Montana Bride (13 page)

“I can do it,” he protested.

“Your hands aren’t warm yet. It’ll be quicker if I do it.”

He sagged onto the bed with a groan, allowing her to see the full extent of his weariness.

Hetty untied both hobnail boots, grabbed the heel of one boot and tugged it off, then pulled off the other. “I should check your feet,” she said, looking up at him.

“Go ahead.”

She pulled off one sock, then the other. He moaned as Hetty prodded his feet. “They’re not as bad as Griffin’s, but you need to get them warmed up.” She pulled the socks back on and ordered, “Under the covers.”

She’d had a great deal of time to check out their bedroom, so she knew there were extra blankets in the chest at the foot of the bed. She grabbed a gray wool blanket and opened it just enough to add an extra layer of warmth around Karl’s feet. Then she leaned down to untie her shoelaces, slipped off her shoes, and slid under the covers with him.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.

“Your hands still need to be warmed.” She turned on her side toward him, rearranging her skirt around her legs to avoid the ice-cold sheets. Then she placed one of his hands under her left armpit, reached for the other hand, and did the same thing on the right. Turned the way she was, the weight of her breast necessarily rested on Karl’s wrist, and the weight of his other wrist necessarily rested against her other breast. There was nowhere to look except directly into Karl’s heavy-lidded brown eyes.

“You can sleep if you like,” she said.

He grinned, revealing the overlapping front tooth that she found so intriguing, and said, “I’m suddenly not the least bit sleepy. I can’t imagine why.”

She laughed, and that easily the awkwardness of the situation disappeared. Not the tension, just the awkwardness. She was very much aware of being in bed with Karl.

He hissed and wriggled the fingers of the hand closest to the bed. Hetty caught her breath as his fingers brushed her breast. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“I must be thawing out. It feels like a million pinpricks.”

“Can you stand this a little longer?”

Karl met her gaze and said, “I could stand this the rest of my life.”

Hetty was startled into laughter again. “Are you trying to seduce me, Karl?”

“Is it working?”

Hetty felt herself flush at his intent look. Of course. He was thinking about consummating the union. Hetty’s mind skittered away from the possibility. Making love was the furthest thing from her mind at the moment. Or ought to be.

“I was worried about you,” she admitted, because she needed something to say.

“Were you?”

“And about Griffin, of course.”

“Of course.”

He wasn’t helping the conversation along, and Hetty struggled to come up with something else to say. “Grace was beside herself with worry. She was afraid Griffin might die thinking she didn’t love him. I told her Griffin knew she loved him even though she was angry with him, that sometimes we get impatient with those we care about most.” Hetty knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t seem to stop.

There was no fire in the fireplace, so the room was cold enough for her to see her breath when she spoke. “I should get up and light a fire.”

“Don’t leave,” Karl said.

The low, rumbling timbre of his voice sent a frisson of feeling down Hetty’s spine. She realized she’d been looking into Karl’s eyes all this time. And he’d been looking back.

Karl’s hands were in agony. And his heart was in agony. He wanted to make love to his wife. Her mouth was only a few inches from his own, but he felt certain that if he made the slightest move to kiss her, she would flee. But the pain in his hands—and his heart—was relentless. He counted
one
…
two
…
three
…before his restraint fled.

He leaned forward, and his lips met hers. He felt Hetty trembling and gentled the touch of his mouth to entice her to stay with the kiss, to beguile her to stay with him.

The kiss became more than a meeting of lips. He was living a fantasy. Hetty’s lips were soft and surprisingly willing. His tongue barely touched the seam, and her sudden gasp allowed him to intrude, tasting her sweetness. She might have fled then, except his hands were tucked into her armpits. Despite the pain, he used them to hold her in place.

Her upper arm moved as her fingers twined in his hair, and his hand was suddenly free to caress her. He turned so he could hold her breast more firmly, while his thumb found the peak. Karl moaned deep in his throat, but he wasn’t sure whether the sound was caused by the soft weight of her breast in his hand or the excruciating reawakening of his fingers.

He grazed the inside of her upper lip with his tongue and felt her gasp again. This time she leaned into his body. Her fingers slid down to his nape and did something there that caused him to grow hard and ready.

