The Bartered Bride (The Brides Book 3) (23 page)

Jem stopped him, saying, “Hang on a minute, everyone,” and then he left the table.

Annie waited with the rest—Ben, Ray, and Mae—listening to the sounds of Jem’s footsteps going upstairs and coming back down.

Jem returned and set a grand wooden box on the table, right in front of Annie.

She looked up at him in surprise.
What’s this?
She raised her brows, inquiring without words.

“That’s for you,” he said, taking his seat again. “Open it.”

What is it?
she wanted to ask.

“Open it. Open it.” Mae crawled up onto Annie’s seat, crowding in to see.

“Give her room, Mae,” Jem said. A smile played at his lips.

Annie couldn’t tear her eyes away from the sight.

Mae nudged her. “Open it,” she whispered.

Annie smiled uncertainly. Jem had gotten her something? She hadn’t gotten him anything. She’d had nothing to give, unless he counted the pie. He seemed to have liked it. He’d had two wide slices, after all, and made appreciative noises when he was eating it.

She was glad Ray had let her make the pie after all. It had taken a good bit of work to communicate what she’d wanted to do. But he’d understood and it had put a rather secretive twinkle in his eyes.

And now everyone was looking at her expectantly, even Ben and Ray. Jem had even brought Sugar in for the night, and she lay resting on the kitchen hearth, seemingly oblivious to the goings-on at the table.

“Well?” Jem prodded, probably wondering what was wrong with her. “It’s your birthday too.”

Annie blushed and sat forward.

She touched the box lid, fitted with a hinge. The entire thing seemed designed for a rich person’s house. Polished blond wood, birch maybe, fitted with tiny brass tacks. There were brass roses engraved on top, something she suspected may have been handmade for Lorelei.

Ben leaned forward in his chair, his expression darkening. “That’s Lorelei’s typewriter, isn’t it—the one Pa gave her?” He looked at Jem with accusing eyes.

“You know it is.” Jem sent Ben a warning glance. “Seems like it’s time someone else used it. Someone who’ll appreciate it,” he said with an air of meaning. “And that someone is Annie.”

Ben opened and closed his mouth, apparently silenced but not entirely pleased.

Annie heard all this as she lifted the lid and peered in. The typewriter sat inside, perfectly fitted to the box. They seemed made for each other. A set. It was the sort of box you’d use for travel, with handles on either side. The inside was lined in red velvet. It was beautiful. More beautiful to her than anything she’d ever seen.

Perhaps because Jem was giving it to her.

Perhaps because she knew it had been Lorelei’s.

It was special.

Annie’s eyes smarted. What was he doing? She couldn’t accept this. Why, the typewriter was the reason she’d let Mae and Sugar go missing. She’d been snooping around where she shouldn’t have been. Jem knew that. What was he doing? Why?

Annie sat back, pushing the beautiful box away.

“What’s wrong? Don’t you want it?” Jem asked

She shook her head. Her throat closing.

“Annie?”

Tears stung her eyes. She didn’t want them to see. Couldn’t cry in front of them.

She lurched out of her chair and ran for the front porch, escaping into the cool of the evening.

THIRTY

J
em found Annie not on the front porch but down at the bottom of the steps, staring out at Pikes Peak and the Garden of the Gods.

“Annie,” he said, coming to stand beside her on a patch of flattened grasses. In this early evening light, the small oval of her face looked like someone had painted it in pale tones of blue.

She wasn’t crying, he was relieved to see, but her arms hung loosely down at her sides and there was no expression on her face. Nothing at all to read.

The mountain range glowed gold from the sun that had already set behind it. Heavy shadows traced everything else, or so it seemed. The view was mesmerizing as usual. But based on what had gone on inside, that wasn’t what held Annie’s full attention.

Why she was so upset? He’d thought she’d like the typewriter.

“Annie,” he repeated more insistently, “what’s the matter? If you don’t like the typewriter, I can get you something else. I know you like shoes,” he quipped, attempting to make her smile.

He was rewarded by the ever-so-slight lifting of the corner of her mouth.

She glanced down at her going-to-church shoes. She’d cleaned them well, from what he could see, but the leather was shadowed on the toes where the black mud from the pond had coated them. Those stains would probably never come out.

A constant reminder.

For him.

For her.

She formed a box with her hands, made a motion of tapping keys, then folded her hands over her heart. Her expression was...wistful.

I love the typewriter.
She couldn’t have said it more clearly, and he was relieved to have understood her.

This time.

“Then why’d you run off?” he asked, raising and lowering his hands, perplexed.

She looked down at her hands as if gathering her thoughts, trying to find the motions to explain.

Finally, she held her palm hip high and pointed to the house, making her
M
sound.

“Mae,” he supplied.

She made floppy ears on the sides of her head.
And Sugar
.

Then she made a motion: her fingers running into the distance.
Ran away.
She touched her chest, then made her typing motion again.

Her shoulders sagged.

He frowned, then her meaning became clear. “They ran away, and you typed? Yes, that helped.”

She shook her head violently and struck her fist twice against her palm.
No
.

Very clearly
no
.

I was typing
. She motioned.
They ran away
.

Jem grew still as her meaning dawned on him. He lowered himself onto the bottom step and steepled his fingers under his chin, leaning his elbows heavily on his knees.

She perched beside him, her feet lined up together. Prim and proper. Waiting for her judgment. What was fair.

She obviously expected him to yell at her.

