Rocky Mountain Romp (Rocky Mountain Bride Series Book 4) (9 page)

His laugh filled the room.

* * *

Christmas officially began at the breakfast table, with Esther and Rose serving mountains of flapjacks, smothered in maple syrup and fresh butter. The men came tromping in from checking on the horses and getting more firewood, and reported drifts up to their knees.

As the couples and Jesse came to the table, Esther and Rose rushed to the kitchen and back, adding coffee, bacon, eggs and more and more flapjacks until Lyle caught his wife around her waist and pulled her into his lap.

“Sit, Mrs. Shepherd.” Johnathan also reached for his wife, and Esther took her place next to him. Jesse, straightening from where he was cooing over little Mary, noticed the Reverend holding his wife’s hand under the table. Indeed, all the couples were sitting close together, Rose on Lyle’s lap outright, the redhead giving her husband a sly smile. Jesse’s brother looked quite smug as he shifted and she winced.

The women seemed to be sitting very carefully, but their eyes sparkled.

Jesse pretended to be oblivious, shoveling food into his mouth nonstop, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off his favorite of the three women. Under her mass of chestnut hair, Carrie’s cheeks were apple red, and she could barely look at her husband without blushing. Miles wore a grin so broad Jesse hardly recognized the stern man at first.

“More bacon, brother?” Rose said at his elbow, and the young Wilder turned his green eyes to meet her mocking glance. She’d noticed his interest.

“Please.” He knocked off half the rashers on the plate. “Haven’t had a meal like this in months.”

“You need a wife,” Lyle laughed, and Jesse could’ve kicked his brother. All the women’s eyes turned towards him, looking him up and down like he was a piece of meat.

Grabbing his cup, Jesse took a sip of coffee. “Who says I haven’t got one?”

“Really, Jesse? Who?” Rose asked, a sharp glint in her eye. His sister-in-law missed nothing, and he was glad his face was hidden behind the tin mug.

“A proper lady,” he said finally. “We’re not married yet, but will be.”

“Hmmm,” Rose said, and glanced at Esther down the table.

The blonde was smiling outright, a bright light in her eyes. “Mr. Wilder, if you need any help—”

Her husband cleared his throat and immediately Esther fell silent. Miles, too, had fixed Carrie with a stern glance and was shaking his head.

“I’m sure I’ll manage,” Jesse said, and ignored everything but his plate for the rest of the meal.

The conversation swung to the food, then to tonight’s feast and the gift giving.

“It’ll be a fine Christmas,” Mr. Shepherd was saying.

“But what about Mr. Martin?” Carrie blurted.

A pause, and everyone looked to the bedroom door, the last they’d seen of Mr. Martin and Mrs. Lovett.

“Awfully quiet in there,” Jesse guffawed, and winced when both Lyle and Rose kicked him under the table.

“They’ve been in there all night?” Esther asked, just as the door to the bedroom swung open, and revealed Mrs. Lovett in a fine green dress with a fashionable crinoline. Behind her was Mr. Martin, beaming as he offered his arm to the lady. She was a hand taller than him, and with her hoops, four times as wide. She sailed across the floor with Martin scurrying to keep up, a great galleon accompanied by a dinghy.

The two paraded to the breakfast table, where their audience sat in stunned silence. Then, as one, all the men around the table rose in deference to the matron.

“Mrs. Lovett.” Johnathan indicated the place to his right, while Esther jumped up to get more food. “I trust you slept well.”

“Like a babe in a manger,” she boomed, and both Lyle and Jesse choked back a laugh.

“And Mr. Martin…” Johnathan seemed at a loss for words, faced with the beaming shopkeeper and the large smile stretched across the bald man’s face.

“Ah, Marion and I— I mean, Mrs. Lovett, I mean…” Martin paused and took a deep breath. Jesse noted Mrs. Lovett looking down at her escort with a fond smile. “We have an announcement to make,” the shopkeeper said firmly.

“We’ve come to an agreement,” Mrs. Lovett added. “Reverend, please get your book. Lawrence and I wish to be married, post haste.”

In the stunned silence, Jesse laughed out loud. Then the room erupted.

“Hurrah!” shouted Esther, frightening the baby, who burst into startled cries. “Oh, sorry,” the blonde said, but Carrie quickly took up her child, both she and Rose cooing Mary into silence.

Lyle and Miles went to Mr. Lawrence, pounding him on the back, while Jesse dashed to the newly affianced lady. The younger Wilder kissed Mrs. Lovett on both cheeks and, gripping her around her waist, swung her around as if she was a lithe girl, and not a matron of almost forty-nine. Johnathan and Esther both stood pronouncing congratulations, the latter waving her handkerchief at Mr. Martin when he looked a little peaked from the overwhelming attention. And Mrs. Lovett laughed and laughed.

