Montana Bride (25 page)

“So you’re not the one who wrote those letters to me?”

“Grace did that.”

Karl’s lips flattened. “I was corresponding with a thirteen-year-old girl?”

Hetty nodded.

“How did the kids get involved with Mrs. Templeton?” he asked.

“Grace paid Mrs. Templeton to bring them along because she was desperate to find a home for herself and her brother. They’d been living upstairs in a saloon where their mother used to work.”

Karl didn’t have to ask what kind of work Grace and Griffin’s mother had been doing. To clarify things in his mind, he asked, “So the children weren’t related to Mrs. Templeton, either?”

Hetty shook her head.

“Poor kids,” Karl muttered. It suddenly dawned on him that the
poor kids
he was feeling so sorry for were the same ones who’d manipulated him into this mail-order marriage. “If you’re not the woman Grace planned to marry off to me, where is she?”

“On the way here, Mrs. Templeton fell off a cliff.”

Karl snorted. “Of course she did.”

“It wasn’t my fault!”

Karl hadn’t even considered the possibility that Hetty was responsible for Mrs. Templeton’s death. Fortunately, he was too stunned to speak.

Hetty’s chin came up as she said, “Mrs. Templeton was going to beat Griffin. Again. So I intervened.”

“And pushed her off a cliff?” Karl said incredulously.

“I only punched her in the nose,” Hetty protested. “She was trying to hit me with a heavy branch and lost her balance and fell.”

“She couldn’t
see
the cliff?” Karl asked.

“It was dark.”

“Lord, lord, lord,” Karl said, thrusting both hands through his hair in agitation. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing.” He frowned as he had a sudden thought. “And Bao went along with this…substitution?”

“Bao
suggested
it,” Hetty replied. “I don’t think he liked your mail-order bride.”

Every answer Karl got made him think of more questions to ask. “Where did you come from? Where’s the rest of your family?”

“My father was a banker in Chicago. Our home burned down in the Great Chicago Fire, killing my parents. My two brothers and three sisters and I ended up in an orphanage.”

“Where’s the rest of your family?”

“My eldest sister, Miranda, took my two little brothers, Nick and Harry, with her when she left Chicago to become a mail-order bride in Texas. We never heard from her again.

“It was awful at the orphanage without Miranda there to protect us from the headmistress. So Hannah decided to become a mail-order bride to Mr. McMurtry, who was heading west to the Wyoming Territory, and he agreed to bring me and Josie along.”

“Lots of mail-order brides in your family,” Karl said scornfully.

“We weren’t left with many choices,” Hetty shot back with equal scorn.

“I just realized something,” Karl said. “We may not be legally married.”

“I signed my full name to the church registry.”

“Along with a false one,” Karl pointed out.

“I’m your wife, Karl. We were married in church. We spoke words before God.”

“You married me under false pretenses.”

“Those two children still need a father. And a home. You can’t throw them out,” Hetty pleaded. “Grace will end up working upstairs in some saloon, and Griffin will end up in some awful orphanage. He’ll be beaten and he’ll run away and starve!”

She was painting an especially gruesome picture, but Karl could tell she believed every word she was saying.

“I would never have married you if I’d only been thinking of myself,” she continued. “I had to save those children from a fate worse than death. I
had
to!”

“Why?”

“Because I know what it’s like to be orphaned. I know what it’s like to find yourself in an orphanage at the mercy of someone cruel. I could never condemn Griffin to that life, or Grace to the sort of life that faced her without my help. You see why I had to deceive you, don’t you, Karl?” she said, her hands held out to him in supplication. “It wasn’t for myself. It was for the children.”

Why else would she accept marriage to a man as plain-looking as he was? She’d made love to him to be certain the marriage couldn’t be annulled.

“I don’t care about your motives,” he said in a harsh voice. “You still lied to me. About everything.”

She didn’t bother denying it.

Karl finally knew the truth. It hurt even more than the lies had. His throat ached, but he forced himself to speak.

