The Homesteader's Sweetheart (4 page)

“Mmm…thanks, Pa.”

Jonas handed the little girl his hat, and she lay down. Quiet, at last.

Penny observed Jonas as he leaned back to tuck Breanna’s skirt around her legs and tilted the hat to make sure she could breathe easily. It was obvious he loved his daughter deeply. She wondered how he’d fared with an infant after leaving Philadelphia. Had he found someone to help care for Breanna? Or had he managed to care for the infant girl by himself? It seemed impossible…

“She’s a lovely little girl,” Penny commented when the silence between them stretched. Unable to contain her curiosity, she asked, “Was there—did you…marry after you left Philadelphia?”

“No,” came his short answer. “I’m not married.”

But hadn’t Breanna just mentioned having brothers? Was it possible he’d fathered
more
children out of wedlock? Suddenly uncomfortable, Penny glanced over her shoulder to see if Sam still slept. Should she wake him?

Turning back to face front, her eyes met Jonas’s and his gaze narrowed.

Penny rushed to fill the awkward silence. “Sam and I are very grateful for the ride to my grandfather’s place. It’s very kind of you.”

He grunted, now refusing to look at her, squinting in the sun without his hat. His hair was matted to his head where the hat had been, a ring of darker blond showing where the hat had rested on his head. Penny was surprised to note he was quite handsome. She had been too absorbed with her own need to escape Calvin that she’d hardly paid attention to her companion, but she was unable to ignore the sculpted chin and finely arched brow.

The realization was discomfiting. Especially in light of Jonas White’s moral deficiencies. The man had fathered one—or more—children outside of wedlock. And he appeared to struggle for money, lived on a homestead. In short, he wasn’t a man she would consider a suitable match. In addition, she wanted to fall desperately, powerfully in love the way her grandparents had.

To distract herself from uncomfortable thoughts, Penny continued making conversation. “How did you come to be in Calvin? Isn’t Bear Creek closer for purchasing supplies?”

He thought about his answer for a considerable amount of time. “It is. I had business with your father’s bank, and with other banks as well.”

“That’s right. Was your business concluded in a satisfactory manner?” Jonas hadn’t been in her father’s office for very long, she’d noticed, even though she’d been waiting on customers.

“No. Your father didn’t grant me the loan.”

His blunt, quiet answer seemed to end that vein of conversation.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, staring down at her gloved hands. She didn’t know all the circumstances, but the man’s disappointment was palpable. She remembered her father’s anger when Jonas had interrupted his party and wondered if that had anything to do with his denying the loan. Surely not. “Then I’m doubly grateful you agreed to convey my brother and me to Grandfather’s homestead.”

A long silence settled between them. Penny stood it for as long as she was able, but finally felt compelled to make further conversation.

“How did you come to be in Wyoming?”

He frowned and glanced back at his daughter, who still slept. “I was…encouraged to leave Philadelphia.”

Ah. Because of the scandal with Millie, though he did not say it in so many words.

“But how did you choose Wyoming? And…is it…do you raise cattle?”

“Some.” He paused for a long time and again she wondered if he would answer. “I once heard someone read a story about Wyoming in a dime novel. With nowhere else to go, one place seemed as good as another.”

“Hmm.”

She hoped her interest would encourage him to go on, but he stubbornly went silent again. Well. If he wasn’t inclined to make conversation, she would simply endure the quiet.

But what a coincidence that they’d ended up in the same state, near in geographic area. As he’d said, with nowhere else to go, it didn’t much matter where he landed, but how had he come to be Grandfather’s neighbor?

An hour passed without a word spoken between them. Breanna woke up. She seemed quieter, more reserved, and this seemed to worry Jonas, if the crease on his brow was any indication. He insisted they stop awhile under a clump of trees. Sam roused, too, though he remained taciturn and kept to himself. They ate a small picnic in the limited shade from the wagon before continuing on their way.

Breanna did not chatter this time. Penny idly wondered if the trip was a mistake—she already missed conversing with her friends from town. The summer sun made her drowsy, and she was half-dreaming about her father forcing her down the aisle to meet Mr. Abbott when a startled exclamation from Jonas roused her.

“Breanna? Do you feel ill?”

Breanna did not answer, but Penny turned in time to see the little girl collapse into the wagon.

Suddenly, the placid, quiet man next to Penny leapt into action.

“Whoa!” He pulled back on the reins and set the brake as the wagon rolled to a stop. Instantly, he scooped Breanna into his arms from her prone position in the wagon and maneuvered himself off the bench seat. Breanna appeared to be shaking. She hadn’t seemed sick at all this morning…

Alarmed by the girl’s pallor, Penny blurted, “What can I do to help?”

