Montana Bride (15 page)

Dennis couldn’t believe his luck. Karl had been called back to the bunkhouse, the two brats were shut in their room, and he’d been left completely alone, at long last, with Karl’s wife. The woman was already half in love with him. He’d felt the connection from the first moment their eyes had met in that hotel in Butte, when she’d blushed and lowered her startled gaze to avoid staring back at him. With a little effort, Dennis thought he could have her.

Hetty had trembled in his arms when he’d filched that kiss on her wedding day, and she’d been careful to avoid him ever since, a sure sign that she wasn’t immune to his charms. He’d done everything he could along the trail to let her know he was a better man than Karl without ever coming right out and saying it. She’d been stubborn about supporting Karl, but he was encouraged by the fact that she’d felt she needed to defend her husband.

Dennis wasn’t averse to cuckolding his friend. He just had to be careful not to let Karl find out. Karl might not be as strong or as experienced with his fists as Dennis was, but he had a surprising amount of grit and a great deal of pride. Karl Norwood would make a formidable enemy.

Unfortunately for Karl, he was weighed down by morals and rules for playing fair that had never troubled Dennis. If he was careful, Dennis could have what he wanted without Karl ever being the wiser.

Dennis wasn’t a blackguard. He’d never taken a woman against her will. But what a woman freely gave, he was happy to take. That might be splitting hairs, but Dennis hadn’t been born with all of Karl’s advantages. He’d had to earn his way in life, which meant grabbing what he could get when he could get it.

Hetty took his wrist and eased one of his hands from the bowl of cold water in which they were soaking, surveyed his torn and bruised knuckles, and said, “Your hands look awful.”

“They’ll heal.” Dennis was looking at Hetty and noticed she was biting her lower lip, clearly worried about something. About being alone with him? He said nothing, waiting to see what she would do.

A moment later she looked up at him with eyes as innocent and blue as a summer sky. And froze.

Dennis wondered about the apparent shyness—almost maidenly modesty—that caused her to suddenly lower her gaze. It seemed inappropriate in a woman with two children, and if Karl’s suppositions were correct, at least two previous bed partners. Dennis found the guise—the pretense of innocence—particularly thrilling.

Perhaps Hetty had experienced sex but had never known passion. Dennis was an expert on the subject. He would be happy to awaken her to that particular pleasure.

Hetty’s perfect complexion turned rosy and she dropped his hand, which plopped back into the water. She glanced at him, then at her hands, which were gripped together, before settling them in her lap.

Dennis had a sudden thought. Was it possible Karl had never made love to his wife? Certainly Karl had kept his distance from his wife on the trail. What if considerate Karl had given his brand-new wife a reprieve from her wifely duties on the only night they’d spent alone together?

No wonder she was blushing. Apparently this rosebud was ripe for the plucking. He waited expectantly for the word of encouragement that was all he would need to act.

Hetty raised her head, looked him in the eye, and asked, “What’s going to happen to Karl?”

Dennis almost hissed in disappointment. He pressed his lips flat for a moment to hide his chagrin that she’d chosen to discuss Karl, rather than a possible tryst with him. “What do you mean?”

“What if the loggers won’t obey him?”

He watched as the flush moved from her cheeks to her throat. Was she uncomfortable criticizing Karl? Or very much aware of her attraction to him and the fact that they were alone?

She cleared her throat and continued, “Karl mentioned to me that he’s never been a boss before. Do you think he’ll be able to make the loggers do what he needs them to do?”

“You’re worried—”

“Not worried, exactly,” she interrupted. “I’m sure Karl will figure it all out. He’s a very smart man.”

“Yes, he is,” Dennis conceded. With a wife determined to bolster him. It might be harder to get through Hetty’s defenses than he’d initially thought. He pulled his hands from the water, held them out, and said, “Do you have a towel?”

She jumped up, like a rabbit escaping a fox, and retrieved a dishcloth from where it hung near a cupboard. He was standing when she returned, holding out his dripping hands so she could dry them.

She kept her eyes focused on what she was doing, but he pulled one hand free and reached out to tip her chin up, so he could look into her eyes, which were rife with confusion. “You don’t have to worry about Karl because I’ll be there to make sure nothing happens to him.”

He felt the tremor that ran through her body at his touch. She dropped the cloth—or it fell—and she used that excuse to pull away. She stooped to pick up the cloth and returned it to the hook near the cupboard, keeping her back to him and fiddling with it as she said, “I don’t think Karl needs a caretaker.”

“Do you have any idea what we’ll be doing up there on the mountain?” he asked.

She turned back to him, clearly curious. “Actually, I don’t.” She tucked her arms protectively under her breasts and kept her distance.

“Some of the men will be cutting logs with crosscut saws, some with axes. A couple will buck limbs. Someone else will skid logs back down the mountain through the snow with oxen. Once I get the mill up and running in the spring—”

She interrupted him to say, “Karl told me he’s in charge of setting up the sawmill.”

Dennis was unable to control the flicker of annoyance that crossed his face. “Karl and I have discussed the matter. The final say is his, of course, but he’s been smart enough to defer to my experience in the past, so it’s likely he will again.”

