Sixteen Brides (28 page)

“Well, I’m just gonna take a look,” Sally said. “I can re-tie the string.” She’d been guessing at what kind of book Elizabeth Jorgenson, whose name appeared on the return address of the letter, would be sending Mr. Cooper for what felt like hours, and Ella wished she would hush.

“Here, Ella,” Sally said, when she’d finally picked the knot open and untied the book. “You read it.”

Ella handed the book to Caroline without a word. “I don’t think it’s right to read a man’s mail.”

“We ain’t readin’ his mail,” Sally protested. “We’re just lookin’ at the book.”

“Sonnets From the Portuguese
,
”
Caroline read aloud. “Elizabeth Barrett Browning.” She ran her gloved hand over the tooled cover. “I
love
this book.” She opened it. “Here, listen.

“If thou must love me, let it be for nought

Except for love’s sake only. Do not say

‘I love her for her smile—her look—her way

Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought

That falls in well with mine, and certes brought

A sense of pleasant ease on such a day’—

For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may

Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,

May be unwrought so. Neither love me for

Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—

A creature might forget to weep, who bore

Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!

But love me for love’s sake, that evermore

Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.”

“Sounds like Mr. Cooper’s thinkin’ about courtin’,” Sally said.

For the rest of the way to Jeb Cooper’s, the topic of conversation was not one that Ella enjoyed.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

Unless thy law had been my delights,
I should then have perished in mine affliction.

PSALM 119:92

E
lla thought Jeb must have heard their carriage coming across the prairie, because as soon as Ruth brought them to a stop, he ducked out the front door of his soddy with a smile on his face. “Just the people I need to see,” he said, and came to help the ladies down.

Sally held out the book and the letter. “Martha thought maybe you’d be comin’ back to our place. Which you ain’t. But here’s your mail, anyway.”

Jeb looked down at the envelope, read the name, and smiled. “Thank you. I’ve been looking forward to getting this. Actually, coming back to Four Corners was what I wanted to talk to you about.” He proceeded to outline their need for a fruit cellar and an adequate barn, and his need for what Ella thought amounted to an entirely new wardrobe, which Sally was more than willing to make. Before long, it was agreed. Jeb Cooper would dig a fruit cellar and put in a barn at Four Corners.

“Don’t you have your own work to do?” Ella blurted it out before thinking, then thought it sounded rude. “What I mean is—we don’t want a neighbor’s own place suffering because he helps us.”

“Well, now that you mention it I can’t come your way for a couple of weeks yet. Ransom and I have a project to work on together first. In fact, with your permission, I’ll see if he might want to come with me when I do make it out your way.”

“Linney was bragging on how busy Matthew is with building projects in Plum Grove,” Caroline said.

“But we’d love to have both of you.” Mama winked at Caroline.

“We could use a bigger chicken coop, too,” Sally said. “One that will keep the varmints out better. Mr. Gray sent lumber and wire for it, but we ain’t had time to use it yet.”

Ella glowered at Sally. “I told you I would handle that.”

“I know,” Sally agreed. “And you will. Just as soon as you plant that twenty acres of corn and map out the four pieces of ground and run fence around one to keep cattle in and—”

“All right,” Ella said. “You made your point. But the idea was for us ladies to homestead. Not to lounge about while hired hands do all the real work.”

“I’d say you’ve already proven your disdain for ‘lounging about,’ Mrs. Barton,” Jeb said. “There’s a little cave back up behind the house here where I’ve been keeping things cool. Ransom’s coming out to help me build a spring house. We could think about doing the same for you. If what I have in mind works the way I envision it, it could make your lives easier.” He smiled at Ella. “You don’t have any objection to letting a man make life a little easier for you, I hope.”

Of course Ella did not. As they drove away, Jeb Cooper’s singing carried on the wind. And the ladies would not let Ella be.

By the time their soddy was in sight, Ella had had enough. “Now that you’ve all had your fun, it’s time to hush. What you’re thinking is ridiculous, and I don’t want to listen to any more of it.”

“Who says we’re thinking anything?” Sally teased. “Just because a man orders a book of love poetry in the mail—and offers to come back to our place and do work that will likely take him most of the summer—and just because he talks to
you
about it and teases about a man making life easier for a woman—why, there’s no reason to think anything of that. He’s just being nice. I’m sure that’s all it is.”

