Margaret Brownley (5 page)

He caught her by the wrist as she fumbled with the bolt. “You don’t want to go out there. It’s cold.”

“Let me go!”

“Now there.” He turned her toward him and wrapped his arms around her. Fortunately, her belly kept him somewhat at a distance, but the tender protection he offered touched the aching need inside, and she clung to him like a frightened child

“I think you’d better get back in bed where it’s warm,” he murmured into her hair.

Dazed by his heady masculinity she pulled away from his arms. “I don’t need you telling me what I should or should not do!”

“Are you always this emotional?”

“I’m not emotional!” she cried out emotionally, and to prove that she was perfectly rational and in control she stood by the door, refusing to budge.

“Have it your way,” he said impatiently. Without another word, he walked across the room and tossed another log onto the fire.

Feeling cold and more than a little foolish, she walked to the bed and crawled beneath the covers.

During the next hour, she lay on the lumpy bed amid the confusion of pelts and blankets, and fought the urge to cover her head.

For the most part, he ignored her, and for this she was grateful. For it allowed her to suffer her humiliation in private.  It wasn’t like her to act so childish. Or to bounce from one crazy emotion to another.

She stole one or two furtive glances in his direction. She finally abandoned any pretense of indifference and openly watched him work.

The artistry of his hands mesmerized her. She marveled at his skill as he expertly cut the freshly skinned rabbit into pieces with a sharply honed knife.

He placed the meat upon the red-hot surface of the woodstove and the grill sizzled. Soon, a tantalizing smell tickled Libby’s nose reminding her of how long it had been since she’d last eaten.

She couldn’t recall ever having watched a man prepare a meal. Her mother and grandmother had done all the cooking while she was growing up.  If her father ever stepped foot in the kitchen he had done so without her knowledge.

The delicious smell that filled the cabin made her heady with hunger and her mouth watered. It occurred to her that this strange unpredictable man was already beginning to chip away at her carefully nurtured guard.

After all the edible meat was on the grill, he cleaned up the leftovers. He then turned to face her, dangling one rabbit foot in the air. “There’s a lot of fur on the bottom. Means a cold winter is on the way.”

She stared at the foot curiously. “It’s true then? You can tell the weather by an animal’s fur?”

His eyebrows shot up and down. “Why wouldn’t it be true?”

“I don’t know. It just seems a bit hard to believe that animals would know in advance how much fur to grow.”

“If you lived in the wild, you’d make it your business to know how to keep yourself warm."”

“I suppose.” His simplistic logic surprised her. Partly because he struck her as a complex man, not given to whimsical notion.

“Do you feel well enough to sit at the table?”

“I’m perfectly fit to sit anywhere I want,” she said. It annoyed her to be treated like an invalid. She was expecting a baby, not nursing a disease.

After he set the table with two tin plates and coffee cups she slipped her feet into the oversize moccasins, and padded noiselessly to the table. She chose the chair closest to the fire, and watched as he served out portions of meat and beans onto their plates.

She
waited for him to take his seat and cleared her throat. “Do you mind?”

“Mind?” He skewered a piece of meat with a small knife and lifted the pointed blade to his mouth.

Hands clasped she lowered her head and said a prayer of thanksgiving. “Our dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the blessings you have bestowed on us. Help us to follow your ways in all that we think and do. Amen.”

He was still looking at her when she opened her eyes, and he was chewing.

Appalled, she clenched her jaw. Never had she seen such lack of good manners.

“Why aren’t you eating?” he asked between bites.

“I would if I had eating utensils.”

He held his knife toward her. “Use mine.”

She shook her head. “Don’t you have a fork?”

“Never saw a need for one.”

She looked at him curiously. “What about a spoon?”

He picked up a piece of bark. “It does the job perfectly,” he explained. He then demonstrated, scooping up a portion of beans onto the bark and raising it to his mouth.

She took a piece of bark and followed suit. He grinned at her. “Less utensils, less washing.”

The bark served its purpose, but the only way she could eat the rabbit was with her fingers. Heaving a sigh she tugged the meat from a bone. She was too hungry to let propriety stand between her and much needed nutrition.

They finished eating in silence. Once she’d overcome her aversion to eating with her fingers she had no trouble finishing every last morsel.

“That was most delicious, Mr. St. John.”

He looked pleased. “There’s more if you like.”

“I couldn’t eat another bite.” She mulled over the problem of how to apologize for giving him a bad time. “I’m obliged to you for offering me shelter,” she began tentatively.

He chuckled softly, surprising her. “Makes a man wonder why they call your condition delicate. As far as I can tell, there isn’t anything delicate about it.” He pointed to her plate. “Including your appetite.”

“It’s most urgent that I reach Centreville before my baby comes. There’s a doctor there.”

“And of course your husband is there too.” Something is his voice challenged her.

She lowered her lashes, feeling guilty for the lie. But at the time she told it, she really did believe the man meant to harm her. “Yes, of course.”

He watched her quietly for a moment. “I’ll see to it myself that you make the next stage.”

She gave him a grateful smile. “I’m most obliged.”

After they cleared the table and washed the dishes, she sat in the soft-cushioned chair next to the fire and read from the Good Book that she had carried with her all the way from Boston.

Mostly she made trips to the outhouse. Numerous trips.

“Is this normal?” Mr. St. John inquired after he’d escorted her outside for perhaps the tenth or eleventh time.

She nodded. “I expect so. The way the baby keeps kicking.”

