Marry Me (22 page)

She caught on quick. Too quick, to his way of thinking, because he loved reaching over her shoulder to show her how to throw the lines of type into the form while the scent of her drifted up from her hair. Enjoyed how she’d turn around to ask him a question and her face would be only inches from his, and she’d startle to realize how close he was, her eyes going wide, but she wouldn’t move away. Was fascinated by the lilting tune she hummed when he showed her how to whittle bits of matchsticks into the right size to wedge into the form when the lines of type weren’t quite tight enough.

He demonstrated how to snip a bit of tin can and fold it when she ran out of blank type to make spaces. Her mortification at the curse that slipped out when she couldn’t bend it just right delighted him to no end.

And he laughed at the fierce pride she took at hammering the wedges into the frame to lock it in place, swinging the mallet like a lumberjack with an axe.

“See? You better watch out,” she said, and flexed an arm to show off her puny muscle. “I might try it on your head if you’re late with my pay.” She spun on the stool and rapped her knuckles lightly against his forehead. “Pop like a ripe melon, I’d wager.”

“Consider me warned.”

Her eyes danced, only inches from his. The curve of her mouth was exceptionally kissable—he wondered that he hadn’t noticed it the first day they’d met.

He’d loved Julia with all the fierce passion and pride his young heart owned. But they’d been often self-conscious, their times together brief and stolen, so overcome with their feelings and the risk of their meeting that they’d rarely laughed. He’d certainly never felt this wondrous ease.

“Thanks, Em,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” she said softly, as if she understood he thanked her for far more than just relieving him of a task he detested. Her breath hitched and the friendly simmer of passion that had warmed him pleasantly all afternoon abruptly burst to riotous life, like a small flame that had sizzled down a long wick and just hit dynamite.

Don’t ruin it,
he told himself.
Don’t ruin this again, when it’s working out so well.

“So what are you going to do now?” she asked him, and—God help him—a hundred thoughts sprang to mind, wicked and sinful and hopelessly impossible. Perhaps they showed, for she suddenly spun back to the table and poked through the remaining type, mumbling about missing
p
’s.

“Em—”

“Now that I’ve taken over all your work, I mean,” she said in a fluster. “What are you going to do with all your free time? Get fat and lazy?”

He sighed and reluctantly moved away. It was for the best, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. “I think,” he said slowly, “I’m going to build a new house.”

O
n Tuesday Jake piled the newspapers Emily had printed into the back of his wagon and headed into town to mail them. He was gone for two days, which Emily divided evenly between sleeping and trying to scrub the ink off her fingers.

Shortly after he returned, a huge load of lumber, nails, and tools was delivered and stacked neatly upon a slight rise about two hundred yards from the claim shack.

A day later a man with the build of a young bull arrived with a massive team of horses and a plow that towered over Emily. Within moments great curving slices of sod were being stripped from the land. Mice scattered, and the dark peels of earth studded with fat white grubs drew flocks of happily cackling blackbirds in his wake.

Tom—just Tom, he’d told her cheerfully—and his team plowed the required thirty acres in under two days, even with regular pauses to shovel in vast quantities of food. Watching them, remembering all the effort she’d put into trying to clear a garden plot, Emily couldn’t help but laugh at her naiveté and ineptitude.

Emily managed to curb her curiosity for three days before giving in. She cut a slice of the ribbon cake she’d just baked as an excuse and slapped her best straw hat on her head.

Grass still clung to the sides of the small rise, the earth dark and rich on the top. Jake caught sight of her approach, stuck his shovel in the ground, rested his arms on it, and waited for her to arrive.

“Ah, there you are,” he said. He’d rolled up his sleeves, and she admired his well-muscled forearms above his leather work gloves. The thin fabric of his white shirt was damp with sweat, and she remembered too well exactly what all that muscle felt like beneath her palms. Perhaps he’d had the right idea all along: they should spend as little time with each other as possible, avoiding temptation. “I’d wondered how long you’d hold out.”

“Excuse me?”

He gestured toward the cleared ground, crisscrossed with fat twine tied to stakes in a rectangular grid. “I wondered how long it’d be before you came to see what was what. You held out longer than I expected.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I’ve no interest in what you’re building. You just didn’t eat very much lunch, and you’ve got to be hungry after all this digging.”

“Mmm.” He peered at the plate she carried. “Cake?”

“Yes.”

He tugged off his gloves and tucked them in his back pocket. There was a line across his wrists, brown above, lighter below. He began to reach for the plate, then stopped, bent down, and plucked a yellow daisy that bloomed at her feet.

“Stand still,” he said, and she held her breath while he reached up and tucked the flower into the ribbon of her hat. “There. Thanks for the cake.”

“You like ribbon cake, I hope. I didn’t ask, but—”

“I love it,” he said, once he’d swallowed the first bite. “And this is particularly good. Angling for a raise, are you?”

