Shelter from the Storm

by Patricia Rice

  “I’ll agree to your terms if you promise to accompany me. You are as exhausted and chilled as I am. I’m not looking to be mothered, Laura, and I trust you’re not looking to be fathered. Come here and share this drink with me.”

  His touch on her shoulder spoke of what he meant, and butterflies lit in Laura’s stomach. They were there alone, a fact she had not considered in her impulsive escape. It didn’t suit her to be skittish about something that was inevitable, but instinct warned this was not the right time for what he had in mind. Jonathan had tried to hide his cough as they rode toward town, but it didn’t sound a healthy cough to her. Obediently she followed him toward the old sofa, but she kept his hand in hers, where it was safe.

  When she refused to share his drink, Jonathan sipped at it and regarded her burnished hair with a mixture of elation and confusion. Coming here with him meant that she was ready to take him as husband in every sense of the word. He would scarcely be a man if that didn’t excite him. He had strong memories of a woman’s arms around him in this place, arms that had clung to him as he carried her off to bed. But Laura’s averted face and stiff posture warned that all was not as it should be.

  “It’s been a long and draining day, my love. I’ll not press you for what you are not ready to give, but wouldn’t it be better if you learned to turn to me instead of inside yourself at times like these?”

  The concern in Jonathan’s voice made Laura want to weep. All her life she had stood on her own. Why had she thought she needed his support now? But what choice had she? She could return to being Sallie’s personal servant, attempt to live alone on her income as a seamstress if the town could ever forgive the scandal, or she could marry this man who held her in respect and admiration. Only a fool would choose other than the latter. She straightened her shoulders and met Jonathan’s gaze.

  “I don’t think I want you to see what is in my eyes,” she told him. “I have never let anyone know what is inside me, and I fear to reveal myself now would be to frighten you away. At the same time, I don’t think I can go on living like this. I’m not at all what you think, Jonathan. I think it would be better if I gave back your ring until I have the courage to be honest with you.”

  Jonathan had expected anything but this. As Laura struggled with the ring on her finger, he stayed her hand, clasping it firmly until she looked up to him. The emptiness in her eyes frightened him just a little, but he fought back the fear. “I think you are suffering from nothing more than the usual wedding-night shivers. I will admit to having my own fears too. I’m nearly fifteen years older than you, a gap of experience that looms wide at times like this. You have barely begun to see the world, and I feel as if I’ve seen everything there is to see. What happens when I grow old and crippled and you are still young and beautiful? But there are worse things to worry about when choosing a lifetime partner. If that is all we have to fear, we are much better off than most.”

  Laura heard Jonathan’s reassurances and wasn’t reassured. That the words had escaped her without premeditation frightened her more than anything else she had done. She was not usually a creature of impulse. She had considered this marriage for weeks, and had consented only because she had considered every other alternative. But that day with Cash had destroyed something inside her, and she was too shattered to gather the pieces and put them back together again.

  A tear rolled down her cheek, and she wiped it away irritably. “There is much more than the difference in our ages to worry about. That never concerned me. What concerns me is how willingly I have concealed the truth from you. I’m not a liar by nature, but I have gone to extremes to hide myself from you. That scarcely seems a promising basis for marriage. I think I have been using you, Jonathan, and I don’t like myself very much. It might be best if I went to stay with someone else for the night. This is something that would be better discussed with clear heads in the morning.”

  Setting aside his mug, Jonathan caught her shoulders and twisted her to face him. “The chilling honesty of youth; it’s been a long time since I’ve heard it. Why must everything be black and white to the young? There is no such thing, you know, Laura. We’re all shades of gray, no matter how well-intentioned we might be when we start out. Whatever awful secrets you can possibly harbor can wait until morning. Why don’t you let me be the judge of what we should do tonight?”

  With those words he took her in his arms and quieted her protests with his kiss. There was a desperation in his touch that warned and warmed Laura at the same time. She responded to it as well as she could, but it wasn’t the same. She clung to his shoulders, parted her lips, met his tongue in the enticing dance that Cash had taught her, but she felt nothing more passionate than warmth and sorrow.

