Her Safe Harbor: Prairie Romance (Crawford Family Book 4) (5 page)

“He is not a good person, Jolene, but it is unnecessary for
you to be concerned. Maybe I have given into hysterics.”

“It is absolutely necessary for me to be concerned. I had
problems and tragedies in my life and managed them alone, with little success I
later learned. Julia had problems, too, and she managed them alone and could
have ended up married to a man who beat her or killed her. Thankfully she
married an honorable man who adores her and
all
of their children. I
have come to realize, like you, that our family did not function as it should
have as we grew up. Maximillian would never let someone struggle alone or in
desperation. If his sister telegraphed him that she was having a problem he
would walk off the Senate floor in that instant, even if President Cleveland himself
were in conversation with him. I have found that an outward-looking psyche is
healthy, and that constant and never-ending secretiveness and internalization
are not.”

“They may not be, but secretively is how we function at
Willow Tree.”

“It does make one susceptible to unpleasantness if
surrounded by unpleasant people. That is why I have urged you repeatedly to
live with us indefinitely.”

“I cannot.”

“But why not? I know that Turner left you a lump sum in his
will. Between that and what Father would give you, you would certainly have a
comfortable income.”

“It is not the money, Jolene. I live a relatively modest
lifestyle.”

“Then what is it?”

Jennifer sat back in her chair and sipped her tea. She
stared off into the fire. “It is many things, Jolene, that keep me there. I am
very concerned about what Father would do if I left. He has been morose since
Jillian left to live with Julia, and Mother is a constant trial for him. I feel
terribly guilty because Jeffrey and Mother think I canceled this trip, and I
asked Father to let them know when I don’t come home this evening that I have
come away to see you.”

“And they will blame Father in some way. I didn’t know you
had planned on canceling this trip.”

“The Morgans’ gala is this week and Jeffrey had already replied
that we would be there. He was angry that I would not cancel the trip and
angrier still that I denied his wishes in front of Mother and Father.”

“What prompted him to think you had canceled this trip
then?”

Jennifer turned away, concentrating on the embroidered
doilies on the arms of her chair. “I said as much to appease him. I do hate to
be the source of conflict, but now it seems I have created more.”

Chapter Five

Zeb arrived home on Seventeenth
Street after seven in the evening via a carriage for hire outside the offices
that Max had leased for his staff. He was not sure if he’d ever been so
exhausted in his entire life, meeting the staff, assessing his duties and
responsibilities, and making himself familiar with the current Senate business,
mostly involving monetary policy and proposals for a central U.S. bank. The day
had begun before dawn and he had several early meetings to prepare for for the
next day, but Max had asked him to come for dinner.

Max said his wife was insistent that he come, and although
he was not terribly fond of Jolene Shelby, he was indebted to her for setting
up his household prior to his arrival, even knowing she had spent a large sum
of his money without his approval. He was grateful though, especially after
having a taste of the pace that would have to be set in order to keep Max fully
familiar with upcoming Senate business and managing the staff. Zeb knew that he
would have worn his eleventh Taitlinger suit and have had no time to launder
any of the previous ten let alone prepare a meal.

He arrived at Max and Jolene’s home within the hour and took
a long look around the massive foyer, with a winding staircase about its edge,
as the butler took his coat.

“I thought I heard the door close,” Max said as he came
toward him, napkin in hand. “Come. We’ve started eating mostly because Jolene
feels better if she eats at regular intervals.”

Zeb had been shocked when Max told him earlier in the day
that Jolene was expecting their child. He was unsure why, but he just didn’t
view Jolene as motherly even though she’d had quite a positive effect on
Melinda. It was just then that he heard a shriek from the landing above. He
looked up to see Melinda racing down the steps. She skidded to a stop just in
front of him.

Zeb took off his hat and made a formal bow. “Miss Melinda
Shelby. I do declare you are the most lovely young lady I have ever met.”

Melinda curtsied and giggled and then launched herself into
his arms. “I’ve missed you!”

“Me, too,” he said and kissed her hair. “Have you had your
dinner?”

“I ate earlier with Miss Burberry,” she said.

“Zeb hasn’t eaten all day, Melinda,” Max said. “We’re going
to get some food in his belly before he faints. Hurry along now. It’s near your
bedtime. Your mother and I will check in on you later.”

Melinda went up the steps, waving to him at every landing,
until she disappeared above. “I was concerned she wouldn’t care for city
living, having grown up at the Hacienda, but she seems very happy,” Zeb said.
“I miss her.”

“She misses you,” Max said, and steered him down a long hall
to an open set of double doors, where soft light spilled into the hallway.

Zeb walked into the dining room, knowing at first glance
that it was large and elegant, nothing like the alcove where he and Max had
grabbed their meals at the Hacienda when not eating in the kitchen. In his
peripheral vision, he saw Jolene rise from her place and walk toward him. But
his eyes, his focus, had been arrested by a woman seated directly across from
the chair a servant now held for him to be seated in. Jennifer Crawford.

