Chevonne: Bride of Oklahoma (American Mail-Order Bride 46) (6 page)

T
rey
, from atop his horse in a far paddock, watched his sister and his wife head for town in the buggy. His heart tugged as he noticed their animated faces and heard the light tinkling of their laughter. Chevonne certainly didn’t sound like someone who had been sent there to spy on him and she sure wasn’t acting that way. She and Celia looked like life-long friends having fun on a trip into town.

Could she really be that good of an actress?

His imagination had been working overtime since he’d seen Phinneas Gulch last night and Chevonne’s reaction to him. Now, in the light of day, he was sure Chevonne was too innocent to be a spy, though she had acted awfully strangely when they’d met in the hallway that morning. Then again, he’d acted strangely, too.

Gary’s broken boot had given him a renewed vigor towards perfecting his invention. There was a real need for what he was creating. In fact, he’d been in the study concocting another experiment when he’d heard Chevonne coming downstairs that morning. He’d quickly gone out into the hallway so she wouldn’t suspect what he was up to, and had even gone out on his morning rounds as usual.

He was now very eager to get back to the study and his secret work. Trey galloped his horse to the barn and tethered him to a post in the shade of the huge building. Then he ran to the house and entered via the front door to save time.

Once inside the foyer he paused. Something looked different, better, somehow. And then he noticed what it was. A mason jar filled with colorful wildflowers sat on a table just inside the door.

Had Chevonne done that? And when?

He usually used the back door, scraping his boots clean on the back porch boot scraper and brush before entering the house. His heart swelled at the gesture. His pretend wife had taken the time to make his house look cozy like a real home.

Memories of his parents’ happy home filled with flowers and children flooded his mind. A feeling of longing welled up inside him as his eyes lingered on the flowers. He was shocked to discover he actually liked the idea of his house being a family home.

And the warm feelings that swirled around inside him when he was with Chevonne ... Well, better not to think about those. He needed to focus on his project and couldn’t let himself get sidetracked by a pretty face, or hot buttered breakfast rolls that melted in his mouth, or spicy molasses cake that Luke had shared with him.

Trey went purposefully to his study. The room housed a laboratory. Long tables lined the walls. Glass beakers sat underneath copper tubing that was strung around the room. The smell of chemicals and natural ingredients wafted through the air. The sound of bubbling liquid came from pots that sat on top of a potbellied stove in a corner.

His hand shook with nerves as he approached one of the tables where an old boot, one of Trey’s boots that had fallen apart long ago, was testing the latest incarnation of Trey’s permanent waterproof all-purpose glue.

He picked up the boot, his heart beating quickly, and pried the leather sole from the base. His shoulders slumped when it came off easily in his hands, leaving stringy, rubbery threads between the two pieces. He plucked at the threads. They snapped back stinging his hand. Another failure.

“Dang!”

The concoction was still not right. Glancing at the next test object on the table, he wondered if this mixture worked better on another type of material. He gingerly picked up a Mason jar that he’d broken purposely so he could try to glue the pieces together.

It held! As he stood there enjoying his handiwork the bottom half of the jar slipped away from the top and smashed on the floor.

“Looks like it’s back to the drawing board.”

Trey went to the pots on the stove. He’d been working on this particular formula for a while, fiddling with the various ingredients to get the right mixture. He’d used a combination of standard glue and other ingredients, including plant materials that had adhesive properties. But he still hadn’t got the combination right.

He only hoped he’d be able to perfect it before Phinneas Gulch made his move. Of course, he couldn’t be sure that was why Phinneas was in town. Obviously, he was here selling his snake oil on Main Street. Could he have gotten wind of Trey’s experiments?

Chevonne couldn’t have anything to do with the man. Trey frowned as he looked out the window. He’d been suspecting his new wife without even giving her a chance to defend herself. But, of course, he couldn’t give her a chance to defend herself without letting her in on his experiments.

Maybe he
should
share it with her? No. Not just yet. Better to be safe than sorry.

His eyes scanned the panoramic view of the countryside outside the window. He could see the cattle in the distance. Horses swished their tails against the flies in the field. Chickens clucked in the nearest paddock and goats bleated in q paddock past the barn.

His eyes narrowed. Wait a minute. If he could see out, that meant anyone could see in. He’d been careful to make sure no one could get into his study by always keeping the door locked, but he’d neglected to consider that someone could just sneak up to the house and look in from the outside. Normally he wouldn’t be concerned about strangers at the ranch, but with Phinneas Gulch in town...

He needed curtains. Maybe Chevonne could run some up with her new machine. And those roller shades he’d ordered had finally come in. He had to get them in town and put them up as soon as possible.

He turned away from his boiling concoctions and headed for the door. He needed to make sure no one could get close to his windows, and he knew exactly how to do it. He just hoped he could get it done before Celia brought Chevonne home.

