Frontier Gift of Love (American Wilderness Series Romance Book 5) (2 page)

Little John glanced up. “Should I go read Bear’s letter to mother again too?”

“No, let’s let her rest for now…” Sam stopped speaking at the sound of horses galloping. He peered out through the front window panes and felt Little John’s small hand rest against his back as the boy joined him and looked out as well.

He didn’t recognize the three armed men riding toward the house. They were already too close. In the wilderness, men understood that they should not come near a man’s house until bid to do so. And never at a gallop. The polite thing to do was to call out, announce yourself, and ask permission to approach.

He snatched up his heavy woolen coat, threw it on, and grabbed his loaded Kentucky rifle and pistols. As usual, his long knife hung from his belt.

“Load your rifle,” he told Little John. “Then sneak out the back door and quietly warn Garvin and the other men that we have visitors—strangers. When you finish, come back inside through the back door, and wait here. You need to guard your mother.”

“Yes, Pa.”

Sam loved to hear the boy call him Pa. In truth, he considered Little John his son. He patted the boy’s shoulder and turned toward the door.

Sam’s hand froze on the door handle when he heard one of the horseback men call out another name—a name from another time and another place—a name he hated.

“Bloody Hand! Come out!”

Chapter 1

C
atherine woke, her right hand still resting on the spot that pained her frequently. Thankfully, the annoying ache was no longer there.

Lately, being with child made her so tired that by mid-morning she needed a short nap. But it was past time she got up. A lengthy list of projects required her attention. She arose from the bed and tidied it, brushed and styled her hair, and smoothed out her gown in front of her long mirror, thinking about all the things that needed doing. Catherine wanted to get ready for the arrival of all of their relatives for Christmas. She needed to plan meals with the cook and make the house as festive as possible.

She also wanted to sew some baby clothes, such as they were. The poor darling would likely be the worst dressed child in Kentucky based on how the last few pieces turned out. Perhaps hiring a seamstress from the fort would be a good idea. She would not have her child looking less than grand. Grimacing as she picked up the baby bonnet she recently finished, she chuckled. There was no denying she lacked both sewing and cooking skills, but hoped she made up for it by how much she loved Sam. And Little John.

Before setting out from Boston with her first husband to inspect his Kentucky land grant, she possessed few skills in basic homemaking. She had never even made a cup of coffee. In her comfortable upper-class home in Boston, domestic servants carried out most of the household duties.

Completely untrained in the domestic arts, when she and Sam moved into their new house, she made a complete fool of herself. The first time she tried to mop a floor, she slipped and fell more times than she could count, ruining her gown and silk slippers, before Sam finally told her she had put way too much soap in the water. When she tried to wash clothes, she accidentally made the fire under the wash kettle too big and both the clothes and the kettle caught fire. But worst of all, she had offered to help Sam one day when he and Bear were building the barn. When she asked what needed to be done, he told her the garden he’d planted behind the house needed weeding. In her astonishingly ignorant state, she pulled up all the vegetables that had just sprouted. When Sam and Bear finished laughing, they had patiently replanted everything.

Growing up in a house full of servants as she did, made it truly challenging for her here on the frontier, as she learned to do the many things needed to be a wife and mother. Living in Kentucky forced her to learn new skills to just survive—including using plants and herbs for medicine, shooting a pistol and a long rifle, and growing her own vegetables and fruit.

But survive she did. Thrived even, and she had never been happier. The love she’d found with Sam was exactly what she needed to find happiness.

Ever since their first chance meeting after her husband’s death on the Wilderness Trail, she’d been drawn to Sam. Initially, his tall muscled form, broad chest, and sun-bronzed face attracted her, but it was his enigmatic temperament that stirred something deep down that she never felt before. And his harsh masculinity, even his strong scarred jaw, and buckskin clothing had charmed her. He was so unlike the pompous dandies she’d known in Boston. His indigo blue eyes reflected the steel in his character. But behind his rugged warrior façade, she soon realized he possessed a kind heart and a keen well-educated mind.

