Prairie Rose (8 page)

But the change in Seth’s demeanor hardly made a difference to her. All she could see was how coldly he behaved toward his son. He gave no heed to the little boy’s tears. He never laid a hand on the child or whispered even the slightest word of comfort. His indifference toward his son infuriated Rosie, and she began to wish she had whacked Seth on the head instead of Jack Cornwall.

“Rustemeyer’s been working on his claim a lot longer than I have,” Seth said, oblivious to the fact that she was attempting to bore holes through him with her glare. “He’s been looking after my place while I’ve been away. I think I’ll see if he has a notion to help me build the bridge.”

“You just told me you couldn’t understand him,” Rosie said.

Seth glanced at her, one eyebrow arching a little at her retort. “Not much. It’s all
ja
and
ach
and
nein
. But we manage.”

“Does he have any children Chipper could play with?”

“Rolf’s not married.”

“Well then, Chipper, you’ll just have to help your father build that bridge so you can walk over to the O’Tooles’ house to play.” Rosie bent down and kissed the little boy’s hot, damp forehead. “Who do you like best of all the O’Tooles? I thought Erinn was very pretty with her long red braids. Do you like her?”

“Will,” Chipper said softly. “I like Will best.”

“I like him, too. Did you hear him going on about the snakes? I’ll bet you and Will could have a fine time out by the creek. He can teach you all about the prairie, and you can teach him some games. What’s your favorite game? Hopscotch?”

“Tag.”

As the hours passed, Rosie did her best to draw out the little boy—and to ignore his father. She had come to the conclusion that Seth Hunter had kidnapped his son in the vain hope of recapturing a part of his dead wife. But he had no inclination to love Chipper for the special person he was. To Seth, the boy was a prize. A trophy. He would kill Jack Cornwall for the right to keep that trophy. But he had no idea how to truly cherish such a treasure.

Chipper had stopped crying and was beginning to catalog all his favorite foods when the wagon rolled to a stop. Rosie looked up to find Seth setting the brake and climbing down from the bench. In the distance, a blond giant of a man waved from his plow.

“Rustemeyer!” Seth called. “Good morning.”

“
Guten Morgen
, Hunter! How you are?”

“Pretty good, and you? We’ve just come from Rippeto’s.”

“Ja
, Rippeto
. Sehr gut.”

Curious, Rosie slipped down to the ground and started after Seth across the newly tilled field. Rolf Rustemeyer was no taller than Seth, but he had been built like a granite bluff. His thighs looked like two tree trunks. His hands, great slabs of ham, gripped the wooden plow handles. His hair hung to his shoulders in thick golden waves. When he smiled, his grin spread from ear to ear.

“Ah, Hunter, You have
Frau
! Vife,
ja?
”

Seth swung around. Seeing Rosie behind him, his eyes darkened. “Wife? No. She’s going to work for me. Work.”

“
Sehr schön!
Beautiful,
ja?
Pretty.”

Rosie stopped. She stared up at the hulk of a man, her heart pounding. Unmarried. Hardworking. Friendly.
And
he thought she was beautiful. Had she just met her future husband?

“Name?” he asked. When Rosie said nothing, he placed a hand on the rock slab of his chest.
“Ich bin
Rolf Rustemeyer
.”

“I’m Rosie,” she said. “Rosenbloom Cot … uh …”

“Rose Mills,” Seth finished when she faltered. “She’s come to look after my boy. Clean a little. Cook.”

“
Ah
, die Köchin!”
Rolf rattled off a long string of unintelligible words as he gestured toward his land and the ramshackle dugout in the distance. Then he finished with a grand smile.
“Ja?”

“I don’t know what you said!” Seth shouted, as though talking louder might somehow make Rolf understand. “I … want … to … build … a … bridge! Will … you … help … me?”

Rolf frowned.
“Helfen?”

“What?”

“Ach!”
He turned to Rosie.
“Sprechen Sie Deutsch
, Fräulein Mills
?”

“A bridge,” she said. “Over water. Bridge.”

“
Britsch?
Über dem Wasser?”

Rosie looked at Seth. He looked at her. “This puts me in mind of the time Tommy Warburton came to live at the Home,” she said. “He was as deaf as a fence post, poor little fellow. We had to draw pictures and point to things just to try to make him understand.” She paused. “Look here, Mr. Rustemeyer. A bridge.”

Hiking up her skirt a little, Rosie knelt to the ground. She drew her fingers through the soft, rich dirt. “This is the creek. The water.”

“Das Wasser?”
Rolf asked.

“Das Wasser.”
She set a pebble by the stream. “This is you, Mr. Rustemeyer. And this pebble is Mr. Hunter. Over here across the
Wasser
is O’Toole.
Ja?
”

“
Ja!
Bluestem!” He was grinning like a coyote that had just gotten into the chicken coop.
“Ja, ja, ja!”

Rosie picked up a stick and broke it in half. Then she laid it across the line she had drawn. “Bridge. To go across, see? Across the
Wasser
.”

“Eine Brücke!”

“Ja!”
Rosie said.
“Eine Brücke!”

“Sehr gut!”
Then Rustemeyer rattled off another string of German that seemed to indicate he understood the idea very well. And he liked it.

Rosie glanced at Seth. “What’s he saying?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

She studied the big German. “Come to Mr. Hunter’s house. Tomorrow. Build the
Brücke
.”
“Am Morgen früh? Ich kann nicht. Ich habe eine Kuh die krank ist.”

“I don’t know if he’ll come,” Rosie said.

“I’d say it’s doubtful.”

