The Outlaw Takes a Bride (16 page)

“Now, I think that’s a capital idea,” Cam said. “And while we’re at it, we should build a decent bedstead for you and the missus.”

Sally’s face burned. She jumped up and lifted her plate and silverware. “Anyone want more biscuits?”

“I’d take another,” Cam said.

She hastened to the worktable and stood for a moment with her back to them, trying to calm herself and willing the blood to leave her cheeks. Cam was a charming man, but he was a bit more blunt than she cared for.

Mark and Cam continued their conversation while she filled her dishpan with warm water and began to do up the dishes. She couldn’t hear everything over the clinking of pottery and pans, but she caught the words
lumber, sawmill
, and
money
.

When they rose, Mark brought his dishes over. “Where would you like your trunk?”

“Oh, right there at the foot of the bed, I guess.” She turned to look at the scanty floor space. “Thank you.”

They brought it in, and Sally kept busy while they arranged it.

Cam drove away in the rented wagon with his pinto tied behind it. He was back in an hour. All day the men kept busy. Even with his arm in the sling, Mark hammered, carried, and held boards in place for Cam. After the noon meal, they put a harness on Mark’s horse and ground drove him around the barnyard to get him used to pulling in harness then repeated the process with Cam’s paint.

Sally determined not to slack or feel sorry for herself. She arranged her things. The little house was so clean that she didn’t feel she needed to scrub everything. She did some extra cooking and went out back to survey the vegetable plants in the garden, where she salvaged some beans and root vegetables. The early garden was about done, but a few things still produced.

At midafternoon, she followed the sound of hammering to the barn, carrying a tray with cake and cool milk. She found them in a small room inside the barn, where they were constructing a bunk bed between saddle racks and a feed bin.

Mark smiled when he saw her in the doorway. “That looks terrific.” He and Cam came over to take the food and cups from the tray.

“Mighty good,” Cam said after his first bite of cake. “Mark, you picked yourself a winner.”

Sally smiled. “Thank you, Cam. I’m stewing what’s left of the chicken for supper.” She turned to Mark. “Do you have any seeds for planting a second garden?”

Mark hesitated. “Look in one of the crocks in the kitchen. I think I put the leftover seeds there.”

“Thank you.” She smiled at him. “When do you think I should plant the next round?”

“Uh…” Mark looked toward Cam.

“Not yet,” Cam said.

Mark nodded. “If you plant now, it’ll come up during the worst of the heat, and everything will die off.”

“Wait a few weeks,” Cam said. “Maybe the middle of August.”

Sally hated to wait that long. She wanted to see new plants popping up through the soil. But she supposed they were right. Meanwhile, they would be without fresh vegetables for a while.

“Once we get this bunk squared away, we’ll lay out where to build the addition to the cabin,” Mark said.

“Are you sure you want to?” Sally asked. “Maybe you should wait until your arm heals.”

“No, I want to get it done.”

She took that as a good sign. Mark wanted them to have their own bedroom and therefore privacy. “Thank you.”

He nodded gravely, and she wished Cam wasn’t there. She longed for her husband to take her in his arms and hold her while he described his dreams for the place. But Mark seemed to be a shy man, much more so than she had guessed during their correspondence. She hoped that was the only reason he held back. She looked at their handiwork.

“Well, Cam, you’ll have a bed. Maybe later, you can make some more furniture.”

“I’m thinking I’ll build a bunkhouse in the fall, if we make a profit this year,” Mark said.

“A bunkhouse? Do you anticipate hiring a lot of men?”

“Not right away, but Cam will need a bigger place than this.”

She nodded, wondering how much Mark felt he owed his friend. “Just don’t overdo it,” she said, eyeing his sling. Should she have made him more willow bark tea?

“I’ll see that he doesn’t,” Cam said.

The following morning, Johnny worked with Reckless in the harness for two hours while Cam worked on the farm wagon. After dinner, they hitched the horse to the repaired wagon.

“I’ll drive him,” Cam said.

“No sense two of us getting stove up if he takes exception to this,” Johnny said.

