The Bartered Bride (The Brides Book 3) (10 page)

ELEVEN

I
t was hard to describe what she was wearing.

Jem came in the kitchen through the back door, took one look at Annie, and immediately turned on Ben.

“What is that?” he demanded, not liking how Annie was hovering in the doorway between the foyer and the kitchen, like she’d just come from upstairs and didn’t know whether she should come all the way into the room or not.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Ben’s lips curled in a sort of sneer that Jem didn’t care for in the least. Nor did he like how Ben was leaning back against the far wall near the back door, his expression watchful. Spectating.

“Ray told you to get her some of Lorelei’s old things,” Jem said. He didn’t ever remember Ben being so mean-spirited. Not the Ben he used to know, the twelve-year-old boy who’d followed him around everywhere, eating up every word he said. That Ben would’ve given up the best of Lorelei’s things. He might look like a man now, strong and capable, but he was acting like a snot-nosed boy.

“Why don’t you get them yourself?” Ben retorted.

Jem held onto his patience, but just barely. The tantalizing scent of beef stew tickled his nose, and he saw Ray at the cook stove stirring a pot, looking over at them with a carefully unconcerned expression. Whatever he had going in that pot smelled delicious. Stick-to-your-ribs kind of food. Man food. He also smelled the heady aroma of toasted bread, and his stomach clenched with hunger.

Jem noticed how Ray’s eyes flicked to Annie and widened. Evidently, he’d just caught sight of her. Maybe because the kitchen was so dimly lit. It was nearly full dark out now, but Ray had a couple of lanterns lit, one near the stove and another in the center of the long pine farm table, just bright enough to eat by.

Jem saw Mae near one end of the table, fast asleep, an empty bowl before her. She’d obviously eaten already, thankfully, because there were streaks of stew on the inside of her bowl and messy fingerprints on the outside. The puppy slept under Mae’s chair, splayed out on its side. Mae held a dirty spoon in one hand, her cheek pressed solidly into the table, and her curls fanned out across the surface. She certainly looked sweet asleep.

I wish Ben was asleep like that
, Jem thought, with a wry inward smile.

“I don’t know where her things are, Ben,” Jem said, trying to keep his tone even and reasonable. Pretty sure he failed at that.

“Then I guess you’ll have to find them.”

Jem turned away from him and slammed his hat onto one of the pegs by the door. He held onto it for a moment, waiting for the anger to seep out of him.

“I guess I will,” he said without looking back, suddenly bone-weary. He was tired of it all: traveling, moving. He needed sleep. And food. He definitely wanted food. Now.

He took a seat at Mae’s end of the table. Figuring Annie was feeling too skittish to sit up close to him, he inclined his head her way, then pointed out a chair, the one furthest away from him. After she sat down at the table, he could still barely see her face. The lamplight flickered over her features, but her hair was pulled forward over her shoulder in a thick braid, covering near half of her face. Not that it mattered much what she looked like. At least she was clean now. That was some bit of hospitality they could offer the poor girl.

She’d need a dress, of course, but the very thought of opening Lorelei’s trunks—looking through her things—brought a knife-sharp pain to his chest. When he wasn’t so weary, perhaps then he could manage it.

“The clothes will have to wait until morning, I’m afraid,” he told her.

She nodded stiffly, and he thought maybe he’d scared her.

He rubbed the back of his neck. His hair was getting long. Scratched through his beard. It was getting long too.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d shaved. Maybe the week before Lorelei’s surgery? What was that—eleven months now?

“You gonna shave that thing?” Ben asked.

“Why? Don’t you like beards?”

“You can’t see your face.”

“Do you
want
to see my face?” Jem asked, amused despite himself.

“
No
,” Ben answered a little too quickly.

Jem smirked behind his beard. “Ray,” he said, “that smells good enough to eat.”

“It’s a comin’, it’s a comin’.”

“Need any help?”

“Do I need any help?” Ray coughed into his shoulder, laughing. He somehow managed to keep a grip on the two bowls he held—in one hand—and ladle stew into both at the same time. “Like I haven’t been serving ten men for the past thirty years.”

Same old Ray, Jem thought, relieved there was at least one thing he could count on.