*

Looking back, Jesse had to admit it was the merriest Christmas he’d had. After the marriage ceremony, the whole party bundled up and went out into the snow, looking over the dazzling white hills.

“Such a wondrous country,” the new Mrs. Martin said. She hadn’t lost her cheerful mood, and her cheeks were as bright as a girl’s.

“We’re quite well suited,” the matron told the room after the announcement. “It was unsure at first, but we talked most of the night and, well, he convinced me.” Turning to Rose and Esther, she said, “I must thank you for writing on his behalf. It was a jolly good prank, and it’s all ended well.”

The women all gaped at her as the bride turned to Martin and patted his cheek. “I cannot be angry when it led to meeting my Laurie.”

Lawrence had blushed to the roots of his almost nonexistent hair.

After a romp in the snow, the party came inside, some to nap, some to play games, and others to get the food started for the feast. As the building filled with delicious smells, Jesse lay on his bedroll, black hat over his face and half listening to the conversation.

His ears pricked up when Carrie shared a letter her friend Susannah wrote.

“‘Boston is my home but wears on me,’” Carrie read. “‘My engagement has ended under the saddest circumstances, yet I feel as long as I am here, I must hold my head up high.’”

“How did it end?” Mrs. Martin broke in.

“He died,” Carrie said.

“Oh goodness.” Mrs. Martin sat back and waved for her to continue reading.

“‘The job teaching is my one solace, and even that will soon end,’” Carrie read. “‘Auntie gets many gentleman callers on my behalf (although I think she imagines half of them), and she insists I accept one and be married by next fall, or she’ll cut me off. She is hoping for a summer wedding, I can tell. If I’m very unlucky, she’ll accept Mr. Johnson; he is fifty-five and round as a cheese wheel (because he eats one a day, I’m sure)—’”

Rose laughed.

“‘—but he’s done very well for himself in shipping, and Auntie thinks he’s the best. He’s so boring, Carrie. I’ve taken to wearing bloomers around the house just to scandalize him, in case he calls.’”

“Bloomers?” Lyle interrupted.

“Skirts made to look like trousers,” Rose explained.

“Yes, they’re all the rage among the progressive girls.” Mrs. Martin flapped her hand as if dismissing a line of youthful women in bloomers. “They’re all walking about New York wearing them, as if they’re in a Sultan’s harem.”

“Oh my,” Mr. Martin said.

“I bet I’d look good in bloomers,” Rose said with a sly look at Lyle. He raised a brow at her.

“You wear them, there will be consequences,” he promised.

“Don’t tell Esther we’ve been talking about bloomers,” Johnathan said. The tall Reverend was up on the hearth, holding a pan of chestnuts over the fire. “She thinks they’re more practical than skirts.”

“A wife or daughter of mine caught wearing bloomers would get a trip to the woodshed,” declared Miles.

“Hear, hear,” Lyle said.

“Is that so?” Rose murmured in a silky tone that Jesse knew meant trouble.

But Lyle only laughed. Capturing Rose’s hand, he kissed it. To Jesse’s surprise, Rose gave her husband such a warm glance, she looked closer to her rightful age of nineteen.

Carrie cleared her throat. “Susannah sent a picture.”

“Is she wearing bloomers?” Mrs. Lovett leaned forward.

“No, a silk dress.” Carrie passed around the picture, and Jesse had a peek. Susannah was a pretty girl, with wide eyes and light hair. Blonde, he seemed to remember from Carrie’s description of her friend. Her dress was fashionable but modest; she had a small corner of her mouth turned up, a tiny peek into the personality hiding under the perfect gown and smoothly coiffed hair.

Esther came out of the kitchen, pulling off her apron.

“Is everything in hand, dearest?” Johnathan asked her.

“Bread is done, the roast is turning, and everything else can be prepared just before.” She tossed her apron on the table and cried, “Time for presents!”

* * *

“All I ask is for my fair share,” Jesse argued.

The feast was done, the carols sung, but Jesse was having a rough night. He’d hoped his brother would be more amenable to allowing him back on the claim.

He was wrong.

Lyle was having none of it. The tall man stood, arms folded, using every inch of his extra height to look down on his brother.

Worse, Rose sat behind her husband, arm thrown over the back of the chair, with that bored, haughty look she wore so well.

“When I gave you half the claim, it was with your promise that you’d help me work it,” Lyle said. “Not a week later, you were off riding to California to find gold.”

“Which I did.” Jesse threw up his hands. “I sent it to you to pay my share.”