He drew his other hand free to grasp her hair and angle her head for a deeper kiss. But he must have pulled her hair or done something else to break the spell, because an instant later, Hetty was out of bed and on her feet, staring at him with wide, dazed eyes, one hand on her heart, the back of the other against her gasping mouth. She was shaking her head almost in bewilderment.

“Oh, my. Oh, my.”

Karl sat up and scooted toward her, but she extended her palm and said, “Stay where you are.”

He stopped and held out his hands, wanting to draw her in again, wanting what had happened to continue to its logical conclusion.

The look on her face told him their interlude was over. Whatever enchantment had held her still for his kiss had dissipated like snow melting under the sun’s hot glare. She was awake and aware and alarmed.

“It’s all right, Hetty,” he said in an attempt to keep her from literally fleeing the room. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“We can’t be kissing like that, Karl.”

“Why not?”

She seemed to struggle for an answer and finally said, “I can’t feel like…I won’t allow…I shouldn’t be…”

“It was only a kiss, Hetty.”

“With both of us lying in bed,” she pointed out. “And the children needing us in the next room.”

He wondered why she sounded so upset. “We’re in our own bed, in our own room,” he said. Maybe she’d suddenly realized that he’d been kissing and caressing her in broad daylight.

But that wasn’t the reason she gave him for stopping. What she said was, “We hardly know each other, Karl.”

He’d told her she could take all the time she needed to feel comfortable with him before they consummated their marriage. But he hadn’t realized how much he would want his wife.

“You’ve had two weeks to get to know me. How much longer do you need?” Karl heard the impatience—and irritation—in his voice.

She must have heard it, too, because her face blanched. “Just…more time.”

“How much more?” Karl persisted.

“Till Christmas,” she blurted.

He could see it would have been fine with her if he never touched her again. He was wondering how he was going to keep his hands off of her for that long. He looked her in the eye and said, “So a month from now.”

She caught her lower lip in her teeth and gave a jerky nod.

“Fine,” he said. But he knew he was only postponing the inevitable. He would be the same man four weeks from now. But perhaps by then Hetty would realize there was a great deal more to him than what she saw on the outside.

The bedroom door opened at the same time as someone knocked on it, and Karl saw Grace standing in the doorway. He shuddered to think what she would have seen if she’d walked in a minute or two sooner. He saw from the blush that appeared on Hetty’s cheeks as she met his gaze that she’d realized the same thing.

“Knock first. Wait for permission to enter. Then come in,” Karl instructed the girl.

“Oh? Did I interrupt something?”

Karl glanced at Hetty, whose blush deepened. “Come on in,” he said when the girl stayed by the door. “What do you want?”

“Is everything all right?” she asked, looking from Hetty, standing beside the bed, to Karl, sitting in his stocking feet on the messy bedclothes.

“I was trying to get Karl’s hands and feet warm,” Hetty explained as she crossed to Grace. “So I put them under my arms.”

“In bed?” Grace asked doubtfully.

Hetty avoided Karl’s gaze as she explained, “His feet needed to be warmed, too, and that seemed the easiest way to achieve both.”

Karl wondered why Hetty felt it so necessary to excuse those mussed bedclothes. They were married, for heaven’s sake!

“What do you want?” Karl asked again.

“I need to talk to Hetty,” Grace said.

Hetty glanced back at Karl and said, “You should stay in bed and get some sleep. I’ll wake you at suppertime.” Then she put an arm around Grace’s shoulders and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Karl was left sitting on the edge of the bed. Alone.

He was tempted to put his shoes back on and go out there and confront Hetty and demand…What? That she come back to bed and make love to him? Was that all he really wanted from Hetty? Her beautiful body in bed? Would that be enough to satisfy him for the rest of his life?

Karl had resigned himself to marrying a woman sight unseen, but he’d paid close attention to the letters his prospective bride had written. Those letters had been full of hopes and dreams. They’d been written by an intelligent, imaginative woman. He’d figured that if he and his wife had a love of learning in common, they would have a good basis on which to build a relationship to last a lifetime.

Those letters had influenced his immediate attraction to Hetty. But he was beginning to realize that there was a great deal he didn’t know about his wife. She was as skittish as a virgin whenever he touched her. He wondered what her relationship with her previous husband—or husbands—had been like. Had she been a victim of violence? Her wound seemed to suggest it.