“You’re the boss.” The strings delineated the future rooms, she decided. The parlor there, perhaps. A decent sized kitchen in the back. She preferred bigger ones, but—

“Front door’s there.” He pointed about halfway. “There’ll be a porch, of course.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“I know you didn’t.” He jogged over to a pile of lumber and balanced the empty plate on top. “But now that you’re here, you might as well look around.”

He stepped over the nearest piece of twine, then turned to help her over it. She hadn’t bothered with gloves, and his hand was very warm as she lifted her skirts and stepped in. And was it her imagination that he released her hand with reluctance once she was safely on the other side?

“I staked out the rooms because I had a hard time imagining them from the drawings,” he said. “Thought I could envision them better this way. Tell if they were big enough, or too big. It still looks like nothing more than dirt squares to me. I could figure out if you can play baseball on it, but a house is beyond me.”

“You’ve gotten so far.” Eyes narrowing thoughtfully, she spun slowly, envisioning walls, furniture, people.

“I had Tom loosen the first layer with his plow. Made for easy digging.”

“It’s going to be a big house.” Far too much for just one man.

“The stairs go up right here.”

“Upstairs, too?”

Silently he reached into his pocket, pulled out a piece of paper, and handed it to her.

The creases were fuzzy, as if it had lived in his pocket a long time. She unfolded it with reverent care.

The left side of the paper held a front view of the house. Not grand, but a big, wonderful family house, with plenty of windows and a columned porch that ran the entire length of the front and appeared to be made for long summer evenings and lemonade. Trees guarded the wide steps, with a child’s swing hanging from the sturdiest branch.

To the right were floor plans, spare and precise drawings with the rooms neatly labeled: study, kitchen, parlor.
Baby’s room.

“You didn’t draw this,” she said.

For a while she thought he wouldn’t answer. That he regretted trusting her with this. “How can you tell?”

“The handwriting.”

“Oh.” He frowned. “Sorry about that. I know my writing’s a mess, never did have a hand for it. I’ll rewrite the article on—”

“Your handwriting is fine.” She would never admit to him that it had taken her two hours to decipher the first two paragraphs. She’d gotten used to his scrawl, and was proud of that. “This is just different.”

He came to stand behind her, looking over her shoulder at the drawing. “Julia drew it.”

Carefully she refolded the paper. “It’s a beautiful house.”

“Yeah. It is, isn’t it?” He tucked it safely back into his pocket. She’d never noticed it there when she emptied his pockets for washing and wondered if he’d carried it with him all the time, suspecting that he did.

She pondered her next words for a moment. He was ever so hard to read—except when he wanted her, she remembered. That she could see in his eyes, the set of his mouth, the tension in his features. But his face gave her no hints now.

Part of her was flattered that he’d shared this with her. A bigger part worried that he still clung to a dream that was lost long ago.

“It’s a big house,” she ventured carefully, “for one man.”

His jaw tightened. “I—.”

An agitated chatter and a tug on his pants leg stopped him. They looked down to find Smithie at his feet, teeth bared, clever fingers in a vise grip on faded denim.

“Lord, Smithie, not
now,
” he said. He bent and tried to dislodge his grip but the animal wouldn’t budge. “Isn’t there a cow around you can bother?”

For a moment Emily regretted the interruption. They’d been edging up on something that mattered. But if it did matter, she decided, it’d be there in a few moments, a few days, or it wasn’t worth what she thought anyway.

Jake gave his leg a gentle shake. Smithie clung on and shrieked in protest. Then, after looking between them, he let go and fell on the ground, eyes closed, playing dead like a well-trained dog.

“Yes, yes, you’re good,” Jake told him. “Now run along like a good little monkey and—”

Smithie sprang up again and howled at him, a call they’d never heard from him before, one that would have frozen Emily’s blood in her veins if she’d heard it echoing across the plains on a dark night. And then the animal dropped to the ground again, unmoving.

The creature was a gifted mimic. Once when Mr. Biskup was over for supper, Smithie had watched her as she did the dishes. And then he’d scampered up, grabbed her dishtowel, and seized a clean plate from the shelf. Bemused, she’d watched as he’d scrubbed the plate and replaced it on the stack without so much as a chip.

He sprang up and, apparently giving up on the stupid male, tugged on Emily’s skirts instead. He dashed off, perhaps five yards, and then looked back at them as if wondering why they weren’t following.

“Something’s wrong,” she murmured, and started to sprint.

It was just far enough that Emily was good and winded by the time they found him. They saw Biskup’s old horse first, cropping at a tuft of sweet grass, reins trailing on the ground. And beside him on the ground, a crumpled figure like a discarded doll, lay Mr. Biskup.

Emily dropped beside him immediately, laying her head against his narrow chest. There…his heartbeat too thready, his breath shallow and slow, but there. Thank God.