His gaze dropped to her waist. “It must feel strange. I mean, little feet kicking from inside.” Something in his voice caught her off-guard. A gentleness, perhaps even wistfulness.

How could she have so thoroughly misjudged the man? “Would…” She bit her lip before continuing. “Would you like to feel the baby?’

“Now!” He looked shocked.

“I just thought maybe… It’s really quite amazing.”

“It doesn’t seem proper for a man’s hands to be touching a woman who’s expecting a little one. I mean….” He looked away. “Unless, of course, it’s to save her life.”

“It doesn’t seem proper that a man shouldn’t share in a miracle if he has a chance. Seems to me that miracles don’t happen very often.”

He turned back to regard her. “Never thought about it like.”

“Well, then?”

He cleared his throat. “Well, then what?”
“Do you want to feel a miracle or don’t you?”

“I think, Mrs. Summerfield, that a miracle would be a mighty nice thing to feel.”

He stepped forward, gazing into her face, and quickly looked away. After a moment he took another step forward and reached out his hand. She guided his hand to the place where only seconds earlier she’d felt a rippling movement. The warmth of his palm filtered through the buckskin shirt and seemed to radiate inward until it touched some needy part of her.

She couldn’t remember ever sharing such an intimate part of her life with a near stranger.

The baby kicked and Logan yanked his hand away. He stared at her stomach in amazement.

“I felt that,” he said, clearly awed. “No wonder you have to…you know…” He tossed a nod in the general direction of the outhouse. “How do you sleep with all that goings-on inside?”

She laughed and was surprised at the pleasure she felt. How long had it been since she’d laughed or even smiled? “It’s not easy at times.” His gaze dropped to her middle as if he expected to see some movement or change as they talked. “Do you want to feel it again?’

He lifted his eyes until they met hers. “It don’t seem right to be putting my hands all over a baby’s cave like that.”

“I don’t think the baby will mind,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“Almost sure.”

The corner of his mouth twitched upward. It wasn’t a smile, exactly, but it softened his granite-like features and her pulse quickened.

Once again, he lifted his hand and laid it gingerly on her middle. This time a full smile spread across his face.

“I felt it!” he exclaimed. “He must be wearing boots.”

His enthusiasm warmed her. “It could be a girl.”

He looked at her dubiously. “I don’t think a girl would carry on like that, do you?”

“She might.”

“Do you mind?” he asked, and when she nodded her consent, his fingers worked across her belly once again, gentle, this time, as a breeze on a warm sunny day. He’d saved her life and for that she was grateful. Still, feminine vanity made her wish he had seen her when she still had a waist.

A look of reverence suffused his face. She felt special and, strangely enough, even beautiful. The latter shocked her. She’d never felt beautiful in her life. Her mother was the beauty in the family, as was Libby’s sister Josie. So why on earth should she feel beautiful now? In the presence of this man? This stranger? This wild trapper?

He glanced at her parted lips and yanked his hand away from her as if the intimate nature of what they shared suddenly occurred to him. Without a word of explanation, he turned on his heels and stomped outside, slamming the door shut behind him.

Libby stared after him. What a strange man: one moment so friendly, the next so brusque. The thought made her laugh. Lord Almighty, he could very well be thinking the same about her!

She couldn’t remember having met a man like him. He was so different from her husband. A blacksmith’s son, Jeffrey had a wild streak that she once loved but later came to loathe. She wanted a home and family but Jeffrey wanted adventure. She followed him to the California gold mines like a dutiful wife and hated every moment spent in shabby hotels and rowdy boarding houses.

Even with a baby coming Jeffrey showed no interest in settling down. Jeffrey’s death in a house of ill-repute should have shocked her but it didn’t. She hated to admit it but her marriage was already over. The bullet only made it final. Now she had no choice but to return home to the tune of “I told you so,” but it was a small price to pay for her baby’s security.

*****

It was late afternoon when she was awakened abruptly by gunshots and wild hoots and hollers. Clutching the blankets to her chin she sat up on the pallet and glanced nervously at the door.

Mr. St. John sat at the table, his head bent over what appeared to be a sheet of soft fabric. “Just the miners returning to town, is all. Letting off a bit of steam.”

He seemed totally unconcerned by the mayhem waging outside his walls. Obviously, such wild behavior was common practice among the residents of Deadman’s Gulch. As bad as the rumors and tales had been about this town, nothing had prepared her for the reality of it.

Rapid gunfire lambasted the air, followed by a silence that was no less frightening, and only made the blasts to follow seem that much louder. She needed to use the facilities again, but she’d die before setting a foot outside the cabin.

Mayhem continued for the remainder of the afternoon; horses stampeded past the cabin, shaking the very walls around Libby. Gruff male voices bellowed, guns fired.

Sakes alive, if it didn’t sound like war. Not that she knew what war sounded like, of course. But she did remember her father vividly describing his own experiences and death of his brother during the War of 1812.

Fearing that a stray bullet would enter the cabin she sat huddled on a chair against the wall farthest away from the road. As was her usual habit during moments of anger or fear, she talked incessantly.

“I’ve never heard such rowdiness in all my born days. It’s a wonder they haven’t killed each other by now. Why…”

She continued expressing her indignation and disgust, not to mention fear, for a full half hour without as much as a breather.

*****

Logan couldn’t help but laugh at the stern angry face tilted in his direction. She looked like an angry magpie. He never knew anyone could talk so much. He’d heard that women in a “delicate condition” ate for two, but never had he heard tell that they talked for two.

At last he interrupted her tirade to ask, “Do you need to…” He indicated in a way that had come to be understood by both.