Wolf Bride (5 page)

“No, I suppose not.” He sidestepped so I wouldn’t walk too close to the woodpile by the barn.

“Maybe I could wear it like this just for you though. When we’re here. And when you’re being particularly nice to me.”

He pushed the barn door aside and brushed his fingers against my back as he guided me toward the horse stalls. “I’d like that.”

A dark mare stood exhausted over a foal in the hay. Still wet, the baby was just starting to test pressure on his front legs.

I gasped and sank down to watch him through the wooden bars of the stall door. “Oh Luke! He’s just the dandiest little thing!”

“I know you didn’t want to get up, and you surely could’ve seen him tomorrow, but then he’d be running around and dry and well on his way to independence. There’s something magic about seeing them when they’re so new and haven’t walked yet. Seeing them eat for the first time and buck around when they think they’re big enough to run.”

I was having legitimate trouble keeping the squeal of delight securely in my throat.

“There he goes,” he said, squatting next to me and resting a hand comfortably across the stall door.

Indeed the little colt was wobbling upward in a grand effort at his first steps. The mare nudged and sniffed him as a reward for his attempts. After a few falls into the soft hay beneath, the tiny horse with the blaze of white down his nose stood and wobbled over to nurse from his mother. The remnants of an umbilical cord still hung from his underbelly and the mare licked his dark coat clean as he fed.

Luke was right. Tender moments like these were surely magical.

Kristina

I was at a loss as to what to do, and it was utterly infuriating. The boys, who worked like a well-oiled flour mill to load the wagon, weren’t the cause of my frustration. Instead, I was angry with myself for not somehow knowing how to help. Likely, these two cowboys had been working together long enough that they just knew how to get everything packed for town between the two of them without even saying a word. But there were three of us now, and one of us was expending a lot of energy flitting around and accomplishing absolutely nothing.

In my defense, I did manage to fry us up some crunchy eggs.

The sun was just peeking its sleepy head over the horizon, and the gray sky was streaked with the bright pinks and oranges that told of a clear day to come. Luke somehow wrangled two half wild and wholly enormous pigs and tossed them in the back of the buggy like he was in a daisy bouquet tossing contest. His strength was downright disturbing but would serve me well enough in the future.

Tied or not, those pigs were frightening and I’d walk all those miles to town rather than sit in the back with their hungry, beady little eyes on me. Thankfully, Jeremiah offered to sit in back this time. He didn’t know it, but my bruised bum thanked him. My heart did too, because the seat up front wasn’t very big and I had to sit hip to hip with Luke while he capably drove the two horse team.

His warmth seeped slowly through the thin fabric of my dress and I greedily accepted it. And every once in a while, when I was certain he wasn’t paying attention, I would sniff him nonchalantly. He smelled of man and earth, hay and horse, and shaving cream he’d found the time to use on his face this morning. He was intoxicating.

Luke was a dashing man bearded, but shaven? I wanted to sleep in his left dimple.

“You did something different with your hair,” he said, interrupting my silent swoon.

I had, in fact, and how very observant of the man to notice. Braids cupped both sides of my head and met in the back, where my curls were pinned neatly into place. “I saw a lady wear her hair like this once and I always wanted to try it.”

He poked out his bottom lip and nodded as if he were impressed, and I graced him with a wicked grin. “You been with many saloon girls, Mr. Dawson?” I asked a little too innocently. “You seem to have a lot of misconceptions about how we should act and look.”

When he talked, the corner of his mouth turned up. “Just trying to find out more about you, Ms. Yeaton.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“A few,” he admitted. “You been with many cowboys?”

I tipped my chin up and tried not to smile. “A few.”

“Well, good. I expect you to have a trick or two up your sleeve then.”

I had to swallow my laughter while Jeremiah lit into his brother for the inappropriateness with which he spoke to me. The grin on Luke’s face said he didn’t pay much mind to the lecture either. True, sometimes Luke was crass and too honest for his own good, but I realized at just that moment I liked that in a man. Jeremiah’s instincts had been right to foist me off onto his brother. We would’ve made a terrible match.

