Mail Order Mistletoe (Brides of Beckham Book 17) (7 page)

She patched a few pairs of his britches before it was time to put the potatoes in the oven.  She hoped he didn't mind eating day old bread with his supper, because she'd had so many other things to do that day, she hadn't gotten around to baking any.

She would use whatever was left to make him some French toast in the morning, hoping he liked it as much as she did.

When Lars came into the house that night, he sniffed the air and sighed.  "Are you going to spoil me like this every day?" he asked. 

She smiled.  "I'm certainly going to try.  You work very hard, and you deserve to come home to a meal you can enjoy." She was just sorry she hadn't made him muffins yet.  The next day she would, she promised herself.

"Soon I'll be too fat to work with the way you feed me."

She laughed, eyeing his lean frame.  "You'd have to gain weight to be considered thin."

He made a face at that.  He'd always been lean, but he didn't like to have it thrown in his face.  "I will do my best to get fat to please you."

"You already please me.  You don't have to change a thing.  I just don't want you to worry about getting fat, because I don't see how you could."

He grabbed the milk pail and stomped out of the house, not certain why he was angry with her.  Was she trying to fatten him up?  Or was she really happy with how he looked?  And did it matter that much?

As he milked the cow, he wondered why he cared about her opinion.  Certainly she didn't care if he was thin or fat.  She'd agreed to marry him sight unseen.  He was being overly sensitive.  He wanted to be angry with her, and not care for her.  He needed to quit looking for reasons to get angry.  She was a good woman who was doing everything she could to please him, even though he'd told her that he had no intention of ever falling in love with her.

He shook his head, suddenly annoyed with himself.  Meg was a good woman, and she deserved his respect, not his animosity.  He needed to go back into the house and apologize immediately. 

He didn't want to, but he knew it was the right thing.  She was working so hard to please him, and all he did was get angry and push her away.  It wasn't her fault his wife had died.  No, he needed to quit treating her as if she was the enemy.

Chapter Seven

Lars walked back into the house with the milk and set it on the counter before turning to his new bride.  "I owe you an apology."

Meg blinked at him a couple of times, unsure what he thought he'd done wrong. "For what?"

He sighed. "I've been doing everything I can to...well to not like you.  I know that sounds ridiculous, and it
is
ridiculous." 

"But—why do you want to dislike me?  That doesn't make any sense to me at all.  I'd think you'd want us to get along well."  They would be each other's only companions for years to come, not counting any children who happened to come along.  What good would it do either of them to not like the other?

"I do!  I want you to like me, and put up with my bad behavior, while I dislike you.  Ridiculous isn't it?"

She nodded as she served their meal, unsure what he was trying to say to her.  "Yes, it is."

He washed his hands and took his place at the table, looking at her.  "I don't want to like you, because I'm afraid if I like you, it'll be easier to love you.  And I feel like I'd be betraying someone to love you."

"Your first wife?" she asked, knowing the woman needed to be acknowledged.  "Why didn't you ever mention her?" Her voice was soft as she asked, but her hurt came through.

"How did you know?" he asked, surprised.

"Bachelors don't care about tablecloths.  They don't care about curtains. More importantly, they don't have fully made up nurseries in their homes.  What was her name?"

He frowned.  Of course she'd known as soon as she went to the second floor of his house.  She wasn't stupid.  "Olga.  We married right before we left Norway, and she had a miscarriage on the ship on the way over. We were sad, but we knew God would bless us with another baby.  And He did.  And that baby died too.  Olga lost five babies, and then she had a pregnancy that lasted.  She went into labor, and I rushed her to the mid-wife who lives about thirty minutes from here.  I didn't want to risk her losing one more baby.  The mid-wife did everything she could, but she lost them both."

"I'm so sorry, Lars.  I know that must have hurt you."

"More than I could ever say.  So I promised myself, and Olga, that I'd never love again."  He frowned staring down at his food.  "I don't ever want to love again.  I thought I'd send for a woman, and she wouldn't want love either, because why else would she answer my letter, when I said I didn't want it?  I was sure she would come here, and nothing would matter to me, but having a son.  I could be happy that way."

"And I came along demanding that you will love me whether you like it or not," Meg said with a self-deprecating grin.

"It's more than that.  I didn't expect to be able to like the girl who stepped off the train and into my life.  I thought she would be hideously ugly and not able to find a man to marry.  Instead, I find a pretty young woman who simply couldn't handle teaching a schoolroom full of hellions any longer."  Lars shook his head.  "It would have been so much easier for me if you were the hideous woman I expected.  I could have easily forgotten about you when I went to work for the day."

