Rocky Mountain Redemption

by Lisa J. Flickinger

  “Lou’s been hiding her niece in the cook shack,” Snoop said. “The girl took off this morning, and Lou asked us to go find her. That’s who I saw the other night.” He held his palm out toward Perley. “Time to pay up.”

  You gotta be joshing.” Unbelief raising the pitch in Will’s voice.

  It was hard to wrap one’s mind around the thought. From what Preach could tell, there was no family resemblance between Lou and Isabelle. For that matter, it was hard to imagine Lou had ever been young, let alone pretty. How could he tell the men about Isabelle without getting them all worked up? If he mentioned the intelligent brown eyes above a narrow nose and plump lips, they were likely to form a line at Lou’s back door, hoping for a glimpse. Isabelle didn’t need that kind of attention.

  “Let’s talk about it in the morning,” Preach said.

  “I don’t think so.” The corner of Snoop’s lip curled up in a sneer as he shook his head. “You’ve been calling me a liar for two weeks.”

  Preach hadn’t called Snoop a liar once. It was hardly Preach’s fault if the men had let their imaginations get the better of them. With months on end at the camp and only each other as companions, the men were easily given over to suggestion just to keep from going stir crazy.

  All eyes were on Preach—some hopeful, some worried. More than likely, the worried ones were those who had bet more than they should have on what they thought was a sure thing. Why hadn’t they learned by now? Preach should plan a sermon on the fruit of self-control and drag some of these sorry creatures to one of the church benches to listen with the rest of the congregation.

  “Lou’s niece has been helping her in the cook shack,” Preach said.

  “What did I tell ya?” Snoop whooped, and the bunkhouse filled with the jabber of the men.

  Preach lay back on his bed during the ruckus and laced his fingers behind his head. What he wouldn’t give to shut his eyes and sleep the night through. His eyes fluttered closed.

  Before sleep could overtake him, something thumped on Preach’s forehead. His eyes blinked open to see a rolled ball of wool socks beside him on the bunk. He picked it up and turned it. The neat stitches along the curve of the big toe meant they could only be Ernie’s. He’d escaped the confines of his father’s tailor shop four years ago to make it big in the lumber industry. The fact that Ernie was still rooming with nineteen other men in a shack that stunk like his socks was a testament to how the decision had worked out for him.

  Ernie eyed him from his bunk across the room. “What does she look like? Is she tall and beautiful with hair down to her knees like Snoop said?”

  Preach chucked the ball back at Ernie. He ducked, and it bounced on the wall knocking off a piece of bark before landing behind him.

  What could Preach say? That she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever had the privilege of meeting? That looking in her sorrow-filled eyes sucked the oxygen out of his chest and made him want to beat the face of a man named Daniel to a pulp?

  What he thought of Isabelle didn’t matter anymore. She wasn’t the kind of woman a pastor could marry. She was soiled.

  For some reason, the thought of letting this gang of riffraff at Isabelle still irked. “The girl’s sick.”

  Snoop’s gaze snapped in Preach’s direction.

  “Is that true, Snoop, or is he just trying to put us off?” Will asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never met her. I just know what I saw in the moonlight. She looked pretty good to me.” He raised an eyebrow, challenging Preach.

  It wouldn’t hurt to give the men some of the facts. It might help cool their ardor. “Her father, Lou’s brother, sent her to the camp to convalesce.”

  “Why in tarnation would he send her here? This is no place to recuperate,” Horace said. “The way Lou works in the kitchen, she’ll be lucky to survive, let alone restore her health.”

  Several of the men laughed.

  The fact that Isabelle had been sent to the camp showed how desperate her father had been to secure her marriage to Daniel.

  “She single?” Will asked. “Is that why Lou’s keeping her a secret?”

  If the men discovered Isabelle was even a possibility for a romantic entanglement, there would be no end of trouble. Isabelle wouldn’t have a moment’s peace, and Joe would be obliged to send her from the camp. Preach wasn’t ready to see Isabelle leave even knowing there could no longer be a relationship between the two of them. He fixed his features into a mask before responding. “I already told you, she’s sick.”

  “Sick with what?” Snoop asked.

