“Will.” Forrest nodded at the man. “Everything settled in town?”
“If by sorted y’mean did I throw him in a jail cell? Then yes.” Will gave him a cheeky grin, leaning back in his saddle with a flick of his reins. “It’s all sorted and just in time, I see.”
Forrest blew out an irritated sigh. “Get Miss, ah, Julie’s things from the platform while I get her settled in the wagon.”
“Already calling her Julie, then?” Will hopped off his horse and gave Forrest an appraising look. “I’m impressed.”
“Knock it off,” Forrest said with a pinched look on his face. Julie swallowed hard, unconsciously stepping closer to Forrest, when Will walked past her without so much as a glance. Forrest leaned close to her with a weak smile. “M’sorry about him. He’s in fine form today.”
“I see,” Julie murmured, her eyes following Will’s athletic form as he ambled up the stairs and toward her trunks.
“He’ll warm up in no time, ma’am, I—” Forrest blew out a sigh. “I mean, Julie.”
She gave him a smile. “I’m sure he will, Forrest.”
“The wagon is just this way.” Forrest led her toward a sturdy-looking wagon. It wasn’t the prettiest thing she’d ever seen but it did have a cover over it for protection from the sun, and she was absolutely positive that it was built to last. She was touched when she saw the pillows that had been tossed onto one side of the wagon bench, a sure attempt at comfort by the men for her sake.
“Thank you,” she murmured when Forrest picked her up and placed her in the wagon with ease. It was like she weighed nothing to him, and it made her feel small, dainty even. A feeling that had long eluded her in New York where the debutantes seemed to shrink a bit more every year. Julie did her best not to notice how Forrest’s biceps flexed beneath the starched material of his flannel, and instead trained her eyes on the platform where Will made quick work of bringing her trunks to the wagon.
“This all you bring?” he asked after he’d brought both trunks down to the wagon.
“Yes,” Julie replied and bit her lip when Will gave her a grunt and tossed one of her trunks roughly into the back of the wagon. A warning look from Forrest caused Will to place the second with more care.
“I, well, we got these for you,” Forrest said, holding out a bouquet. It was mostly wilted from the heat but still lovely. A bunch of wildflowers, daisies, marigolds, and violets made up the cheery offering.
“These are lovely, Forrest.” Julie brought the blooms up to her nose and gave them a happy sniff. “I love them. Thank you.”
Forrest beamed at her then, his face breaking into a wide smile that made him look infinitely younger than his 34 years of age.
“M’glad you like them. There’s fields of them where we’re going,” he said, giving the reins a snap and starting the wagon off down the road Julie had eyed suspiciously upon her arrival. “I-I’ll make sure to get you fresh ones every day.”
“Really?” Julie looked up in surprise. His cheeks were dusted with pink but he kept his blue eyes on the road ahead of them.
“‘Course, if it makes you smile like that,” he said, his voice soft.
“I’d like that very much,” Julie murmured, tucking the flowers next to her.
Forrest said nothing but Julie didn’t miss the smile on his face. It was nice, sitting like this next to him as they drove along in their wagon. She glanced about and was relieved when they passed through Butte City with no incident.
It wasn’t long before they drove through the open country of Montana. It was all so beautiful, with its lush prairie grass, endless blue sky, mountains rising like jagged teeth in the distance, and splashes of colorful wildflowers, that Julie wasn’t sure which way to look first.
“How long is the ride to Gold Sky?” she asked, attempting to break the silence that had fallen between them. She wanted to ask Forrest a million questions but she also didn’t know where to begin, and on top of that she’d never been alone with a more handsome man.
In fact, she couldn’t think of a time when she had ever been completely alone with a man.
Ever.
Never mind the fact that Forrest was going to be her husband in the near future.
“It’s an hour’s drive away,” he replied, giving her a sidelong look. “I know it’s not what you’re used to but I know you’ll settle in. The town is grateful to have a teacher like you coming to manage the school.”