O
n the way home
, Chevonne and Celia chatted like old friends. Chevonne tried to keep up with the conversation even though her head was spinning with the idea of patenting her grandmother’s designs.

She was relieved to discover that Trey was not at the house when Celia dropped her off because Chevonne had important business to attend to and she didn’t want Trey asking about her letter to the United States Patent Office.

To gain some time, she put the bread loaves in the icebox to slow the rising so she could bake them later. It was still early and if she was in luck, she’d have time to jot off the letter and take the buggy back to town to the post office. She’d have to be quick, though, and not be seen by Trey.

Chevonne put her fabric purchases carefully in the bottom drawer of the bureau in her bedroom. Then she pulled out some of Gram’s fine writing paper, her quill pen and a pot of ink. She sat down at her sewing machine table to write the letter.

What did one say in a letter to the Patent Office?

She didn’t want to give away her exact designs. What if somebody unscrupulous read it? Better to just say she had a design. Maybe they would send someone out to look at it, or mail her further instructions. Yes, that’s what she would do. She wrote the letter quickly and sealed it in an envelope to be addressed at the post office.

Chevonne rushed downstairs, out the front door, and made a dash for the barn. The buggy was unhitched and the buggy’s horse was in a stall munching on hay. The horse gazed at her with velvety brown eyes and swished her tail nonchalantly.

Behind the horse was all the tack. Chevonne’s eyes flicked from the buggy to the tack to the horse and back again. Unfortunately, when Luke had shown her how to drive the buggy, she hadn’t thought to have him show her how to hitch the horse up to it. She had no idea how to do it.

Chevonne stroked the horse’s velvety muzzle. “Well, I don’t know how to hitch you up to the buggy but I guess now is as good a time as any to learn. It can’t be that hard.” She opened the stall door.

“Are you going somewhere?”

Chevonne whirled around to see Trey standing in the open barn door. Her letter crinkled noisily as her fist tightened around it. She unobtrusively moved her hand behind her skirt as she racked her brain for a good excuse as to why she was in the barn about to hitch the horse up to the buggy.

“Yes, silly me.” She waved her free hand in the air. “I forgot to pick up something when I was in town with Celia. I was so excited to go fabric shopping that it clear slipped my mind.”

“What do you need? We have most things here on the ranch.”

An inspiration came. “Gelatin for a fancy dessert, a ribbon jelly. I thought I’d try it out on you before making it for company, if we will be entertaining.”

Trey went to her side. “I suppose we’ll have to have my family over sooner or later. I can get you gelatin from the slaughter house.”

She recalled the sheds dotted around the ranch and probably turned a shade of green. “I thought the sheds were for cheese.”

Trey smiled. “One is. The cheese is made with rennet from the--“ he stopped when her eyes grew large. “Gelatin comes from the cows,” he explained patiently and gently.

Chevonne knew all that, somewhere deep down, but being a city girl she’d never dwelt on it more than necessary. She didn’t even use intestines to wrap her sausages. She used muslin.

Probably sensing her discomfort at country life realities, Trey offered, “Or we could get some store bought gelatin in town while we’re there to buy canvas for an idea I had and fabric for curtains. I wanted to ask if you’d run up some curtains for the house on your new sewing machine.”

“Yes. I’d love to.” She was feeling a bit guilty at requesting such an expensive purchase her first day there. Making something useful and beautiful for the house would help assuage those feelings. “But not for upstairs.” She saw his confusion, so she rushed to explain, “I love the view from the window when I wake up. I stay in bed a while and savor it.”

Chevonne blushed when she realized she’d put the image of her in bed into his mind. She rambled on, “It’s a much better view than the brick wall from the last boarding house room I had.” Trey frowned at her. She hoped he hadn’t seen through her ruse... or that he’d found the thought of her in bed distasteful.

“You can keep your curtains open. I have a count of the windows and their measurements, and the precise measurements for three sheets of white canvas I need for an idea I had.” He took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to her. “I need to pick up roller shades I mail-ordered that have come in to a shipper’s by the station. They’ll keep the house cooler in summer and warmer in winter.” He led the horse by her mane to the center of the barn. “The druggist’s will have the gelatin.”

Shoot. If he came with her, how was she going to get the letter mailed in the post office without him noticing what it was all about? “That would be lovely. The druggist’s in town is better stocked than the one I frequented in Massachusetts.” Chevonne shoved the letter into her bag along with the list when Trey was busy getting the tack for the horse and buggy.

“Be sure to tell my parents that,” said Trey as he expertly hitched the horse to the buggy.

“Why?”

“They own it, and another in Guthrie, two in Missouri and one in Kansas.” He set a step by the buggy so she could climb up on her own.

“I never thought to ask. I just thought they were part of the land runs.” Chevonne climbed aboard and held her handbag tightly closed on her lap.