They stared at each other, for some long moments, Zeb
thought, before he inclined his head and spoke her name. Her lips moved but he
could not hear her whispered response. She was as stunningly beautiful and as
outwardly delicate as he remembered her, with her golden hair piled casually on
her head and her long lashes wafting furiously around sea-green eyes as she
returned his regard.

“Miss Crawford,” he repeated. “It is good to see you. You
are looking very lovely.”

It was then he remembered someone stood at his side.
“Jolene,” he said and turned then to her, taking both of her hands in his. “It
is very good to see you again, too.”

Jolene’s eyebrows arched. “Really, Zebidiah? At first I
didn’t think you knew I was even in the room.”

Zeb waited until Jolene was reseated and sat himself,
spreading the linen napkin across his lap. He looked across the table just as
Jennifer glanced at him. She quickly looked down at her plate.

“I want to thank you, Jolene, for arranging a house for me and
the furnishings and the staff,” he said. “I would have never had time to make
all the arrangements, and I’d be sleeping on the settee in my office.
Everything is in perfect order, thanks to you.”

“You’re welcome,” Jolene replied. “I don’t imagine you will
be terribly pleased when the bills arrive, but I doubt I’ve beggared you.”

“My sister nearly did that,” he said, and then proceeded to
tell them about his morning spent at Taitlinger’s and amused them all with Mr.
Taitlinger’s anticipation of all of his purchases. “So I have arrived with a
trunk full of suits and ties and shirts and shoes and even something called a
tuxedo that Mr. Taitlinger was very excited about.”

Zeb looked across the table at Jennifer, who was smiling at
him and at his story. She took his breath away. When their eyes met, her
laughter faded, and her cheeks went pink as he stared at her, unable to break
himself away from the picture she made.

“What did you think of your first day in the Capital?” Max
asked.

Zeb relaxed after his initial shock at seeing Jennifer and
he and Max chatted about the day until Jolene cleared her throat and stood. Zeb
and Max stood as well.

“Why don’t you take Zebidiah to the front parlor, Jennifer?
Dessert and cordials will be served while Maximillian and I check in on
Melinda.”

Max met Jolene at the door, leaving Jennifer and him alone.
“May I escort you to the parlor?” he asked.

* * *

Jennifer rose and made her way to
the door of the dining room, and Zebidiah followed. She knew that at some point
she would be together with him while she visited Max and Jolene, but she was
not prepared for seeing him this way, in an intimate setting, in his dress
clothes and looking handsome and civilized. And now, alone together. She was
still unable to stop her cheeks from reddening when she thought about him, and
worse still, seeing him, she recalled the embarrassing scene in the bunkhouse
at the Hacienda.

Zebidiah followed one step behind and just to her left. He
didn’t touch her in any way or even offer his arm, but she could
feel
him up and down her side as if he were tightly up against her as she escorted
him down the carpeted hallway. The parlor door was open, and household staff
were stoking the fire, attending the lamps, and laying out pastries and
desserts, all quietly leaving when Jennifer entered the room. There was a
coffee and tea tray on the cart, and she walked to it immediately.

“Coffee, Mr. Moran?”

“Zeb or Zebidiah, please,” he said. “Coffee would suit me,
Miss Crawford.”

Jennifer served his coffee, poured herself tea, and sat in a
chair near the fire, across from the brocade couch.

“May I get you some dessert, Miss Crawford?”

“No. Thank you. And you must call me Jennifer,” she said as
she sipped her tea, concentrating on the delicate flowered pattern of the china
saucer.

Zeb Moran was all that was masculinity even when deathly
ill, she thought, recalling him stretched out on a bunkhouse bed at The
Hacienda. She had just arrived at Jolene and Max’s ranch, having survived her
maid leaving her to fend for herself as soon as someone mentioned the influenza
at the Dallas train station, and the driver it had taken her hours to hire
leaving her in the middle of the great open prairie, without a house or a
person within sight. She’d seen a rider coming to her across the grasslands, as
she sat on her overturned trunk, and had sent a terrified prayer to her maker
that she would survive the encounter. It had been Max, thankfully, returning
home from Houston on horseback as soon as he’d heard the influenza had hit the
Hacienda. He’d hauled her up before him on his massive horse and continued on
to find his ranch in disrepair, his staff exhausted or ill, and his daughter on
her deathbed.

Jennifer had hurried to help Jolene, who was barely standing
as she nursed Melinda. When the child’s fever broke, Max asked Jennifer to
check on those who were still sick or recovering in the bunkhouse, especially
his ranch manager, while he tended his wife and daughter. And that is when she
saw Zeb Moran for the first time, finding him alone and thrashing with fever,
sweat-soaked and pale. She’d wiped his face and arms with cool water and
changed the top sheet and blankets covering him. When he finally settled into a
quiet sleep, Jennifer stepped to the window, unbuttoned her blouse, and removed
it.