Julie dipped her head but her lips pursed at Forrest’s words. She didn’t want to simply be seen as a teacher to this man. She wanted to be more, infinitely more, than a resource to the community.
“I’m honored to have a teaching job so soon after graduating.” She glanced over Will, who rode alongside the wagon. His gray eyes moved constantly, scanning the horizon, whether for pleasure or if he was looking for hostile parties she wasn’t sure. He held himself like a tightly-wound harp string ready to snap at the first pluck. Clearing her throat delicately, Julie folded her hands in her lap and decided to push ahead to the question that had been hanging over her head during her month-long journey.
“The wedding,” she began, instantly attracting the attention of both men, “when will it take place?”
Forrest and Will exchanged a look over the top of her head before Forrest spoke. “We were thinking it would be best to, ah, have it as soon as we returned to Gold Sky.”
“Oh.” Julie blinked at the new information. She hadn’t anticipated such a quick turnaround upon her arrival, though she supposed she should have considered it at some point on her train ride to Montana. But then again, there had been so much time to read on the train, and with a seemingly endless supply of solitude to indulge herself Julie hadn’t thought of much other than what book to begin next.
Will said nothing but fiddled nervously with his hat, or with what Julie imagined to be nervousness. Perhaps it was agitation, given his quietness.
“That seems efficient,” she said finally, once she had processed the new timeline.
“You don’t—” Will said, his voice coming out gruffly and suddenly, “don’t have to do this.” He looked at her then, his gray eyes intense and focused. Julie felt her heart clench. It was like Will saw straight into her deepest parts.
“I know,” Julie said, eyes still locked with Will’s gaze.
“Y’sure about that?” Will leaned to the side of his saddle, closer to where she sat on the wagon bench. He looked away to the horizon with a frown. “You’re young, pretty, smart. Don’t have to be stuck with us. Not proper.”
“I wouldn’t say that I will be stuck with you,” Julie returned. “Nor would I judge so quickly what is and is not proper.”
Forrest gave her a thin smile. “He’s right. You change your mind and the teaching job is still yours. The town is set for you to begin in a week’s time, and there’s a little house in the town for the teacher. You’d be safe.”
Julie frowned. “Are the pair of you trying to get rid of me now? After all this time? All th-those letters?” She wrung her hands together, her mind already leaping to what the society pages would proclaim at her being rejected as a mail-order bride. The fallout would be horrendous.
If she wasn’t wanted then she would become a dagger-wielding outlaw of some kind with a penchant for literature. Better a life of crime than to suffer the slander and pity of the Four Hundred.
Forrest sat up straight when he heard her frustrated tone. “Now, Julie, we weren’t—”
“Because I’ll have you know that I very much have made up my mind to be married, gentlemen.” Julie crossed her arms over her chest in defiance, though it was hard for her to stay sitting upright given the swaying nature of the wagon, and she almost cursed when she fell sideways, prompting a quick hand from Will to catch her before she tumbled headfirst out of the wagon.
If she had to turn to a life of crime, it was absolutely going to have to be carried out by train. Wagons be damned.
Will let out an exasperated grunt. �
��Life won’t be easy with us.”
“Yes, I know this. Forrest was perfectly clear in the year of letters we exchanged.” She gave Forrest a meaningful look that had the big man blushing.
“So I was.” He glanced over at Will and added, “So we were.”
Julie raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You wrote me?” she asked, looking at Will, who leaned back in his saddle looking like he wished to be anywhere but there.
“Sure did,” he answered, but said no more.
“You never...I mean, I didn’t know it wasn’t you.” She gave Forrest a look of reproach, but he only shrugged.
“Made sense for you two to talk beforehand if you were serious about having the both of us.”
“Well, I suppose so,” Julie sighed. She leaned back against the pillows and bit her lip at the thought that she had written to Will but never known it. Just one more item for consideration on the learning curve. Why it surprised her, she didn’t know. Perhaps it was because until she had made up her mind to answer Forrest's advert, to fall in love with him as she had, she had never done one thing out of line with what society and her family expected of her.