Caroline took up where Sally had left off. “She’s right, of course,” she said. “Not one bit of it has a thing to do with the way Mr. Cooper seemed to always find a way to work with Ella when the soddy was going up. It was purely coincidence. Absolutely. Not a doubt about it. Nothin’ but a li’l ole coincidence.”

Ella waved a hand in the air. Still the women didn’t stop teasing. Frustration became anger. Anger evolved into hurt. Finally, when they pulled up in the yard, Ella was the first to jump out of the carriage. She grabbed a stack of the packages from the mercantile and headed inside. Let someone else unhitch Calico tonight. But no one did. Instead, they followed her like a bunch of clucking hens pecking at the same bug. And then the strangest thing happened. Instead of hearing her friends teasing her, Ella heard Milton’s voice.
What man in his right mind would come into your bed, you cow.

Dear Mama must have read her expression. She left off teasing. Her voice was gentle when she said, “We’re only having a little fun. We love you, Ella. We want you to be happy.”

“Then leave . . . me . . . alone.” Her voice broke, and Ella fled out the back door. By the time she reached the carriage, she was sobbing so hard she could barely see to unharness the little roan mare in the fading light. She was fumbling with a buckle when Caroline’s hand slipped beneath hers and took over the task.

“I’m so sorry, Ella. No one meant to hurt you.” She handed over a clean hanky.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It
does
matter. We should have known—”

“—but you don’t. You don’t know anything.” Ella walked around to unbuckle the harness on the mare’s off side. Surprised by the anger she felt, she let the words fly. “You with your tiny waist and your beautiful smile . . . with Lucas Gray and Matthew Ransom coming to blows over—” She broke off. Shook her head.

“I like you, Caroline. I really do. I didn’t think I would or could, but you aren’t what I expected. You work hard and you haven’t asked to be coddled at all. So I believe you mean well, but the truth is, you don’t know
anything
about what it’s like for a woman like me.” She felt thoroughly humiliated when she couldn’t keep from crying.

It was quiet for a few minutes, and then Caroline said, “Well, honey, that just goes to show that even as smart and capable as you are—and you are both of those and so much more—even you can be wrong about some things.” She paused. “You know, I’d love it if just once a man would actually look at my
eyes
when we’re first introduced.”

Ella frowned. She hadn’t thought about that. That would be awful.

“I was almost raped in town. Before we moved out here.”

The words came out so quietly that Ella wasn’t sure she’d heard right. Her hand stopped in midair between two harness buckles. “
What
did you just say?”

Caroline kept her head down as she fiddled with a bit of harness. “That night I went after Jackson in the fog. Remember Sally had that funny story when we got back about how I’d climbed up on a haystack and refused to come down because I saw a rat in the barn?” She looked away. “Well, there was a rat in the barn all right. A two-legged one.”

“Dear Lord.” Ella reached for Caroline’s hand and squeezed it.

Caroline squeezed back. “I know that doesn’t mean I understand exactly how you feel, but I’m not completely ignorant, either.” She took a deep breath. “We have more in common than you think. We’d both like to be loved for who we are
inside.
”

“And we’d both like to take a swing at a certain species of male,” Ella said with a bitter laugh.

While Caroline unwove the reins from the traces, Ella finished undoing the harness. Finally, she was able to speak without a wavering voice. “Why would Jeb Cooper be reading love poetry? Who’s Elizabeth Jorgenson? And why do I even care? I don’t want him to know I care. I don’t want
anyone
to know. It’s embarrassing.”

“Everyone wants to be loved. That’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

As Ella prepared to lead the little mare away, Caroline said, “By the way, Lucas Gray and Matthew Ransom aren’t fighting over me. Apparently there’s years of hard feelings between them. Even if I am attracted to Matthew—and I am, Lord knows I am—I shouldn’t be stepping into his life right now. When I was at the ranch and Mr. Gray started asking questions about Matthew, I told him just that. I’ve got to keep my distance.”

“You talked about all of this with Lucas Gray?”

Caroline shook her head. “No. That was a very little part of it. Mostly Mr. Gray wanted to warn me about Lowell Day.” She paused. “I didn’t tell him the warning was a bit late.”