She sat back on her heels and ran her fingers over him, neck, head, limbs. It was as if she’d been split into two parts: the friend, worried and praying, even as the part of her well-trained by the doctor examined him with quick and professional care.

She slowed as she turned his head. There was a gash at his temple, the thick, dark shine of blood matting his hair.

“What can I do?” Jake asked.

“My bag, it’s in the—” And then the worry broke through her training. Her voice shook, her hands trembled. “Jake, I—”

“You’ll help him,” he said, and then his hands squeezed her shoulders, warm and supportive, faith and strength shining through his touch, and immediately her nerves settled and her mind cleared.

“I think it’s safe to move him,” she decided. “Better than trying to treat him out here.”

“It’s closer to our house than his,” he said.
Ours.
Through her concern, she tucked the word away to ponder later. “Want to take him there?”

“Yes. The supplies are there, too. I’ll stay with him until you get the wagon. But hurry.”

He hesitated a second. “How about if I carry him? It’d be faster.”

“All that way?”

“It’s not a problem.” He was as good as his word, lifting Mr. Biskup’s still body as carefully as if he’d held a child, his even, strong pace covering the distance to their shack so quickly that she, after scooping up Smithie, had to trot to keep up.

“The bed?” Jake asked after shoving open the door with his foot.

“Yes,” she said, and watched as he carefully laid Mr. Biskup down. The man hadn’t moved the entire time. Not good, she thought. “I’ll need lanterns,” she instructed Jake. “As much light as possible.”

She bent over and gently tugged up an eyelid. The pupils reacted sluggishly. Not dangerously so, she judged, but perhaps not normal, either.

“Jake?” she asked as she straightened.

“Yes.” He came to her side immediately.

“Could you heat some water for me? And my bag’s over in the—”

“I know where it is.” He obeyed without question.

Luckily she could run through an examination by rote, conscious all the while of Mr. Biskup’s heart-broken concentration, struggling not to reveal her concern. She’d treated patients on her own before in certain circumstances, when both they and Dr. Goodale agreed. But she’d always had the comfort of knowing the doctor’s skill was there if she needed it. She missed him then, which she’d never expected to do considering how much she’d regretted her sister’s years under his thumb. But she loved the medicine she’d learned. A kinder man might have tried to spare her. He’d been willing to use her, and in doing so gave her something she treasured.

“Emily?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, Jake. There’s nothing obviously dangerous, but…I don’t know.”

He was an old man. She’d always believed him less fragile than he appeared at first glance, but…“Fell off his horse, I suppose,” she said and she probed the growing bruise at his temple. There was no fluid under the skin, she decided, the first good news. “I wish I knew why.” If he’d had some sort of a fit to cause his accident—well, she might be treating the immediate symptoms, and entirely missing something even more serious. She frowned.

“That horse has always been skittish,” Jake said. “God only knows what set it off this time. Hit his head on a rock, did he?”

“I believe so.” Jake didn’t sound a bit worried. Had he so much faith in her, then?

“Guess he’ll be glad of his hard head for once.”

Afternoon faded into evening as she worked. There was so little she could do. She cleaned his cuts, sprinkled in finely ground black tea, and smeared them with lard mixed with beeswax and resin. Mr. Biskup’s right arm twisted at a painful angle. She probed the bones, which felt fragile as a child’s, but cursed her own slight frame when she couldn’t straighten them herself.

“May I?” Jake asked, his hands hovering over Art’s arm.

“Like this,” she said, adjusting his aim slightly. He followed her directions with absolute confidence, pressing carefully until the bones moved back into place. Emily splinted it with pasteboard and cotton batting.

But through it all Mr. Biskup hadn’t stirred, apparently so deeply out, even the pain of straightening his broken arm hadn’t penetrated. So she elevated his head, bathing it with cold water as she plunged his feet into a hot mustard bath. And through it all Jake was there, ready to help should she but say the word, a supportive hand touching her elbow the moment she began to doubt…how did he know? But he unquestionably did.

Vaguely, through her concentrated concern, she had a notion that this was something new. Except for public viewing he’d rarely touched her first. She’d always been the one to touch in comfort and support. She filed the notion away for further study later, when she could give it the attention it deserved.

Evening faded into night without notice. They dragged two chairs beside the bed. Jake dropped in and out of sleep without warning, without outward sign; Emily would look over and be surprised to find his eyes open or shut, for even the comforting rhythm of his breathing never varied.

And she held vigil.

Hours later, the dark outside so deep, the clouds obscuring the sky so it was near impossible to judge the time except that it was the dead of the night, Emily wearily propped her head on her hand, still watching for some sign,
any
sign, from her comatose patient.

Though it didn’t feel like it, she must have dozed, for the next thing she was conscious of was Jake’s warm hand, rubbing sweetly between her shoulder blades.

“Why don’t you rest?” he suggested. “I put a cot up in the lean-to.”