The Unexpected Bride (The Brides Book 1) (21 page)

But what could he do?

“This’ll be just fine,” he repeated and stole a glance at Rebecca’s face.

With her bottom lip tucked between her teeth, she looked a mite worried about the sleeping arrangements as well, but “Thank you, Dally” was all she said. She turned immediately to help Catherine get her younger children dried off. To Isaac it seemed like she might be trying to distract herself.

Lucky girl. She had something to do.

He watched silently as Rebecca soothed the smallest girl by holding her in her arms and rocking her from side to side. The child’s cries quieted, and soon her head fell against Rebecca’s shoulder. She looked up at her with trusting eyes, her eyelids drooping low and her small mouth relaxed in a contented “O,” which struck him as sweet. As soon as little Bess’s eyes shut all the way, Rebecca tucked her into bed—a small mat in the corner—and kissed her forehead.

“She’ll sleep well tonight,” Catherine whispered with a gentle smile and laid a hand on Rebecca’s shoulder. She bent to kiss the now gently snoring child and pulled Rebecca along by the arm. “Come on in our bedroom for a moment and I’ll get you a nice, dry nightgown and wrap.”

Isaac heard the woman’s words from across the room. He watched as Catherine sent Dally a quick smile, and she and Rebecca disappeared behind a door in the back. He could only imagine what they were doing in there.

“Well, looks like we’ve got the place to ourselves for a spell.”

“How do you figure?” Isaac looked around the main room of the cabin, packed with little sleeping bodies curled up on almost every flat surface.

“What do you mean?” Settling himself into a chair at the long table, Dally looked back at Isaac blankly. “Oh.” He seemed to register Isaac’s confusion and chuckled under his breath. “Having the children sleeping all around is so normal, I forget they’re here sometimes. Don’t worry. Once they’re asleep, they sleep straight on until morning. Even little Bess.”

“I see.” Isaac eased his frame onto a chair across the table from Dally and stretched out his legs. As they talked and laughed about old times, he made a conscious effort not to look over at the closed door to the bedroom, where he knew Rebecca was getting changed.

“I’ll get you a nightshirt.” Dally stood as the women rejoined them and, after ducking into the bedroom, returned to hand Isaac a folded white nightshirt. “It may be a trifle short on you, but it should do for the night.” He chuckled. “Come along, wife, let’s get to bed. Goodnight, you two. We’ll see you in the morning.”

“Goodnight.” Isaac looked after them dumbly as they went to their room and closed the door.

“Go on and get out of those wet clothes.” Rebecca pointed to the alcove. “I’ll wait here.” She sat at the table and waved him on with a flick of her hand.

Isaac nodded and stepped into the small space, pulling the curtain closed behind him. He swiftly changed into the nightshirt, feeling like a man wearing child’s clothes. The shirtsleeves fell several inches above his wrists, and the tail didn’t hang nearly low enough. Not low enough to cover his knees anyway. He’d never given much thought to his body before, but the thought of Rebecca seeing him all wrists and knees made him feel foolish and exposed.

Shaking off his discomfort, he pushed back the curtain and picked his way across the darkened room, being careful not to step on any of the children. Rebecca had turned down the lantern, he noticed with a rush of gratitude. He avoided meeting her eyes as he hung his damp trousers, shirt, and socks over the backs of the kitchen chairs. With any luck, they’d be dry by morning.

His chore done, he stared at his clothes for a moment longer. He finally turned to the woman sitting in front of him, not three feet away. Her gaze wandered over him, then she looked into his eyes. He could have sworn her brows lifted slightly and the corner of her lips twitched.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“Who me?” She had the nerve to giggle, muffling the sound with her hand. She had a merry light in her eyes that he found appealing.

“What?” he demanded with mock severity and looked down at his ridiculous attire.

“N—nothing,” she spluttered and giggled again.

Her girlish-sounding giggles were so infectious, he found himself chuckling along with her, quietly, so as not to wake the sleeping children. They never stirred. The sound of their slow, regular breathing in the lantern’s soft orange glow made the room seem a living thing, warm and homey.

“Come on then. Let’s get to bed,” he repeated Dally’s words for lack of anything better to say.

Her giggles stopped abruptly, and her smile wavered. “All right.”

SEVENTEEN

I
saac gripped the lantern with one hand and with the other led Rebecca to the alcove, holding her elbow to help her keep her balance as they stepped through the maze of sleeping children. The little alcove had seemed confining when he’d changed into the nightshirt, but now, with Rebecca with him, it wasn’t large enough for the two of them to stand without touching.

She faced him toe to toe. Gathering the collar of her wrap under her chin, she raised wide eyes to his. She looked sweet—kissable, even—and he found himself almost forgetting about Jack.

He shook himself.

How could he forget?

Frowning, he quickly turned down the wick, casting their little “room” in near total darkness. He set the lantern on the small table wedged into the corner at the foot of the bed. The moon must have broken through the rain clouds, for its soft glow lit the thin curtain. He could just barely make out the outline of Rebecca’s face as she stood before him. He could feel her staring at him.

He stretched out on the pallet and pulled the covers up. He was too long for the mattress and had to fold himself up to fit. It would surely make for an interesting night. “Come on then.” He silently grumbled to himself about how low and gravelly his voice was. He sounded more angry than anything, when he knew he was simply nervous about their proximity.

After standing in the dark for a moment longer, she curled up in front of him, her head resting on the crook of his arm, her back pressed against his chest. Her closeness made breathing impossible, not simply because she was leaning against him, but her sweet-smelling hair was inches from his nose. He gingerly settled his other arm over her waist and gave in to the urge to hold her a little closer. She snuggled against him with a sigh and didn’t say a word about him holding her too tightly.

