Montana Bride (16 page)

Karl wasn’t happy to find his wife sitting across the table from Bao having a cup of tea as though she hadn’t a care in the world. Especially after that scene she’d caused in the bunkhouse. He couldn’t believe Hetty had shown up as though she thought he needed rescuing.

He’d come here to remonstrate with Bao about his wife not trusting him to be able to handle his men, not to mention what he’d seen when he’d burst in on Hetty and his best friend at the house. Now, here she was usurping his relationship with the Chinaman as well.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he said in a harsh voice. “I sent you to the house to take care of that kid.”

Karl could almost see Hetty’s neck hairs hackle. Her back stiffened as she carefully set the delicate teacup back on its saucer. Then she turned to him and said, “Grace is perfectly capable of taking care of Andy. I decided to come have a cup of tea with Bao.”

He stuck his bunched hands on his hips to keep from reaching out and shaking her. “What were you thinking, coming to the bunkhouse like that?”

She turned away from him, picked up her teacup, and took a sip in supposed indifference, but her trembling hands gave her away. She wasn’t nearly so unfazed by his wrath as she pretended to be. “I thought it was time I met the loggers.”

“Seems to me you already have one man eating out of your hand. I don’t know why you’d need a whole bunkhouse full of them.”

Karl didn’t know where the jealous anger was coming from. This wasn’t like him at all. He’d never been a jealous man. But then, he’d never had a beautiful woman for a wife before. He’d taken one look at Hetty standing with her breasts a hairsbreadth from Dennis’s chest, looking up at his friend in a way he desperately wanted her to look at him, and he’d gone a little berserk.

Never had he felt such uncontrollable rage. He’d needed to get out of the house before he said or did something he would regret. So he’d whirled and fled.

Hetty gazed up at him from her seat on the bench with a wounded look in her eyes. “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill, Karl. I don’t know what you think you saw in the house, but nothing happened between me and Dennis.”

Karl felt his heart plummet. The fact that Hetty felt she needed to deny that anything had happened suggested that there had indeed been something going on between the two of them.

“I’ve made my feelings about fidelity plain,” he said. “I won’t tolerate—”

“Stop right there!” The teacup clattered onto the saucer as Hetty rose to confront him. She stepped over the bench and took the few steps to stand toe-to-toe with him, her own hands perched aggressively on her hips. She lifted her chin and looked him directly in the eye. “I’ve already told you once, Karl, and I don’t ever want to have to tell you again. I have never flirted with Dennis. I never intend to flirt with Dennis or with any other man. What you saw was perfectly innocent.”

“What was it I saw, Hetty? Why were you standing so close?”

She looked him in the eye. “I was asking Dennis about you.”

“What?”

“I wanted to know more about what you’ll be doing on the mountain.”

“You could have asked me,” he said, hearing the childish petulance in his voice and hating it.

She flashed him an angry look. “I asked you what was going on when you came to the house to get Dennis and you ignored me. You dismissed me as if I were of no account. I’m your wife, Karl. I’m supposed to be your helpmate. I came to the bunkhouse because I wanted to help.”

“I’ll let you know when I need your help.” He sighed and said, “I’d already stopped the fight, Hetty. I came to get Dennis because Buck—that’s the giant’s name—needed more information about where to start cutting wood tomorrow.”

“You didn’t have to fight Buck?” she asked.

Karl shook his head. “And I don’t intend to fight him. Ever.”

“Then how will you get the men to obey you?”

“By treating them with respect.”

Hetty met his gaze and said, “What if that isn’t enough?”

Bao rose from the bench on the other side of the table and said, “Confucius say: ‘If you look into your own heart and you find nothing wrong there, then what is there to worry about? What is there to fear?’ ”

Karl had completely forgotten the Chinaman was in the room. He stared at Bao. “What did you say?”

“Must follow heart. Must do what you believe is right. If do that, all will be well.” Bao crossed to the door, grabbed his coat from a wooden hook beside it, and left in a swirl of icy wind.

“Trust Bao to quote Confucius,” Karl muttered.

“He’s probably right. Or rather, Confucius is,” Hetty said with a rueful smile.

Karl was glad Bao had left, because he had something very personal to say to Hetty, if he could get it out. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you.”

When he didn’t immediately continue she said, “I’m sorry for not trusting you, Karl.”

