Dorothy Garlock - [Wyoming Frontier] (28 page)

For now, work was the answer. Today she would wash clothes. Tomorrow she would work in the vegetable garden. In a few days she would ask Pack to take her to town to buy glass for the parlor window and new screening to put on the doors. She would go to the bank and have her money sent up from the bank in Denver. Things to do and things not to do were listed in her orderly mind.

Mara roamed restlessly about the lonely house, touching the few familiar things left from her childhood, smoothing her fingertips over a table, the back of a chair her father had made one winter while they were snowed in. She went to the mantel and rubbed her palm over its smooth surface. The pendulum on the clock was lifeless. She had forgotten to wind the springs. She opened the glass-fronted case and inserted the key. The eyes in the painted face on the pendulum seemed to rebuke her for her neglect. Eight to ten turns for the chimes, eight to ten turns for the clock. Because she had no idea what time it was, she set the hands at six o’clock, replaced the key, and closed the door.

“It’s half past eight.”

Pack’s voice came from the doorway, and she turned to see him returning a flat, gold watch to his pocket. Damn! Damn! How could a man so big move so silently? She leaned on the mantel for support, her brain whirling, as she moved the hand down to six. The peal as the clock struck the half hour was loud and seemed to be saying, Why are your knees so weak?

“Did you have any trouble?” she asked as she turned.

“None to speak of. Trell wants to know if you want the bench and the washtubs set up on the porch or in the yard.”

“Under the shade tree.”

Mara followed him through the kitchen and out onto the porch, hoping that he would share with her what had happened between him and Cullen. He walked out into the yard and spoke with the boys, then headed for the shed. Halfway there he turned and came back.

“Steamboat said to tell you that he had already started a big pot of beans and meat. You won’t have to stop your washing to cook today.”

*  *  *

Mara worked furiously throughout the day, trying to tire herself out so that she would sleep when night came. She washed, scrubbed, carried out ashes. Sheer willpower and determination forced her to smile occasionally, speak pleasantly when spoken to, and choke down a portion of the food she took on her plate when she went to the cookshack to eat. Not once did her expression reveal the panic that rose in her throat each time she thought of the long, lonely, loveless years ahead.

Toward evening, while she was taking the clean dry clothes off the bushes, Pack and Sam came from the corral leading their horses. They mounted and, without a word or a look in her direction, rode away, adding yet another doubt to the growing list of doubts regarding the man she had married. When Trellis brought her a plate of food from the cookshack, she asked him where Pack and Sam had gone.

“Scoutin’ round, I guess. They’ll be back. Pack said for me ’n Trav to stick close to the house.”

“Good of him,” Mara mumbled and watched the young boy go to the porch and seat himself on the back step. Disappointment slowed her steps. Even Trellis had aligned himself with Pack to keep her in the dark as to what was going on.

After she ate, Mara carried the teakettle of warm water up to her room, closed the door and washed herself from head to foot. She longed for a bath in a tub but didn’t know how she could arrange it with so many men coming and going from the house. She slipped her gown over her head and crawled wearily into the bed. The ache in her muscles and bones was nothing compared to the ache in her heart.

It was a luxury to be alone. Tears came. Mara allowed them to roll down her cheeks.
What had she done?
The more she thought about it, the more miserable and confused she became. Finally weariness overcame her and she slept fitfully, dreaming that she was being chased through the woods by a big black horse. The animal reared over her when she fell and slashed at her with sharp hooves.

She awakened. A startled cry broke from her when she saw a dark form bending over her. She whimpered and tried to move, but her muscles refused to obey.

“Shhh . . . don’t be scared. I heard you call out and wanted to make sure you were all right.” Pack’s familiar voice came out of the darkness. Her panic ebbed.

“I . . . was dreaming. I—”

Suddenly it was too much to hold inside her. A huge convulsive sob came from deep within her and disrupted the silence of the dark room. Mara could not have choked it back if her life had depended on it. She turned her face to the pillow and cried for herself because she was alone and frightened, for her father who had come to this country looking for a better life for his wife and daughter. She cried for her mother, gentle and refined, who had loved this house and lived for such a short time to enjoy it and for Brita, whose life had been short and painful.

