.”

  Silas stared blankly, likely calculating the plausibility of his fatherhood.

  Anthony crossed his arms. “And I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  That’s right, he wasn’t going anywhere if she could help it. But he shouldn’t sass an elder, even if what he said was true. She steered Anthony to the stairwell. “Why don’t you go downstairs and see if Mrs. Grindall has dinner ready?”

  “I don’t feel like eating.” His slumped shoulders and red eyes tore at her, but she needed to talk with Mr. Jonesey alone.

  “I know you don’t, sweetie. Maybe you can find a cookie?”

  He shrugged but turned toward the dim stairwell.

  “We should talk while Anthony eats.” But no matter what Mr. Jonesey said, she’d not change her mind—the boy wasn’t going anywhere with him.

  “Should we not fetch someone for . . .” He gestured toward Lucinda’s open door but then let his hand drop. The hopeless gesture might have indicated heartbreak, except he’d abandoned his wife for a decade.

  “I asked Mr. Sandwood down the hall to find the undertaker so Anthony could have some time to grieve.” Yet she’d just sent the boy to eat alone . . . she wasn’t starting her parenting off on a stellar foot. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Jonesey.” Though he probably didn’t view it as much of one. She positively ached to kick him in the shins on Lucinda’s behalf.

  He moved to lean against the rough wooden wall and looked up at the shadowy ceiling with a glint of wonderment in his eyes. “A son.”

  “Now, wait a minute.” She held out an accusatory finger, which did nothing to gain his attention.

  A man shouldn’t look all . . . gushy like that. Especially not the kind of man Lucinda described.

  She’d not let an innocent-looking expression cause her to let some stranger claim the child she’d grown to love as her own. Silas Jonesey might be just as bad as Richard. “You’ve no proof he’s yours.”

  “Doesn’t matter to me.” He shook his head. “I’d take him anyway.”

  What?

  Oh right, Lucinda had said her husband was a taskmaster. One who’d worked his wife into the ground. An orphaned boy would substitute nicely for that thankless position. “No, Lucinda left him in my care.”

>   “I can assume his care.” He looked toward the stairwell as if he could see Anthony dragging his feet to the dining hall.

  “If you’ve no proof of being his father, I mean to keep the boy.”

  He frowned. “Are you married?”

  She drew up. “That matters not.”

  “Sure it does.” He glanced back into the room, full of broken furniture and the scant belongings Lucinda possessed. “How could you provide for him better than I?”

  She compressed her lips. She’d not tell him she’d been paying for this room for months. The boardinghouse was not impressive, by any means, but Silas hadn’t seen the shack they’d lived in previously. “As a teacher, I’m housed with different families every year. Regardless of whose roof might be over our heads, Anthony will be with someone who loves him.”

  “That’s kind of you to be willing to step in, but a boy needs a father.”

  “Only if he’s a loving father. I love Anthony with all my heart. I’ve sacrificed a lot for him already.” She fisted her hands, wishing she could’ve strangled Silas a decade ago for Lucinda. “No man who marries a woman, makes her his slave, and then kicks her out when she doesn’t pass muster should be raising a boy, blood relation or not.”

  “Now wait a minute.” Silas pushed away from the wall. “I don’t know what Lucy told you, but that’s not me.” He puffed his thick chest as if making himself look bigger would scare her.

  “She told me you worked her night and day. Barely taking time for her. Treating her worse than her parents’ servants.”

  He flung out his hands. “I don’t want to sully your regard for a dead woman, but Lucy’s expectations of homesteading were childish. She’d been spoiled in Virginia. Why, she’d never even helped in the kitchen before she came to me, and I certainly didn’t force her to answer a mail-order-bride advertisement. She could’ve stayed in Virginia and found a husband there.”

  Silas took a step toward her, all broad shouldered and masculine, but she wouldn’t back down. She tilted her head to glare up at him. Why did men think mail-order brides should accept whatever fate awaited them? “She was your bride, not your slave.”

  “She insisted on coming at planting season, and I . . .” He glanced back through the doorway into Lucinda’s room, then shook his head. “When I saw the photo she sent me, I couldn’t deny her.” His eyes snapped back to hers. “Have you worked on a farm, Miss . . . What’s your name again?”

  “Dawson. Kate Dawson.”

  “Well, Miss Dawson. I know teachers work hard to keep children disciplined and learning, but have you ever been at the mercy of the land for your existence? Where weather, insects, coyotes, and grub-infected dirt could cause you to starve during the winter if you aren’t diligent to till enough land or sow enough seed?”

  “No.”

  “Then you don’t know what real work is. And neither did Lucy.”

  Her fists tightened, nails biting into her palms. “Don’t presume my past from a tidbit of personal information.” She forced her clenched jaw to soften before her teeth shattered with the pressure. “I’ve worked far harder in my twenty-five years than most, down on my hands and knees, dawn to dusk, against my will.”

  All because of a man like him.

  Silas cocked his head.

  “And so has Anthony.” She was done with men who thought they could run weaker people’s lives. “When Lucinda took to her bed over a year ago, Anthony worked at the laundry for a time to help me keep a roof over their heads. I’ll not allow him to quit school to labor like that again. He’s got a bright mind, not to be wasted on—”

  “I know what it’s like to work as a child. I worked at Wilson’s Mill when I was ten until twelve—no child should work the hours I did, or the jobs. But since the beginning of time children have helped parents with farm chores. It’s not anything like how they’re treated in factories. . . .” He closed his eyes. His hand, seemingly shaky, rubbed at his brow.