“I guess that’s something we both have to work on,” he replied before he could change his mind about admitting that he’d been as guilty as she was. Karl separated her clasped hands and settled one on each of his shoulders, then set his hands at her waist. She made a soft sound of surprise as he pulled her close and laid his cheek against hers.

He held her for a moment without speaking, then said quietly, “I can’t help acting a little foolish where you’re concerned, Hetty. I never expected to have such a beautiful bride.”

He felt her hand cup his cheek. “You never have to worry about me, Karl. I’m yours and only yours.”

He wished he could believe her. He wanted to believe her. He turned his face to capture her lips and took what he wanted from his wife.

And felt her giving back.

Karl broke the kiss and pulled Hetty close to hug her, regretting that they were both still wearing coats. “I want to touch you,” he said. “I want to feel your skin next to mine.”

He felt Hetty press her cheek against his, which was rough with stubble, and grasp the hair at his nape. “Soon,” she whispered in his ear. “Soon.”

“It can’t be soon enough for me,” Karl said.

Hetty tensed in his arms, and Karl realized that if he wasn’t careful, he would lose the gains he’d made today. He had to trust her to be as committed to their marriage as she said she was. He had to keep his newly discovered jealousy under wraps.

He needed to find Dennis and make it clear that he was going to do things his own way. Then he needed to go back to the bunkhouse and introduce himself to each and every one of those men and assign them jobs, so they understood he was in charge.

But he also needed to hold his wife.

Hetty was the one who finally broke their embrace. “I’d better go check on Grace. I sent Andy to her to get his face patched up. I’m sure she can handle it, but I don’t like leaving her alone with someone I don’t know.”

Karl kept his arms around her for a moment longer, then released her.

She brushed a lock of hair from his forehead, then abruptly dropped her hand—and her gaze—as though she’d just realized what she’d done. She hurried to the door, opened it, then turned back to say, “Good luck in the bunkhouse.”

“Thanks.” He smiled confidently and waved, then muttered to himself, “I’m going to need it.”

“Somebody’s at the door, Grace.”

Grace was lying on top of her bed fully dressed down to her shoes and stockings, wrapped in a scratchy wool blanket, dozing, exhausted from lack of sleep and worry about Griffin. “You get it,” she muttered, rolling over and tucking her chin down inside the rough wool.

Griffin snickered. “Sure. Just let me get my socks and shoes on.”

Grace was suddenly wide-awake. “Don’t you dare!” She grappled her way out of the confining wool, shoved herself off the bed, and tripped on the trailing blanket as she stumbled her way out of the room.

Griffin snorted and called after her, “I don’t know who picked your name, Grace, but graceful you ain’t!”

“I may be clumsy, but you’re an idiot,” she shot back. “At least I didn’t wander off and get myself half frozen to death.”

“Sticks and stones may break my bones—”

“They will if you don’t shut up!”

Grace slammed the bedroom door on Griffin’s laughter. Sometimes having a younger brother could be such a bother!

She yanked open the front door and stared at the lanky boy standing there, his face battered and bloody. He had corn-silk blond hair, a thin face with a blade of nose, and tawny golden eyes with flecks of black and brown that made her think of a lion.

Grace looked beyond him for Hetty, and when she didn’t see her stepmother demanded, “Where’s my mom? What’s happened? What are you doing here?”

“Are you Grace?”

“Who wants to know?” she asked, eyes wary. The boy looked too young to be one of the loggers, but she had no idea what he was doing here if he wasn’t one.

“Your mom sent me here. Said you could fix my face.”

There was no doubt his face needed attention, but Grace had learned in a school of very hard knocks not to trust. She squinted at him and asked, “Why didn’t my mom come with you?”

“Look, I’m freezing my butt off out here. Let me come in, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

All he had on was a red long john shirt, a pair of worn Levi’s that hung so low off his bony hips that she wondered why they didn’t slide right off, and scuffed brown cowboy boots. “Where’s your coat?” she asked, her palm stuck on the doorjamb to keep him out.

“Your mom was in a hurry to get out of the bunkhouse, so I left it behind when I followed her out.”

“Why was she in such a hurry?”

He shrugged. “Don’t think Mr. Norwood wanted her there.”

“So where did she go?”

“Cookhouse, I think.” The boy’s teeth were chattering, and he shivered violently.

Grace stepped away from the door and said, “For heaven’s sake, come inside!” The moment he was inside, she closed the door behind him.

