Montana Bride (2 page)

Mrs. Templeton was dead on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. Hetty was at least partly responsible for someone dying. Again.

She forced her mind away from memories of the calamity she’d caused on the journey west. There was nothing she could do to change the past. She closed her eyes to shut out the awful vision of two men fighting because of her, and the vivid blue eyes of the man she’d loved as he lay dying in her arms. When she opened them again, she said to the two children, “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

“Mrs. Templeton worked upstairs at the saloon where we were living,” Griffin said. “Before our mom died, she used to work there, too, and some of the ladies made sure we had a place to sleep and food to eat. But Grace was getting older, and they wanted her to—”

“Griffin, that’s enough,” Grace interrupted.

“Anyway,” Griffin continued, “Mr. Norwood’s advertisement for a mail-order bride said that he’d consider a widow with children, so Grace went to Lucy with this crazy idea that we could all get out of there if Lucy became this guy Norwood’s mail-order bride.”

“And Mrs. Templeton went along?” Hetty asked.

Grace grimaced. “As soon as I agreed to pay her, she did.”

“You
paid
her to bring you along and she treated you that badly?” Hetty said.

“Why do you think I dumped those beans in her lap?” Griffin said.

“I wrote all the letters to Mr. Norwood,” Grace said. “But Lucy insisted that I tell him she was twenty-eight, so Griffin and I had to pretend to be younger, too. I’m thirteen. I’ll be fourteen in a couple of months.”

Hetty turned to Griffin and asked, “How old are you?”

“I’ll be ten in the spring.”

Hetty glanced at Mr. Lin, who was listening to this confession, and wondered what he was thinking. His dark eyes remained inscrutable.

“We’re
DOOMED,
all right,” Grace said.

Hetty watched tears pool in Grace’s eyes before they slid onto her freckled cheeks. Her heart went out to the two children.

Grace glanced at her brother and said, “I can always get work at a saloon in Butte.”

Griffin’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth flattened to a hard line. “Not that kind of work. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“What other choice do we have?” Grace said quietly.

It took Hetty a moment to realize what kind of work Grace was considering. At seventeen, Hetty was still naive enough, even after hearing the escapades of a girl at the orphanage who’d previously taken a lover, to be shocked. “There must be a better alternative,” she said.

“Not unless we go to some orphanage,” Griffin replied bitterly. “We ended up in one right after our ma died, but we ran away. We’ve been hiding out at the saloon ever since. I’m never going back. I’ll starve first.”

Hetty shuddered. Grace working in a brothel? Grace and Griffin at the mercy of some cruel headmistress like Miss Birch? “There has to be a way for the two of you to avoid either of those choices.”

“There is way,” Mr. Lin said.

Hetty, Grace, and Griffin all turned to find the Chinaman tapping out the contents of his long clay pipe.

“What do you suggest?” Hetty asked.

“I think
you
be mail-order bride,” Mr. Lin said. “Two kids be your kids. Mr. Norwood get bride, kids get home, you get husband help you look for missing sisters.” He smiled and said, “Work out happy for everybody. Okay?”

Hetty stared at Mr. Lin for a moment in astonishment, then glanced at the two children, who were staring back at her with hopeful eyes. Hetty wanted to help, truly she did. But she’d caused so much pain and suffering, she wasn’t worthy of being anyone’s bride. She’d had her chance at love, and she’d utterly destroyed it. She didn’t deserve another.

Besides, the deception would never work. She could never pass for twenty-eight. She knew nothing about being a mother or a nurse. And she was a virgin.

Then she thought of what Grace might be forced to do if she refused. And pictured mischievous Griffin in an orphanage, facing some heartless headmistress.

Hetty looked from one young, worried face to the other and said, “Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll become Mr. Norwood’s mail-order bride.”

“If this ruse is going to succeed,” Hetty said to the two children, “we have a lot of work to do over the next week before we arrive in Butte.”

“Like what?” Grace asked.

“You need to start calling me Mom, for a start,” Hetty said.

“No way!” Griffin shot back. “You’re not my ma. And I sure as hell don’t have to do what you say.”

Hetty met the boy’s gaze across the morning campfire and held it. “And that sort of language must stop.”

“The hell you say,” Griffin snapped.

“I do,” Hetty said.

“We’ll see about that,” Griffin muttered. He was whittling, and splinters of wood were flying as fast as he could shave them with his knife.

Mr. Lin had climbed down the cliff to bury Mrs. Templeton, leaving Hetty alone with the children. She’d spent the time before Grace and Griffin awoke this morning discussing the situation with the Chinaman.

Hetty had been surprised that Mr. Lin was willing to go along with the planned deception. “Shouldn’t your first loyalty be to Mr. Norwood?” she’d asked.

“Confucius say: ‘Never force on another man what you not choose for yourself.’ Not choose that wife for any man. Responsible to boss, so bring woman, but that woman no good for wife.”

“And I am?” Hetty asked doubtfully.