"And you can't forget me?" Meg found she really liked that idea.  She wanted him to think about her while he was away from her. What woman wouldn't want that?

"Of course, I can't.  You've single-handedly made my home livable again in a fraction of the time I thought it would take. You've adopted a stray kitten with more warmth than I've shown anyone in two years."

"When did she die?"

"February of 1895.  Just under two years ago."

"Why did you decide to marry if you wanted nothing to do with a wife?" she asked. That was the one part she couldn't understand.

He frowned, taking a sip of his milk.  "I want a son.  I came here from Norway imagining building a grand empire that I could leave to my sons.  I have no one.  It's hard being out on this lonely prairie day after day and night after night.  Imagine how much harder it would be if you were totally alone."

She shuddered.  She needed a kitten just to get through the hours he was gone.  Imagining what it had been like for him after Olga's death made her want to cry.  "I don't want to," Meg told him simply.

"So you do understand how it was.  I would get up early and go to work, so I wouldn't have a chance to be lonely.  I even went to church a couple of times, hoping there would be news of someone moving near, but there never was.  If I had neighbors down the road, it would be different, but this prairie sucks your life away.  After spending two years alone on the prairie, it started to feel like a jail.  I couldn't take another winter alone.  I needed to have someone to face it with me."

Meg reached out and took his hand in hers, trying to give him comfort.  "Then let me face it with you.  We may not be in love.  We may never love one another.  But we can face it as friends and companions, and maybe love will grow from that."

Lars nodded, feeling like he'd just run the gauntlet.  Never in his life had he bared his soul the way he'd just done with Meg, and she'd been wonderful.  He brought her fingers to his lips.  "Yes, let's face it together."

She felt like they'd made a sort of peace, and she was happy with that.  "I've gotten most of the house cleaned," she said, changing the subject to one that would be easier for him.  "I want to clean the basement tomorrow if you don't mind.  I'll probably rearrange some things, so they'll make more sense to me."

He shrugged.  "I don't mind that at all.  Do what needs to be done."  Why would he care if she rearranged the basement? 

After finishing the supper dishes, she started to go up to her room with a book, but he stopped her.  "Come sit in the parlor with me," he said.  "We'll talk and get to know each other better."

Meg blinked in surprise, but she nodded.  "I'd like that a lot."  She was very surprised at his attitude reversal, but she had no complaints about it at all.  It was nice to have a husband who actually wanted to spend some time with her.

They went into the parlor, and he sat on the sofa, patting the spot next to him.  "I won't bite," he said with a grin.

She laughed and took the spot right beside him on the couch.  She wasn't worried that he'd bite, but she wasn't certain just how much touching she was willing to do.  "I'm not afraid of you."

He chuckled, his arm going around her shoulders.  "Tell me where you grew up."

She was surprised at the question.  He was acting like he was courting her all of a sudden, and she wasn't quite certain how to react.  With him it was either treat her like the enemy or like he was courting her.  How was she supposed to know which one it would be?

"I'm the daughter of Irish immigrants.  My mother was the cook for a wealthy Boston family, and my father was the gardener and handyman.  We lived in a small house behind the mansion of the family they worked for. There were seven of us, and Mama often took us girls to help her work after school or on school holidays.  The boys worked with Papa.  I'm the youngest, so I was last at home.  I think Mama was happy when I finally moved out."

"You do?  They didn't like having children at home?"  Norwegian families were large and usually very close knit, and he'd thought it was the same way with the Irish.

"Oh, they loved me.  Don't get me wrong.  My eldest brother was already married when I was born.  I was a bit of an afterthought and a big surprise to my parents.  They thought they were almost done raising children when I came along."

He grinned.  "A good surprise, I'm sure."

"Oh, sure I was.  But they were tired after all those years of child rearing, and then they got me."  She smiled.  "They were very good to me, and I was a happy child.  I loved to go with mother to work and help her cook.  She always told me I'd make some man a wonderful wife someday, because cooking came so naturally to me."

"But you were a schoolteacher?"