“If he does, you can’t pull hard enough with one arm to slow him down.” Cam shook his head. “You’d just be going in circles until you ran into something again. I’ll do it.”

Reckless stood quivering in the harness while Cam climbed to the seat. Johnny patted his horse’s neck with his good hand.

“Now you behave yourself. Cam’s not going to hurt you.”

Reckless’s ears shifted, one back toward Cam and the creaking wagon, the other forward toward his master.

“I mean it,” Johnny said softly. “Nobody’s chasing you. You’re just going to help us out. Be a good fella.” He gave one final pat and stepped back. Sally had come from the house and stood beside him.

“Think he’ll wreck the wagon again?”

“I sure hope not,” Johnny said.

“All right, crow bait,” Cam said in his most winsome voice. “Show the lady what a handsome fellow you are.” He clucked, and Reckless stepped gingerly forward. They went the length of the barnyard.

“Now comes the tricky part,” Johnny said, and Sally clutched his arm as though she was in mortal fear.

Cam turned the horse in a wide, slow circle and headed back toward them. When the wagon was aligned straight, he clucked to Reckless and fluttered the reins on the horse’s flanks without popping them. Reckless snorted, shook his head, and picked up a trot. He high-stepped and twitched his ears, but he didn’t bolt. Cam made him trot over close to where Johnny and Sally stood then pulled gently on the lines.

“Whoa.”

Johnny grinned and reached to scratch Reckless’s forelock. “What a good horse.”

“I’ll take him down the road a ways and turn around past the boulder,” Cam said.

Johnny nodded. “Take care.” He watched the wagon roll slowly down the dirt road. When it was out of sight, he turned to Sally. In the sunlight, her calico dress was a bright maroon with a small gold-and-black print. It brightened up the drab barnyard.

“What?” Sally asked softly.

He realized he had been staring.

“Nothing. You look nice.”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

Johnny’s chest tightened. He ought to compliment her more. Her smile made things look so much brighter—so much more doable. Maybe they could make this marriage work.

“We want to take the wagon into town and get some lumber for the spare room.”

“You’re going to start on it already?” Her blue eyes sparkled.

“That’s the plan. Maybe you should tell me what you’d like?”

Her cheeks flushed pink, and she gazed up at him, her lips parted. “Really? Oh, Mark, thank you! Suppose you show me where you’re aiming to put the door.”

She took his hand, and Johnny’s heart cannoned. He gulped and walked with her to the cabin. Inside, all was shadowy, but Sally’s presence beside him was solid and real. She smelled good. Her soft hand warmed his rough one. Her hair brushed his beard as she turned her head. Johnny caught his breath.

“Where will it be?” she asked.

“I was thinking over there, where the coal scuttle is now. What do you think? We could go off the back, if you want, but that would cut into the garden spot.”

“No, don’t do that. I’d like it off to the side. Or even the other side, near where the bed is.”

Johnny looked over toward the bunk, conscious that he was still holding her hand. His face heated on principle. “I hadn’t thought of putting it there. We could. Then I wouldn’t have to move the stovepipe.”

“It would be farther from the stove, but that might be a good thing,” Sally said. Suddenly she stepped directly in front of him and gazed up into his eyes. “Mark, you are glad I came, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

How she got into the crook of his arm, Johnny wasn’t sure, but he pulled her in close, and her hands sneaked around to his back. She laid her head against his chest. He’d never felt anything so glorious.

“We’ll put it wherever you want,” he said.

“And a window?”

“Yes, a window. Two if you like.” It was reckless, since he wasn’t sure he could pay for it.

Outside, the wagon’s creaks and Reckless’s trotting hoofbeats came closer. Paint nickered from the corral.

“Guess Cam’s back already,” Johnny said.

Sally pushed up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “This will work.”

Those three words lingered in his ear, and he squeezed her hard, just for a moment. He wished Cam wasn’t here. He wished he didn’t have to think about lumber and green horses and financing a building project.

He let go of her and stepped back.

“We’ll be going in town. Do you want anything from the store?”