  She allowed him to unfasten the buttons of her bodice in hopes that the touch of his hand would restore the ardor she had felt that wet day in the barn, but though her body rose to Jonathan’s touch, her heart didn’t respond. Where was the thunder she remembered? Where were the lightning and the fire and the clash of two bodies born asunder and determined to become one?

  She had done the unforgivable, and now she must pay. Catching Jonathan’s hand, Laura brought it to her lips and kissed the palm. When she had his full attention, she asked, “What would you say if you knew I had never been married?”

  Jonathan stopped at once to stare deep into her eyes. He glanced down at her breasts shimmering in the firelight, admiring the swelling foothills and the valley in between, then pulled her bodice closed and began to button it.

  “I’d say I have no business forcing you into a decision you’re not ready to make. I’m no good at seduction, Laura. I want a woman willing to be my wife. If you’re not ready for that yet, perhaps we had better talk.”

  Disappointment welled up in her. She didn’t know what she had hoped, but it wasn’t this reasonable response. Her skin still hungered to be touched, even if the fire and passion were lacking. Perhaps they were both tired, and the thunder would come later. Discouraged, Laura finished fastening her bodice on her own.

  “I’m not a virgin, Jonathan. I know what to expect. I thought that would please you, but there’s a little more to it than that, isn’t there?”

  He touched her hair. “Yes, there’s a little more to it than that. I suppose that rogue Marshall simply had his way with you and then left?”

  Embarrassed, Laura merely stared at the fire. “He was too drunk. He just left me with his hotel bill instead. No, it’s worse than that. I consented to what I did. I even encouraged it. I thought I was doing it to protect you. Do you think madness might run in the family? Or perhaps what they say about bad blood is true?”

  “Who, Laura?” he encouraged quietly.

  Laura continued to stare at the fire. But now that the truth was out, he might as well know the whole of it. It would seal the decision she had made and release him from his foolish offer. Simply she replied, “Cash,” and heard his intake of breath and knew that it was over, once and for all.

  Chapter 12

  Despite Laura’s protests, Jonathan slept on the sofa. She didn’t argue long. They were both exhausted and emotionally drained and neither could be sensible after her stumbling revelations. She didn’t feel better for having revealed her secret, the memory still haunted her, but she was relieved of the burden of the lie to a man she loved and respected. That the knowledge had destroyed any chance of a life with Jonathan was an unpleasantness that needed time to sink in.

  When she woke the next morning to the smell of coffee and bacon frying, Laura dressed and hurried to the kitchen to find Jonathan already there. In shirt sleeves and waistcoat he seemed less formidable than the intellectual professional she had looked up to and admired for so long. He gave her a small grin and gestured toward the set table.

  “In long years of bachelorhood I have learned a few simple skills. Let me impress you for as long as I can. If you do not mind dining in the kitchen, have a seat.”

  “After four years of eating off my bedsid
e table, the kitchen is quite unexceptionable, thank you. You were supposed to sleep last night, not wake early to impress me. How is your cough?” Laura adjusted her skirts over the wooden chair. After a year of wearing black, she had just become accustomed to the colors of her old wardrobe. But out of respect to Ward she had gone back to her blacks yesterday, and the dismal effect in this sunny kitchen seemed out-of-place.

  “That is a subject we may discuss after we eat.” Jonathan carried the heavy iron pan of eggs to the table, then poured coffee from the pot bubbling at the back of the old cook stove. A platter of toast cooked over a wire rack in the wood-burning oven and another platter of thinly sliced bacon completed his offering. He didn’t notice her grin at the informality of pans sitting on the table.

  He appropriated a chair across from her and motioned for her to help herself. “You are not the only one with secrets. I’ve had the night to reconsider my notions of honesty, and it’s time we had a long talk. After we eat.”