“Better choice for sure,” Mr. Lin said.

“Mr. Lin, I’m not so certain I agree.”

“Please. We partners now. Name is Bao. Rhymes with cow,” the Chinaman said with a smile.

Hetty felt strange calling any man who wasn’t a relative by his first name, but since Mr. Lin had requested it, she began again. “Bao, I don’t think you realize how difficult it will be to convince Mr. Norwood that I’m twenty-eight and a nurse, but especially that I’m the mother of those two half-grown children.”

Mr. Lin pulled at the long, scraggly black beard growing from his chin, straightened his waist-length braid down his back, then rearranged the Oriental black silk cap he always wore low on his brow. Hetty had been on the trail long enough with the savvy Chinaman to know he performed the ritual to give himself time to think before replying.

More than once over the past seven weeks, Mr. Lin’s sage advice had come from Confucius, a Chinese philosopher whose writing Mr. Lin said he’d studied as a young man in China.

Hetty was waiting patiently for Mr. Lin to begin his speech with “Confucius say…”

Instead, he said, “Long time past, I save Boss’s life. I now responsible for Boss’s happiness. I think you make Boss more happy than other woman. Boss see you so pretty, he not care about age. He like kids. Make respectable father. I teach you be nurse.”

Hetty was still deciphering what Mr. Lin had said, when he rose. “I go bury other lady. You tell kids call you Mom. Tell Griffin no do bad things. Tell him comb hair. Tell Grace wear bigger dress, hide bumps on chest, look younger. I teach you medicine next few days on trail. You be nurse very soon.”

A moment later he was gone. Hetty had stayed by the fire, waiting for the shadowy grays to turn pink, and then orange and yellow as the sun rose. She wasn’t so sure it was going to be as easy as Mr. Lin seemed to think for her to take Mrs. Templeton’s place.

Hetty had been too embarrassed to discuss with Mr. Lin the one difference between herself and Mrs. Templeton that she couldn’t fix over the next week on the trail. Mr. Norwood was expecting a bride who’d already been bedded. Hetty was an innocent—and ignorant—virgin.

She’d been
in love.
She’d even shared several quick, furtive kisses with her beau in the dark. But Hetty had never been held close in a man’s arms. She’d never lain with a man. She was still untouched.

It was hard to believe Karl Norwood wouldn’t notice.

Hetty was simply going to have to figure out a way to deceive him. Surely she could fake whatever it was she was supposed to know. Surely she could follow his lead, so he wouldn’t realize she had no idea what she was doing.

Assuming they got that far. First Mr. Norwood had to accept his substitute bride. Once he got a look at this motley band of misfits, there was no telling whether he would follow through and marry her. Especially if the children wouldn’t do their part to help convince him she was their mother.

“Please cooperate, Griffin,” Grace implored. “Hetty’s marrying a perfect stranger so I won’t have to go to work doing you-know-what when we arrive in Butte.” She turned to Hetty and said, “What else do you need from us, Mom?”

Hetty felt a lump form in her throat. This was going to be much harder than she’d ever imagined. From now on, she would be the only mother these two children had. She wondered if she would be able to do as wonderful a job, and be willing to make as many personal sacrifices, as her eldest sister, Miranda, had when she’d taken over for their absent mother.

“Do you have a hairbrush?” she asked Grace.

Grace shook her head. “Mrs. Templeton had one. I suppose we could borrow it.”

Hetty hadn’t thought about what they should do with Mrs. Templeton’s possessions. “Do you know if she had any family?”

“None that I know of,” Grace said.

“Then we might as well make use of her things,” Hetty said. “Starting with that hairbrush. Do you think you could find it?”

While Grace was retrieving the hairbrush, Hetty watched Griffin whittling. “What are you making?” she asked.

“Same thing I always make,” the boy replied.

“What is that?”

Griffin held up the piece of birch. “A horse.”

It wasn’t the entire horse, just the head, but it had visible ears and a mane and its mouth was open as though it was neighing. It was amazingly lifelike. Hetty had often watched Griffin pick up wood along the trail and then whittle something from it, but she’d been too caught up in her own problems to really look at what he was carving.

“Why a horse?” she asked.

Griffin shrugged. “I like horses.”

“Have you ever owned one?”

“No.”

Hetty figured the boy had always wanted a horse. Apparently, his mother hadn’t been able to afford one. “What do you do with your figures when you finish?”

Griffin smirked. “This.” He threw the half-finished horse head into the fire.

“Oh, no!” Hetty rushed to retrieve it, but it had fallen into the center of the hot coals and burst into flame. “Why did you do that?”

“Why not?” Griffin said. “There are plenty of sticks around. And I’ve got all the time in the world to whittle. Why keep it?”

“To enjoy it,” Hetty said with asperity.

Griffin shrugged again. “I can always make another one when I want.”

“Then give it away and let someone else enjoy it,” Hetty suggested.

Griffin was digesting that advice when Grace returned with the brush. “Here it is.”