It had never occurred to him that his bride might have some aversion to sex, as opposed to sex specifically with him, when she’d borne two children.

Karl wondered whether Hetty was physically attracted to him. He didn’t think so. On the other hand, when he’d kissed her in bed, she’d kissed him back. He wasn’t mistaken about that. She must at least enjoy kissing him. Otherwise, she could have turned her head aside.

But Karl didn’t trust himself to be objective where Hetty was concerned. He’d allowed a great many doubts about his new wife to go unchallenged, something he wouldn’t have done if his wife hadn’t been so beautiful.

He sighed and got back under the covers. He’d have to sleep on it. He needed to learn more about his wife. Whatever Hetty’s hopes and dreams, she’d obviously been forced into this marriage by the need to care for those two imps. And he’d let himself get suckered into going along for the ride, all for the sake of a pretty—all right, an irresistibly beautiful—face.

Karl needed to find out if there was any chance of a happily ever after with his bride. He might be a plain-looking man, but in his dreams he was always Prince Charming. In the picture books, as in his dreams, the princess was always blue-eyed and blond and beautiful. Maybe that was why he’d fallen so quickly for Hetty.

Karl fell asleep wondering how he could get the real-life girl to fall as deeply in love with him as the princess in his dreams.

Hetty’s mind was whirling with thoughts of what had just happened in the bedroom. What was it about Karl Norwood that made him so easy to laugh with? Why did she melt when he kissed her? Especially when, if anyone had asked, Hetty would have said there was absolutely nothing about her husband that might draw a woman’s eye. Except for his brown eyes, which glowed golden in a certain light. And that overlapping front tooth, which made his smile do something strange to her insides.

Hetty freely admitted that although she’d been in love before, she had no experience with desire. But it seemed wrong to crave the touch of any man so soon after Clive’s death. She’d believed the guilt and remorse she’d felt for inciting two men to fight and die would blight the rest of her life. It was disconcerting to find herself enjoying Karl’s kisses. Reveling in Karl’s kisses. Aching for Karl’s kisses.

Hetty laid a hand against her stomach, which growled. Well, that explained the ache. She was starving. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. Better to forget about kissing Karl, especially when she didn’t deserve the kind of happiness that sort of intimacy portended. She’d had her chance at love, and her love had died. This was no love match, it was a marriage of convenience meant to save two destitute children.

Hetty felt a flush of shame that she’d let herself get so carried away. She needed to stay focused on what was important. Being a helpmate to her husband. Taking care of those two kids. Making a home for all of them. And getting supper on the table.

Hetty heard the children begin arguing loudly and forgot all about Karl’s kisses. She hurried to their bedroom and found Griffin sitting up on the edge of his cot, pulling on a pair of socks over feet that had begun to blister.

“What’s all the noise in here?” she asked in a quiet voice. “Karl’s trying to get some sleep.”

“Griffin’s gone crazy!” Grace replied, her eyes wide with panic. She was standing beside his bed with her arms wrapped tightly around her budding chest, as though to keep herself from falling apart. “He wants to go back out in the snow and look for Mr. Campbell’s horse.”

“This is all my fault,” the boy said. He hissed as he tried to pull a sock over his painfully frostbitten left foot.

“Oh, Griffin, no,” Hetty said, her insides twisting as she imagined the excruciating pain of the rough wool rubbing against his blistered flesh. She sat down beside him on the bed and put her arms around his shoulders to stop him, leaving the sock hanging half off his injured foot.

He tried to shrug her off, but Hetty held on. “That horse will probably show up here in a day or so all by himself. After all, he likely spent the summer stabled in the barn. He’ll be able to find his way back home. Mark my words on it.”

Tears leaked from Griffin’s eyes, either from pain or guilt or both. He swiped at them, then glanced up at her and said, “Do you really think so?”

Hetty saw from the look in his eyes that he wanted to believe her. “Sure I do. Besides, you can’t go anywhere until Bao gets back and has a look at that purple toe of yours.” She reached down and eased the sock off as gently as she could, but she could tell from the way Griffin hissed in his breath that she was hurting him.