Sam jumped from the back of the wagon, shaking his head as if he’d been drowsing, too. “What’s wrong?”

“Jonas?” Penny questioned again, forgoing propriety.

Jonas ignored Sam as he settled the girl in the small patch of shade cast by the wagon itself. He spoke to Penny instead. “Can you get the canteen? It’s under the bench there. And find a piece of fabric to wet her face?”

She reached for the canteen tucked under the bench seat and hiked up her skirts before stepping down on top of the wagon wheel to dismount. As she pulled her other leg from the wagon, her boot slipped on the smooth wheel and she tumbled to the ground, knocking her chin on the way down. She ended up sprawled inelegantly on her backside, the canteen rolling away.

And face-to-face—albeit across the wagon—with Jonas. He was gentleman enough not to laugh at her. He only grunted, “You all right?”

She chose not to reply, instead reaching underneath her gown and ripping off a piece of her petticoat. She stood and rushed around the wagon to join Jonas kneeling near Breanna in the soft spring grasses. The girl lay on her side, her entire body convulsing.

“Will she be all right?” Penny asked, voice breathless from her fall and the suddenness of Breanna’s episode.

“Yes, in a bit.” Jonas did not look away from Breanna’s face. He’d loosened the neck of her dress and Penny caught sight of the girl’s undergarment, so worn it appeared gray.

When Penny pressed the now-damp piece of cotton from her petticoat into his hand, he used it to swab Breanna’s brow. “It’s all right,” he murmured. “Your pa is right here, and so is Miss Penny. Just rest easy, sweetheart.”

After what seemed an eternity, in which Jonas continued speaking soft words to his daughter and soothing her with a gentle touch at her forehead, the girl’s body began to calm.

Sam squatted nearby, silent but watchful. Penny reached out and touched the back of his hand, hoping to offer some comfort, but he snatched his arm away and stared out at the horizon.

“Mmm, Pa?”

The whisper of Breanna’s voice was the sweetest sound Penny had heard.

“Yes, sweetheart? I’m right here.”

The girl’s eyelashes fluttered and she opened her eyes, which were slow to focus on her father bent over her.

“Did…Miss Penny see?”

Chapter Four

J
onas knew immediately what was behind the timid question from his daughter: she was afraid her new friend would draw away because of the seizure. It had happened before, when someone didn’t understand that Breanna had a medical condition she couldn’t control.

It was another reason Breanna deserved the corrective treatment. His bright, beautiful daughter shouldn’t have to worry about people rejecting her.

Jonas sent a warning glance over his shoulder, but Miss Castlerock’s face was turned to the side, hiding her expression. She shuffled closer, dress bunching around her knees. He averted his eyes from her shapely calves and stopped her with a hand on her forearm.

“Breanna’s always a little disoriented after a seizure,” he warned, keeping his voice low.

Miss Castlerock looked up at him, blue eyes guileless. “All right.” She started to turn back toward his daughter, but Jonas wasn’t reassured that the banker’s daughter would treat Breanna with enough care.

“She’s just a little girl,” he reminded her, tugging her arm once again.

“I understand.”

Regardless, he stayed at Miss Castlerock’s elbow, putting himself between her and his daughter.

“Miss Breanna.”

His daughter’s brown eyes opened and he experienced a desperate urge to shield her from what Miss Castlerock would say.

“You scared me a little, honey,” the woman beside him said, taking his daughter’s small hand between both of hers.

“Oh.” Breanna gulped, and a tear slipped down her cheek. Miss Castlerock wiped it away and gently brushed back one of the damp brown curls at Breanna’s temple.

“But your papa knew just what to do, didn’t he? He hopped right out of that wagon and got you settled here in the shade. Are you thirsty? I’ve got the canteen here—let me help you hold your head up…”

And to Jonas’s astonishment, she cradled Breanna’s head in the crook of her elbow and helped the girl sip from the canteen. Breanna responded to the woman’s gentle ramblings, her eyes brightening even though she remained lethargic and would be for several hours.

No one but Peg Nelson, Walt’s late wife, had ever shown such compassion toward Breanna during one of her episodes. Even Mrs. Clark had been uncomfortable when Breanna had seizures. When his daughter had had a seizure during the Sunday children’s lesson, the teacher had firmly requested of him not to bring her back.

And now the one person he might’ve expected to treat Breanna callously was holding his daughter close and offering her comfort.

As Miss Castlerock resettled Breanna in the long prairie grass, Jonas glimpsed a flash of scarlet beneath the woman’s chin. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“Hmm?”

He mimed touching his own chin and she rubbed a hand beneath hers, smearing blood over her fingers.