Ben spun around one of the chairs in the middle of the table and straddled it, neatly dividing the long table in two, with Jem and Mae at one end and Annie way down at the other.

“So, she don’t talk, is that right?” Ben nodded at Annie.

Jem froze, his first spoonful of stew an inch from his mouth. He looked over at Annie and saw her similarly frozen, the spoon right at her lips. He took his bite and savored the warmth of delicious stew, then went back to scoop another bite.

“She
doesn’t
speak, no.”

“Then how’s she supposed to teach Mae?”

Jem glanced at Annie again. She’d bent low over her bowl and was eating steadily, but he sensed her ear was fully on the conversation. Her attention was too firmly focused on her food for her to be doing anything other than listening to every word.

“She’ll do just fine, I expect,” Jem said, gritting his teeth. “They get along, and a girl as young as Mae, well, she just needs someone to be close by at this age.”

“And when she gets older?”

“Then I guess we’ll have you to help us out then, won’t we?” Jem bit the words off.

“Don’t count on it.” Ben pushed back from the table, cast a hard look at Jem then Annie, and strode out the back, slamming the door behind him.

“Where’s he off to?” Jem asked, taking a thick slice of buttered toast from Ray.

“Don’t mind him,” Ray said, giving Annie a slice too and taking his own chair finally.

He was moving a bit slower these days, Jem saw, noticing the little grunt of relief Ray let out when his weight was off his feet. Another worrying sign of age creeping up on him.

“He’s gone through a rough spell,” Ray continued. “What with his pa dying and losing Lorelei. Hasn’t been easy, let’s say. But he’ll be back soon enough. He likes his bed too much to stay out all night.”

Jem nodded at that and finished his bowl of stew. Ray reached for it to fill it again, but Jem waved him away and got seconds for himself. Taking note of Annie’s ravenous appetite, he filled hers up again and went back to his spot. They finished the rest of their food in silence.

Jem pushed his bowl away and sat back with a sigh. Good food. Always had a way of making the worst situations more bearable. Without even fully realizing he was doing it, he reached out and fingered a strand of Mae’s hair lying on the table near his hand. It was so much longer now, but still baby fine and silky soft.

“You know where Lorelei’s things are?” he asked Ray, looking up to find his old friend regarding him with a serious expression.

“Up in the attic, I ’spect.”

Jem nodded.

“You want me to get them down for you?” Ray offered. “Might be hard for you...going through her things.”

And hard for you to lug down a heavy trunk with that arthritis.
Jem kept the thought to himself to save Ray’s pride.

“No, you’ve got enough to do,” he said aloud.

“No truer words spoken.” Ray chuckled. “I’ll get one of the boys to fetch it down.”

It was tempting, but the coward’s way out. Besides, the ranch hands had real ranch work to do. Scouring the attic for a pair of Lorelei’s trunks wasn’t exactly in their job description. Not that they’d likely mind the job, but when they did find her trunks, they wouldn’t know which one to bring down. Jem didn’t much like the idea of some young man he didn’t know pawing through Lorelei’s dresses and petticoats. And other things. And it wasn’t like they needed both trunks brought down, not at this point.

“No, I’ll do it. I’ll take a look in the morning.” Jem cast a glance at the ceiling, effectively piercing through the second floor, up into the attic. He could almost picture Lorelei’s trunks sitting on the floor under the eaves. His fingers closed tightly around his spoon handle, and he had to close his eyes briefly before he returned to his stew.

TWELVE

T
he next morning, Annie stared in the full-length oval mirror in her new bedroom. The sun streamed in through the windows, lighting her up like a singer on a stage. More like a fool.

She couldn’t go downstairs like this.

She’d been awake for a good long time, dressed in those same awful clothes from Ben. Fully prepared to face the day and win over her new family. However that was going to happen. But she found herself wavering. It had been one thing to go down last night, when the shadows of the kitchen had partially hidden her. Now it was bright daylight. She looked like a fool and beyond improper. And her socks were missing. Vanished.

Where had they gotten to?