“What you did was despicable. How do you expect me ever to trust you again?”

“I’m so sorry, Karl,” she whispered. “So very sorry.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner? You sat in front of that fire with me night after night and said
nothing.
You lay in my arms night after night, listening to my heart beat with love for you, and said
nothing.
”

“I didn’t know you loved me, Karl.”

“I don’t,” he said flatly. “Not anymore. How could I? I don’t even know who you are. All you’ve done since I married you is tell one lie after another.”

Hetty sobbed. “I’m sorry, Karl. I never meant to hurt you.”

“A lot of good that does me,” he snarled.

Karl felt like he might be sick. He could understand Hetty leaping before she took the time to think, accepting the role of mail-order bride to save those two kids. He could understand her believing that she needed to lie to him before she’d had a chance to find out the kind of man he was.

What he couldn’t forgive was how she’d continued to lie to him long after she must have known, from their conversations in front of the fire and later in bed, that he’d never throw those two kids out in the snow.

Most of all, he couldn’t forgive her for letting him fall so deeply in love with a woman who was unwilling to love him back. A woman he was afraid to trust and who was afraid to trust him.

Karl rubbed the nape of his neck. Tired and unhappy and confused. He needed time to think. He needed time to figure out exactly where they should go from here.

“Have you told me everything, Hetty? Is it all truly, finally out in the open?”

He saw the flicker of something pass over her face and realized there was indeed something more, at least one more secret she wasn’t telling him. Karl gritted his teeth to keep from saying anything, waiting her out.

Instead of confessing whatever it was, she took a deep breath and said, “That’s everything.”

Like hell it is,
Karl thought.
What else are you hiding, my devious wife? What other surprises do you have up your sleeve?

Suddenly he knew. It was something about Clive. The mysterious man in her past. Karl opened his mouth to mention the man’s name and closed it again. He’d had enough pain for one night.

“Are you going to let us stay?” Hetty asked.

Instead of answering her, Karl said, “Looks to me like you didn’t fare any better in this fiasco than I did.”

“What do you mean?”

“You ended up with two kids you never wanted. And me.”

“I was alone, Karl, without any way of taking care of myself. I would have needed to marry someone. I’m not sorry it was you.”

“You’re not?” He noticed Hetty couldn’t meet his eyes. He waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. “If you want out, tell me now.”

“What about the children?” Hetty said, keeping her gaze focused on her lap. “What would happen to them if I left?”

His heart sank. If she wanted out, he would have to let her go. Maybe that was for the best. “I’ll find somewhere for the kids to go.”

He could see she was tempted to walk away. There was nothing here for her. Except two children she clearly loved.

She met his gaze again and said, “You can’t put the children in an orphanage, Karl. They need a home. If you need to punish someone, punish me.”

“How do you suggest I do that?”

“You could send me away,” she said in a small voice.

“And leave myself without a wife? Without the helpmate I need to cook and clean the house and do laundry? Without a nurse for the loggers? Without a caretaker for those two kids? Without a woman to take to my bed? Or to give me more children?”

“But you can’t want to keep me as your wife,” she protested. “You’ve told me all the reasons that will never work. You won’t ever be able to trust me. I’ve managed to destroy whatever feelings you had for me. You don’t love me anymore.”

“In order to punish you, I’d have to punish myself worse. I choose not to do that. I choose to keep you here. For all the reasons I mentioned, but especially so I have a woman in my bed. And a wife to bear me children.”

“What if I don’t accept your kind offer to stay?” she said bitterly.

He shrugged. “Then you’re welcome to go. I’ll make sure Bao gets you back to Butte. But take Grace and Griffin with you.”

She gasped. And then said nothing for a very long time.

Karl was tempted to fill the silence that grew while she contemplated the future she could expect with a husband who despised her for what she’d done, versus the brutal existence she and the children would face on their own in a wilderness mining town.

He forced himself to wait her out.

When Hetty spoke at last, her eyes were bleak. He saw guilt and remorse. And something he hadn’t expected, but which he found both exciting and promising. Defiance.