Pack’s weight on the side of the bed tilted her toward him. The hand on her shoulder was warm and soothing. She welcomed it. When she was lifted and held close in Pack’s arms, she clasped her arms around him and clung. She didn’t think of him as being the man she had married in desperation. He was a link with happier times. He was someone her father had known and trusted and loved. She burrowed her face into his shoulder and melted against his hard chest.

“Ah . . . don’t cry. Hush now.”

She stirred against his shoulder. “I . . . can’t stop!”

“It’ll be all right. You’re here where you want to be, and Cullen is gone. You’ve nothing to be scared of.”

Large, rough hands stroked her hair, then moved beneath the heavy mass to work gently at the nape of her neck. Her sobs continued until she was drained and empty. At the moment she wanted nothing but to cling to the warm, living man who held her. Gentle arms rocked her, a soothing voice crooned to her as if she were a small child.

“You worked too hard today. You’re worn out.” The words, a gentle rebuke, were murmured against her ear in such an inexpressibly moving, deep voice that she started crying again.

“No . . . I didn’t,” she sobbed. “I like to . . . work.”

“You try to do too much at one time. You’re tired. Don’t cry.” His hand stroked up and down her spine. He kneaded the muscles in her shoulders and back. “Does that feel good?” His voice, kind and comforting, was still close to her ear.

“Uh huh, but you don’t have to.”

“I want to.” Silence stretched between them. He sat on the side of the bed holding her and rubbing her back. There were no more tears left within her. She took a shuddering breath and let it out slowly.

“I’m sorry. It’s been a long time since I gave way like that.”

“You earned it. You’ve been through a lot lately.”

“I’m sorry, too, for being so hateful to you and hurting your leg.”

She could feel the deep chuckle in his chest and the heavy pounding of his powerful heart against her breasts, but she felt safer than she had in weeks.

“I wanted to spank your bottom. That was a powerful pinch, but it didn’t do any real damage.” He continued to rub her back. “I’m not your enemy, honey,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to be afraid of me.” He drew the words out on a long breath. “I’ll not hurt you and I’ll do my best to see that no one else hurts you.”

“I know that. I’ve been unfair to you.”

“No.” His lips turned into her hair. “You’ve given me the world.” He pulled her arms from around him and lowered her to the bed. “Go to sleep. Things will look better in the morning.” His voice was strained. His hand moved to smooth her hair back from her cheek, then away.

Mara wondered for a moment about the words he had whispered in her hair. Her body’s weariness overcame her churning thoughts. Her lids drooped and she slept. Once during the night she was vaguely aware that her back was against something warm and solid. It was such a pleasant, comfortable and safe feeling to know that she was not alone. She drifted back to sleep.

When morning came, she lay listening to the sounds of an awakening homestead. She heard a mourning dove’s plaintive call, the creak of the pulley as the water bucket was lowered into the well, the plop as it hit the bottom. The rooster crowed, announcing a new day. The hens in the chicken house clucked contentedly. The clank of iron as the ashes were being shaken down in the firebox of the cookstove told her Pack was starting the morning fire.

Mara lay for awhile wondering if Pack had really come to her, held her while she cried, and murmured comforting words, or if she had dreamed it. No, it wasn’t a dream. He had been real, solid and warm. She had felt his breath on her wet cheeks. She remembered now that when he pulled her arms from around him and she lay back on the pillow, she had missed his warm strength and had wanted him to stay with her. He
had
stayed! It had been his solid body she had felt against her back. Oh! How could she face him? She was mortified that she had allowed him to hold her last night, and even more distressed that she had liked being in his arms.

*  *  *

The days that followed were filled with work. Pack and the boys labored from dawn to dusk repairing first the barn and horse stalls, then the chicken house, sheds and the corral. The privy was straightened up and made more solid. The twins carried bucket after bucket of lye water and scrubbed out the inside, then dirt was poured into the cesspit so that they could no longer smell it from twenty feet away.

