Catching Kent (14 page)

Harriett shook her head and closed the
lid on her basket. “No. You’ll just have to be your fun, lovable
self and hope the man doesn’t notice what he’s eating.” She picked
up her basket and smiled. “That won’t be hard to do. I don’t think
a good meal means as much as a woman who is fun to be
with.”

“
You’re fun to be with,
Harriett.”

“
Not as fun as
you.”

“
Of course, you are. Men
just need to spend some time with you to find that out.” Rose
slipped the handles of the basket under her arm. “All the men who
don’t end up with you are going to take one look at what you made
and wished they were sharing the meal with you. I hope Kent doesn’t
mind my meager attempt at cooking.”

As the two headed for the front door,
Harriett said, “He already knows you’re not the best cook
around.”

“
It doesn’t help that I
made that stew.” She knew, however, that her cooking wasn’t why he
protested being with her. No. There was a lot more to it than how
she cooked. There was his past and the woman who was in it. But his
past heartache only delayed the inevitable. They would still end up
getting married. She knew it as sure as she knew her own name. With
a sigh, she said, “You’d think Kent could save us all a lot of time
and marry me sooner rather than later.”

Harriett chuckled as they stepped onto
the porch. “Rose, you can’t expect him to marry you just because
you tell him you want him to. He has to discover how lovely you are
for himself.”

“
He already knows how
lovely I am. He’s just refusing to acknowledge his feelings for me.
I know he’ll admit them at some point, but it’s not easy to
wait.”

Harriett shook her head. “Come on.
Adam’s waiting for us.”

She turned her attention to the
buckboard wagon as Adam pulled it up to the porch. She frowned when
she saw that Kent was sitting up front next to her brother.
Stepping down the porch steps, she called out, “Shouldn’t Kent sit
in the back?”

“
He said he wanted to sit
up front and get a good view of the land.”

“
But the view is good in
the back, too.”

Kent finally looked at her. “Maybe I
don’t want to sit with you.”

“
Why, that’s ridiculous,”
she replied. “We’ll be sitting with each other for the rest of our
lives. There’s no reason to avoid it just because we aren’t engaged
yet.”

“
Rose,” Adam warned, “stop
pestering him and sit in the back. Everyone knows you want to marry
him. No one cares. And Kent’s made it clear it’ll never happen. The
best thing you can do is bid on someone else.”

“
Thank you,” Kent told
him.

“
She’s wearing all of us
out,” Adam replied as he stepped down from the wagon. “You don’t
mind sitting in the back, do you, Harriett?”

“
No.” Harriett handed him
her basket and accepted his help into the wagon. “Come on, Rose.
We’ll be in town before you know it.”

With a sigh, Rose set her basket in
the wagon and let Adam help her in. She sat beside Harriett and
glanced at Kent. He might not be sitting with her now, but as soon
as she won him, he’d have to. Feeling much better about the
situation, she turned her attention to the hills in the distance as
her brother led the wagon down the worn path that would take them
to town.

“
It’s a perfect day for a
picnic, don’t you think?” Harriett asked her.

“
It is. I wish all days
could be as nice as this. Not too hot and not too windy. Just
right.” Lowering her voice, she asked, “Who are you going to bid
on?”

“
I haven’t decided
yet.”

“
Why don’t you bid on
Stan?”

“
Because Stan doesn’t want
me. He wants you.”

Rose glanced at Kent and
Adam to make sure the men weren’t listening to them. Since they
were talking, she was assured their conversation would remain
private. “That’s the point. This afternoon is our chance to spend
time with the man of
our
choice. For once, we don’t have to sit around and
wait for the man to come to us. Why not bid on Stan? Unless you
don’t like him?”

She shifted uncomfortably. “I’d rather
not talk about it.”

“
Afraid he won’t like it if
you bid on him?”

“
Rose.”

Noting the warning tone in her
sister’s voice, she grew quiet and opened the lid of her basket to
examine the food. It was a shame she wasn’t better at cooking. But
maybe Kent would be satisfied with her rolls and
sandwiches.

She glanced at Kent who was still
talking to Adam. Admiring his profile, she sighed. It was too bad
she couldn’t wiggle a kiss out of him. She was pretty sure he’d
never allow it, even if she did win the afternoon with him. She’d
love nothing more than to feel his lips pressed against hers again.
She was sure if a man kissed a woman on purpose, it would be much
better than if she kissed him while he slept.

She settled back beside her sister and
enjoyed the rest of the ride to town. When they arrived at the park
where the bachelor auction was being held, she hurried out of the
wagon before her brother could help her down. Holding her basket,
she ran over to Kent.

“
You’ll be in the bachelor
auction,” she told him, deciding it best if she worded it as a
statement instead of a question.

Unfortunately, her ploy didn’t work.
“I’m only here to see what time the train heading for California
leaves Omaha.”

“
Oh, then I should go with
you so I know when we’re leaving,” she said and followed him as he
started to cross the street.

He stopped and turned to her. “What
are you doing?”

“
I’m going with you. My
place is by your side.”

“
No, it’s not.” He took her
by the arm and led her back to the wagon. “Your place is here in
Omaha with one of the men tripping all over themselves to spend
time with you.”

She followed him as he walked away
from her. “You’re wrong. My place is with you.”

Groaning, he stopped again and faced
her. “Why are you making this so difficult?”

“
I was about to ask you the
same thing.”

“
What do I have to do to
get you to understand that we’re not meant for each
other?”

“
Kent, the reason it didn’t
work out with that other woman is because you’re supposed to be
with me. There are no coincidences. You came here for a reason, and
that reason is me.”