Sally laughed, a low, musical laugh. “Dozens of things, but I can get along with what we have. Mark, I don’t want to spend money if we don’t have it.”

He hesitated. “Tell me two things you’d like.”

“All right, more sugar and some cocoa powder.”

“I’ll get ’em.”

“Thank you. That’s real nice.”

He went out into the sunshine grinning.

Cam was turning the wagon slowly at the end of the barnyard.

“Everything go all right?” Johnny called.

“Right as rain. You ready to go to town?”

Johnny met him near the well and swung up onto the wagon seat. He looked back at the cabin. Sally stood in the doorway. She smiled and waved. A breeze caught a tendril of her golden hair, and it waved, too. Johnny lifted his hand in salute. In spite of the pain in his arm, he couldn’t hold back his grin.

“You’re a lucky man,” Cam said.

“She’s going to make us a chocolate cake.”

“Real lucky.”

Johnny turned forward and sat grinning and thinking about his bride.

He wasn’t much help in loading the lumber, but Cam insisted it was all right. The sooner his arm healed, the sooner they would finish their building projects. Johnny still hadn’t told him that he was sleeping on the floor, but he thought Cam might have guessed.

Johnny was more useful in holding boards for Cam to nail in place. They spent several days on framing the walls for the new bedroom and laying the floor. When that was completed, Cam put him to work sanding the four bedposts for Sally’s new bed. Johnny could hold a piece of wood steady by leaning on it or bracing his foot against it, and then he could sand with one hand.

After three days of work, during which the room slowly took shape, Cam set off alone after breakfast to fetch the windows.

“Now, don’t let Sally peek in there today,” he told Johnny before driving off. “We want her to be surprised when she sees it, with the glass windows and the new bedstead and all.”

“Oh, she’ll be surprised all right,” Johnny said. Cam had measured the bed frame himself, cautioning Johnny to make it wide enough for two people, but not too wide. “We’ll need a double mattress.” He frowned at Cam. “We don’t have much money left in the bank, but get some ticking.”

“Sure,” Cam said. “Sally can stitch it up, and we’ll fill it with fresh hay for her.”

Johnny watched him drive off, a little nervous.
Why couldn’t Mark have taken care of all this before… ? Before what?
Johnny sighed. If his brother had lived, he probably would have done exactly what he and Cam were doing now—made the cabin a nicer place for Sally.

The thought of his brother as Sally’s husband made Johnny feel like an interloper. Mark should be the one Sally did things for, the one she hugged around the waist when she was happy with him. Mark should be the one who would share the new room with her.

Johnny wasn’t sure he could bring himself to move in there when it was finished. Maybe Sally could put her things in there and he could keep the bunk in the corner.

But he knew that wouldn’t wash. Cam would have fits, and Sally… How would she feel? Would she be disappointed? Angry? Hurt? Confused?

Johnny walked over to the fence and gazed out at the cattle that grazed so peacefully. Mark had probably had a good stash of food, and maybe some cash when he was attacked. He’d have been in pretty good shape, or he wouldn’t have offered a woman his support and protection. Where did they stand now? As near as he could tell, he had about forty dollars total and three people to take care of. Where had Mark expected to get more money? He’d told Sally he intended to buy more cattle. Had the outlaws gotten the money he had set aside for their purchase?

“Mark!”

He turned toward the cabin. Sally was there in the doorway, her patchwork apron picking up the red of her calico dress and the gold of her gleaming hair. She waved, and Johnny raised his hand to wave back.

“I’ve got fresh gingerbread and whipped cream.”

A piece of something inside him slipped into a chink. How could she be so cheerful, when he found it hard to even smile? Yet she plunged into the work of the ranch and did special things for him. She’d mixed the medicine for him those first few days, when his arm hurt so bad. She baked up sweets and folded his bedding every morning. The cabin stayed neat as a pin, even though they barely had room to turn around. Sally didn’t complain, either. He’d caught her fetching her own pail of water yesterday, and she’d said she didn’t mind, since his arm was still mending. Johnny had determined that she would never be short on water once he was healed.