“Oh. I must’ve scraped it when I knocked against the wagon wheel. Is it bad?” She tipped her head back, exposing the creamy span of her throat.

Jonas swallowed roughly as he became aware of the very delicate, feminine part of her body. He averted his eyes. “I—it looks—I can’t tell.”

She scooted closer and hiked her chin higher. “And now?”

Jonas’s face flamed but the woman obviously didn’t feel that she was acting inappropriately, so he glanced at the wound again.

“Looks like it’s scraped.” He shuffled backward and lurched to his feet, intending to get away from Miss Castlerock. “I may have some antiseptic in the wagon,” he said to excuse himself.

Unfortunately, she followed him. He knew it without looking. That’s how aware he was of her very presence. “Thank you. I appreciate your help getting cleaned up. Sam, why don’t you sit with Breanna for a few moments?”

Jonas glanced at the young man, who looked a bit uncomfortable as he knelt by Breanna’s side. Miss Castlerock leaned against the wagon, too close for Jonas’s comfort. He could feel her eyes burning into him, but he kept his face averted.

He rifled through the small tack box he’d built and attached under the wagon seat and came up with the bottle of antiseptic, wrapped in cloth so it wouldn’t break with the wagon’s jostling. It came in handy a little too often with his seven rambunctious sons around.

Maybe that was the way. If he didn’t want to make a fool of himself over a woman who outclassed him, he could treat her just like he would treat one of his boys.

But when he faced Miss Castlerock and her vivid blue eyes, his insides clutched up. She was nothing like a teen boy and he knew it. Couldn’t ignore it.

“Lift—” He choked on the word and had to clear his throat. “Lift your chin up again.”

She complied silently, bracing her hands against the wagon behind her. Her eyes slid closed as she tipped her face toward the overhead sun.

Looking down on her pert nose and lightly freckled cheeks, he was unable to squander the chance to see her features up close. Jonas soaked in the image and hoped it branded to his brain, so he could remember it later. Then he gulped. The way she waited, it almost seemed…like she was waiting to be kissed.

He blinked the thought away and used his thumb to steady her chin. With the same damp cloth she’d wetted for Breanna—he resolutely kept his mind off where the cloth had come from—he cleaned the blood away.

She felt so delicate beneath his fingers, her skin as silken as a kitten’s fur.

“Miss Castlerock, this might sting a little,” he warned her.

With her lips in his direct line of sight, he couldn’t help but notice the way they parted on a soft intake of air when he dabbed the antiseptic over her abraded skin.

As he pursed his mouth to blow air across the scrape, the same way he would for one of his kids, again the irrational desire to kiss her took him and he jerked away, moving to plug the cork back into the bottle of antiseptic and put it back in the tack box.

His hands trembled. Badly.

Had she sensed his attraction to her? Mortification swirled through him.

“I think, after all of this…we can call each other Penny and Jonas.” Her soft statement turned his head; she still leaned against the wagon, her blue eyes considering him.

“And, we are to be neighbors, at least for a little while.”

She wanted him to call her by her first name? He shook himself, trying to come out of the stupor her closeness had created in him. Most likely, after he dropped her and Sam at Walt’s homestead, he wouldn’t see her again. This was a busy time of year with haying coming up soon. What would it hurt to agree?

“As you wish.” He quickly steered away from the subject. “Breanna will need to catch her breath for a while longer. Between her episode and the late start we got this morning, it will be past dark before we get to your granddad’s place.”

“It’s all right. You couldn’t help what happened, and neither could Breanna.”

How he wished he
could
help his daughter. If only he’d gotten a loan, he could get Breanna the treatment she needed. The frequency of the seizures was random—he never knew when they were coming and sometimes she could go months without having one. But he wanted her
better.

Penny must’ve seen the despair on his face. She reached out and laid her hand on his arm. It burned, even through his sleeve and he wrenched away, pretending to concentrate on checking the horses’ harness again.

He needed distance from Penny and her overwhelming, vibrant presence, but he wasn’t likely to get it until he dropped her at her grandfather’s place. Why had he agreed to bring her along?

Thankfully, Penny returned to Breanna’s side and plopped down, spreading her skirts around her and speaking softly to the girl.

Sam Castlerock came to him. “I could rearrange some of the crates in the back, make it more comfortable for Miss Breanna to lie down.”

It was a kind offer and he doubted the boy could destroy any of the items. “Fine.”

“Breanna, sweetheart? I’m going to take a short walk, make sure we’re okay to stay here for a bit. You all right with Miss Penny?” He desperately needed to clear his head.

“Mm-hmm. I’m just tired…”

“I know you are. We’ll get back in the wagon in a little while.”