She could have sworn she left them balled up in the lap of that high-back armchair in the corner. She even remembered sitting in that same chair last night when she was getting ready for bed. She’d marveled at the brocade upholstery and carved wood frame. The cushions had been surprisingly deep and comfortable for a chair sitting in the corner of what had been Ben’s old room growing up. The Ruskins back home had favored stiff straight-back chairs and utilitarian stools. That sort of thing.

A big old oval mirror like this, in any room, would’ve been unheard of.

Her reflection stared back at her.

A fool in boy’s britches.

Granted, her old dress was worn out and ugly, but at least it was decent and long enough to brush the floor. Why, she didn’t even have Ben’s old pair of socks now to cover her skin. She might as well go down with nothing on at all. To bare her feet.

She tugged down on the man’s nightshirt, but it was no use. It didn’t go down far enough.

Her cheeks burned to think of Jem seeing her this way.

To go down in
this
.

He probably already thought the worst of her. He’d probably heard what Daniel had said about her—being raised in a “bawdy house”—and that only partially true.

It was true about her mother being a prostitute, about her being born in a house of ill repute. She’d lived there as a little girl—a girl maybe Mae’s age. But then she had
left
. She’d gone first to the mission church—what little she remembered of it. Like many bawdy house infants she’d started there. After a spell, they’d moved her to the orphanage. She’d grown up there until she was ten, at which point she’d worked at the Good County Poor House. She’d been trained there until she was nearly thirteen—for all anybody knew how old she was. And that was when the Ruskins had taken her on, and Mrs. Ruskin had taught her to read.

Annie hadn’t been family to them exactly, but they’d treated her kindly and she’d worked hard.

If hard work could have won their love, then they must have loved her at least a little.

She sank to the foot of the bed and brought her feet up under her.

Her stomach rumbled and seemed to twist inside out, it was so empty. But still she sat, prepared to stay put for as long as need be. Perhaps even until the shadows of night returned.

It wasn’t precisely brave, she realized. She was giving into fear. A coward’s path.

Which went against all the grand plans she’d made.

But her heart simply refused to budge.

* * *

Jem let himself into the main house by the back. He held the screen door as it shut, so it hit the jamb easy-like, making a soft thud behind him. He stepped into the kitchen and immediately the warm, slightly nutty scent of toasted oat bread hit his nose. His stomach rumbled. He’d gulped down two cups of strong coffee and a plateful of fried eggs and bacon at sunrise, but that was hours ago. Since then, he’d checked on Flora’s hoof, which was concerning, examined one of Ben’s pregnant mares, and ridden out with a couple of the ranch hands to look over the property with fresh eyes. A lot had changed. They’d put in new fencing, set up several new paddocks, and brought on more stock horses than he would have imagined.

There were more improvements that could be made—new shingles for the two stables, for instance—but he was impressed that Ben hadn’t let things slip too badly since his father’s death.

It seemed like a whole day had already gone by, but it wasn’t even noon yet.

Ray stood facing the big iron cook stove, stirring a pot of what smelled like chicken soup. Little bits of bright orange carrot dotted the floor at his feet. There were also piles of carrot tops and potato skin peelings on the butcher-block table beside him. Another pile of fresh onions chopped up.

Jem saw the puppy lying under the long farm table, nibbling on one of the carrot tops. Shouldn’t hurt her, he thought.

Mae was kneeling on a chair at the table, playing with spoons. Her actions seemed a bit listless to his eye. She looked up at him and blinked. It almost seemed she’d been expecting someone else. There was no sign of Annie, so perhaps his daughter was looking for her?

“Pup made a puddle mess on the floor over there.” Ray turned his head to greet him, nodding his head toward the back door. Jem glanced down. Sure enough there was a puddle on the floor. He’d walked right past it.

“I’ll clean it.”

Ray nodded and went back to his soup, scooping chopped onions into his hands and dropping them into the pot. He picked up a long metal spoon and stirred.

Jem sniffed the air appreciatively. He could smell the soup bubbling now, joining the scent of toast. It was a welcome aroma—smelled like a big restaurant kitchen might, but a bit homier.

“Where’s Annie?” he asked. “Has she been down?”

“Still in bed.”

Jem didn’t have to look out the kitchen window to know the sun was high. It must’ve been nearly ten by now, maybe later. “She didn’t come down for breakfast?”

