Daisy (Suitors of Seattle) (8 page)

“I hope it tastes good.  I’ve made a few cakes on my own, but Mrs. Higgins was always watching me.”  She watched as he cut into the piece with his fork, hoping he’d like it.  She held her breath until he smiled as he took the first bite, obviously content.

“Who’s Mrs. Higgins?”

“I’ve done a lot of volunteer work at a women’s shelter in Seattle, and she and her husband ran it.”

“What’s a women’s shelter?”
  Eli made a face, because he’d never heard of such a thing.  What would a woman need shelter from?

“That’s a fair question,” Daisy told him.  “It’s a place where a woman who is being treated unkindly by her husband can go to live with her children and not have to worry about being hurt any longer.”

“So it’s a place where women are hidden from their husbands?” He seemed very annoyed at the idea.

“Yes, but only if their husbands have hurt them.  Many of the women there have broken bones and bruises all over them from their husbands.”

He seemed to take that in for a moment.  “Are there a lot of places like that?”

Daisy shrugged.  “The one in Seattle is the only shelter I’ve ever heard of, but I think they should be all over.  Women shouldn’t have to stay in a situation where they’re being hurt.”

He shook his head.  “No.  Men shouldn’t ever use their strength against women.  I know they do it, though.”  As much as he hated the idea of her having a place to run to, he knew that women needed to be able to go to a place where they were safe.

“Mrs. Higgins was in one of those marriages.  After her husband died, she married my aunt’s former butler, and they now run the women’s shelter.  There’s so much to do there with all the women coming in that we’ve all taken turns volunteering there.  The women help out when they can, but so many of them are so mentally hurt by the time they get away from their husbands that they need time to just heal.”

“So what did you do there?”

“I cooked and cleaned,” she said with a grin.  “I wouldn’t know how to do either of those things if it weren’t for the shelter.  We had servants to do all that for us as I was growing up.”

He sighed.  “I worked my whole life, and you had servants.”  He couldn’t help but wonder if the disparity in their childhoods bothered her.

She reached across the table and took his hand in hers.  “It doesn’t bother me.  I like working.”

He shrugged and ate the last few bites of his cake.  “I need to see to the cow.  I think there’s something wrong with her.”  He stood up and left the house, leaving her sitting at the table.

Daisy watched him go, wondering what could be wrong.  She’d never seen him act
so distant before, and she had no idea what she’d done to upset him.  She had tried to be a good wife.

While washing the dishes, she stared out the window into the darkness feeling very alone.  Her sisters had annoyed her a great deal of the time, but there was
always noise and activity around her.  Here, she was alone most of the time.  She knew that would change after children came, but only God knew when that would happen.  Maybe she could spend some time with Clara.  She wondered if Eli would mind if she took the wagon to the other woman’s house during the day sometimes.  Clara could certainly use help around the house, even with Natalie and Gertrude there.

She didn’t know if she had done something wrong that he was treating her differently now, or if the first days had been an aberration, but she felt like something had changed that day.  She finished the dishes and went into
the bedroom, changing into her nightgown.  She lay awake in bed for a while, wondering when he’d join her.

It seemed like hours before the door opened and he crawled into bed beside her.  She turned toward him in the dark, immediately snuggling against his hard body.  He cradled her to him and made love to her.  It was different that night though. 
She could feel his desperation in the way he held her and stroked her.  There was something wrong, and she needed to find out what before her marriage was lost.

*****

At breakfast the following morning, Daisy tried to get to the bottom of what was wrong with him.  She asked if he was feeling well, if he was worried about anything.  He didn’t respond, making her feel as if there was nothing she could do to reach him.  Finally, she asked, “Would you mind if I drove the wagon over to Clara’s house sometimes while you work?”

His eyes met hers for the first time that morning.  “Why would you want to do that?”
  Was she looking for a way to get away from him?  An excuse to get on a train and head back to Seattle?

She shrugged.  “I spend a lot of time alone here, and I would like to have another woman’s companionship at times.  Would that bother you?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”  He didn’t say anything else as he spread jam on his toast.

She stared at him in surprise.  He wouldn’t even give her a reason?  “Well, are there closer neighbors that I could go visit?” she asked reasonably.

He shook his head, saying nothing else as he continued to eat his eggs.  She frowned.  “Could I drive into town and get the supplies?”

“I’ll take you.  Do you already need more things?” he asked.

She shook her head.  “I just wanted to see what you would let me do without you.  Don’t you trust me?”  She hated that he wouldn’t let her do things on her own.  It wasn’t like she wanted to run amok with the horses and wagon.  She just didn’t want to be stranded at all times.

He shrugged.  “I trust you.  I just don’t think a woman should be running around the countryside without a man to protect her.”

Daisy gaped at him.  “You said you believe a woman can do anything a man can do.  That doesn’t extend to your wife?”

He eyed her carefully, obviously not wanting to say the wrong thing, but afraid to say what he was thinking.  “Of course it extends to you, but you’re new to the area and you don’t know what kind of wildlife you could encounter.  This is an area where there are a great deal more men than women.  There are also Indian tribes still living around here.  I don’t want anyone or anything to hurt you.”

She nodded.  “I’ll learn to use a gun then.  It’s obviously the only thing that would make you feel safe when I left the house.”  She’d never really cared for learning to shoot, but her sister, Lily, was an excellent markswoman.  She saw no reason why she couldn’t be.

He was surprised to hear her say that.  “I can’t see you using a gun.”

“My sister, Lily, can outshoot any man I’ve ever met.  And she can out-fish them too.”  She shrugged.  “I guess I should have had her teach me before I left.”

He shook his head, dropping his fork onto his plate with a loud clang.  “If you want to learn to shoot, I’ll teach you.”