  That had an ominous tone to it, but Jonathan seemed to be in a cheerful mood, and she didn’t question him further. At least he didn’t despise her for what she had done. She had been young and foolish when she had run off after Marshall, that was understandable, but what she had done with Cash had no such easy excuse. Jonathan had every reason to think the worst of her. But this morning he appeared relieved, and her anxiety and curiosity built as they ate.

  “I’ve always had an urge to travel, but what with one thing and another, I’d thought myself tied to this place.” After demolishing the better part of his meal, Jonathan sipped at his coffee and watched Laura pick at hers.

  “I understand the feeling,” Laura replied. She applied jam from one of Jonathan’s patients and waited to see where this conversational gambit would lead.

  “I thought you might.” Jonathan gave up any pretense of eating and watched her nibble her toast. “I’ve had a letter from a colleague of mine who’s looking for a place to locate. I’m considering asking him for an offer on my practice here.”

  Alarmed, Laura searched his face, but he revealed only interest in her reaction. “You want to leave Stone Creek? Did you intend that before . . . when we still thought of marriage?”

  He reached across the table and caught her hand. “I’m still thinking of marriage, but I’m thinking you need more time. And I think I owe you more time. The truth is, Laura, if we married and stayed here as I had assumed you wanted to do, you could be nursing an invalid sometime down the road. I’ve tried to take care of myself, I know the proper routine, but last week, even when I knew I was next to useless against the fever, you made me feel as if I could go out and save the world again. I haven’t felt like that in years, but you brought it all back to me, and I overexerted myself like a damn young fool. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

  From the intense expression in his gray eyes, Laura was very much afraid she did, but she wasn’t at all certain she wanted to hear it. She wrapped her fingers around his long, sensitive ones and tried to sort out his various messages. “Are you telling me that you are ill? That the cough isn’t just a cold from exhausting yourself last week?”

  Jonathan sat back in his chair again. “You always were quick, Laura, thank you. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to admit weakness to a beautiful woman? But I was so certain that what I had to offer was better than what Ward and Sallie had to give, that I refused to let you see any reason to doubt my abilities. I knew if I was careful I wouldn’t have to be an invalid for many years, if ever. And even if that time came, I have enough set aside to keep you comfortable. But after this past week I’ve had to face my own faults. I want to be young again. I want to be strong. And I want to be the kind of person you obviously think I am. My cynical attitude works for a selfish old bachelor, but an idealistic young woman would come to despise me, and more than anything else, I don’t want you to despise me, Laura.”

  This was not at all the direction that she had imagined this conversation would take. Laura fought to grasp what he was trying to say. She knew it was immensely important to recognize that there were more layers to people than she had assigned them, and that Jonathan was trying to show her what she hadn’t seen before. She tried to rephrase his words into sentences that showed she understood.

  “I do not consider you old or any more cynical than myself, but that is not what you are telling me, is it? You are saying you have consumption, like your wife had, aren’t you? And that instead of working hard as we did last week, you must rest, but because of me, you can’t.”

  She watched his face to judge the correctness of her assumptions, seeing the pain flit across his features as she hit the mark. “That is foolishness, you know. You’re too valuable to be lost to needless exertion. We could go somewhere else, where they won’t even know you’re a doctor. Then you could rest all you need and get better.”

  Jonathan tugged her chair around the table corner until he could reach the chignon she had pinned up this morning. He ran his fingers along the nape of her neck. “You’re a very perceptive young woman, but I don’t think you know what you want well enough to consign yourself to a life nursing an invalid. I have another suggestion to make, if you will hear me out.”

  Laura suffered a moment’s panic. Now that everything was out in the open between them, and she knew he did not despise her, she was ready to fling caution to the winds and go wherever he wished rather than to lose him. She couldn’t bear to lose this one friend she had come to rely on for everything that was good in her life. She caught his hand and placed a kiss in his palm as a plea not to desert her.