He groaned and rubbed his forehead.
“I’ve had enough, Rose. Go to the bachelor auction and bid on one
of the many men who are vying for your attention.”

Before she could answer, Adam came
over to her. “Uncle Joel asked to talk to you.”

She motioned to Kent.
“But—”

“
Now. He needs your advice
before the auction begins.”

“
Won’t you please be in the
auction?” she asked Kent. “It’s for a good cause, and Uncle Joel
really needs the money.”

“
I’ll give him some money,”
Kent replied. “It’ll be more than however much you saved up to bid
on me. Now go and bid on someone else.”

She made a move to follow him as he
crossed the street, but her brother groaned and led her to the
wagon where her sister waited with her basket. “Stop chasing him.
No man wants to be chased. You’re only going to make it so that he
doesn’t want to be with you.”

“
That’s not true, Adam.
Kent’s been hurt and deeply so. He needs someone who will prove she
won’t give up on him.”

“
There’s a difference
between annoying someone and not giving up on them,” Harriett
argued.

“
I’m not annoying him,”
Rose insisted.

“
I’d be annoyed if you kept
after me like you keep after Kent,” Adam said.

“
That’s because you’re you.
You’ve never gone through a heartache. You don’t know how hard it
is for him to believe a woman truly loves him. He has a loneliness
inside him you’ve never experienced. I know it seems like I’m
pursuing him for no good reason, but the truth is, he wants to be
with me. I can feel it.”

He grunted. “I give up. You’re
impossible. I really feel sorry for him. If a woman kept after me
the way you keep after him, I’d be tempted to toss you into the
river so you’d swim away with the current.”

“
I’d expect such a thing
from a thoughtless oaf.”

He put his hands on his hips.
“Thoughtless oaf?”

“
Yes, you’re a thoughtless
oaf. If you took the time to see what was going on around you,
you’d understand that there’s more to Kent than meets the
eye.”

“
He’s not a thoughtless
oaf,” Harriett argued. “He’s trying to stop you from making a fool
of yourself. Rose, you looked ridiculous, running after Kent like
that. If he truly wanted to be with you, then he’d come to
you.”

Rose shook her head. “You’ll never get
a husband if you sit around and wait for one to come into your
life. You need to go out there and find him. If you keep sitting in
the shadows, you’ll end up missing out on the life you could have
had. Neither one of you takes any risks.” She glanced between them.
“Adam, you’re twenty-five and you’re still living at home. Why do
you let fear of running your own place stop you from buying some
land and building a house on it? And Harriett, you adore Stan. Ever
since we were children, you’ve secretly admired him, but you’re an
adult woman now and no closer to being his wife, let alone his
friend. And why? Because you’re afraid to talk to him, to let him
know the kind of person you are?”

Adjusting her hat so it was more
secure on her head, Rose continued, “Before you tell me what to do
or not do, consider how well your own advice has worked for you. Pa
walked up to Ma in a train station, not knowing her, and he asked
her to marry him. We’re here today because he took the chance. Then
Isaac eloped with Emily even though he knew Pa wouldn’t be happy,
and they’re even more in love today than they were back then. Then
there’s Rachel who decided to be a mail-order bride. And Jacob took
a chance and put money down on the mercantile when Ralph Lindon’s
son sold it and is running a thriving business now. Where would any
of them be if they were too afraid to take a chance? Kent took a
chance in going to California to start a new life, and as fortune
would have it, he ended up here instead. I know an opportunity when
I see it, and I fully intend to pursue it, no matter what anyone
says. You two can spend the rest of your lives scared of your own
shadows, but I’m not going to waste my life wondering what could
have been.”

Adam and Harriett stared at her, both
of their jaws hanging open in shock.

“
I suppose Uncle Joel
really doesn’t need to talk to me, does he?” Rose pressed,
directing her question to Adam. “You only said that to stop me from
going after Kent?”

Adam sighed. “No, Uncle Joel didn’t
say he wanted to talk to you.”

She nodded. “That’s fine. I have
something I need to tell him.”

Lifting her chin in the air, Rose
bypassed them and headed for the park entrance. A good number of
people had come out for the bachelor auction, and she was overjoyed
that her plan had been such a success, at least in that respect.
She found her uncle at the gazebo where he was talking to a couple
of ladies about how the bidding worked.

“
We really get to bid on
whichever gentleman we want?” one asked, her expression indicating
it couldn’t be that simple.

“
Yep,” Uncle Joel replied.
“This is the one time when you don’t have to wait for a gentleman
to pick you.”

The women giggled and left.

He smiled at her. “Rose, I can’t
believe how many people came to this event. You really had a good
idea. I think the money I’ll raise will cover all the things I
need.” Lowering his voice, he added, “I suspect the men are
interested in finding out which woman will bid on them.”

“
I’m glad it’s turned out
better than you hoped.”

And she was. It was for a good cause.
Even if she wouldn’t get to spend the afternoon with Kent, she had
the rest of her life to be with him. Whatever the woman who’d
broken his heart had been like, she wasn’t her. He was worth
waiting for, and she’d wait as long as she needed.

She dug the money from her pocket and
handed it to her uncle. “This is my donation.”

He frowned and counted the money.
“This is a lot of money, Rose.”

“
It’s all the money I saved
up over the years. I want you to have it.”

“
Without bidding on one of
the men, possibly the one who’s been healing at your
place?”

With a shrug, she shifted the basket
to her other hand. “He had to take care of something.”

“
Then another man perhaps?
It’d be a shame to let all this money and your lunch go to
waste.”

“
You’re very kind, Uncle
Joel, but we both know no one will miss some poorly made
sandwiches.”

He chuckled at her joke. “They’ll miss
out on your company.”