She loved living here in Kentucky with Sam. Their new home was nestled in a virgin paradise. She was determined to learn all she needed to know about running a home, including caring for the babe they were expecting soon. That thought
was
daunting, and Catherine worried about
whether or not she would know what to do. When she told Mrs. Wrigley about her concern, the cook reassured her that caring for infants was actually quite simple—you just needed to keep them warm, fed, and clean.

How hard could that be? She could do it.

As Catherine passed Miss Henk, bent down on her knees scrubbing the hall floor, gratitude for both the young woman’s help and Sam’s wisdom in hiring the housekeeper filled her. He was a patient man, but when he reached his limit of burnt meals and scorched clothing, he insisted that they hire both a cook and a housekeeper. After the young woman rode up on a tired old mule one day, looking for work, Miss Henk explained that her mother had just died and her father had passed away the previous winter. She lived in the nearby hamlet, but her home was little more than a one-room shack in the woods. She was hungry and promised to work hard to earn her keep. The homely looking woman was proving to be a hard worker who possessed a tranquil nature.

“Thank you Miss Henk for keeping the floors looking so splendid,” Catherine told her.

“You’re most welcome, Mrs. Wyllie,” she said, looking up. “I will not abide a dirty house. My dear departed mother taught me that. We didn’t have much of a home, but it was always clean and neat. If we were meant to live in filth, we could live with the animals in the barnyard.”

Catherine chuckled. “I do enjoy your humor as well as my clean floors and home, Miss Henk. Do you know where my husband is? And Little John?”

“No, I just came from scrubbing the floors in Little John’s room. My face has been but a foot from floorboards for the last hour or so. Do you want me to find them for you?”

“No, thank you, I will find them myself. I just wanted to let Sam know I was feeling better.”

“Glad I am to hear it, Mrs. Wyllie.”

With a smile at the housekeeper, Catherine picked up her skirt and
carefully tip-toed across the wet floor, making certain she didn’t fall. She headed down the hall toward the large living area at the front of the house. When Sam designed their two-story log home, he combined the traditional drawing room, parlor, and dining room into one enormous space so there would be plenty of room for his family to gather there. Large pine beams across the ceiling supported the six upstairs rooms for guests and future children. Little John was excited about moving his room upstairs when the baby was born so that its crying would not awaken him at night.

Not finding anyone there, she proceeded to the kitchen at the back of the house. The large room was always a busy work space that held various aromas of cooking foods and the odors of fats, soot, and smoke. Two oil lamps and a shallow-arched window that Mrs. Wrigley could open in the summer lit the low-ceilinged space. On the kitchen’s back wall, made of thick brick, stood a twelve-foot wide hearth. Utensils as well as dry preserved vegetables hung off the huge timber beam that served as the hearth’s lintel.

To prepare the dried vegetables for eating, Mrs. Wrigley soaked them in water for a while. Sam called beans prepared in this way ‘leather britches’ because of their toughness after drying. Dried fruits, pumpkin, squash, and other foods could last for months at a time. Whatever food they had, they produced themselves. Here there were no big food or meat markets to buy from as there were in Boston.

To the right of the hearth, was their baking oven, built chest-high into the brick wall with a brick-domed interior. It was a wondrous addition to the kitchen. It took Sam nearly a month to build, but the crusty bread the oven produced made all his efforts well worth it.

A flight of wooden steps to the left led to the upstairs bedrooms, and just below the stairs Mrs. Wrigley and Miss Henk’s shared quarters. If they were blessed with several children in the coming years, the sound of their feet stomping down those steps on their way to breakfast or dinner might fill that room, Catherine mused.

Catherine greatly admired her cook. She considered Mrs. Wrigley a bit of a magician who ably conjured the most delightful foodstuffs from both
simple and imaginative ingredients. She often used mortars and pestles to grind dozens of different spices. How the woman knew exactly what to use on what foods often baffled her. And since Catherine was a thousand miles from her own mother, Mrs. Wrigley was a most valuable and trusted source of motherly advice.