Hetty realized that the girl thought she wanted to use it herself. “Come sit here, Grace,” she said, gesturing to a spot beside her on the log.

Grace sat down and tightened the knot on the wool shawl around her shoulders.

Hetty realized Grace was wearing a calico dress, which wasn’t warm enough for the cold weather. “Don’t you have something warmer to put on?”

“I’ve got a dark brown wool dress, but I’m saving it for when it gets really cold.”

Hetty noticed the girl’s breath in the frigid air and smiled. “I think it’s time, Grace. You can change after I finish brushing your hair.”

“All right, Mom.”

Hetty was still trying to grasp the reality of this thirteen-year-old girl calling her
Mom
when Grace said, “You’re going to brush my hair?”

“Of course.” Miranda had often brushed and braided both Hannah’s and Hetty’s hair at the orphanage. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for her to do that service for Grace. She started at the bottom, where Grace’s red curls were most tangled and worked her way up until she could pull the brush from the crown of Grace’s head all the way down without encountering a tangle.

Grace looked over her shoulder at Hetty and said, “That feels nice. You didn’t pull my hair once, not like my—”

Grace stopped talking abruptly, and Hetty realized that the girl hadn’t wanted to say anything bad about her mother. Hetty admired her for it. Grace’s mother must have been busy and perhaps brushed through the snarls in a hurry to get done.

Hetty’s heart bled for this girl who’d become a parent of sorts herself when her mother died. If Grace’s mother had been as occupied with her work as Hetty suspected, Grace had probably been taking care of Griffin long before that.

“Would you prefer one braid or two?” Hetty asked.

“Two would make me look younger, don’t you think?” Grace said.

That was another thing Hetty admired about Grace. The girl was always thinking ahead. Perhaps not so admirable was how adept she was at using her intelligence to deceive others. Hetty could understand that, too, considering the life Grace must have led. The girl had been smart enough to get herself and Griffin out of that saloon. Smart enough to get almost to Butte. And winsome—and pitiful—enough to get Hetty to agree to become her mother.

There was no pretense about that part of the deal. Hetty intended to become the best parent she could be to both children. That was the least she could do to salve her conscience for the hoax she was perpetrating on Mr. Karl Norwood.

“Two braids it is,” she said as she divided Grace’s bountiful curls into two handfuls. “You hold this one while I braid the other,” she said, handing Grace the hair on the left.

Hetty began at Grace’s brow and braided her red hair all the way down to the end, tying it off with a piece of string Grace handed her. Then she did the other half. When she was finished, she turned Grace around and surveyed her from the front.

Hetty smiled and said, “You’re right. With those wide green eyes, and that gamine smile, and those braids, you could pass for a girl of nine.” She leaned close and whispered, “Just be sure to keep that shawl draped over your budding chest.”

Grace’s face turned beet red. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t help growing up.”

Hetty discovered a stray curl that had already fought its way loose and tucked it behind Grace’s ear. “Just be yourself. Everything will work out fine.”

Grace turned to Griffin and said, “Your turn.”

“No thanks!” Griffin said, leaping to his feet. “I’m not having some
girl
brush my hair.”

Hetty held out the brush. “You’re welcome to do it yourself.”

“No thanks,” Griffin repeated.

“No thanks,
Mom,
” Hetty said.

“You’re not my ma. My ma’s dead!”

Griffin turned and stalked toward the wagon, bumping into Mr. Lin on the way. He said something to Mr. Lin that Hetty didn’t hear, then hurried away in the direction Grace had gone.

“How you do?” Mr. Lin asked Hetty as he kicked dirt over the fire to put it out.

Hetty made a face. “I believe I made some progress with Grace. Griffin is a disaster waiting to happen.”

“Misunderstand,” Mr. Lin said. “I ask how
you
do.”

“Oh. I’m fine.”

“You not fine. You sad in heart.”

Hetty stared at the Chinese man, wondering how he could be so perceptive. She was sad for so many reasons she probably couldn’t name them all in a single breath. “I’ve caused so much heartache, Mr. Lin. You can’t imagine how much. I want to help those children. I want to be a good wife to Mr. Norwood. I don’t want to fail either of them.”

Mr. Lin surveyed the fire to be sure it was out, then turned to her, stroked his beard, ran his hand down his braid, and settled his silk cap. “Confucius say: ‘Glory not in never falling, but in always getting up again.’ ”

Hetty smiled. Simple advice. If only it worked. But if she wasn’t going to die of her wound, or from heartbreak or loneliness, and it looked like she wasn’t, she could at least try to live a better life from now on.

“All right, Mr. Lin—Bao,” she corrected herself. “I’ll pull myself up by my bootstraps and get back in the game.”

Mr. Lin tipped his head sideways and said, “Not understand
bootstraps.
”

Hetty laughed and realized it was the first time she’d done so in months. She was going to have to pretend joy until she actually felt it again. She was going to have to pretend a lot of things until they became real.