By the time our wagon ambled onto Main Street, most of the town’s residents were up and about, running their errands or talking comfortably in small groups in front of the various stores. I couldn’t read a letter of the wooden signs that hung over the shops, but I could guess at most of them. A trio of men laughed in front of what was likely a cabinetry or wood working store. Two scantily dressed ladies draped themselves around one of the columns outside the swinging doors of the saloon and catcalled passersby. And two women sat on a bench outside the land office with their heads tipped toward each other, whispers hidden by delicately gloved hands.

Their smug glances my way had me trying my best to look anywhere else. It was foolish to let the gossip of others affect me. And besides, I didn’t really know what they were saying so it could’ve even been something kind about me.

Cruel giggles drifted across the wind.

Or maybe not.

Luke pulled the wagon up to the general store and hopped out. He reached for my waist and pulled me easily over the mud and onto the stairs. The furred hides that hung from the door waved in the wind and the sweet smell of candy that wafted from the shop was a strange combination with animal and mud.

“I need to take these pigs to sell to the butcher first thing and I don’t think it’s the place for a woman.”

My heart flip-flopped uncomfortably at the thought of being separated from him. “I’m sure I will handle a butcher shop just fine.”

“That’s the thing. It’s not really a shop. He’s a big German man, does most of his butchering out front. Bloody business, his job is.”

I tried to keep the green out of my face. He handed me my dress, subtly wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine to hide it from Jeremiah. “My brother will make sure you get to the dressmaker’s safely, and I’ll meet you out front when you’re done.”

A slight nod and he was back in the wagon and off for the south side of town.

“Mind if I run an errand real quick?” Jeremiah asked, offering his arm. “It won’t take but a second and we’re right here.”

“Sure.” I slipped my hand into the curve of his elbow and he led me to the post office two shops down. My heeled, leather shoes made soft clomping sounds against the worn wood of the walkway and I nodded demurely to a couple of cowboys who tipped their hats to me. They burst out laughing as soon as we passed and for the first time in a long time, I wished I wasn’t dressed like a saloon girl. It certainly wasn’t making me any friends. A man whistled from across the street. Well, all right, it wasn’t making me the right sort of friends.

Jeremiah opened the door to the post office and waited for me to enter before following behind. He leaned against the counter and pulled a linen paper envelope from his duster pocket. His hat was the same color of brown as the counter, and he set it down respectfully and rubbed a hand through his short hair. It must’ve been a family habit because Luke often did that too. No one came immediately to the front of the store, so Jeremiah pressed the bell on the end of the table.

“What’re you mailing?” I asked.

“Another advertisement for a wife.” He winked and said, “This time I was a bit more specific in my wants.”

For reasons I couldn’t myself explain, my gut went cold. It could’ve been the realization that I really hadn’t been good enough for Jeremiah, or the worry over another woman coming into the fray out here in the wilderness, but likely it was the part of me that sang that Luke would like this new woman better. She’d be able to cook and sew and milk cows, and then he’d realize how completely useless I was to him.

Jeremiah’s eyebrows turned down slightly and his coffee colored eyes searched my face. “I still want a wife, Kristina. You get along fine with Luke, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes. And I know I’ll grow to care for him in time. It’s just…” How did one explain matters of the heart to a man? I didn’t even understand my worry. “What if she’s some highborn lady with good breeding and education and taste, and Luke realizes what he’s missing out on?”

Jeremiah snorted. “Luke ain’t one to fall for proper ladies, Ms. Yeaton. He calls them uppity. You’re plenty safe if that’s what you’re really worried about.”

I gripped onto the wrapped dress and the paper made a satisfying crinkling sound as his assurances washed over me. Jeremiah should put another ad out. Anyone with eyes could see he was wanting for a woman of his own. I couldn’t let my insecurities ruin his chance at happiness.

“Well, I wish you the best of luck. Hopefully you don’t get another saloon girl. Could you point me in the direction of the dressmaker’s shop?”

“You take a left out the front door and it’s on this side of the street. It says Marta’s Dress Shop on the sign out in front of the store.”

Hesitating, I opened my mouth and closed it again. “Okay,” I said slowly. “What does the word
Marta’s
look like?” The heat in my cheeks was growing more uncomfortable by the moment.

Jeremiah lowered his voice and leaned forward. “Do you not have any words?”

“No, sir. I didn’t do much schooling in Chicago.” The admission tied my stomach in knots. Not the sort sailors used on their boats, but the kind of knots lawmen tied hangman’s nooses with.