Hetty lifted her chin and took two steps closer, so that no more than an inch or two separated them. “You make it sound like you’re in charge. I was under the impression that Karl is running this operation.”

The door was thrust open and Karl stood in the doorway, his eyes fierce, his fists bunched. He shot a frown at Hetty, who leapt back, putting a more respectable distance between the two of them. Karl focused his angry gaze on Dennis and said, “You better come.”

“What’s the problem?” Dennis glanced at Hetty to see her reaction to Karl appealing to him for help.

She hurried to Karl and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Stay out of this, Hetty,” he snapped.

Hetty stopped short and gasped, clearly shocked at Karl’s abrupt dismissal of her. She held out her hands in supplication. “Is someone hurt? Maybe I can help.”

“There’s nothing you can do,” Karl replied harshly. He turned to Dennis and snarled, “Let’s go.”

As Dennis grabbed his coat, he caught a glimpse of the hurt look on Hetty’s face and hid his grin of satisfaction. If Karl kept up this sort of behavior toward Hetty, his seduction of Karl’s wife was a foregone conclusion.

The door closed, shutting Hetty out. Or rather, shutting Hetty in. She was still staring at the closed door a moment later when Grace joined her in the kitchen.

“What was that all about?” Grace asked.

“I have no idea,” Hetty admitted. “Something must have gone wrong in the bunkhouse.” And Karl had come to ask for Dennis’s help in solving the problem. Hetty shuddered when she recalled the look on Karl’s face when he’d opened the door and noticed her standing so close to Dennis.

She hadn’t been flirting! She’d only wanted to find out everything she could about Karl’s work. She didn’t know how she’d ended up standing toe-to-toe with Dennis. Based on the lowering frown Karl had shot at her, he’d completely misconstrued what he’d seen. She had no desire to make Karl jealous. She knew better.

Hetty covered her face with her hands. She never wanted a repeat of the disaster she’d caused on the wagon train. She never wanted her behavior to give any man an excuse to fight, especially not Karl. She might not love her husband, but she liked and admired him. And her future, and that of the children, depended on the continuation of their marriage.

She felt Grace’s hand on her shoulder and then heard the girl’s tremulous voice asking, “What’s wrong, Hetty?”

Hetty dropped her hands and snapped, “You know better than to call me Hetty!”

Before Grace could flee, Hetty caught her arm and pulled the girl into her embrace. “I’m sorry, Grace. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at myself over something that has nothing to do with you.”

Grace remained stiff and unyielding, so Hetty admitted, “I’m worried about Karl.”

Grace looked up at her and said, “Me, too. What’s happened now?”

“I have no idea. Karl completely shut me out.”

“And you’re going to let him get away with that?” Grace asked.

Hetty slid one arm down around Grace’s waist and smiled ruefully. She was four years older than her stepdaughter, but in many ways, Grace was so much older and wiser. “Will you keep an eye on Griffin while I go to the bunkhouse?”

“Of course.”

Hetty crossed to the antler coatrack by the door and slipped into her gray wool overcoat. She grabbed a wool shawl she’d inherited from Mrs. Templeton and began wrapping it around her head. As she opened the door, she turned back to Grace and ordered, “Don’t either of you leave the house.”

“We won’t.”

The sun glared off the snow, and Hetty squinted as she pulled on her knitted gloves, also courtesy of Mrs. Templeton. She followed the dirty path trampled in the snow toward the bunkhouse across the meadow. The wind was brisk, and she tightened the shawl around her head. She could see smoke rising from the chimney at the cookhouse, a short distance from the bunkhouse. Apparently Bao was preparing lunch for the loggers.

Hetty was tempted to stop by the cookhouse and see if Bao had any idea what was going on. But when the trail split in two, she stayed to the right to go to the bunkhouse, afraid that if she stopped to talk with Bao she might lose her courage.

Karl should have told her what was wrong when she asked. She wanted to be his helpmate, but she couldn’t very well do that if he didn’t share his problems. She was going to be responsible for helping to feed these men and nursing their hurts. Karl should want her to meet them.

She hesitated at the bunkhouse door, wondering if she should knock. She heard angry voices inside and realized it was possible no one would hear her knock. She gripped the doorknob and pushed her way inside.

Hetty stopped short, overwhelmed by the atrocious body odor of a dozen men in a confined space who hadn’t shaved or bathed in what must have been weeks or months, or maybe even years. She distinctly smelled tobacco and coal oil and licorice.

Her gaze shot to Karl and Dennis, who were standing in a corner confronting a curly-headed, dark-bearded mountain of a man. His face was ruddy with anger, and spittle flew from his lips as he argued with Karl.

Hetty saw the man mountain jab his finger toward a slight figure standing behind Karl. She took a closer look and saw that the giant had gestured toward a slender, towheaded boy who couldn’t have been much older than Hetty was herself. The kid had a black eye, and he was using a dirty handkerchief to swipe at blood dribbling from both his nose and mouth.