“So the shotgun over the door is about more than protecting the chickens.”

“I sincerely hope not. On the other hand, a lady has to be prepared to rescue herself now and then.” Caroline turned to go.

Ella called after her. “Thank you, Caroline.”

“For what? Teasin’ you to the point-a tears?”

“For being my friend.”

Caroline dipped into a little curtsey. “It is my distinct hon-uh, Miz Bah-ton.” She turned and went toward the house.

As Ella worked to rub down the little mare, she thought about Caroline and how she used her accent at will, as if she liked to hide behind it.
Now, ain’t that somethin’.
They all had their places to hide. Ruth hid behind high-necked dark-colored dresses and a stern manner. Sally hid out in the open, using her frank conversation and almost bawdy humor to keep people at a distance. Hettie was hiding behind half-truths and, Ella suspected, an outright lie or two. Caroline hid behind what people assumed about southern belles.
And you, Ella, what do you hide behind?
She knew the answer, of course. She hid behind the never-ending, exhausting cycle of work it was going to require to make Four Corners a success. She hid behind the belief that her life could be better without a man.

Everyone wants to be loved,
Caroline had said. Of course it was true. The question was, how did a woman ever know when professed love wasn’t just another way for a rat to hide?

“You don’t really care whether you have a spring house or not, do you?” Matthew swiped at the sweat on his forehead, then sat back on his haunches.

“Why would you say such a thing?” Jeb frowned. “Improvements are what a man does to his property.”

“But you aren’t planting. You aren’t building a new house. Don’t get me wrong, the place looks wonderful. But it’s basically the same. Except for this spring house.”

“This place already has everything I need,” Jeb said. “And as for the spring house, I’ll likely be grateful for that when there’s five feet of snow banked up along the way to the cave back there.” He nodded toward the rise in the distance where Matthew had, long ago, tunneled back into the earth to create a primitive larder.

The spring house was a small structure beside the windmill. When the windmill turned, it pumped water out of the ground and into a pipe. Cold water flowed through the pipe and then into the spring house, flooding first a shallow trough where crocks of butter and milk could sit, and then a deeper vat where all kinds of things could be stored in huge round crocks constantly being bathed in cold well water.

“It’s good practice for the one we’ll be putting up over at Four Corners next week.”

“Sure you don’t want to dig a fruit cellar here, too?” Matthew smiled. “For practice, of course.”

Jeb grinned. “I’ve heard about your building skills. I think we can probably handle digging a rectangular hole in the ground without too much practice.”

Matthew nodded. But he still didn’t understand how Jeb was going to get through the winter with no crops to sell and no livestock to slaughter.

With a sigh, Jeb sat back. “All right,” he said. “I’ll confess.”

“You aren’t going to tell me you’re on the run from the law and you’re going to disappear this winter, are you?”

Cooper laughed. “No—to the part about being on the run from the law, but yes to the part about being on the run and disappearing this winter. But it’s not what you think.” He took a deep breath. Scratched his neck. “Let’s have us a cup of coffee.” He got up then and led the way inside, through the room full of books and into the front room.

A letter lay on the kitchen table. It was addressed in a fine script. Matthew noted it was from a lady. “Ah,” he said. “You’re headed back east this winter to get a wife.” That made sense. A spring house was a thing a woman would want. It was the next thing he’d been going to do for Katie . . . before the world stopped. He’d thought Cooper might be warming up to Mrs. Barton. Apparently not.

“What?” Cooper looked at the letter and then, as he ground coffee, laughed out loud. “No. By disappearing I meant that I’m looking forward to being snowbound here.” He gestured around them, then pointed toward the book room. “I can’t think of anything better than having an excuse to spend time with my ‘friends’ on these shelves. Unless”—he smiled—“it would be building something for a neighbor.”

He went about making coffee, talking as he worked. “Speaking of holing up with a good book, you were going to come and read a little, as I recall.”

“Ah, yes,” Matthew said. “The book with all the answers.” He stood up and went to the doorway, peering at the bookshelves. “Which one would that be?”

“This one.”

Matthew turned back around. Sighed. Cooper was pouring coffee. His Bible lay open on the kitchen table. “Now, before you run screaming out of the house, I should probably tell you the truth about who I am.”