Short-Straw Bride (19 page)

A
fter five days of marriage, the shine was starting to wear off. Meredith grimaced as she stirred a bowl of cornbread batter. She'd cleaned the house from top to bottom, kept the men fed and their clothes mended—done everything a wife was supposed to do. Well . . . almost everything. And therein lay her trouble. Except for the quick hug he'd given her when encouraging her to face Mr. Winston, Travis had offered her virtually no affection, leaving her feeling more like a housekeeper than a wife.

She'd told herself he was being gallant when he suggested they take some time to get to know one another before sharing the intimacy of the marriage bed, but now she wondered if that had just been an excuse to avoid her. After all, he hadn't wed her out of love but rather a sense of responsibility.

“Quit being pitiful, Meri.” She forced herself to stop pulverizing the cornmeal and poured the batter into a square baking pan. Love needed time to grow. It was unfair to expect her husband to blossom overnight into the idealized romantic hero she'd spent her adolescence mooning over. Besides, she was a woman now, not a girl, and she needed a man to stand at her side, not an imaginary hero.

But she still wanted that man to care for her.

With a sigh that was still far too pitiful sounding for her peace of mind, Meredith opened the oven door and slid the pan into the heart of the stove. It was then that she noticed the quiet. Travis and Jim were supposed to be tearing out damaged boards from the sections of the barn that were still standing, while Crockett and Neill checked the cattle out on the range and scouted new pastureland. There should have been voices, the crash of wood planks hitting the scrap heap, something. But even when she held very still, all she could make out was a faint chatter from the chicken coop.

Heart thumping in her breast, Meredith crept over to the bathing room and grabbed the broom. It seemed a particularly opportune time to sweep the front porch. If trouble was afoot, she'd surely see it coming from there. Wouldn't hurt to have the shotgun at hand, either. Meredith took a detour through the den to collect the gun and tuck a handful of shells into her apron pocket. She stood the weapon against the wall of the entryway, then opened the door to find Sadie blocking her path.

“Shoo, girl.” Meredith nudged the dog's side with her knee. Sadie held fast, her ears pricked, her attention focused somewhere down the path.

Meredith angled herself over the dog's back, jutting her shoulders through the doorway in order to glance around the yard. No sign of the men. She pressed harder against Sadie's side. “Come on, now. Let . . . me . . . through.” Meredith's greater weight finally prevailed as she displaced the dog far enough to squeeze past. But before she could take more than a step or two, Sadie scrambled around to block her progress once again.

“What has gotten into you?” Meredith stroked the dog's fur, hoping a friendly rub would restore the animal's usual good humor. Sadie refused to relax, however. Her back remained stiff and straight, her legs braced like a soldier on guard duty.

All at once the pieces clicked into place. “Travis ordered you to stand guard, didn't he?”

Sadie twisted her neck and looked at her mistress with eyes that seemed to reprimand her for being so slow in comprehending the obvious, then turned her attention back to the path.

Meredith straightened and peered in the same direction. The trees obscured her view, and the uncertainty of what was happening behind their cover set her pulse to thrumming. Whatever had lured Travis away had been urgent enough to preclude him from stopping by the house to warn her.

Had Roy Mitchell's men returned? What of Crockett and Neill? Had something befallen one of them?

Her hands tightened around the broom handle.
Please, Lord, keep my family safe.

A flash of color tickled her vision, dodging in and out of the pines. Meredith dashed around Sadie to the far end of the porch and leaned over the railing to get a better view. The dog barked once in protest, then bounded to her side.

Meredith squinted, the railing digging into her stomach. She spied a man. No. Two men. One tall and large, the other slender. Both dark-skinned. The path took them behind another tree, and Meredith bit the inside of her cheek in frustration. The tall one wore an odd-looking feather in the band of his tan planter hat. Even from a distance, she could make out the black plume against the lighter-colored headpiece.

She'd seen a hat like that before. As the memory slowly awakened within her, the hard voice of her husband cut through the late morning quiet.

