A Most Inconvenient Marriage (26 page)

His lips parted. He studied her hand. “Abigail. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the morning, and I don’t want to leave anything unsettled between us.” He covered her hand, his warmth coursing up her veins. “If I die tomorrow, you will stay here, won’t you? Even after Rachel passes and the colt’s born, you’d be a comfort to Ma.”

She closed her eyes. This was home. She’d known that even before Jeremiah returned, but there were still complications. “And if you don’t die? Am I still welcome?”

He blinked. “And stay here with me?” He frowned. “That would depend. There’s Laurel’s opinion to consider.”

Abigail stiffened. Perhaps she should be content with his admission, but it wasn’t enough. Whether it was Newton’s observation or her own growing desires, something compelled her forward. “What if Laurel isn’t agreeable?”

“Well, she’d have no reason to send you away. You get along with her—better than with Rachel. Besides, it’s my place. She’d have to listen to me.”

Abigail pulled her hand free and turned to the window. “Jeremiah Almighty, imposing his will on everyone within his reach.” The scene blurred before her eyes. She already had a home where she’d been tolerated. She thought she’d found something more.

“What’s wrong with you?” Jeremiah asked.

“You’ve wanted to send me away as soon as the colt was born, and now you can’t fathom why Laurel would have a single objection to me staying. Whatever mood strikes you—stay, don’t stay. Be my enemy; be my friend. Kiss me; don’t touch me. We’re all supposed to fall in line with the captain’s orders.”

“Abigail.”

She sensed his nearness and feared turning around. He was too close. She was too emotional.

“I apologize again,” he said. “I haven’t treated you fairly, but there are limits to what I can offer.”

And she knew then that she could never be content with less than his all. Abigail rubbed the penny in her pocket. She had her dignity. She wouldn’t make a fool of herself. She’d already said too much.

“I’m praying for your safe return.” She forced a playfulness she didn’t feel and turned to him. “And I’m praying you find no excuse to bring Hopkins to harm.”

The lines on his face vanished. “I wouldn’t hurt him. I need him to help me get my horse back.”

“Your horse?”

One corner of his mouth rose in a tentative grin. “You should see her. The best blood west of the Mississippi.”

C
HAPTER 17

They probably wouldn’t find the outlaws, much less get into a shootout with them. Jeremiah flopped onto his back and scratched at his belly. His windowless room beneath the stairs was cozy in the winter, but on sleepless nights like this one it could feel like a cave. Or a coffin.

Jeremiah sat up. He’d made a mistake. Somehow yesterday he’d messed up. Something had put him on the wrong path, and he couldn’t peg it down. What was causing his unease? What had he forgotten? He’d loaded his guns and had supplies set by for his saddlebags. Lancaster was fit and ready to ride. And while Jeremiah couldn’t run, he could mount up or stand and shoot without aid, thanks to Abigail.

Abigail. Jeremiah got to his feet and paced the tiny room. He’d wanted her to be happy with his offer last night. Wasn’t that what she’d been angling after, a permanent place to live? So it should be settled. She’d stay here to help his ma if something happened to him. If he returned, well then, maybe she didn’t have to leave, after all. Not since Alan had there been someone so likely to listen and understand him. He’d learned such
friendships were hard to come by. You’d better wrap the reins around your fists and hold on when you found one. Of course there’d always be the threat of another man taking an interest in her. She was comely enough. Definitely no lack where looks were concerned. To be honest, a man might do a lot worse than to claim her for his own. Assuming the man didn’t have Laurel Wallace waiting on him, of course.

The niggling of doubt intensified. Whatever hook was stuck in his gill had Laurel’s name on it. The conversation he’d had with Laurel felt right. He hadn’t made the same blunder he’d made with Rachel and Alan by closing a door on a friend. So why did it now feel like a mistake? Why, when he was possibly facing death, did he feel like he’d wronged Abigail?

The rooster crowed. The long night had finally ended. Pulling his cotton shirt over his head he marveled once again at the permanency of something as simple as a bedroom where a person’s soul could be molded and shaped again and again.