“I’ll stay.”

Karl felt his heart pounding in his chest. If they were ever to find peace together, they had a long road to travel. It was true he didn’t know much about how to make a wife happy. Or how to make a woman fall in love with him. But he’d learned a few useful things from a life spent studying plants. Like, if he just waited patiently for it to grow, the smallest bud often became the most magnificent flower.

Karl kept his distance from Hetty over the next week, rising early, then working late on the mountain and eating dinner with the loggers. He’d eyed Bao askance all week without mentioning the fact that, thanks to the Chinaman, he’d married a substitute bride. It was bad enough to have a wife he couldn’t trust and a best friend who questioned his authority on the job. It was downright disheartening to discover that Bao didn’t have his back.

Karl was still sitting at the cookhouse dining table long after the loggers had all eaten supper and headed back to the bunkhouse. He got up and rinsed his tin plate, fork, and spoon in the pot of hot water Bao had provided for that purpose, then set his clean plate facedown at his place with the silverware on top of it, as all the other loggers had done, ready for the next meal.

He knew he ought to head back to the house, but he was finding it harder and harder to resist the woeful look on Hetty’s face. He didn’t understand how he could be so mad at his wife and still yearn to sit and talk with her in front of the fireplace. It felt like he was the one suffering when he didn’t hold her in his arms through the night.

But Karl didn’t feel like he could do either of those things until he was able to forgive Hetty. And he couldn’t forgive her because he was pretty damn sure she was still keeping secrets from him.

Bao came out of the kitchen and said, “You ready go home now, Boss?”

What Karl heard was,
You go home now, Boss.
Ordinarily, he would have taken the Chinaman’s advice. Instead, he retorted, “Sounds like you want me out of here.”

“Children miss you. Wife miss you. Time go home.”

“Sounds like you’re on their side, Bao. What happened to taking my side? What happened to being my friend?”

Bao crossed his arms and slid his hands inside his wide sleeves. “Why you so angry, Boss?”

“I know you let Hetty pass herself off as my mail-order bride when she was no such thing,” Karl accused. “I know you not only went along with the scheme, you actually
suggested
it.”

“You no like first wife,” Bao said certainly.

“That’s no excuse!”

“She selfish person. Pull girl’s hair. Hit boy.”

“They weren’t her kids,” Karl pointed out.

“No excuse. I save your life once, Boss. Responsible for you be happy, so give you pretty wife.”

“Looks shouldn’t matter,” Karl argued.

“Matter she nice lady. Matter she like kids. Matter she make good wife.”

“Hetty’s lied to me from the moment we met,” Karl countered.

“She only lie to save kids. I only lie so you marry proper lady.”

“So, as long as you’re lying for my own good, lying is fine?” Karl asked incredulously.

“She perfect wife,” Bao said stubbornly. “Confucius say—”

“I don’t give a damn what Confucius has to say,” Karl interrupted angrily. “I want to know you aren’t going to lie to me again. I want to know I can trust you.”

Bao didn’t look the least bit contrite. “Always do what best for you, Boss. Always.”

Karl realized that was all the apology he was likely to get.

“Tomorrow you bring home tree for Christmas,” Bao said. “You eat supper with wife and kids. You start over. You be happy.”

Karl sighed. “I suppose Hetty told you to remind me she wants a Christmas tree.”

“She mention want tree for kids. She love kids. She love you, too, you give her chance.”

Karl’s features darkened. Hetty had made it pretty clear she didn’t love him, and he wasn’t holding out a lot of hope that her feelings would change. But he missed his wife. He even missed the kids. He was going to have to start over sometime. It might as well be now.

He was almost to the door when he turned back to Bao and asked, “What was it Confucius had to say?”

“ ‘All good things difficult to achieve.’ ”

Karl snorted. “I can’t argue with that.”

“You win wife’s love, you happy man.”

Karl smiled ruefully. “I can’t argue with that, either.”