Her cheeks burned when she thought of how her mother would faint if she knew what her only daughter had agreed to nearly a year ago. If polite New York society thought it already had the juiciest drama from her little adventure, it would fly into an absolute tizzy over what Julie had truly decided to do. Though the spy who had told the pages about her plan to go west had ruined her efforts at secrecy, they hadn’t discovered the whole of it. If they had, Julie wouldn’t have just made the society pages, she would have sustained them for months, possibly even years.
And she might still if her secret ever came to light, which was that she, heiress of the esteemed Baptiste family, hadn’t simply agreed to be a bride for the sake of a teaching position and the chance of adventure on the frontier to one man.
She’d agreed to do it with two.
Chapter 3
A cheery sun overhead complete with a gentle breeze worked wonders for Julie’s frazzled nerves at meeting her husbands-to-be. Enjoying the coolness of the breeze on her skin, Julie felt glad for the change of pace from her grueling train ride west, a journey in which she had begun to run troublingly low on novels to read.
Blessedly, the ride to Gold Sky passed peacefully enough for the triad with a companionable silence settling among them, or as companionable as humanly possible. Julie glanced at Will out of the corner of her eye, seeing him glare at the horizon. He’d fallen silent after Forrest had disclosed the wedding plans, and as much as Julie wanted to ask him about himself she dared not.
There was something almost angry about his silence, and the glower on his face inclined her to avoid the man’s grey eyes.
That didn’t mean she didn’t want to look at Will, or Forrest, for that matter. Both men were veritable specimens of manliness, and she wanted to peruse them like a new novel. And that meant Julie played a dangerous game of sneaking glances at both men from the corners of her eyes while ostensibly examining the contents of her reticule, or straightening her bonnet. She engaged in another rousing round of bonnet straightening, eyes drinking in Will’s profile, when Forrest’s hand lightly touched hers, startling her.
Forrest gave her a small smile. “Give him time.”
Putting on as brave a face as possible, Julie returned his smile. She could give the man time; she had, after all, read the entirety of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. If anyone understood the virtue of patience, it was her.
Sneaking another look at Will, she bit back a sigh at his profile, which made her think of the figures she had come across in her Greek classics studies. All sharp planes and smooth skin, save for the dark stubble covering his jaw. When he removed his hat to wipe at the sweat on his forehead, she saw that his hair was longer than Forrest’s, which he had pulled back in a low knot. Julie bit her lip when she realized Will’s handsome features were screwed up in consternation. It was quite easy to see that he was annoyed, but bothered as he was, he was still beautiful.
How utterly unfair.
Julie sighed and looked away, swaying along with the wagon as it dipped low into the dirt road. Even though he wasn’t warm and welcoming like Forrest, she still wondered if Will would ever concede to let her run fingers through his chestnut hair. There was something about the man that urged her to touch him, to smooth her hands over his tense forehead and muscled shoulders, to try and coax him to relax, even a little, from the rigid form he displayed sitting astride a horse.
It was only when Gold Sky came into sight that Will relaxed.
“Goin’ ahead,” he called over to them before he spurred his horse forward with a snap of his heel. Dust kicked and pebbles flew up as he shot off at nearly a gallop. He leaned low over the horse’s neck, one hand holding onto the hat at his head. Almost instantly the lines of his body loosened.
Julie smiled when she heard an excited whoop escape his mouth as he raced toward town. He was carefree and Julie was glad to see it.
“He’s happy about this. Honest,” Forrest said as they watched Will disappear into the city limits of Gold Sky.
Julie sighed. “I don’t know if that’s true…but maybe in time,” she told him.
Forrest’s hand found hers again, and this time he intertwined their fingers, the thin material of her gloves the only thing separating their flesh. She froze, eyes riveted to his hand covering hers.
A touch like this wasn’t allowed, not for young ladies, and certainly not when unaccompanied.