She shrugged her shoulders and turned back toward the wagon. Suddenly from behind, Rolf Rustemeyer grabbed her arm and swung her around. Rosie clapped a hand over her mouth, her breath in her throat.

“Fräulein very pretty!” he said, falling to the ground on one knee and sweeping his frayed straw hat from his head. “Beautiful.”

Before Rosie could suck air into her lungs, Rolf Rustemeyer planted a firm kiss on the back of her hand. She jumped back, bumping into Seth.

“Oh my!” she gasped as Seth caught her shoulders. “Gracious, what are you doing, Mr. Rustemeyer? What’s he doing?”

“Looks to me like he’s courting.” Seth stepped up to the kneeling German and lifted him by one suspender. “Listen, Rustemeyer, she’s mine. Understand? The fräulein belongs to me.”

“Für
vork
, ja?”

Seth paused. “That’s right. She works for me. I brought her all the way from Kansas City. You leave her be.”

“Ja, ja.”
Rustemeyer nodded as Seth took Rosie’s arm and started back across the field. “Goot-bye, fräulein! Beautiful!”

Seth helped Rosie onto the wagon beside Chipper. As she arranged her skirts, she took a peek at Rustemeyer from under the brim of her bonnet. The German wasn’t bad to look at, though he did need a haircut and a wash. He was a hard worker. He seemed kind enough. And he thought she was beautiful.

As Seth started the mules, Rosie brushed a hand across her cheek. Her skin felt hot. Her mouth was dry. She thought she might be sick.

Beautiful?
Nobody had ever said a word about how Rosie Mills looked—one way or the other. When she happened to catch her reflection in a window, she saw nothing but two big brown eyes, a tall gawky body, and the same blue dress she had worn for three years. Beautiful?

“Rustemeyer ought to learn some English,” Seth said in a clipped voice. “And if you ask me, he needs to take a bath more than once a year.”

Rosie felt a grin tug at her lips. For some odd reason, the big German’s attentions to her had irked Seth. Of course, if she found someone to marry right away, she wouldn’t be able to look after Chipper. Maybe that was what bothered him.

“Mr. Hunter,” she said. When he turned his head, his eyes shone as bright blue as the sky. Her heart stumbled over a beat, but she lifted her chin. “I’ll have you remember the war is over, and Mr. Lincoln freed the slaves.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I don’t belong to you, Mr. Hunter. Not my arms for the working. Not my words for the speaking.” She paused. “And not my heart for the courting.”

Seth searched the trail for the first sign of his house. He had always liked that view—the roof coming into sight, and then the wall, his cows, the chickens, the fence, and finally his barn. For some reason, his pulse was pounding like a marching band. He couldn’t wait to show off his place. And it wasn’t just his son whose eyes would shine.

He glanced at the woman on the bench beside him. Ever since their encounter with Rustemeyer, Rosie had ridden in silence, her head held high and her eyes scanning the horizon.
Pretty
, the German had called her.
Beautiful
.

Seth gave a snort and studied the woman a little harder. Truth to tell, Rosie Mills wasn’t half-bad to look at. For one thing, she had those big brown eyes. In her eyes, a man could read everything she felt. Happiness, anger, fear, sorrow—her emotions were as obvious as the sun in the sky.

When Rosie was happy, her joy was about as hard to keep from catching as a case of hiccups. Anger flashed like lightning from those eyes of hers. And sorrow—Seth didn’t know when he’d ever seen such pain as that written on her face when Holloway bad-mouthed her background. No matter that Rosie Mills was stubborn and willful and a lot more jabbery than Seth liked, nobody deserved the kind of abuse she’d taken from the stationmaster.

But pretty? Her nose was straight enough. Her cheekbones stood out high and sharp. Of course, a month or two of good food might fix that. And her mouth … her mouth … Rosie’s lips—

“There it is!” she cried, turning those big chocolate eyes on him. “I see a roof! Is it your house?”

Seth cleared his throat, glad she had diverted his attention. “That’s it. I built it myself.”

As the mules pulled the wagon the last hundred yards, he couldn’t deny the pride of ownership he felt. He had dug every inch of soil out of the ground with his own two hands. He had cut the blocks of prairie sod and laid them one atop the other to build the half wall that fronted his dugout. He had chopped two of the scarce trees on his land and split them into boards. He had laid out his slanted wooden roof and covered it with more sod. And there it was. Perfect.

As he sat gazing on his dream, his future, Rosie stared in silence. Finally, she turned to him. Her brown eyes were luminous.

“Oh my,” she whispered. “You live in a cave.”

“I don’t wanna live in no hole in the ground with no stinkin’ Yankee,” Chipper announced. “I wanna go back and live with Gram and Gramps.”

Seth stared at the two of them, his face rigid. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His farm—the labor of his hands, the legacy he would leave behind him—

“This is it, like it or not,” he snapped. “This is where we stay.” Rosie stared at the dugout, her face as pale as winter prairie grass. “Home,” she whispered.

Never in her life had Rosie seen anything quite so forlorn, so unwelcoming, so dispiriting as the cave in the ground Seth Hunter called home. Truth to tell, it was more like a three-sided cutaway into a low hillock than a house. As she walked up to the door, she noted that he had sided the front of the soddy with long planks. He had installed four long windows—though they had only oiled paper for panes—and a semblance of a front porch with an overhanging roof. The house itself was tucked into the hill, its roofline even with the ground. In fact, should anyone want to, he could drive a wagon right up the hill and over the sodded roof of the house without a pause.

Rosie let out a breath. This was no Kansas City cottage. There was nothing even to lend an air of beauty. No white paint. No pink-flowered curtains. No brick walkways. No picket fences. No roses or daffodils or tulips. It was … a burrow.