  Over Preach’s dead body would Snoop be attempting to woo the girl. The rivalry over Lavinia had nothing to do with Isabelle, and Preach would make sure Snoop knew that. Besides, Preach’s interest in Lavinia was over—she was Snoop’s now. “It’s Isabelle’s business what she’s sick with.”

  “Isabelle? Now that’s a pretty name,” Alvin said, his lips turning up into a lewd grin.

  Drat. He shouldn’t have said that. Now the men would have a name to attach their imaginings to. “Look, all I know is that Lou thought the fresh air and water up here would do her some good. The last thing she needs is for a bunch of lonely men to bother her, so forget she’s here. It’s nine o’clock, lights out.” Preach rolled over on to his side, indicating the conversation’s end.

  The men retired to their beds, and the lanterns were snuffed. Preach plumped his pillow to the murmured conversations going on between the bunks.

  “Preach,” Snoop said as Preach’s eyes were closing.

  “What?”

  “I’m just wondering something.”

  Of course Snoop was wondering something, he never stopped wondering. “What’s that?”

  “Does not bothering Isabelle include you?”

  The answer to that question was none of Snoop’s business, either. “Get some sleep.”

  Chapter 10

  Rolling over, Isabelle groaned and tightened the warm quilt around her shoulders. Aunt Lou’s knock on the bedroom door had come much too early for the number of hours Isabelle could count as last night’s sleep. And if the ropes tightening around her calves were an indicator, stepping to the cold floor would be painful.

  Why had she insisted on walking halfway up the mountain the day before? The horse’s stumbling had made Isabelle anxious, but it was more than that. Spending time with Preach, she had almost felt safe—until he’d said “trust me.”

  At Preach’s words, a memory had swooped in. Daniel’s eyes—cold, emotionless—boring into hers before he’d leaned in and trailed kisses across one collarbone. Kisses she’d resisted. Isabelle had shoved against Daniel’s chest, but he’d been more solid than she expected. He merely laughed at her attempt to push him away before pinning her arms against the carriage bench and bending toward her once more. “Trust me,” he’d murmured against her skin as the buttons from the tufted cushion dug into her spine. “You’ll be fine.”

  Isabelle had not been fine. Would she ever be fine again?

  Thanks to her decision to share Daniel’s behavior with Preach, Isabelle had witnessed the demise of her reputation in another person’s eyes. It hadn’t been Preach’s fault he looked at her the way he did. Isabelle couldn’t fault a pastor for his judgment.

  Although Isabelle didn’t fault him, Preach’s comment about “her being no kind of a wife for a pastor” had stung her heart like a hot iron. The tears she’d shed walking to the cook shack hadn’t soothed the burn either.

  When Isabelle had stepped inside the back door, mercifully, Aunt Lou’s open mouth had closed without scolding. Nor had she protested when Isabelle escaped to her room without a word.

  Aunt Lou wasn’t likely to let Isabelle get away completely without punishment for running off. The dressing down would come today.

  She sat up, slung her legs over the edge of the bed, and stepped to the floor. It was cold as ice, and she scurried to the desk to retrieve her thick wool stockings.

  A persistent knock
thudded on the back door. Aunt Lou whispered something in response to the inaudible inquiry. It wasn’t likely to be Preach asking after Isabelle. His parting words had left no room for the possibility he would change his mind about her.

  It hadn’t come as a surprise that a pastor wasn’t interested in marrying someone who’d been sullied by another, but the fact still stung. The letters they’d shared, the relief in his eyes when he’d found her, if only it had been enough to overcome what had happened to her.

  Isabelle laced her boots and threw on the day’s clothes before washing her face in the cold water of the basin and braiding her hair.

  Another knock came to the back door, and another hushed conversation followed.

  It was unusual for the men to bother Lou before breakfast. Joe had informed Aunt Lou last night that the loggers would be eating on schedule today, and with mountains of eggs, flapjacks, and bacon to prepare, she was unlikely to bide any interruptions.

  Isabelle tied a brown ribbon around the base of her second braid before leaving her room. She lifted the latch of the back door in response to another insistent knock.

  “Don’t open that.” Aunt Lou snatched the broom leaning against the wall beside the cook stove.