Light gleamed from the crack beneath the kitchen door. He startled at the sound of footsteps on the stairs, but it was only Rachel. Leaning heavily against the railing and holding a candle in a shaking hand, she eased tender feet down to the first floor.

Rachel had come downstairs to greet him? He barely managed to hide his surprise. “Good morning.”

The pallor pasted on her face reminded him of Abigail’s dough mask. She wet her lips, her chest rising with the exertion of one who’d run a mile uphill. “Be careful,” she said at last.

“Rachel, what are you doing down here?” Ma hurried across the room, took her arm, and pushed her toward the horsehair chair. “You shouldn’t be up this early.”

Abigail stood behind Ma. Her face freshly scrubbed and pink.

“Let me have my say before I give out.” Rachel squared her shoulders to him. “If something should happen to you and you
don’t make it back . . .” She wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “If you, by some miracle, meet up with Alan in the great beyond, tell him that you were wrong and that I still love him.”

A hint of satisfaction flitted across her face. Ma gasped and Abigail’s downturned mouth showed her disapproval.

Jeremiah’s skin puckered. “I’ll pass on any message you have, and I don’t need to make any excuses to Alan. He understood my concern for you, even if you never could.”

Rachel trembled, whether from anger or from exhaustion, he couldn’t guess. “That’s all I had to say. I’m going to my room.”

“Let me help you.” Ma kissed Jeremiah on the cheek. “I’m not saying good-bye, because you’re coming back and that’s all there is to it.” She wrapped an arm around Rachel’s bony body and, with a heave, lifted her a few inches with every step.

Abigail remained planted in the kitchen doorway. “We put together a parcel of food for you.” Her thick braid lay flat between her shoulder blades as he followed her into the kitchen, still unable to believe he didn’t need assistance walking. The burlap bag rasped against the table and then swung free as she extended the strap to him.

Her puffy eyes gave evidence of a night poorly spent. Had she lost sleep over him, too?

“Jeremiah, last night I decided something.” She ran her braid between her fingers. “Seeing how I have no home, no family, and seeing how much I enjoy your companionship, I’ve decided that when you’re finished running these men away, we’re getting married.”

His suddenly nerveless fingers dropped the burlap bag to the floor. Abigail didn’t flinch. Had she gone loony? He knew she had nerve, but to propose? Something wasn’t right.

“The last I heard you didn’t want to be alone with me, so how in the world did you decide we need to get hitched?”

“Well, Laurel doesn’t want you. She’s had ample opportunity to say she does. Besides, you know down deep that we’re better suited. You yourself said that you’d rather talk to me. That I’m more likely to share your opinions—”

“I said that to you?” He’d thought it, sure, but how did she know?

Abigail stepped forward, her blue eyes fixed on his. “And what about that kiss? That was true. That was your heart. Neither of us has been able to stop thinking about it. That night we spent hiding under the ledge, when I slept in your arms, all you could think about was kissing me again.” She reached up and threaded her fingers through his hair, brushing it back and catching it at the nape. His mouth went dry. He wanted to close his eyes, enjoy her touch, but he was too busy drinking in the sight of her. “Maybe I’m being forward, but I say let’s make it official. Get the parson here so we can quit pretending to ignore each other and—”

A banging at the kitchen door interrupted her. Heart pounding, Jeremiah stepped backwards, but she followed him, not letting any space between them. He had to answer the door, but he couldn’t help remembering how silky that braid felt unbound.

“Jeremiah!” It was his ma. “Jeremiah, you need to wake up.”

“I am awake, Ma.”

Abigail frowned. Her proposal astounded him, but he had to admit she made a compelling argument.

“I think about kissing you every minute of the day,” he whispered, “but I thought you were angry—”

————

“Jeremiah,” Ma called. “It’s nearly daybreak. You’ve got to get on the road.”