All this he saw from the corner of his eye, for he couldn’t turn and look at her. He kept his eyes focused ahead, seeing only blurs of shapes.

She’d been in his room. She hadn’t just been searching there for Mae as he’d first thought. When everyone else was away,
that’s
when she’d gone inside. Like a thief might. He brushed that thought quickly aside. She didn’t strike him as the sort of woman to steal, but she’d gone inside to look at his things. Maybe she was curious. It still felt like a violation, no matter what her intentions had been.

Beside him she bowed her head, her chin almost touching her chest. Then she lifted her head again and sat in her waiting posture.

The waiting was likely nearly killing her. Waiting for him to say something. There was something about her actions that struck him as so brave.

He tried to gather some words together, but nothing came.

She’d been typing when Sugar and Mae got out.

She’d been
typing
.

Not stealing his things.

How she knew the typewriter was there was a mystery, but somehow she’d discovered it. She’d discovered it and was so lost in what she found that she wasn’t watching Mae. That was true. Mae got lost, but how many times had Mae gotten lost when
he
was watching her? That day at the train depot she’d slipped right out of his grasp without him noticing. Sugar had been a culprit there too. The point being, he could have been the one home when Mae went out the back door after Sugar. It was now reasonably clear that’s what had happened.

All Annie had been doing was trying to make words on paper.

Trying to make words
, that’s all.

He lifted his head, keeping his eyes on the darkening landscape.

“Listen,” he said. “I’ve been thinking...” He proceeded to tell her about his idea, about finding a school for learning sign language.

She watched him the whole time.

When he was done, she simply made a series of motions. From what he gathered, she was asking something like,
You’re not angry?

“I’m not angry,” he said plainly. “I’m not happy Mae got lost, or that Sugar got hurt. But,” he added quickly, seeing her face tighten, “I’m not blaming you. Mae’s got away from me plenty of times. And plenty of times it could have been a disaster. I guess that’s part of being a parent.”

He saw a look of surprise cross her face and he realized for the first time he’d included her in being a parent. It surprised him too for a moment, but he didn’t pause to give it any more thought.

“I think a school could help,” he said. “You could learn to sign. Sign language? Do you understand what that is?”

She nodded and tapped her ear. She’d heard of it.

“Well, there are schools for that. Probably most of the students are deaf, but there may be some other folks...just like you. I don’t know. If you could carry that typewriter around all the time that would be one thing. But you can’t. You need some other way to communicate.”

He thought he detected a glimmer of interest in her eyes.

She wanted to learn. It was nice to see. Any person who wanted to better themselves—no matter their starting point—well, he respected that.

It would take time. Time away from the ranch. And money, but that wasn’t a problem. Whatever the school charged, it would be worth it. He had enough in the bank. He’d saved up nearly all his earnings working as a logger. The Jessups had insisted on paying for his schooling. One of his professors had urged him to start his own practice in Iowa. So upon graduation, Jem had married Lorelei and put the dream in motion. His practice had grown and been quite successful. When he’d needed to sell off the office and house on Main Street—plus the land he’d bought outside of town for a large stable and paddocks—the gain had been double what he’d originally paid. Then there was the inheritance—the money Lorelei’s father had left in his care for Mae’s future. That alone made a good enough return for all their daily expenses and then some. Money wasn’t a problem.

If Annie wanted to learn, she was going to learn.

Annie gazed out at the horizon, seeming to soak in the view. Perhaps making one of her flour drawings in her mind? Mae had told him all about her drawings this afternoon. He’d already known Annie could draw. He recalled the first day he’d seen her with Mae and Sugar, how she’d made a picture with her finger in the dirt. It seemed a lifetime ago now.

As Jem watched Annie, a shadow of emotion crossed her features. He wondered what he’d said that troubled her. Something about the school. He was about to ask it about it, when she began to motion with her hands.

I love the typewriter.
It was the same motion she’d made before, clear as can be.

Perhaps her worried expression had more to do with his gift then?

“I want you to have it,” he said sincerely. “You can have it in your room, if you want. Use it at the kitchen table. Wherever you wish.”

She smiled uncertainly.

“You can even keep it on Lorelei’s old desk. If you want. There’s plenty of paper there. And a good chair.” He didn’t know where the words had come from. He’d essentially invited her to enter his room—to enter
Lorelei’s private study
—whenever she wished.

Thank you.
She gathered his words into her hand and placed it against her heart, as he’d seen her do before, just a few steps from here, on the porch. The evening they’d talked about birthdays. The evening she’d been so grateful when he’d pushed through so he could understand her. It had meant so much to her.

He looked away, uncomfortable now.

Had he truly just invited her into his room? Into his life?

To come and go as she pleased.

“If you could knock first,” he added, folding his arms over his chest and looking over at her with a stern expression.

She laughed, as had been his intention, but his discomfort didn’t fade. If anything it intensified. For he found her laugh utterly charming, and her increasingly familiar features even more so.

“Well, then...” He stood abruptly.

Annie hopped to her feet as well, perhaps startled by his sudden movement. She straightened her back, not unlike a child before a schoolmarm. She made a knocking motion with her fist and her expression was almost comically trustworthy.

Jem sighed and nodded, forcing what was likely a strained-looking smile. He left her, but before he closed the front door behind him, he glanced over his shoulder. She was still simply standing there with her arms wrapped across her middle.

Annie Wheeler. His wife.

A constant puzzle.