Once the sock was off, it was clear from the purple color and the lack of blisters that the little toe on his left foot was not responding to warmth as the rest of his toes had.

“Will Bao have to cut it off?” Griffin asked.

“No!” Grace cried, her arms coming free of her body to reach out in supplication. “Please don’t let him do that, Mom.”

“I don’t know what Bao will decide to do,” Hetty said in a soothing voice, grabbing one of Grace’s hands and squeezing it reassuringly. “We have to trust him to know what’s best.”

Grace yanked her hand free. “But he can’t cut it off! What if it makes Griffin limp?”

Hetty met Grace’s tortured gaze and said in a calm voice, “We’ll love him just the same.”

The anxiety went out of Grace’s face and her jaw firmed. “I certainly will.”

“Toe not matter. Heart matter.”

Hetty shivered at the sudden cold draft and turned to find Bao standing in the bedroom doorway, still wearing his snow-dusted coat. She shot him a relieved smile. “That sounds like something Confucius would say.”

The Chinaman smiled back. “Not Confucius. Lin Bao.”

Hetty laughed with relief that there was someone more knowledgeable on hand to care for Griffin. “It’s good to see you back safe.” She turned and saw that neither of the children was amused. Obviously, as far as they were concerned, frostbitten toes were not a laughing matter. Hetty would be sorry if Griffin lost a toe, but she was grateful more harm hadn’t been done. And for that, they owed Karl thanks.

Bao shook the snow off his coat onto the planked wooden floor, then dropped his coat on Grace’s bed and asked Hetty, “Boss okay?”

“He’s sleeping.”

“Found horse. Put in barn,” Bao said to Griffin.

Hetty saw tears well again in the boy’s dark brown eyes. She watched his Adam’s apple bob before he croaked, “Thank you, Bao.”

“Everybody okay?” the Chinaman asked.

“Karl has a little frostbite. Griffin’s is worse,” Hetty replied.

“Let me see hands and feet,” Bao said as he crossed to the bed. He carefully inspected Griffin’s hands and feet and said, “Ah.”

“What does that mean?” Grace asked anxiously, her hands once more crossed over her chest.

Bao looked at Griffin, rather than at Grace, and said, “Purple toe maybe dead. We watch. If not get better, must come off.”

Hetty watched Griffin’s features, which were finally getting some color, blanch again. “When will we know for sure?” she asked Bao.

The Chinaman shrugged. “Sometimes week. Sometimes month. Right now, need salve for blisters.” He turned to Grace. “You nurse. I watch.”

Grace looked surprised and her gaze shot to Hetty, who’d been Bao’s student on the trail. “Shouldn’t Hetty be doing this?”

“Your turn learn medicine.” Then Bao turned to Hetty and said, “You make tea for boy with rose hips. Remember how?”

Hetty nodded. “If I can find the rose hips.”

“In box by door,” Bao said. “Second from top.”

Despite the weather, Bao had unloaded the wagon when they’d arrived. Many of the supplies had ended up in the cookhouse or bunkhouse. The rest of the boxes and bags he’d dropped inside the door to the cabin.

Hetty hadn’t unpacked because she’d been too worried to focus on anything except whether Karl would return, and if so, whether Griffin would be with him. In hindsight, doing something productive would have kept her from worrying so much. But it was another day, and her new family was back safe. It was time to go to work. Time to make rose-hip tea for Griffin. And time to make this house her home.

Hetty looked around with fresh eyes at the central room, which was divided in half. On the left, Karl had arranged a simple parlor around the river-rock fireplace on the back wall, with a couple of willow rockers set in front of the fire and a table between them.

To the right was the kitchen, with a stove on the side wall next to a copper sink. Roomy cupboards had been built above the sink, which had a pump handle to bring water into the kitchen.

The two small windows on either side of the front door were fitted with clear glass, and Hetty itched to make curtains to give them a more homey look and to provide privacy.

She’d only gotten a glimpse of the lumberjacks, but when the wagon had pulled up in front of the cabin, at least a dozen men had gathered around to ogle her and Grace. They’d nodded and touched the brims of their wool caps in homage, and she’d nodded back. They’d been frightening to behold. Unshaven. Long-haired. Bulbous noses. Blackened teeth. Tall men with enormous shoulders, and short, stout ones. Men with narrow faces. Men with sunken eyes and sun-browned skin, all of them blending into one jumbled horde.