Jeremiah rolled over and sat up. Where had Abigail gone? He looked around his room. With shaking hands he lit the tallow
candle, but no woman was hiding there. She was gone and he wasn’t dressed and in the kitchen. And he was late. Jeremiah sprang out of bed and pulled on his shirt. He had to find Abigail. He wanted to know everything. Why had she tried to keep secrets from him? When had she decided that she loved him? His heart was full with the possibilities. He stopped with one leg in his trousers. But what had she said? Had he imagined the whole thing? Couldn’t be. No, it was too real.

He toppled out of his room, still pulling his suspenders over his shoulders. His ma waited for him in the parlor, twisting her hands. Abigail worried her braid, trailing it between her fingers.

“Where’s Rachel?” he asked.

Ma frowned. “She’s to bed. I didn’t wake her.”

The stairway was dark and empty. So she hadn’t asked him to say howdy to Alan after he died? Not that he’d expected anything less from her.

“Now, give me a kiss, and I’ll go get dressed for the day,” his ma said. “You be careful. Hopefully you can scare them off without a shootout.”

“And get Ladymare back,” Abigail added.

His head tingled at the sight of her. With her rosy cheeks and soft eyes she looked exactly as she had in his dream. But then again, did she look different from any other morning? He kissed his ma just as Abigail leaned against the kitchen doorframe.

“We put together a parcel of food for you.”

His hair stood on end. Hadn’t she said that, too, or was his dream changing to match the circumstances? What if it wasn’t a dream but a premonition?

He followed her, hobbling through the muffled ticking of the parlor clock and the muted birdsong. His hearing fuzzed. Only Abigail’s voice cut through the haze.

“Jeremiah, last night I decided something.”

The trap door of his chest broke open and his heart fell into his boot. This couldn’t happen, could it? He held up his hand. “You don’t need to say anything else. I know already.” Premonition. He called it.

Her eyes narrowed. “You do? Well, then, do you accept?”

Seemed like her last proposal was more winsome. She sounded almost impatient this time, but he still hadn’t thought of a good answer. How could he marry someone who was hiding the truth from him? He ran his hand through his hair. “Look, I’ve thought of that kiss every day, but you were so mad I didn’t think you’d ever consider—”

Her chin dropped. “What are you talking about? What’s this have to do with Ladymare?”

There was her blond braid, just like the first time, but she sure wasn’t walking into his arms. “The horse conversation will have to wait until we settle the marriage question.”

Her eyes bulged. “Marriage? Are you asking me to marry you?” The noise coming from her beautiful face sounded akin to a snort.

“Of course not.” He straightened his shirt. “You were asking me.”

“Me!? You conceited . . . No, I wasn’t. I wasn’t thinking about that at all, but evidently you were.”

“Forget I said anything. It was a mistake.” He jammed his hands into his pockets. Hadn’t he spent a sleepless night worrying about getting something wrong? “I must’ve been thinking of Laurel.”

“Did Laurel ask you to marry her?”

Any other woman would’ve kindly let a man escape. Why did she have to follow every rabbit to the burrow and dig it out?

“You have vittles for me?”

She grabbed the burlap sack and threw it at him. “What I
was going to tell you is that I might offer a trade. Instead of me waiting around until February for the colt to be born, I could take Ladymare. You’d have the colt that you and Laurel planned on all along, and I’d have a grown horse I could ride away and be gone from here. I was also going to tell you to be careful today, but I changed my mind. Some birdshot might improve your intelligence.”

“You’d leave already?” February. He’d counted on six more months before she left. Anything could happen in six months. “But I don’t have your horse.”

“You will shortly.”

He shook the sack. She couldn’t leave. They were just getting comfortable, weren’t they? “I told you if something happened to me . . .” But the disgust on her face stopped him. Yeah, something about that had irked her. There was nothing left to do beyond thanking her for the food and stomping out. He’d find more sympathy with the bushwhackers.

What could she do with his lying eyes? When they spoke to her, they contradicted his words. Abigail stood firm until he pushed through the kitchen door. Then she fell into a chair, thudded her elbows on the table, and sank her head into her hands.