“Mrs. Wrigley, have you seen my husband and son?” she asked.

The plump curvaceous woman turned away from peeling a sizable mound of potatoes. “No, my dear lady, I haven’t seen them, but I heard one go out the front and one go out the back just a few moments ago. However, I don’t know which one went which way.”

“Thank you. By the way, your bread smells heavenly.”

“Tear yourself off a piece. A woman in your condition cannot eat enough. You must feed the babe and you.”

Catherine smiled and nodded. Indeed, her appetite seemed to grow with each passing day. Lately, her stomach growled with hunger far more often than not. She tore off a hunk of the crusty bread. It was still warm in the center and she savored the fresh aroma the steam gave off before she took a bite. “Ummm, wonderful.”

She opened the rear door, as she chewed and stepped outside, still looking for her husband and son. The rear walkways led to the smokehouse, the dairy, water well, granary, chicken coup, a large food cellar built into the earth, and furthest away—the privy. The entire area appeared deserted. The two must still be at the horse pens or barn.

A rifle shot suddenly rang out from the front of the house. Catherine’s heart skipped a beat, and she dropped the bread. Lifting her skirt, she dashed through the kitchen, down the hall, and into the front living area. Mrs. Wrigley and Miss Henk followed close behind her and the three peered outside.

Sam appeared to be fine, thank God. However, a man lay face down in the snow. Who was he? And who were the other two horseback men staring at Sam?

“Miss Henk, fetch my heavy cloak,” Catherine instructed. “Please hurry.”

The housekeeper rushed toward Catherine’s coat closet.

“You do not need to be going out there in the freezing cold,” Mrs. Wrigley cautioned. “Captain Sam can handle whatever is amiss.”

“Mrs. Wrigley, see to our meal. My husband does not like his food burned.” Catherine let out a deep breath, instantly regretting dismissing the woman so abruptly. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Wrigley. I’ll be careful. I promise.”

“See that you are. Captain Sam would have my head if he knew I was letting you go out there,” Mrs. Wrigley said, wringing her apron in her hands.

Miss Henk helped her into the cloak. Then Catherine grasped her loaded pistol from the table by the door, and slipped it into her cloak’s pocket. Sam insisted that a loaded pistol be kept by the front and back doors at all times for the women to use if needed. When she had asked why he wanted them kept loaded, he told her that a pocketful of rocks was more valuable than an unloaded pistol.

Clutching the concealed weapon in her right hand, she stepped out onto the porch. The frigid air gripped the skin on her face. “Sam, what’s going on?”

Sam did not look her way, but kept his eyes trained on the two men still mounted on their horses. His hands both held pistols, but his Kentucky long rifle lay on the ground. He must have shot the man now turning the snow crimson beneath him. Since the rifle held only one shot, he’d wisely tossed the weapon aside.

“I have everything under control. These men were just leaving. Go inside and stay with Little John,” Sam ordered.

“I don’t know where Little John is,” she told him.

“Go inside. Now!” he said. When he used his Captain’s voice, everyone understood Sam expected unquestioning agreement and
immediate action.

Catherine reluctantly turned and did as he bid her.

“That’s a mighty pretty lady you got there, Bloody Hand,” the gangly man on a bay horse drawled. “And I’m guessing Little John is your son. Looks like you’ve planted your seed in her belly again.”

Sam eyed the man with contempt. The stranger’s words and conduct were outlandishly vulgar and ill-mannered, especially considering that he just shot this man’s companion. More than once, his lifelong habit of defending himself first and asking questions later saved the lives of family and himself. When trouble threatens, it usually comes with no warning. “My
name
is Mr. Wyllie, and my wife and my children are none of your concern. This man is,” Sam said, pointing to the body lying on the ground between him and the strangers. “Why did he draw his weapon?” he demanded.