It took her a moment to realize that the man mountain had blood on the knuckles of the hand he was using to point at the kid.

“Did you hit that poor boy?” Hetty hadn’t realized she’d moved or even that she’d spoken until she found herself standing in front of the giant.

The muttering voices in the bunkhouse stopped as though someone had suddenly gagged them.

Karl grasped her arm, but Hetty held her ground and confronted the giant, her hands balled into fists to keep the men in the bunkhouse, whose eyes she could feel boring into her back, from seeing how they were trembling.

The giant’s hand dropped abruptly and his ruddy face turned beet red as he looked down at her. “Yes, ma’am,” he answered politely. “I surely did.”

“Why?” she asked, her voice filled with anguish for the damage done to the boy’s face.

“He wasn’t following orders.”

“What orders?” Hetty demanded.

“To make up my bunk,” the giant admitted.

Hetty felt all the angry helplessness of living under the brutal tyranny of Miss Iris Birch rise up inside her. She hated bullies. Twisting free of Karl’s hold, she whirled on him and asked, “How could you let this happen?”

It wasn’t until she’d blurted the question that she realized the spot she’d put Karl in. She turned her head and scanned the faces in the room, but whenever she tried to meet a lumberman’s eyes, he lowered his gaze to the ground. It was apparent that Karl had tried to fix the problem himself and hadn’t succeeded. He’d needed someone bigger and stronger than himself—Dennis—to control this ruffian. Hetty’s question had merely pointed out Karl’s failure.

Karl put himself between Hetty and the man mountain and said quietly, “Go back to the house.”

Hetty wished she could tell Karl about her years living in an orphanage under the oppressive hand of Miss Birch. She knew what it felt like to have someone force you to do their bidding. She’d spoken without thinking, but she’d spoken from her heart.

Before she could open her mouth to protest Karl’s order, he added, “Take the boy with you and see what you can do to fix the damage to his face.”

Hetty knew that if she didn’t obey Karl, what little authority he had would be diminished even more. She turned to the boy and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Andy Peterson, ma’am,” he said with a distinctly Southern drawl.

“Come with me, Andy,” she said. Then she turned her back on Karl and headed for the door. One of the loggers opened the door for her before she got there, and she simply marched out into the cold. She never looked back to see whether Andy was following her.

Her stomach churned. She hadn’t wanted to cause Karl to lose face in front of his men, but she was very much afraid that that was what had happened as a result of her visit to the bunkhouse. She dreaded having to explain her behavior to him later.

Hetty got as far as the split in the trail that led to the cookhouse before she stopped cold. Andy was following so close that he bumped into her. When she turned, she realized that the boy hadn’t even stopped to get his coat and cap. He stood before her in his red long john shirt, his narrow shoulders shivering.

She looked up into the kid’s beardless face and said, “Go to the house and tell my daughter, Grace, that she’s to take care of your hurts.”

“That’s not necessary, ma’am,” the boy said. “It’s nothing. I can hang out in the stable till Buck cools off.”

Hetty was tempted to let him go. But he was another lost child, another stray who needed her help. “Do as I say, Andy.”

The boy shrugged. “Yes, ma’am.”

Hetty stood where she was and let Andy pass her by. She needed some advice, and she knew where to get it. She turned around and headed right back in the direction from which she’d come. Only this time, she took the fork in the path that led to the cookhouse.

The cookhouse was both a lot warmer and a lot better smelling than the bunkhouse. The scent of bacon permeated the air, and Bao stood in front of an iron cookstove stirring a cauldron of what smelled like savory stew.

The Chinaman turned to her as she shut the door. The first words out of his mouth were, “Confucius say: ‘When anger rises, think of consequences.’ ”

Hetty was surprised into laughter. “Is it so obvious that I’d like to dump that whole pot of stew on Karl’s head.”

He gestured her toward a seat on a bench long enough to seat a half dozen men, which ran along one side of a wooden trestle table. “Sit. Have tea. Talk.”

Hetty unwrapped her shawl and let it lie on her shoulders as she settled on the bench. Bao set a delicate china cup in front of her and poured tea from a white china teapot.

“This was going to be your cup of tea,” Hetty said when she saw the small white cup and dragon-handled teapot.

Bao got a tin cup for himself and poured the rest of the tea from the teapot, then sat on the bench on the opposite side of the table. “Have tea. You talk.”

Hetty wasn’t sure where to start. If Karl had spoken to her before he’d left the house, she wouldn’t have followed after him and put them both in such an awkward position. He must have been mortified when she’d chastised his man instead of letting him do it himself. When would she ever stop making stupid mistakes?

She felt tears welling in her eyes as she said, “How can I help Karl if he won’t share his troubles with me?”

Bao pulled on his beard as he contemplated her question.

Hetty was waiting for the Chinaman to spout more wisdom from Confucius when the cookhouse door opened with a bang, letting in a stream of bright sunlight and a freezing draft. Hetty shivered and turned to see who it was.

Karl stood in the doorway, his feet spread wide. His face looked forbidding. He closed the door behind him and said, “We need to talk.”