Her brain demanded her to pull away, but Julie quieted it. This was not New York City where the watchful eyes of society dogged her every step.
This was the frontier.
The only thing between Julie accepting and taking comfort in Forrest’s touch was her own reservation. This was a particularly bothersome realization, as she was set to marry Forrest that very day. If there was any hope of her enjoying her time as a frontierswoman, Julie needed to get out of her own way.
“Meant what we said, Julie.” Forrest’s voice pulled her back to the here-and-now with a jolt. He glanced at her and swallowed hard. “The job is yours if you decide we aren’t, ah, well, if we don’t all suit.”
“I think we all suit just fine,” Julie said mulishly. She had no intention of going back to New York. And at the moment, she was contemplating the speediest manner of divesting herself of all she had learned at Lady Pim’s Fine Etiquette and Finishing for Young Ladies. If only she could steal back those countless hours of being conditioned. What a waste of reading time it had proven to be.
Forrest smiled at her and ran his thumb along the back of her gloved knuckles. “Teacher like you is just the thing this town needs.”
Julie’s shoulders slumped. Those touches, which had seemed tender, bordering on scintillating, now only seemed friendly.
Perfunctory, even.
“Right, of course. The town requires a teacher,” she said. She withdrew her hand from Forrest’s and folded both hands in her lap.
Forrest bit his lip, sensing that he had said the wrong thing. “I-I mean to say that, well,” he said so quickly his words came out in a jumble, but Julie looked up at him with a slight smile.
“I understand,” she said softly. “It’s all right, Forrest.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
Julie gestured between them with a flick of her hand. “I think I understand what this is.”
“Which is?” Forrest raised an eyebrow.
“Gold Sky needed a teacher and you two need someone to keep you out of trouble.”
“Is that so?”
“Seems like it.”
“So, by your calculations, you're going to be teachin’ and babysittin’?”
“Appears that way,” Julie replied, but she paused with a frown. “I’ll do my best to learn to cook, though I will remind you that you both specified it was not a necessary skill.”
Forrest let out a snort. “Then we’ll
hire a cook.”
“We will?” Julie blinked in surprise.
“‘Course we will, if you’d like. Aim to keep my wife happy.”
“But I th—”
“Thought what? We just wanted a woman, and any would do?” Forrest asked, shifting in his seat next to her. “Had over a hundred women reply to us, Julie.”
“What?” Julie breathed in shock. A wagon wheel hit a hole and jostled her almost in tandem with her gasp of surprise. Forrest reached out a steadying hand to keep her upright and squeezed her arm, fingers warm through the material of her sleeve.
“Picked you for a reason,” he told her reassuringly, though Julie was far too distracted by the large hand on her arm. It was difficult to keep on task but she managed.
“And that was?” she persisted.
“First off, you wanted the both of us, didn’t even make you bat an eyelash.” Forrest grinned at her, finally pulling his hand off her, though he seemed reluctant to do so. “Anyone that knows us knows we’d never make it separate. Not after the war.”
“Yes, that.” Julie blushed, looking down at her cream traveling gloves.
“Uh huh. That,” Forrest echoed her with a chuckle. “Second, you are a smart woman, one I can see us spending nights enjoying conversation with. You’re capable of critical thinking and that makes you a real partner for us. A woman who can share her outlook on life, someone we can build a life and have children with.”
Julie’s breath caught in her throat. “Children? You want that?”
Forrest leveled her with a steady gaze. “Not just me. We want that.”
“Will?” Julie’s voice was barely above a whisper but she knew Forrest read her surprise.
“With you.”
Julie swallowed hard. “With me.”
“I was, ah, trying to pay you a compliment.” Forrest sighed and rubbed a hand along his jaw with a chagrined look on his face. “Not easy becoming a teacher, and thought you’d, well, thought you’d like that I paid mind to the effort you put into your education.”
Heart and Hand: Gold Sky Series Page 3