* * *

Penny huddled in the large slicker her near-silent companion had offered her after it had gotten dark and the night air cooled. She hadn’t thought to bring a shawl or coat with her, had forgotten how breezy it could be out on the plains.

Jonas had barely grunted two words to her after he’d cleaned the scrape on her chin, although he’d been gentle and conversational with Breanna as he helped her settle into the newly arranged wagon bed. The girl now slept deeply, oblivious to the wagon’s creaking and bumping.

Penny had been surprised when Sam had offered to help and followed through. The action was out of character for her spoiled brother, who was usually content to allow others to do work when he could get out of it. Maybe he’d been as shaken by Breanna’s episode as Penny had been at first. Perhaps this trip to visit his grandfather would be good for Sam. Help him turn over a new leaf. She prayed it was so.

She was even more surprised by the man sitting beside her. The gentle way he’d treated the scrape underneath her chin had echoed his tenderness when dealing with Breanna after her seizure, and Penny didn’t know what to make of it. She was used to consideration, even kindness, from the men in her acquaintance, but she couldn’t imagine her father taking the time and care to treat a scrape like Jonas had.

Was that very gentleness how he had wooed Millie Broadhurst in the first place? Penny tried to imagine the ingenue that she’d shared a room with in Mrs. Trimble’s Academy for Young Ladies, along with two other girls, even glancing at the bricklayer’s apprentice and couldn’t fathom it. Certainly Jonas’s face had been pleasing, although usually smudged with brick dust or plaster, but he’d been thin and gangly…nothing at all like the way he now filled out the shoulders of the dark jacket he’d worn the night of her father’s party.

Penny wished that errant thought away. There was no need to ponder the physical attributes of the man beside her.

Millie had only seemed interested in catching a rich husband. More so than Penny had been. Millie had had a practiced way of circulating the room at the different parties they’d attended, and often had afternoon callers at the finishing school.

And Penny and Millie hadn’t been particularly close. The other girl
was
a consummate flirt, so perhaps she’d made the first overture and approached Jonas during a break in his work. The house he’d been repairing had shared a small courtyard with Mrs. Trimble’s Academy, and they could’ve trysted there easily enough.

It was well known that the kitchen door was easily accessible if one of the young ladies had any desire to sneak out of the house at night. Penny had never taken advantage of it, though she’d heard some of the other girls whispering about it.

More speculations flitted through Penny’s mind as she watched the nearly full moon come up over the horizon. It was better than dwelling on her own problems with her father and Mr. Abbott. Nor would she ever ask Jonas about it, as the subject was considered improper. Too improper to be broached, even by someone as curious-natured as she was.

Penny shifted to relieve the ache in her back. She wasn’t used to remaining in one place for so long, and it seemed hours since they’d stopped to rest the horses and eat a small supper of stale biscuits and jerky.

Surely they were almost to her grandfather’s homestead? Unable to make out any familiar landmarks in the darkness, Penny could only guess at their location.

“We’ll be there soon.” The rumble of Jonas’s voice startled her. “I know you’re probably ready to get down by now.”

“Oh.” How considerate. “Thank you, but I’ll be all right. I’m sure you must be anxious to get home as well.”

The yellow moonlight illuminated the outline of his hat as he bobbed his head in agreement. To her surprise, he went on.

“It’s a good thing you and your brother have come to see Walt.”

His statement stirred the unease she’d felt since her mother had read her grandfather’s letter. “His letter was a bit vague on his recent illness. Was he terribly sick?”

“I didn’t even realize he’d been doing poorly until I realized we hadn’t seen him in a few days. Far as I know, it was mostly just a fever and cough.” Jonas rolled his shoulders, as if he, too, was tired of sitting still. “He’s getting older. It’s harder for him to get around, do the heavier chores. The boys and I try to get over to his place and help some, but he’s stubborn…doesn’t always let us help.”

“Hmm. That
does
sounds like Grandfather.” She’d often wondered why her mother hadn’t inherited any of her grandfather’s tenacity. A little would have done her good when dealing with an overbearing husband, but Penny’s mother remained a yielding, docile wife.

“I can’t imagine him fading away.” She didn’t want to, anyway. Every summer she’d visited, up to her fourteenth year, her grandfather had seemed indomitable. Always working the horses he raised, training them, loving on them. And on her grandmother, whom he’d doted on.

Her grandmother had passed away while Penny had been in finishing school. She’d been unable to attend the funeral—too far to travel—and her father hadn’t wanted her to visit often since she’d been back in Wyoming. She’d never really considered why. Grandfather was a devout Christian and would never let her get into a situation that was improper. Perhaps it was just the lack of adequate companionship. After all, her grandfather’s place was somewhat isolated.