She smiled at him.  “I’d like that a lot.”  It would mean he’d have to spend more time with her during daylight hours.  More time together was all she was aiming for anyway.

“We’ll start tomorrow.  I’ll spend thirty minutes with you every day after lunch.”  He stood and walked to the door
, putting on his coat and hat. 

She watched him go, noting the annoyance in his step.  Why didn’t he want her going anywhere without him?  The real reason?  He didn’t want to be with her, but he didn’t want her to be with anyone else either?  What had changed yesterday?

She did the laundry and baked bread that day, keeping her mind off her moody husband.  She sat down and wrote a letter to her mother and then to Amaryllis.  In her letter to her mother, she wrote about how happy she was and how wonderful Eli was treating her.

Her letter to Amaryllis was a plea for help.  “Please don’t show Mama this letter, but I have to know how to handle him.  He doesn’t want me to go anywhere without him, but he obviously doesn’t want to spend time with me either.  I’m not sure what to do. 
We were fine, and then suddenly he stopped talking to me.  I’m not sure how to go back to how we were.  I want to go talk to the wife of his friend, but he won’t let me go anywhere without him.  What have I gotten myself into?”

She folded both letters and got them ready to mail the next time they went into town before she got to her feet to take the bread out of the oven.  She went about her day as usual, looking for projects to work on.  The next time she was in town she could get some fabric to sew him some new shirts, but for now, she needed to work with what she had.

She found a skein of red yarn in one of her trunks and set about making a scarf.  She didn’t enjoy knitting nearly as much as she enjoyed sewing, but she would do anything at this point to keep herself busy.  It wouldn’t be long before she started going insane from boredom.  There just wasn’t enough work for her to do.

*****

The shooting lessons went well, and she was able to hit the target within the first day or two.  Daisy wanted to be able to hit the bulls eye every time, because she knew that when she got to that point, Eli would have no reason not to let her take the wagon to do what she wanted.  She really didn’t think his problem was her safety, but she couldn’t prove anything until she could shoot straight and true.

He took her to town to mail her letters on Friday.  “I think I’m close to being ready to come on my own so I won’t have to keep you from your work.  Don’t you?” she asked.

“I don’t mind bringing you to town on occasion.”  His face was hard, though, and he no longer held her close when they drove.  He only seemed to touch her when she initiated it or when they were in bed at night.  He still turned to her over and over during the night.  Sometimes they were both too tired to work the following day, but they both kept going.

She mailed her letters and picked out some cloth for new shirts for Eli.  They bought the supplies they needed and checked for letters from home.  There was one from Amaryllis
, and she clutched it to her chest.  She would wait until they were at home to read it, though.  While she was with Eli, she tried to give him her full attention.

When they were finished at the mercantile, he looked down at her for a moment.  “Would you like to eat at the restaurant?  We can’t do it every time we come to town, but I thought you might like to eat some food you haven’t cooked for a change.”

Daisy nodded, her eyes lighting up at the treat.  She didn’t mind cooking all the time, and she enjoyed the food she made, but sometimes it was nice to be served by someone else.  They found a small table in the corner, and he took her hand while they waited for their food. 

She looked down at their hands and smiled.  Why was he suddenly holding her hand again?  “I’ve missed this,” she said simply.

“Missed what?” he asked.

“For the first few days I was here, you touched me every chance you got.  You were always taking my hand
, or kissing me, or hugging me.  It was endless how often you touched me.  Lately, you haven’t touched me outside of bed at all except to help me onto the wagon today.”  She stared at their hands, unable to meet his eyes.  “Have I done something wrong?”

Eli closed his eyes against the pain that assailed him.  He hated that he’d made her feel like she’d done something wrong, but he wasn’t sure how he was going to be able to tell her what was going through his mind without seeming like he was a little boy.  “You haven’t done anything wrong.  I thought I was probably touching you too much.  I’ve never really seen how a married couple is when they’re alone together.”

She studied him carefully.  “I guess I can understand that.”  She sighed.  “I liked how you were when we first married.”

He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb.  “I’ll try to be more like that again.”
  He didn’t want to get too close to her and be broken when she left, but he didn’t want to push her out the door sooner than she would leave on her own either.

She smiled.  “Are you sure I haven’t done something wrong?  I don’t want to upset you in any way, and if I’m doing something without realizing it, then I need to know what it is I’m doing.”

He shook his head.  “You’re not.  I promise.”  He looked into her eyes, and she could see the sadness there.

“Why are you sad?  When I first came, your eyes were always so happy.  Now, it’s like all the happiness has been sucked out of you.”
  She hated seeing him so unhappy.  She wanted to fix whatever was wrong, but how could she do that unless he told her what it was?

Eli shrugged.  “I feel like I should be spending more time working and less time with you.  I’m going to put us into the poor house if I spend all my time with my wife.”

Daisy sighed. “I’m not asking for all your time.  I’ve never demanded more of your time, have I?”  She shook her head.  “I’m not lacking anything I want or need.  I’m just happy to be with you when you have time for me.”

Eli felt like a heel.  She was so open in her affection for him, and he knew he was growing to love her, but he couldn’t let her see it.  Letting her know he loved her would give her a power over him that he couldn’t handle.
 
“I have time for you.  I just have to keep going with the ranch too.  No one will watch out for my interests like I will.”

He trusted the men who worked under him, but he hadn’t let any of them meet her yet and wasn’t planning to soon.  He trusted her…as much as he could trust any woman.  What if she ran back to Seattle?  He was getting used to hot meals and clean sheets.  His clothes were always put away in his drawers where they belonged.  He never had to eat at the bunkhouse with his men.  Life was good now that Daisy was here.  He didn’t want to lose her, but by being so afraid, was he pushing her away?