The boy headed for the fireplace, making a
brrrrrr
sound with his lips, and briskly rubbing his arms. He glanced at her over his shoulder and said, “You’re lucky you’ve got both a fireplace and a stove. We’ve only got a stove in the bunkhouse, and it’s cold as a witch’s tit out there.”

When she scowled at his language the boy said, “Sorry, miss. Don’t spend much time in female company.”

“Who’s out there?” Griffin yelled from behind the closed bedroom door.

“Nobody,” Grace yelled back. “Go to sleep.”

“I can hear you talking to somebody,” Griffin said. “Who is it?”

“Name’s Andy Peterson,” the boy replied loud enough to be heard in the next room.

Grace shot the boy an exasperated look, then crossed to the bedroom door, opened it just wide enough to stick her head inside, and muttered to Griffin, “This is none of your business, so leave us alone.”

“If you’re alone with some guy, it
is
my business,” Griffin replied somberly.

Grace felt cold inside. More than once Griffin had come to her rescue at the saloon, saving her from the unwanted attentions of some customer. “This is no drunken cowhand,” she said.

“Maybe not, but you shouldn’t have to deal with any of that pond scum from the bunkhouse, either,” he said. “Where’s Hetty?”

“Shush!” Grace whispered. “You know better than to call her that!” Then, in a voice that showed her irritation with his suggestion that she was unable to deal with the troublesome kid who’d shown up at the door, she said, “If you’ll keep your trap shut long enough, you little pest, I can find out what’s going on. Believe me, I can handle this.”

“But—”

“If I need you, I’ll let out a shout,” she interrupted. “Otherwise, give me a break and leave me alone!”

Grace pulled the door shut with enough force to rattle the planks. She turned once again to her visitor, who was now standing with his rear end toward the fire, his hands behind him, grinning from ear to ear.

“What’s so funny?” she demanded, wondering if she had a smudge on her cheek and brushing at it and then at her flyaway red hair, which she suddenly realized was in wild tangles around her head.

“You’re spunky.”

“What I am is none of your damn business,” she said, unsure whether he’d intended his comment as a compliment or a complaint. She saw the flare of shock in his eyes at her use of profanity and realized she’d better learn to curb her tongue, now that she no longer lived above a saloon. She huffed out a breath. “Sit down at the table, so I can take care of your face and get you out of here.”

Grace crossed to the cast-iron stove, where a pot was kept boiling for rose-hip tea for Griffin, and poured some water from the blackened tin coffeepot into a bowl. Then she grabbed a dishcloth and the bowl and headed back to the table. She placed herself on the boy’s left, where most of the damage to his face had been done. Then she set the bowl on the table, dipped the cloth into it, and wrung it out.

Hetty had taken care of all the wounded faces on the trail, but Grace would be lying if she said she didn’t have her share of experience nursing the kind of cuts, bruises, and abrasions she saw on Andy Peterson’s face. Soiled Doves working at the saloon had occasionally been beaten up by Johns, and her mother’s numerous paramours had gotten into their share of bar fights. And of course, Griffin had been involved in more than a few skirmishes, several of which Grace had joined in herself.

“This may hurt,” she said as she gently applied the warm cloth to the worst cut on his cheek.

He winced and said, “Ouch.”

“Be still,” she cautioned, laying a hand on the top of his head to keep him from moving. It was something she would have done with Griffin, but this interloper wasn’t her brother. She was suddenly aware that she had her hand in this stranger’s hair, and that it was soft and silky, not greasy like she might have expected. Nor did she see any lice.

That made two measly points in his favor. He was still a man. Still capable of hurting her. Still capable of making her life a misery if she ever gave him the chance.

“I hear your mom and Mr. Norwood are newlyweds,” the boy said.

“So what?”

“Spunky. And touchy,” the boy muttered. “I was making conversation.”

Grace couldn’t blame him for that. She was often lonely for someone to talk to who was closer to her age. “How old are you?” she asked.

“Sixteen.”

Andy had looked young, but Grace was surprised to hear just how young he was. “You’re only two years older than me,” she blurted.

“You’re fourteen?”

“I will be next month,” she said, flustered by the sudden look of male interest in his eyes. To deflect his attention from herself she asked, “How did you end up here?”

“It’s as good a place to be as any other.”

“Do you have family somewhere?”