Hetty told herself that despite their frightening appearance the ragtag throng weren’t thieves or murderers. They were simply men hired to work with ax and saw during the snowy weather, when the cut logs could more easily be skidded down the mountain by oxen. They were also the men she was required to help feed and whose cuts she would be asked to stitch. Hetty wondered how she would ever have the courage to walk among them, let alone care for their hurts.

Grace appeared in the bedroom doorway looking shaken. “Bao said I should come help you unpack.”

Hetty hurried to the girl and slid an arm around her waist.

“Griffin’s in horrible pain,” the girl whispered. “He was biting his lip to keep from crying out while Bao tended to him, but I could tell.”

“It’s too bad he’s hurting, but I suspect he’ll be back to his old cantankerous self before you know it.”

“He’s not cantankerous,” Grace protested, coming yet again to the defense of her younger brother.

“Tell me that when he’s driving you mad getting things for him while he’s confined to bed,” Hetty said with a smile. She gave Grace a comforting pat on the rump. “Come on. Let’s get this stuff unpacked and make Griffin some tea.”

“Griffin likes coffee better than tea.”

“Bao suggested rose-hip tea,” Hetty said. “We’ll have to ask him if it has some medicinal purpose, so we’ll know in the future.”

Grace nodded. “I never thought of that.”

“Let’s see what’s here before we start.” Hetty looked through cupboards to see what was already on hand, so she would have some idea where to store things, while Grace surveyed the stack of boxes and bags by the door.

“Look at all this food!” Grace exclaimed.

Hetty was impressed herself. She’d known the wagon was full, but she’d never realized exactly what filled it. Fifty-pound bags of flour and cornmeal and rice and beans. Sugar! Salted pork and beef and lard. Canned peaches. Pickles and jellies and all sorts of relish in glass jars. Tobacco. And whiskey.

“Is Karl rich?” Grace asked. “Does this mean we’ll never be hungry again?”

“Not for the foreseeable future, anyway,” Hetty said with a smile as she eyed the treasure trove they’d unpacked.

“I dreamed about a home like this,” Grace said, running her hand along the kitchen table. “And a father like Karl.” She met Hetty’s gaze. “And a mother like you.”

Hetty felt her throat swell with emotion. “That’s the nicest thing anybody’s ever said to me.” She crossed and put her arms around Grace, hugging her tight, and felt Grace hugging her back.

Hetty’s dreams had been about finding Prince Charming, not about raising children. It seemed she’d skipped a step somewhere along the way.

“I mean it,” Grace mumbled, her face pressed against Hetty’s bosom.

“Hey!” Griffin called from the bedroom. “I’m thirsty. Where’s that tea?”

The two females looked at each other and laughed.

“You certainly called that right,” Grace said.

Hetty had uncovered the rose hips long ago, but she’d forgotten about the tea in the excitement of opening boxes. “Coming up!” she called back to him.

She kissed Grace’s forehead, let her go, and said, “You get the water from the hob. I’ll get a cup and the rose hips. And we’d better get a fire going in that stove, so we can make something to eat. I don’t know about you, but I’m starved.”

Grace grinned. “Me, too! What should me make, Mom?”

“Didn’t I see a book of recipes when we unpacked?”

“I put it on the shelf beside the sink,” Grace said.

“Let’s see what we can find that can be made up in an hour or so and set some beans to soaking for supper.”

It dawned on Hetty that she’d begun the rest of her life. This is what it would be like. Bao to provide Oriental wisdom. Griffin to have adventures that caused trouble. Grace to be a loving daughter. And Karl to protect them all and provide a home where they could live safely ever after.

Hetty took only a moment to realize that
safely
ever after was not exactly how the fairy tales went. What had happened to
happily
ever after? Hetty didn’t allow herself to dwell on the thought. For now, being safe and secure seemed far more important than something as indefinable as happiness.

If her heart sank a little, she ignored it. There was work to occupy her mind, children to care for, and a new life to begin, with responsibilities and challenges. Happiness would have to wait.