  Jonathan closed his fingers around hers. “I really think I’m a fool to give up an opportunity like this, but let me be young and idealistic just this once. I have known love and passion. I know what we have is solid and dependable, but not the romantic dream of a young woman. I would not deny you your dream, Laura. I think there is still something between you and Cash that must be worked out, and I am willing to step out of the way until it is resolved. Knowing the two of you, I feel confident that I will come out the winner, but I want you to be as certain as I am.

  “But in the meantime, I want to make myself into the man you deserve for husband. I have heard that the hot, dry air of Arizona Territory has a healing effect on consumptives. I have always wished for an opportunity to explore the Western territories. I’m not sure they’re the place for a gently born woman such as yourself, but I would see for myself. If you are willing to be patient with me, I want to come back a whole man.”

  Tears sprang to Laura’s eyes as she watched Jonathan’s narrow face and heard the intensity of his request. She hadn’t realized how close they had grown until she faced the prospect of time without him. Biting her lip, she tried to be reasonable. “There can never be anything between Cash and me, you have as much as admitted it. We are too much alike in too many ways, and come from worlds so far apart that we’ll never meet. It’s Sallie he wants, and always has been. I daresay she’s the only reason he came back or bothers to stay. What happened between us was as accidental as lightning striking, and won’t happen again. If you don’t despise me for what I’ve done, let me go with you, Jonathan. I don’t mind the travel; I grew up with it.”

  Jonathan brushed away a tear trickling down her cheek. “I know, and when the time comes, I will ask you to go with me, but not now. You deserve a whole man, and I’m determined to give you one. Don’t argue, Laura.” He held up his hand to halt the protest forming on her lips. “Our only problem now is how to stop the gossip when I leave you here without the wedding ceremony they’re all expecting.”

  He was going to do it, and nothing she could say would stop him. Laura pulled her hands back into her lap. She supposed he was right, but she had suffered enough partings to know this one could be permanent. On the heels of Ward’s death, she wasn’t certain she could handle it gracefully. She didn’t want to be left alone anymore.

  She swallowed wails of protest—not Jonathan, not s
olid, dependable Jonathan. Please, God, don’t let him be taken away too. She hid her selfish fears and tried to reassure him.

  “You needn’t worry about gossip. I’ll stay with Sallie and try to run the farm. There isn’t a man in Stone Creek who would be interested enough in me now that Sallie’s a widow.”

  She glanced up in surprise at the anger in Jonathan’s reply.

  “You’ll not be returning to the farm. You’ll stay here, in my house, where you can be your own woman and not Sallie’s servant, if I have to marry you to make you do it.”

  Laura smiled at the forcefulness in Jonathan’s usually mild voice. “That will certainly end the problem of any man who might be interested in me. Wouldn’t it just be simpler to take me with you?”

  Jonathan drew his hand through his hair and gave her a wry grin. “I guess I want to have my cake and eat it too. All right, let me speak to a few people, explain my situation, and see if they won’t protect you from the worst of the gossip, leastways. If I go, this house will need someone in it, and I’d just as soon it be you. I’ll cough and look pitiful and the good people of Stone Creek will rise to the occasion. Despite everything, there are good people here, Laura.”

  There were good people and bad people, just as in any place. There would be gossip, and there would be those who would pull their skirts aside and cross to the other side of the road before speaking with her. But Laura knew who her friends were, and though they were limited in number, they would not scorn her. She could survive, one way or the other. The sad part was that she was tired of just surviving. She wanted to live, and she looked at Jonathan wistfully.

  “Are you certain you could not take me with you? I won’t even ask you to marry me. I promise not to be a hindrance.”

  Jonathan brushed the curve of her cheek, and shook his head. “That’s too much temptation to offer a man, Laura. I want to protect you, not destroy you. I’m not doing such a good job of it so far. Let me make another stab at it. Wear my ring, live in my house, write to me as often as you can, and I’ll be back before you know it. Maybe by then you’ll be ready to take me as husband.”