“Take one more step, and I'll shoot you where you stand.”

Like a pair of ghosts, Travis and Jim materialized out of the trees, their rifles pointed directly at the man who had built her father's school.

“No!” Meredith cried. “Wait!” She shooed Sadie with her broom and managed to evade the animal long enough to gain the steps. Dropping the broom, she hiked up her skirts and ran toward her husband.

He didn't look too happy to see her. The glare he aimed her way was downright furious, as a matter of fact. But Meredith refused to be cowed. He could yell at her later. Right now she intended to broaden the stubborn man's horizons.

“Meredith, get back to the house.” Travis called out the demand, then shifted his stance to match her angle of approach, putting himself between her and the visitors.

A stitch in her side kept her from answering at first, but she knew he'd figure out her refusal once she reached the gathering. She stopped a few feet behind him and struggled to catch her breath as she surreptitiously rubbed her right leg. The punishment of running on the shorter limb had set it to aching.

Travis would have to be deaf not to be aware of her presence, even with his back turned. Yet he paid her no heed, just continued on with his threats.

“You're trespassing on my land.” Travis aimed the barrel of his rifle at the larger man's chest. “The sign at the gate warned you of the consequences. Now turn around and leave before I put a bullet in you.”

The big man held his arms out from his sides in a gesture of conciliation, but he made no move to leave. “I didn't read no sign.”

“That doesn't change the fact that you're trespassing.”

The younger fellow, just a boy, really—he looked about the same age as Neill—backed a step away from Jim, his eyes wary. “Let's go, Pa. Mr. Winston was wrong. They don't want our help.”

“That's cuz they don't know what we're offerin' yet.” The man's face gave nothing away, but Meredith could feel the challenge hanging in the air.

“The only offer I'm interested in is the one where you offer to leave my land.” Travis waved his gun in the direction of the road.

Meredith lifted a hand to Travis's shoulder. Her touch was light, yet he flinched as if she'd burned him. “Travis. Please. I know this m—”

“Strangers aren't welcome here,” her husband ground out, cutting off her explanation. But the others heard.

Moses Jackson peered past Travis, and when his eyes landed on her, his composure fell away. “Miss Meri? That you?”

She smiled and stepped out from behind her husband. An answering smile began to crease Moses's face when Travis shoved her back behind him. In an instant, the black man's good humor vanished and the hands that had hung harmless at his sides balled into fists—giant fists that looked like they could fell a tree.

“You here against your will, Miss Meri?”

Jim and Travis both tensed, and Meredith's stomach plummeted to her toes.
Merciful heavens.
If Moses started swinging those fists, Travis was bound to be the first target. And if one of the guns went off? Well, it didn't bear thinking about.

Just as she had with Sadie earlier, Meredith dodged around her husband's protective stance and dashed directly into the line of fire.

Travis immediately raised his rifle barrel into the air, but the look he shot her felt just like a bullet tearing through the flesh near her heart. She prayed he'd forgive her once she'd explained. There was nothing to do now, though, but brazen her way through.

“Travis Archer, may I present Mr. Moses Jackson? Mr. Jackson built the freedmen's schoolhouse a mile west of Beaver Valley, where my father taught for several years.” Meredith watched Travis's face for signs of softening, but his jaw remained as clenched as ever as he stared down the large black man. She turned to Moses only to find his face equally implacable. “Moses, Travis is my husband. I am here quite willingly.”

Finally, Moses surrendered the staring battle to glance at Meredith. He relaxed his fists, and a hint of a smile played about the corners of his mouth. “Your man ain't the friendly sort, is he, Miss Meri.”

She laughed, her nerves getting the better of her. “Not at first. But he can be a trusted ally once you get to know him.” Meredith peeked back at her husband. He still looked none too pleased, but his eyes were no longer shooting bullets at her. It was a start.

Travis tipped his rifle barrel onto his shoulder, pointing it harmlessly away from the visitors, but his right hand continued gripping the stock in a way that would allow instant readiness should the occasion call for it.