It had been just five days prior that she stood alone with
Jeffrey in a small, rarely used room near the front entrance of Willow Tree.
Her bags and trunks were being loaded onto a carriage, and her mother
encouraged Jeffrey to say his good-byes to her in private. She was annoyed with
her mother for suggesting such a thing, but excited as well. She and Jeffrey
had been seeing each other on a regular basis and she was flattered with the
attentions of such a handsome, charming man who was the favorite of every
Boston debutante. She was wondering if he would kiss her, her stomach
fluttering, and hoping he would. She remembered smiling up at him and sobering
quickly at the look on his face.

“Jeffrey? What is wrong?” she asked.

“Wrong? What is wrong, Jennifer? You are leaving Boston when
I have expressly told you it would displease me.”

“But we discussed this all days ago and I thought—” Jennifer
said before crumbling to the floor.

She’d never experienced pain of that intensity and struggled
to breathe, finally giving into panic in a faint. She’d awakened in Jeffrey’s
arms as he patted her face with a hanky.

“What happened?” she whispered.

“Oh, my dear Jennifer,” Jeffrey said as he kissed her
forehead. “I am so very sorry to have to punish you, but you must learn to obey
me. It is the nature of the relationship between men and women.”

Jennifer had been confused, wondering if she’d misheard his
speech in the midst of the relentless pain in her side. He had stood abruptly,
pulling her to her feet, leaving her nauseous and groaning.

“
Shush
,” he said. “Certainly you do not want the
servants to see you in such a state. Straighten your back, Jennifer. You must
hurry or you will miss your train.”

She had let him lead her out to the entranceway, her hand on
his arm. She remembered being unsteady on her feet and their butler, Bellings,
looking at her strangely. Jeffrey had led her to the waiting carriage and
kissed her on the lips softly, staring into her eyes and announcing to all that
he would be counting the days until her return, and then had whispered in her
ear that he was very, very sorry that she was in pain. Had begged her to
believe that he didn’t mean to hurt her, that she was the love of his life, but
she’d best be home on the appointed day or he could not guarantee his behavior.

The door had closed on the carriage and then she did vomit,
and the maid accompanying her because Eliza had been ill, a silly girl, had
merely stared at the remnants of Jennifer’s breakfast on the floor of the
carriage, refusing to clean it up. Jennifer had pondered many times since that
morning why she did not just cry out for her father or even to Bellings. Even
as weak as her father sometimes was and Bellings just a servant, neither would
have let her be assaulted in such a way. But she hadn’t cried out. Nor had she
told anyone what had happened until she’d returned from Texas and told Eliza.
Much of it had seemed unreal, and she’d wondered who would believe her. She’d
even let herself think it hadn’t really happened until she’d taken a
particularly deep breath and dealt with the ensuing pain.

Jennifer turned her head, looking out the long window of
Jolene’s home to the wintered gardens, and envisioned herself unbuttoning her
blouse that night in the bunkhouse, slowly pulling her chemise out of the
waistband of her traveling skirts and lifting it up and over her breast, to see
if the massive bruises she’d seen in the mirror on the train had faded at all,
touching the center of the yellow and black flesh and drawing a deep painful
breath as she did. That is when she’d realized Zebidiah Moran
was no longer
fevered and sickly but awake and staring at her in such a way as to make her
shiver. Jennifer looked up to find him staring at her now, realizing that she’d
spent minutes, maybe five or more, remembering and reliving those horrid days.

“Are you unwell, Jennifer?” he asked quietly. “You are
peaked and you cried out.”

“I am fine,” she said. “Thank you for asking.”

He narrowed his eyes, holding her gaze. “I didn’t ask that
as a pleasantry. I saw your side that night in the bunkhouse, no matter how
much you deny it. I saw the bruises and heard your cry of pain when you touched
them. Has he hit you again?”

She swallowed and looked away. “Whatever are you talking
about?”

“I am talking about the fact that someone hit you hard
enough to bruise you and maybe even break a rib. I am worried it has happened
again.”

“Mr. Moran. Please do not be so familiar when speaking to
me. Gentlemen do not bring up such a subject, especially over a lady’s
objection.”

“Bullshit,” he said. “Whoever the
gentleman
was that
hit you was more than familiar.”

She looked down. “I do not need to be harassed.”

“Is it your father, Jennifer?” he asked. “Has your father
hit you?”

“How dare you? How dare you imply that my father would ever
lay a hand on my person,” she hissed as she leaned forward in her chair.

“How are the cakes, Jennifer?” Jolene said from the doorway,
Max just behind her.

“I do not know,” she replied, and looked up with a quick
smile. “Dinner was so delicious I haven’t room for one more morsel. Wouldn’t
you agree, Mr. Moran?”