He hissed, and Grace realized she’d pressed a little harder on the broken skin across the bridge of his nose than she’d intended. “Sorry. I’ll try to be more gentle.”

He smiled. “You’re gentle as pie, miss.”

Grace glowered at him, suspicious of his praise because a man giving a compliment usually wanted something in return. “You haven’t answered my question,” she said. “About your family. Where are they now?”

“Lost a baby sister to pneumonia and had a baby brother who drowned. Two years ago the rest of my family—my mom and dad and older sister and younger brother—all died of smallpox at our ranch in Texas.”

She searched Andy’s face for the awful scars that smallpox left but didn’t find a single one. “You didn’t get it?”

“I was out rounding up cattle with my dad when some infected folks traveling through visited the house. By the time my dad and I got home, everyone was sick with the pox. My dad wouldn’t let me in the house, but he went inside to nurse my mom. He got sick, too.”

Grace felt a spurt of sympathy but smothered it. Life was hard. She didn’t have emotions to spare on some saddle tramp. “How did you end up so far north?”

He shrugged. “I couldn’t stay there anymore, so I buried them, drove the cattle north to market in Kansas, then started drifting. I ended up here.”

She glanced at his slender shoulders and skinny arms and asked, “Are you going to be cutting logs?”

“I’m in charge of the skidding team.”

She shot him a quizzical look. “What’s that?”

“Once the logs are cut, they’re attached by a chain to a harness pulled by a team of oxen. I drive the oxen, skidding—sliding—the logs back down the mountain.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“It can be, but I know what I’m doing.”

“What if the logs start slipping on the way down?” she asked. “What keeps you and the oxen from getting mowed over?”

“I told you, I know what I’m doing.”

“You’re only sixteen, and you’re from Texas. Where did you get this supposed vast experience driving oxen in the snow?” Grace asked.

“What is this? I already got the job. I don’t have to answer to you.”

Grace realized her questions about the safety of his job were being provoked by her fear that he would be hurt. Not that she would admit that to him. She wasn’t happy about admitting it to herself.

“Prickly,” she muttered.

“Nosy,” he retorted.

Grace found herself smiling behind his head, where he couldn’t see her. She liked him, but remained wary of him. “I could put a couple of sticking plasters on your face, if you like,” she offered.

He reached up to tenderly touch the growing bruise on his cheek near the worst cut. “Better not. It’ll just bring attention to the fact that Buck—he’s the head logger—beat the tar out of me.”

Grace took the bowl and cloth and crossed back to the copper sink, wanting to put some distance between herself and the boy she was finding so easy to talk with. “Why did Buck hit you?”

“He had some chores he wanted me to do, and I didn’t move quick enough to do them.”

Grace leaned back against the sink, drying her hands on a different dishcloth. “He sounds mean to me.”

Andy shrugged and rose. “Most bosses I’ve had lash out before they think.”

“Karl isn’t like that.”

Andy lifted a skeptical brow and winced when his raw face protested.

Grace reached for the wet towel again and hurried over to dab at his forehead, where blood still oozed from a scrape. Now that he was standing and she was so close, she realized how tall he was. Her head barely came to his shoulder. She was suddenly aware of his body heat—he was certainly warm now—and she could feel his gaze on her.

“I could spend the rest of my life looking into your eyes,” he murmured. “They’re beautiful.”

Grace took a quick step back, her green eyes flashing. “Flattery is wasted on me, Mr. Peterson. And I have no respect for men who spout compliments, especially when they’re not true.”

“I wasn’t lying. Your eyes are the prettiest thing I’ve seen since I got to this godforsaken valley.”

“Get out.” She pointed to the door, knowing from past experience that the flush of embarrassment was turning her red-freckled face into something freakish. “And don’t come back.”

He shrugged and headed for the door. He stopped before he opened it and turned back to her. “Do you like kittens?”

Grace made a moue of disgust. “Is that a trick question? Of course I like kittens. Who doesn’t like kittens?”

He smiled and Grace felt her insides flip-flop.

“If you like kittens,” he said, “there’s a new batch of them at the barn. I can show them to you now, if you like.”

Grace wanted to go see those kittens more than anything she’d wanted in a very long time. But she didn’t dare encourage Andy to think she liked him or had any intention of spending time with him just for the fun of it. Because the truth was, she did like him and she would have loved spending more time talking with him.