Trey climbed up and drove the horse and buggy out of the barn, then toward town. “They were. I work their claim while they run their businesses. Celia helps them out, and my cousin, too.”

Chevonne admired the Garners more every hour. They were business people and homesteaders in half a dozen states and territories. What a brave, industrious and inventive family. She liked most that Trey had said his parents ran their businesses, not that his father ran them. The female Garners were very progressive.

But how in the world was she was going to get into the post office to get her letter off without Trey knowing what she was up to?

T
rey stole
a look at Chevonne next to him in the buggy. The slant of the afternoon sun lit her hair in a coppery blaze of golden red. Her lips were set in grim determination.

He had to admit he admired the fact that she was going to hook up the buggy and ride into town all on her own. He was learning a lot about his new wife and one of those things was that she was fiercely independent--a quality he admired. It was great that she was willing to head out on her own.

However, he wondered why she hadn’t got the supplies she needed when she was there with Celia or with Luke? Was she scatterbrained? He hoped not, the last thing he wanted was to be saddled with a woman around who couldn’t think straight.

No, he felt Chevonne wasn’t like that. She was just new at keeping a ranch house. Acquiring supplies was probably a lot easier back in Lawrence, Massachusetts. She just needed some time to get used to life in the west.

The thought of Chevonne cooking mouthwatering food and making his ranch into a home sent a flood of warmth through him. It also annoyed him. He didn’t like the feelings for Chevonne that kept surfacing, because he didn’t want a real marriage. What he wanted was to be left alone so he could work on his project.

A feeling of protectiveness suddenly surged through him at the thought of Chevonne going to town by herself. Though he knew women did go about on their own in this day and age, he felt that to be safe,
she
should be in company. Preferably him. The territory was still untamed and any number of nasty things could happen to a woman alone.

Then a thought crossed his mind that maybe Chevonne had wanted to go to town alone so she could meet with Phinneas Gulch, but he pushed it away as quickly as it had came. He had no good reason to suspect Chevonne of spying. Trey considered himself to be a fair man and he would not condemn her without proof.

He did intend to proceed with caution. “I admire you wanting to take the buggy and be independent, but I’m not sure you should go to town by yourself.”

“Women need to be more independent, don’t you think? This is eighteen-ninety. We can hardly be expected to depend on a man for everything.”

Chevonne’s green eyes held a challenge that stirred Trey’s blood. He wasn’t used to women with such forward thinking. Actually, he wasn’t used to women who did much independent thinking, except his sister and his mother. The women his mother kept trying to saddle him with, like Sarah Perkins, didn’t seem to have much going on inside their heads other than catching a man, having babies and baking pies. The idea of a woman with independent thoughts and ideas intrigued and excited him.

Trey grimaced. He actually did agree with her—but for
other
women, not his own wife. “You have a point there but, unfortunately, bad things can happen to a woman alone out here in Oklahoma. It’s just safer to have someone accompany you.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she conceded.

The swaying motion of the buggy combined with the warm afternoon sun gave the day a lazy feeling. They traveled for a few minutes in companionable silence. Trey didn’t feel uneasy about the silence. It seemed both of them were perfectly content to ride alongside each other in the buggy and not say a word.

There’d been no rain for over week so the road was incredibly dusty. Puffs of dust kicked up from the horse’s hooves, making Trey glad he’d purchased the upscale buggy that curled over in front to protect them from the dust. Still, tiny specks of it hung in the air around them.

“You’d think they could come up with something to make the roads less dusty,” Chevonne said.

A trill of excitement ran through inventor Trey. He’d had that same exact thought many times. “I’ve been thinking about that very thing. He tested her with, “What if they put something down to pack in the dirt? Like crushed stones?”

“They did that on some streets in Lawrence, but I was talking about something more like a substance that coated it.” Chevonne’s cheeks were flushed. Her eyes sparkled and she was practically bouncing with excitement at the idea. “But it would have to be something that didn’t get all over the wheels or the horses.”

“Like a permanent coating, kind of like the mortar we use in between bricks?” Trey caught Chevonne’s excitement, a wide smile cracking his face.

“Yes, exactly!” Chevonne lifted up the hem of her dress which was ringed with dirt. “The dirt roads are a real problem. The dust coats everything. Look at how dirty my hem is from going into town with Celia earlier. That makes for a lot of washing. Improving the roads would help improve the quality of life.”

Trey sprung on her what he knew was a fact, “There are streets in Washington covered in natural asphalt that was melted into sheets. And a man in New York has a patent on an easier way of doing that. You’ll see, within a decade roads will be covered with it across the whole nation. Maybe they should make washing easier, too,” he teasingly suggested.

Chevonne laughed and settled back in the seat. “Where I worked they had the most fantastical steam powered washing machines with rollers built onto them. They could wash thousands of bolts of fabric every day. Imagine having that in every home, smaller of course.”