Mara worked in the house, at times so lonely she wanted to cry. Although she had told Trellis and Travor they had a room in the house and would have welcomed them as a buffer between her and Pack, they had settled in the bunkhouse with Aubrey, Sam, Steamboat and Riley. They worked willingly and seemed to enjoy being with Pack. They trailed after him as if he were something wonderful.

Mara didn’t know what had taken place between Aubrey and Pack. She knew that Aubrey and Riley had scrubbed the bunkhouse, had spread the manure from the barn on the vegetable garden and had taken a scythe to the weeds and brush that would threaten the buildings if they should catch on fire. Aubrey stayed clear of the house, and neither Pack or the twins mentioned him to her.

Each morning Pack managed to be up before Mara came down the stairs. He had coffee made and went after the milk while she made the breakfast. At noon he came to the house, and they ate a nearly silent meal together. At dusk he went to the creek to bathe, then came to the kitchen to eat. While she cleaned up after the meal, he sat on the porch and smoked or walked down to the bunkhouse and stayed until she had gone to bed.

They never mentioned the night he came to her room and demanded she open the door, or the night he held her while she cried and lay beside her while she slept. It was as if neither of those events had happened.

To Pack, however, the memory of holding her in his arms with only the cloth of her nightdress between them was both an agony and an ecstasy. He remembered the terror that had knifed through him when he heard her cry out. And he thought about how soft, how sweet smelling, how trusting she had been when she wrapped her arms about him. The scent of her warm woman’s body had intoxicated him. He had wanted to pull her onto his lap, cuddle her and murmur foolish things in her ear. It was an odd and uneasy sensation to want only to comfort a woman without thinking of her as a way to satisfy his own bodily needs.

She was his now.

Mara Shannon had accepted his touch when in despair, and now he waited for her to become accustomed to his company before he could expect her to accept the most intimate touches between a man and a woman. Once she realized that he was going to take care of her, she’d settle down and accept their mating as natural. He didn’t dare hope that she would come to love him, but she could become fond of him. That much would make life bearable. It was unthinkable to him that they live their lives together and sleep apart. He wanted a family. That was what made a home.

Her coolness hurt him in ways he had never thought he could be hurt. It was vital to him that he learn all he could about her before he would be able to close the distance between them. He wanted to know where her mind went when she sat across the table from him and looked out the window toward the distant mountains.

His hunger for her consumed his every thought. It was not just physical release he needed, but the need to go inside her, give her his child, and bind her to him for all eternity. At night he paced the floor, thinking about walking up the stairs to her bed, holding her as he had done the night she cried out in her sleep. The agony of being rebuffed or having her retreat from him completely kept him from taking the first steps. As much as he wanted her, longed to have her put her arms around him and hold him, he wanted something more than the union of their two bodies.

He wanted her love.

*  *  *

A couple of weeks after Pack and Mara were married, Pack decided it would be safe to leave Mara and go into Laramie. He and Sam had scouted the area, and there had been no sign of Cullen slinking around. Nor were there any fresh tracks of the mysterious night watcher.

He made his announcement at breakfast.

“I’m going into town today.”

Mara set a pitcher of milk on the table and watched as he poured some of it on his mush.

“I’ll go with you. I can be ready in just a few minutes.”

“Not this time.” He bent his head over the bowl and refused to look at her. She stood at the end of the table looking down on his dark head.

“What do you mean, not this time? I want to go, Pack. I need some things.”

“Give me a list and I’ll get them for you.”

“No! I want to get them myself.”

He looked up, his eyes dark and velvety. “I don’t want you to go this time, Mara Shannon. You’ll be better off here where Steamboat and the boys can look after you.”

“I’m not a baby to be looked after.” Anger raced through her. She tried to keep it out of her voice and almost succeeded.

Pack stared at her. Her face was set in a blank mask and her lashes veiled her eyes, allowing only a thin glittering line of emerald green to show.