  “Wilson’s? The huge woolen mill the next town over?” He was from this area?

  Silas nodded.

  She let out a breath. So he’d had a hard time of it as a child. But if that were so, how would he know what a childhood should be like? She’d had a great one until her twelfth year—she wouldn’t let Anthony lose his the way she had hers. “Farming might not be terrible altogether, but many of my students struggle to attend school regularly because of their parents’ need for them to work.”

  “I won’t deny him school.”

  Wait. Why were they even debating? Arguments were mere words; they proved nothing. He might not even be Anthony’s father. “Maybe so, but as you heard, Anthony wants to stay with me.”

  Silas put a hand to his jaw and rubbed.

  Had reminding him of Anthony’s desire given him pause, or was he preparing a different argument?

  If her sister had been here, she’d be sending her evil glares. Violet had always accused her of arguing for argument’s sake and chastened her to hold her tongue, and maybe avoid another beating from Violet’s heavy-handed husband.

  Of course, losing an argument with her brother-in-law only landed her in the attic with a bruised body. If she couldn’t win this one, Anthony’s life was at risk. Mourning his mother was more than enough for him to deal with right now. “So we agree. Anthony’s desire to remain with me needs to be adhered to—”

  “No, we don’t agree. I was just trying to figure out how I’d earned your ire.”

  “You don’t think Lucinda would’ve told me about you?”

  “I don’t think she could have. She didn’t know me.”

  Didn’t know him? What did that mean? She was his wife. “So I’m to ignore everything she ever said about you and pretend you’re a saint?”

  “I’m no saint.”

  She crossed her arms. “Well good. We agree on something.”

  He chuckled, and she blinked. Her brother-in-law never would’ve laughed during an argument.

  “I do believe you could sear off skin quicker than a firebrand.”

  “What?”

  “Right. You’re not a farm girl.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “Look, I think we’ve gotten off the tracks and bogged ourselves in a mud pit. Let’s start over. I know you’ve feelings for the boy, and Lucy probably did ask you to see after him, but he’s likely mine. The fact of the matter is, I’ll be the most capable of providing for—”

  “Children need more than food and clothing. They need to be loved for who they are, not what they can do.”

  “Of course they do—”

  “I can provide for Anthony. I assure you.” She straightened, trying to add at least an inch in height. “I can offer him what he needs most.”

  “In the future, he’ll need more than love, Miss Dawson. He’ll need to learn how to work, and—”

  “Exactly why he can’t go with you!” She sliced her hand through the air. “I won’t let you get ahold of Anthony and teach him how to work the way you taught his mother. Over my dead body.”

  Silas flinched at the dead body reference.

  Kate slapped a hand over her mouth.

  He tried not to imagine Lucy’s form lying beneath her threadbare sheet on the other side of the wall, but failed.

  She dropped her hand and cleared her throat. “I think I might have gotten a little carried away there.”

  He’d heard redheaded women could be spitfires, but this woman only had a hint of auburn in her tangled locks. Good thing God saved the world from the wrath of a full-blown redheaded Kate Dawson.

  He wasn’t close to righteous—he basically fouled the air standing beside anything godly. Still, that didn’t mean he wasn’t right for the boy. But how to convince this pretty little firebrand to give up her claim?

  “I know I’m a stranger to you and Anthony, but if you consider the situation practically, a man’s protection and provision will give him the best future.”

  “I don’t worry about tomorrow. ‘For the morrow shall take thou
ght for the things of itself.’”

  A Scripture-spouting woman. “True. We shouldn’t worry about tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t plan for it.”

  “I won’t let Anthony live with a man who treated his mother so poorly. Do you deny it?”

  “That I treated her poorly?” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “No.”

  “Then Anthony won’t be a part of your future. Excuse me.” Kate marched toward the stairwell, where a flicker of movement caught his attention in the shadows.

  Anthony.

  The boy’s eyes narrowed before he disappeared down the stairs.

  Had they said anything the boy shouldn’t have overheard?

  His feet urged him to go talk to the boy, but what could he say right now, when Miss Dawson was clearly not in the right frame of mind to hold a genial conversation? Whatever had he done to make Lucy paint him so badly to her friend and son? He might not have been the best husband, but he certainly hadn’t been an evil one either.

  When the sound of both of their footsteps faded, he entered Lucy’s room and crossed over to her bed, taking a long look at her sad, still form. Would Kate return with Anthony, or would she take him away so he couldn’t find him? He shouldn’t have let them out of his sight.

  But he couldn’t abandon his wife with the coroner on the way either.

  Nothing about Anthony’s features shouted that he was his offspring, but if his praying for the last four years hadn’t gained him the forgiveness he’d sought from his wife, surely God was consoling him with the one thing he wanted even more.

  A family.

  He pulled the threadbare sheet up to cover his wife’s motionless form.

  If this Kate Dawson thought heated words would deter him from raising the boy, she was mistaken.

  Chapter 3

  Shivering in the ice-cold drizzle, Kate eyed Silas across the open grave. He wasn’t the tallest person in the small group gathered to see Lucinda interred, but he certainly was the broadest. Farm work had to be demanding to bulk up a man like that.