He grabbed the package out of my hands and I stifled a yelp. He was going to see what I’d done to the dress and hate me for it and something deep inside of me wanted Jeremiah to accept me for Luke. He didn’t open it though. Instead he pulled a pencil from a wooden cylinder on the other side of the counter and wrote a jumble of letters across the front of my package.

“It looks like that. Look for this letter first because there aren’t any other stores that start with M.”

Mortified, I took the package from his outstretched hand and shuffled out the front door just as the postman entered. Not knowing my letters and reading hadn’t been as embarrassing in Chicago because the lot I hung around with weren’t of the highly educated sort. Most of us couldn’t read or write, but we didn’t need to either. Those were the skills of the frivolous. But here, I found myself silently hoping Jeremiah wouldn’t tell Luke of my shortcomings.

I couldn’t see the signs well enough without standing in the street, so by the time I matched the first word to that of a shop, the bottom six inches of my dress hem were soaked and a wet, dingy brown. And my shoes? Well those hadn’t even been cleaned after my first day fresh off the carriage, so now they boasted a second helping of muddy grit on them. I stomped my heels off as best I could on the wicker mat out front and trudged into the shop.

It was a small room but smelled of clean fabric, and the two small windows out front held pretty sunflower yellow curtains. I smiled at the beautiful readymade dresses that hung from the wood panel walls in all of the colors imaginable.

A gray haired woman with a bun that sat right atop her head looked over her spectacles with a frown of disdain. “Don’t come in any further,” she said in a voice that cracked with age. “You’re tracking mud all through my store.”

I’d lifted the hem of my dress to avoid it but my shoes had, in fact, made little spots where the soles still held the remnants of my dirt laden hike. “Oh, terribly sorry.”

“What do you want?”

The malice in her voice made it hard to put my thoughts together and I stuttered. “I-I needed a dress mended. Redone, really, to better fit me.”

“I don’t make dresses for whores.”

“It’s not a working dress. I wanted a fine dress to wear to town. See, I’m not like that anymore.” She stared at me blankly and I arched my eyebrow. “I don’t whore anymore.”

“You and your kind won’t find any help here.”

A slow boil rose from my toes and I fought the urge to give that grievous woman the tongue lashing of her life. My kind? What did that even mean? I had to do what I had to do to survive. I didn’t have some frilly dress shop to be able to make a living, or a man to support me in Chicago. It was just me and if I didn’t work, I didn’t eat. And despite my occupation, I was still a person.

“You have a nice day,” I gritted through clenched teeth as I made my way carefully back out the door.

I sat with a huff on a wooden backed bench outside. If the only dressmaker in town wouldn’t help me, then how in tarnation was I going to ever get a proper dress? A traitorous tear slipped the corner of my eye and I wiped it with the back of my hand before it made a full trail down my cheek. I sniffed.

“Are you already done?” Luke said.

“Aaah!” I yelled in the most unfeminine sound that ever graced anyone’s throat. Lovely.

Luke rubbed his ear and reached for the door handle to the dress shop.

Panicked, I asked, “What’re you doing?”

He hesitated. “I’m going to pay the lady.”

“No need. I’ve decided to go somewhere else.”

“There is nowhere else,” he said slowly as a suspicious frown commandeered his face.

“Then I’ll try to fix it myself.”

“What’s going on?”

“I’m hungry.”

His glorious emerald eyes tightened. “You know you play on my instincts when you tell me you need something like that. I think you do it to change the subject.”

“I know nothing about that,” I argued. It was mostly true. “I just know I’m hungry.” And with that I stood and stomped toward the saloon.

“Ho!” he said, gripping my arm. “We aren’t eating at the cathouse.”

“Well, why the devil not?”

“Because I’ve been with half the girls in there and it ain’t the place for us to have our first meal in public together. We’ll eat at Cotton’s instead.”

I stopped and searched his face. “Will they serve a girl like me?”

His eyes softened. “Cotton’s serves everyone. C’mon, it’s across the street.”

Fantastic. More mud. Except when I took the last step to plop my poor abused shoe into the filth, Luke bent over and lifted me easily into his arms. I was just as shocked as the choking gossipers in front of the land office. It did warm me up inside and the view of Luke’s smooth jawline was quite lovely, so I wrapped my hands delicately around his neck and enjoyed the ride. Once across, he offered his arm gallantly and smiled when I fit my fingers into the crook of it.