“I needed help, not gold.”

“So hire a man with the money I gave!”

“Lower your voice,” Lyle hissed. Outside the room, the party was still going on.

“Why should I? Let your friend’s know how you cheat your family—”

He expected a fist from Lyle; the two brothers fought at least once a year. Lyle usually won, though Jesse had always gotten in a few good hits.

What Jesse didn’t expect was his sister-in-law to launch herself at him.

“You dare,” she hissed, coming at him with nails out.

Jesse jumped back, and Lyle grabbed his wife and swung her around.

“Get out,” Lyle ordered his brother.

Frowning, Jesse lurched out of the room. He knew, as well as Lyle, that a hired hand wouldn’t be as good as family. Many a claim jumper started by lending a hand to get a day’s wage, then might cheat or even kill the stake holder for the land. As the Wild West was tamed, it didn’t happen so often, but out here, in the wilderness near the Rockies, anything could happen.

Jesse ran his hand through his thick, dark hair and sighed. He’d let his brother down when he left, he knew. Living as a vagabond suited him, though. He’d rustled cattle in Texas, panned for gold in California, and for an exciting few months, rode in the Pony Express. He was a man who’d always needed adventure.

Now, sitting and brooding in a chair in the shadows, he watched Miles with Carrie and Mary by the fire. Donovan sat on the deep ledge of the fireplace, his back to the stone chimney. Carrie had settled in front of him, and she held Mary as she leaned back into her husband’s arms. Her thick chestnut tresses wafted about her face, one curl falling across her cheek. Miles put his thick arms around his wife, his broad body enveloping her smaller form. He rested his chin on Carrie’s shoulder, and both parents looked down at their wide-eyed child. It was a pretty picture, and for some reason, set Jesse’s gut aching. The younger Wilder looked away, but everywhere couples seemed to be cuddling close. Mr. Martin bustled about his new bride, offering her chestnuts and hot cider. Johnathan had finally coaxed his wife to leave the kitchen, they sat at the table, their heads pushed close together and Johnathan’s arm around his Esther’s shoulders. And then there was Lyle and Rose, still holed up in their bedroom, doing God knows what. Jesse frowned. He knew Lyle disciplined his wife, but from the way she gazed at him afterwards, the punishment probably led to games.

Jesse rubbed his hands across his face as if he could erase the thought. Whatever his brother and sister-in-law were up to, it didn’t bear thinking about. After all, it did him no good.

For a moment, he imagined if the lies he’d told at breakfast were true. What if there was a sweet, doe-eyed lady waiting for him in some fine city? He’d ride his horse up to her house, and she’d rush to the door. In his fantasy, she was lovely with fresh, pink cheeks and a merry sparkle in her eye. She wore a fine velvet riding habit and danced up to him with breathless excitement, taking his hand so he could pull her up behind him. He’d spur his horse and ride to the countryside with her curves pressed against him, find a quiet lawn near a rushing brook, lay the lady down and then… mmm.

Biting back a curse, Jesse broke off that train of thought too late. The front of his trousers already felt fit to burst. Worse was the realization that he’d been daydreaming of settling down with a woman. Was he, Jesse Wilder, man of action, actually envying a quieter life?

Rising, he stomped to his bedroll and snatched up his hat and long coat.

“Leaving so soon?” Johnathan asked as Jesse passed him on the way to the door.

“Just gonna get some air,” Jesse muttered, and stepped outside.

This Christmas night the air was crisp, the razor’s edge of cold slicing through his layers. He crunched over the snow, heading past the stables where he could feel the horse’s heat calling to him, and barreling away from the town on a quest to nowhere. After crossing a large field, he hit a line of trees and stopped, staring up at the moon.

He was twenty-seven, and though he’d never owned a homestead or a house, he’d always been proud of his rambling ways. His best friend was his long rifle. He could ride a horse and shoot a bison, rope a steer, kill and skin and cook his dinner in less than an hour. He’d slept out under the stars more times than he could count.

Even his body bore evidence of his rough life. His face was rugged and torso scarred from fights, falls, and even a fire. He had a shiny weal on his hand from when he escaped from a burning building as a child. The building had been his family’s shed, and Jesse had started the fire, so his back also bore a few scars from the whipping his father had given him. Women liked pretty things; he wondered if a wife would balk at such a tough looking mate. Of course, when he stopped in a town to take a bath, the girls at the saloons and brothels always cooed over his body. They seemed to enjoy his broad shoulders, taut muscles, and the size of the appendage between his legs, but he paid them well with coin for the pleasure of their bodies and their attention. He’d tupped a few milk maids, too, and they gave him the same compliments and sighs for free.