“We have all the latest gadgets in our wash house. Not steam powered, but real time and effort saving devices. You should go see them.”

“I will. Listen to us. If only we could make things that really improve people’s lives.”

Trey’s heart surged. He couldn’t believe that she loved talking about innovative ideas as much as he did. Chevonne complemented him in a lot of ways. Were they meant to be together? Maybe they could be just working partners and invent something together.

As the buggy approached Main Street, Trey glanced sideways at Chevonne. For one quick second, he had an irresistible urge to tell her everything about his secret project. Before he could open his mouth, he was distracted by the sight of Phinneas Gulch hawking his potions on the sidewalk. Maybe it was better to wait until he was absolutely sure of her.

“You can drop me at the mercantile for the fabric, while you go pick up those roller blinds for the house. We can get the gelatin together, after.”

“Huh?” Trey’s attention turned away from Gulch. “Oh, sure.”

He stopped the buggy before the mercantile store. Chevonne climbed down. The moment to tell her about his project had passed, but Trey felt oddly close to her now. Something had happened on the ride to town. It was as if a door had opened between them and all he had to do was step through it.

Did she feel it, too?

C
hevonne said
a silent prayer of thanks that the post office was just beyond the mercantile and that Trey’s destination was in the opposite direction.

As she hurried toward the building on North Broadway, the conversation she’d had with Trey in the buggy played back in her head. Her heart kicked with excitement--Trey was as interested in new improvements as she was and, unlike most men, he didn’t seem adverse to women taking part in new things.

Would he embrace Gram’s ideas? She glanced down at the envelope she took from her bag as she pushed the post office door open. Maybe it was better to wait until she heard back from the Patent Office. Chevonne was glad the post office lobby was empty. She didn’t want anyone to know her business.

The bespectacled clerk behind the counter shot a look at her from underneath drawn eyebrows. “You’re too late. The mail train’s already come and gone.”

“I want to get this in now to go out
tomorrow
.” Chevonne stepped up to the counter and slid the envelope across to him.

He frowned down at it. “Ain’t got no address.”

“I’d like to send it to the United States Patent Office, but I don’t know the address. I was hoping you could look it up.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “What do I look like, a librarian?”

“Well ... no ... It’s just I thought you had a directory of government offices.”

“A directory, you say?” The man made a harrumphing noise, then bent down, pulled out a thick book and slapped it onto the counter. “Yep. We got a directory. Now, what office did you say you wanted to send this to?”

“The United States Patent Office,” Chevonne said clearly, since she suspected the ornery man was slightly deaf.

The man pushed his spectacles up on his nose, opened the book, licked his index finger and started turning the pages very slowly.

The book was over two inches thick. If he was going to go through it that slowly, Chevonne feared she’d be there for a week.

“Patent Office ... Let’s see now ... “ He frowned at the book and flipped pages back and forth.

Chevonne tapped her foot, anxiety ratcheting up inside her with each passing second as the clerk thumbed through pages. She glanced out the large window onto the street. What would she say if Trey caught her in here?

“Here it is.” The clerk spun the book around and pointed at an address, then shoved a pen and ink pot across to her.

Relief flooding through her, Chevonne quickly addressed the envelope and paid for the postage. Spinning away from the counter in a hurry to get out, she bumped into someone who had come up silently behind her. “Oh, excuse me.” Her heart nearly stopped beating when she saw who she’d bumped into: Sarah Perkins.

“Well, if it isn’t
Trey Garner’s mail-order bride
.” Sarah spoke the words loudly, prompting a raised eyebrow from the clerk.

A prickle of annoyance rose up in Chevonne. “Sarah, how lovely to see you again.” Chevonne added a fake smile to her sarcasm and moved to the right to get past the annoying woman.

Sarah stepped to the right, blocking any escape. “What brings you in here?”

“I mailed a letter.” Chevonne darted left, brushing quickly past Sarah and out the building.

Her heart pounded in her chest and her stomach roiled with nerves as she ran to the mercantile. She dashed down the store’s aisle to the fabric section and sought out the sheer curtain fabrics. She didn’t lose much time selecting one, since the selection was rather meager. She calculated how much she needed for all the windows in the ranch house, based on Trey’s numbers.

When a clerk came to gather up the amount of bolts she needed, she requested the white canvas, the precise sizes of canvas sheets Trey’s paper specified. It wasn’t long before she and all the packages of fabric were delivered by the store’s clerk to the walkway before the store to await Trey.

Chevonne glanced over her shoulder to make sure Sarah Perkins wasn’t around. She wasn’t sure how long Sarah had been standing behind her at the post office. Had she overheard the destination of Chevonne’s letter or seen the address? And if she had, would the gossipmonger tattle to Trey?