“Why'd you come, Jackson?”

“Lookin' for work. Heard ya had a barn what needed rebuilding.”

“I've got three brothers.” Travis jerked his chin in Jim's direction. “That one's even a carpenter. We'll manage the task.”

Moses crossed his arms over his chest. “Before the next rain comes?” The question hovered for a moment, everyone knowing the answer. “My boy's good with a hammer, and I've built just about everything there is what has walls and a roof. With us working for you, you can cut yer building time in half.”

Travis's jaw worked back and forth.

“We need a place to store what's left of the hay,” Jim stated with flat practicality as he shifted his rifle, pointing it toward the ground.

Travis made no outward show that he'd heard his brother, but Meredith sensed the battle inside him. The hay would mold if rain came before they got a roof on the barn, and in Texas, the weather was harder to predict than a hummingbird's flight path. It could hold off for a month or a storm could roll in tomorrow. But having strangers on Archer land went against everything Travis had clung to since his father died.

“I can't pay in cash money.”

Meredith held her breath. He was bending.

“I'd work for provisions, foodstuffs to see me and mine through the winter.”

Travis frowned. “I can't spare much. We've already laid in provisions for the winter and won't receive more until spring. We hadn't planned on needing extra for barter.”

Meredith considered offering to go to town should they run low on supplies, but figured she'd pushed her husband far enough for one day. Perhaps discretion would be the better part of valor in this instance. Her gaze seesawed back to Moses, praying he'd not refuse. Travis needed his help whether he admitted it or not. And not just with the barn. He needed a connection with the outside world, with someone other than that dreadful Seth Winston, someone who could help him see that reaching out to others was as important as protecting one's own.

Moses uncrossed his arms. “I'll accept whatever you think fair.”

Silence stretched over the pair as they continued to size each other up. Finally, Travis thrust out his hand. Moses grasped it with his own, and the two shook. Giddy pleasure gurgled through Meredith, but she contained it behind a soft smile.

“One of us will meet you at the gate each morning to escort you in,” Travis instructed. “You and the boy can take your midday meals with us while you're working and collect your payment at the end of the week.”

“Yessir, Mr. Archer.” Moses dipped his head in compliance.

“Call me Travis. If we're going to be working together, there's no need for such formality. That there's Jim,” he indicated with a thrust of his chin. “Crockett and Neill are out on the range. You'll meet them in a bit when they come in to eat.”

Moses shook hands with Jim and introduced his son, Josiah. Meredith stepped back and watched the whole thing unfold, pride in her husband seeping through every pore. She'd worried, just for a moment, that the color of Moses's skin might have played a part in Travis's reluctance to accept his help. But clearly that was not the case. Not with him offering the use of his Christian name. No, Travis would have treated any stranger with the same discourtesy.

A giggle tickled her throat. Oh, that's right—he had. She'd nearly forgotten about her own inhospitable Archer welcome. That day felt like a lifetime ago now.

“Jim, why don't you take Moses and Josiah up to the shed and show them the sketches you've been working on,” Travis said. “Meredith and I will meet you at the house in a couple minutes.”

Jim nodded and led the Jacksons toward the shed. Meredith waved to Moses when he tipped his hat to her, then turned a beaming smile on her husband.

“Oh, Travis,” she gushed. “You won't regret this. Moses is a good man and a talented builder. I know the two of you will get along famously. Papa always held him in high esteem even though he and his older boy never came to the reading classes. Too busy sharecropping. That's probably why he didn't heed your sign. I don't think he can read. But his wife and younger son attended and were fine pupils. Why—”

“Meredith,” Travis snapped and grabbed hold of her arm.

The well of frothy babble inside her dried up in an instant. She met his gaze, and her heart started a painful throb in her chest. She'd experienced his irritation and even an occasional flash of true frustration, but never had Travis directed a look of raw anger at her.

Suddenly she very much wished she had let Sadie keep her penned in the house.