  Isabelle removed her hand from the latch as Aunt Lou stomped down the hall.

  “There are apples to be peeled for pies.” She pointed over her shoulder toward the large metal bowl, apples heaped over its rim, which sat on the table next to sixteen lumps of pie dough.

  “Why all the knocking?”

  “The men are feeling their oats, I guess, all but Mack, who’s still suffering, the poor boy. The others will be back chopping tomorrow. It couldn’t come soon enough.” Aunt Lou waited until Isabelle picked up a paring knife and had begun peeling before cracking the door and slipping through the opening with the broom.

  Seven peeled apples later, Aunt Lou returned, her cheeks flushed, wisps of gray hair loose about her ears. She tucked the broom back into place and crossed the floor to the pantry before pulling the baking soda tin from the shelf to mix the mornings flapjacks. “It’s a wonder someone so small could cause such a heap of trouble,” she said without turning from the shelf, her fingers lingering on the salt box.

  Who was Aunt Lou referring to, Isabelle? Was this the scolding she was bound to receive? The blade of Isabelle’s knife slipped from the apple and sliced into her thumb. “Ouch.” She closed her eyes and pressed the tip of her thumb behind her front teeth. The sting of the cut pulsed across her palm.

  Yes, Isabelle had caused Aunt Lou considerable worry by taking off from the camp the day before, but what did that have to do with Isabelle’s size? She hadn’t always been so narrow, flat. In fact, her curvaceous figure had drawn the attention of men since she was fifteen—not that it had done her any good.

  “Let me see.” Aunt Lou tugged at Isabelle’s sleeve.

  Isabelle removed her thumb from her mouth, and blood seeped from the half-inch cut.

  As Aunt Lou pulled at the edges of the cut a drop of blood landed on the white of a curled apple peel and spread like a crimson blush.

  Isabelle’s stomach tilted.

  “It’s not deep,” Lou said. “Squeeze your thumb, and I’ll fetch some ointment and a bandage. We’ve a lot to accomplish today. The men will be more than hungry now that they feel better.” Aunt Lou plodded to her room.

  Isabelle stared at the swinging door separating the kitchen from the dining room. She was just as useless in the kitchen as she was everywhere else. When Isabelle had been a young teen, guests had been known to sneak from the parlor when Father requested she play the piano forte after a dinner party, and Mother had yet to hang one of Isabelle’s misshapen embroidery projects in their home. It was a kindness of Aunt Lou to take Isabelle on at the camp. She was more of a burden than a help.

  Aunt Lou returned with a tin of carbolic ointment and a narrow strip of white cotton. After wiping the blood from Isabelle’s fingers, she smeared a generous glob of the ointment on the cut and wrapped Isabelle’s thumb with the bandage. The scent of the cloves Aunt Lou chewed to cover the scent of her furtive cigar smoking stung Isabelle’s nostrils.

  “The men know you’re here now, and the boss will be fuming.”

  “You can tell him you didn’t hire me, since you’re not paying me. Perhaps that will help.”

  “I’ll be keeping the details of our arrangement to myself. But it won’t matter now. Joe won’t let you stay.” Aunt Lou turned Isabelle’s thumb to inspect her work. “He’ll probably ship you out before nightfall. I guess you’ll be getting your wish and leaving the camp. Your father will have to find somewhere else to send you.”

  She was no help to Lou, and the only person Isabelle would consider staying at the camp for no longer thought her worthy of his company, so why did the words pull the air from her chest?

  Aunt Lou took a knife from the block and trimmed the tails of the bandage to stubs. “I’ll roll the pastry. You keep peeling.” She dusted a large circle of flour on the table. After pulling the rolling pin from two hooks on the wall, she rubbed it with flour and slapped one of the lumps of pie dough on top. She rolled the dough with brisk, expert strokes as Isabelle peeled several more apples.

  Within minutes, Aunt Lou had rolled and pressed four pie crusts into pans. “The boys won’t bother you before you leave if they know what’s good for them.”

  “Who came to the door this morning?”