If he slept at all tonight it would be a miracle.

“Do you have dreams, Isaac?” she whispered, and he was reminded of a time when he was very small and another boy had spent the night with him up in the loft. The two of them had spoken in hushed whispers late into the night. That was back when his mama was alive. She’d called up several times to hush them and told them to get back to sleep. He smiled a little at the memory.

“What kind of dreams? You mean like nightmares—imaginings—that sort of thing?” He was already scouring his mind for those kind of dreams, when she turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. Not that she could have seen much of him in the dark. All he could see of her was the dim outline of her profile.

“No, I mean what did you imagine your life would be, you know, when you grew up? What you wanted most.”

“I see.” He paused to think about it, but really only one thing came to mind, and it was immediate. “I always saw myself as having a place like this. Making something of myself.”

“So you’ve done it then. You’re living your dream.” She settled her head back onto the crook of his arm again, as if they were an old married couple used to spooning in a tiny bed.

Living his dream?

Was he? Isaac wondered.

No. On one level, maybe he was, but there had to be more. Otherwise he wouldn’t feel so not-quite-finished all the time. Would he?

“I guess,” he said noncommittally. “What about you?”

“Me?” she asked. Seems like if she’d asked him, she would’ve been prepared for him to ask her too, but she sounded surprised, like he’d caught her off guard.

“Yes, you,” he teased, relaxing more fully. Her hair was soft against his arm—her sweet, lemony scent right there near his nose. He breathed it in.

“Well, I guess I already told you,” she said shyly. “You know...”

A baby. She’d told him she’d wanted a baby, almost right off too.

“Oh,” he said, and allowed the silence of the night to fall over them. “You mean a baby?”

Great, now she had him thinking about babies and all sorts of other things. Like kissing her, for starters, and how they were—conveniently—already married.

“In a way,” she said, startling him. “But in a way not.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s not just a baby. I’ve just always wanted—I don’t know—to belong. To have a family of my own.”

He pondered that, confused. “Didn’t you ‘belong’ back home?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” she said readily, without having to think about it at all.

She couldn’t have surprised him more if she’d said she’d really grown up in the circus.

“Why?”

“I guess I was always different from everyone else.”

Isaac fell silent, unable to come up with any words to respond to that. Rebecca had never felt like she belonged in her own family? She’d likely built all sorts of dreams around marrying Jack, about starting a family of her own with him. And then Jack had married another woman. No wonder she’d signed up to be a mail-order bride, although he couldn’t help wondering if the men back East didn’t have eyes.

“Goodnight, Isaac,” she whispered and yawned.

“Goodnight,” he said. He tried to sleep, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what she said. Maybe Rebecca had hoped she’d belong here. Maybe that’s why she’d come. But where she’d gotten that idea from, he couldn’t imagine. A logging camp was about as far from where she belonged as he could think of, except maybe somewhere even more untamed.

He idly stroked the back of her hand, laying on the mattress so close to his.

He wanted her to feel like she belonged with him.

Fast on the heels of that thought came a sudden rush of icy-cold panic and an almost irresistible urge to run the other way.

***

Later the next morning, after Becky had returned with Isaac to their own cabin, she eyed him thoughtfully as he cleared off for work like a spooked raccoon running from a pack of hounds.

Mister About-Face.

What’s gotten into him?
she wondered.

She left soon after, riding Siren through the forest to hunt down their next meal. Thinking about her feelings for Isaac made focusing on the task nearly impossible. Last night in his arms, she’d been all too aware of him as an attractive man. She’d liked the warmth of his solid chest against her back, the weight of his arm across her waist, his thumb smoothing the back of her hand over and over. Her budding feelings for him had made her want him to hold her even closer still and kiss her, but he’d simply lain beside her and slept.

She didn’t even think kissing her had crossed his mind, which was a little disheartening. Didn’t he
want
to kiss her? That little alcove had practically been made for a romantic embrace. But no, he’d allowed her to snuggle close, only because they’d had to on that narrow bed. And after all that deep eye-gazing they’d done on the dance floor, and the laughter they’d shared—deep belly laughs that had assured her they could have a good life together if they tried.

Maybe it had all been in her head.

Maybe Brody had been right from the start, and Isaac had never wanted a wife.

Several times, as Siren picked her way along the trail, Becky found herself adrift, barely aware of her surroundings. Hearing the distinctive warble of a wild turkey in the brush ahead of her, she came to a standstill. She reached over her shoulder for her gun, pulling it over her head.

“Well, wouldya lookee here.”

Becky jumped. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest. Turning to glance in the direction of the hearty male voice, she nearly slipped from Siren’s back in her haste. She felt her eyes go wide and gulped to clear her throat.

“Sam.”

“Uh-huh. Now why am I not surprised to find my son’s lovely little wife out hunting for game?”

“Oh, Sam, please don’t tell Isaac. Please?” Becky beseeched him with her eyes.

“I don’t know... That’s asking an awful lot of a bored old man.” His silvery-blue eyes twinkled with merriment.

Becky’s heart sank. She had no right to ask Sam to keep her secret from Isaac.

“I just want to be a real lady for Isaac. I’m afraid he’d be offended by my rather—unusual ways.”

“Pshaw.” Sam choked on a laugh and coughed into his hand. He gingerly rubbed at his ribs as if the effort to quiet his mirth had pained him. “Isaac?”

“Well, I remember Isaac saying his mama was ‘a real lady.’”

Sam’s eyes turned soft. One corner of his lips lifted in a half smile. “My sweet Emily. Yeah, she was quite a lady.”