She shrugged.  "I wanted to be independent for a while before I married.   I was certain I would be a stronger woman because of it.  So I moved to Beckham and taught there.  I thought I'd teach for a year or two, and then I'd be willing to marry.  It never occurred to me that my first school term would be so awful."  She shuddered.  "The demon horde was something else.  I didn't mind the frogs in my desk.  The lizards were bad, but I could deal with those as well.  The snakes got me.  And the mice!  Oh, the day they put four mice in my desk, I was ready to climb atop my desk to get away from them.  When I shrieked all of the children laughed.  It was hard to keep their respect, when they'd heard me scream like a little girl."

Lars did his best not to laugh aloud at the picture she painted.  "And so you answered my advertisement."

"Oh, it was so much worse than that!  The oldest boy from the family who was still in school came to me after class one day to tell me what a horrible teacher I was.  And he put a copy of the Grooms' Gazette, the newspaper his sister, Elizabeth Tandy publishes, right there on my desk.  He told me since I was so useless as a teacher, I should become a mail order bride.  There was nothing left for me in Beckham."

"He didn't!  The boy should have been beaten!"

"Yes, he should have.  Instead, I read through the newspaper as soon as he left.  And I saw you asking for a bride, and there was something about your words that made me want to marry you and no one else."

"So you answered my letter, even though you knew you'd never settle for a man who didn't love you?"  Lars was still baffled about that.

"I was convinced I could change your mind, you see.  I'm not sure how was I was going to change your mind.  That part was always very fuzzy in my head, but I knew I could."

He shook his head at her, turning her to face him more fully.  "With kisses maybe?"

She blushed.  "I'd never been kissed.  How could I think I was so good at kisses that I could make a man fall in love with me?"

"Practice makes better."

She giggled.  "Practice makes perfect."

"Oh, there's no perfect way to kiss or do anything else.  Practice will make you better though."  He used his index finger beneath her chin to turn her face up to his.  "Want to practice?" 

Meg swallowed hard.  Looking up into his eyes, all she could think about was letting him kiss her.  She wanted that kiss so badly.  Her tongue snaked out to wet her lips, and when he still didn't kiss her, she frowned at him.  "Are you ever going to kiss me?"

He laughed.  "I was waiting to find out if you wanted me to."

Instead of waiting any longer, she caught the front of his shirt in her hand and pulled him down to kiss her.  She opened her mouth for a deeper kiss just as he'd taught her, her hands moving over his broad shoulders.  She was surprised at how much she'd grown to look forward to each kiss from him.

Lars pulled her tightly against him, half onto his lap.  He splayed his hands over her back, touching as much of her as he could.  He felt her corset through her blouse, and immediately wanted her to take it off.  He hated corsets.  They kept a man from being able to feel the woman in his arms.

He drifted one hand around to the front of her, cupping her breast in his hand and squeezing it gently. 

She stiffened in his arms. No one had ever touched her there.  She wanted to protest that it was something he shouldn't be doing, but she didn't know.  It felt wrong, but he was her husband. 

Finally, she gave herself over to the sensations.  His fingers weren't hurting her.  They felt good against her breast.  She moved her hands over his hard back, surprised at how strong he felt.  The man was so lean, probably from living off of his own cooking, but he was strong.  She could feel his muscles rippling beneath her fingers.

She wanted to see him with no shirt on, but she knew it was wrong to ask.  Did what was right or wrong matter just then, though?  She pulled back from his kisses, looking up into his face.  His lips were moist, and half open, and his eyes looked—sleepy wasn't the right word, but she wasn't certain what was.  His eyes looked heavy-lidded and sexy.

"Lars?" Meg asked softly.

He opened his eyes and looked down at her.  "Yes?"

"Would it be wrong of me to take your shirt off?  I want to touch you."

He shook his head.  "We're married.  Nothing we do, as long as we both want to do it, is wrong."

"Oh."  She thought about that for a moment. "Well, I want to take your shirt off and touch you.  Do you mind if I do it?"

He chuckled.  "I don't mind one bit.  In fact, I'm sure I'll like it."

She carefully unbuttoned each of the buttons at the front of his shirt.  "Do you think I'm too forward?" she asked as she applied herself to the task.

He shrugged.  "Maybe, but I like it."  He liked watching her face as she slowly exposed more and more skin.  "Do you want to touch me?"

She nodded, pushing the shirt off his shoulders. 

He stood up, pulling the shirt out of the waistband of his pants and dropping it to the floor.  He sat back down on the couch, and she smiled, her hands going to the muscles she'd just uncovered.  "You're so strong.  I can feel it even through your clothes."

He smiled.  "I thought you were calling me weak earlier when you mentioned how thin I am."