  “You’d do better to ask who didn’t. I don’t know how you slept through the parade of knocks. It started up at seven. Every single one of them was asking about the girl working in the kitchen. What color’s her hair? How long is it? Does she sing? A couple of them asked something about a wood nymph. Is there something about you I don’t know?”

  “I’m not a wood nymph.”

  The rolling pin clattered to the table as Aunt Lou faced her, her floured hands gripped each side of her waist. Her dark eyes held something Isabelle couldn’t read. “Young lady, I don’t need you getting cocky with me. I’ve risked my livelihood by taking in a—” Her lips worked against each other as though deciding what definition would best suit Isabelle.

  Isabelle hung her head and pushed down on the tears pressing at the base of her throat. “A what, Aunt Lou?” she whispered. “Go ahead and say it. What did Father say I was?”

  “Self-pity won’t get you anywhere with me. You’ve been moping for six months. Look at you. Has it done any good?”

  Aunt Lou was known for her bluntness, but until this moment she’d never been outright mean. Isabelle lifted her chin to reply. “What are you hoping I’ll say?”

  “That you’re sorry for causing your mother and father so much worry by almost starving yourself to death over a man.”

  The accusation brought a vise grip to Isabelle’s chest. She had lost her appetite after Daniel’s attack, but surely her family didn’t believe Isabelle was purposely starving herself to death because of him. “You have no cause to say that.”

  “Don’t I? It’s about time someone voiced what everyone else is thinking.”

  How dare Aunt Lou speak for everyone? Scooping a handful of apple slices from the table Isabelle plopped them into one of the bottom pie crusts. “How would you know what they’re all thinking, tucked up here, hidden away from the world like a recluse.”

  Aunt Lou crossed her arms, and the flour stamped the navy blue of her wool sleeves with prints. “I’ll tell you how I know. Your mother has been writing to me for months. ‘Please take in my wayward daughter.’” Aunt Lou’s voice mimicked Isabelle’s mother’s genteel accent. “‘We’ve tried everything. We don’t know how to help her.”

  Although Isabelle had retreated to the confines of her room in the days following the May ball, Mother had appeared satisfied with the explanation Isabelle was upset at the demise of her relationship with Daniel. Mother hadn’t pressed her for particulars, and Isabelle had been relieved to not have to share what Daniel had done. She’d never allude
d to Isabelle being wayward or fearing for her life.

  And when Daniel had been bold enough to come to their home two days after the May ball, Isabelle’s mother had sent him away. Mother wouldn’t have called her wayward. Mother wouldn’t have begged Aunt Lou to take her. “I don’t believe you.”

  Aunt Lou shrugged. “It doesn’t matter if you believe me. After today, I won’t have to worry about minding you anymore.”

  They finished the eight pies without another word. Aunt Lou slid them into the oven before ordering Isabelle to mix up the batter for the morning’s flapjacks. For the next half hour, Isabelle slid one fluffy round circle after another from the grill and then onto platters resting under upturned bowls on the counter.

  Aunt Lou finished the other food preparations and served the men when the tread of twenty pairs of boots echoed on the dining room floor. After refusing Isabelle’s offer to help carry in the heaping platters, she slammed a serving fork down on the table and muttered something about the fact that Isabelle had caused enough trouble already.

  The boss must have decided to let the men talk over today’s breakfast. The jabber coming through the door was lively and interspersed with raucous laughter. Isabelle’s name peppered several of the stories, the details of which were inaudible as she scrubbed and rinsed the morning’s pots in the dishpans.

  Aunt Lou shouldered through the dining room door carrying a bucket overflowing with the last of the dirty dishes. As she plunked it on the counter, a tin plate clattered to the floor. Isabelle’s hands stilled in the steaming water.

  “The boss wants to talk to me in his office. He’s heard the story of the beautiful woman I’ve kept captive in the kitchen.” Aunt Lou’s laughter was not in amusement. “My very own Cinderella.”

  Isabelle bit her tongue. Aunt Lou’s jutting chin and glaring eyes were not inviting a challenge.

  Her aunt untied her apron from her waist and hung it on the hook by the back door. “I’m going over to the office. I can’t do anything about you staying here at the camp any longer, but you and your father better hope I still have a job when I return.”