“Nope.”

“She must be hungry.”

Ray shrugged.

Jem slid into the seat beside Mae’s. He rested his palm over the crown of her head and gave her a playful waggle.

“Hey there, Miss Mae,” he said, tugging on one of her springy curls. “How’s my girl this morning?”

“No, Daddy. Stop.” Mae pulled away and scowled at him.

He tweaked her nose, which usually prompted a smile, but she just batted his hand away in a grumpy fashion and looked about ready to cry.

“What’s wrong with you, Little Mae?” he asked.

She stuck out her bottom lip and looked away.

Jem raised his eyebrows and checked in with Ray.

“She’s been like that all morning,” he said, sounding a bit put-upon. “Keeps whining for Annie and tried to run off to find her too many times to count. I figured the woman needs her rest or she would’ve come down by now.”

Jem considered this. Was Annie upstairs asleep? It was hard to imagine anyone sleeping this late, unless maybe they’d been up all night. Had she been up all night? Had she been waiting and wondering if he was going to come to her room? Maybe he should have said more to put her at ease.

For some reason, his mind brought forward an image of her in the old clothes Ben had left out for her last night. He shook his head at the memory.

“I’ve just got one question,” Ray said, interrupting his thoughts.

“What’s that?”

“Is she a—” Ray hesitated. He glanced at Mae. She’d flopped onto her belly on the chair, her head off one side, legs dangling off the other. She was stretching down to run her fingertips over the puppy’s fur. Ray must’ve taken that as a sign that she wasn’t listening, because he continued in a hushed whisper, “A soiled dove?”

“I don’t think so,” Jem said, stiffening at the term.

“You don’t
think
so?” Ray asked incredulously.

“She may have been once, I suppose, but she’s not now—and that is
all
you need you know.”

“She may have been once,” Ray echoed. “And you brought her
here
? You brought her here with Mae?”

Jem propped his elbows on the table. “You weren’t there, Ray. You didn’t see what I saw.”

“Then tell me. Tell me what you saw.” Ray folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against his work table, looking every bit as if he was prepared to wait a good long while.

Jem pressed his hands against the table and stood slowly. “You got any rags?” he asked.

“What?”

Jem gestured to the puddle by the back door.

“Oh, right.” Ray dug some rags out from underneath the sink and handed them to Jem, saying, “Don’t think you’re not going to answer me.”

Jem grumbled under his breath. What he wouldn’t do about now to escape outside for a nice long ride. Maybe take a swim in the watering hole.

He could at least change the subject, he thought, as he bent to clean up the pup’s mess.

“This puppy of ours needs a name, I suppose,” he said thoughtfully.

Mae looked up at him, then scrambled upright onto her seat, interested.

“Puppy,” she said in her adamant tone.

“We can’t call her Puppy,” Jem said, finishing his job.

“Why?” Mae stuck out her bottom lip, pouting prettily.

“Just can't.” Jem said, determined not to be swayed, no matter how adorable his daughter was. They couldn't spend the rest of their lives calling that dog Puppy. No.

Mae sighed. She danced her fingertips across the counter, moving toast crumbs into a small pile. She was evidently thinking hard. She glanced at Ray for help, but he applied himself to stirring his pot, apparently not wanting to get involved. He didn’t much like having a puppy in his space. That much was obvious.

Mae stood in her chair, palms planted on the tabletop as if prepared to climb on board. She leaned forward, raising one knee purposefully.

“Oh no you don’t,” Jem warned, still holding the soiled rags and wondering what to do with them.

Mae reconsidered. She retreated a bit and looked down the length of the table as if that had been her intention all along. Her eyes landed on a sugar bowl with a spoon handle sticking up out of it. Tiny white crystals littered the table. The ranch hands who’d eaten earlier weren’t known to be tidy. Jem was surprised Ray had left it like that. It spoke to the older man’s preoccupation with Annie and who she was. And perhaps his displeasure with the puppy’s mess.

Whatever the reason, Mae’s eyes lit up at the sight of the sugar.

“Sugar!” she exclaimed, as if discovering the sweet substance for the first time.

“Sugar?” Jem frowned.

“Puppy,” she explained, as if this was perfectly reasonable.

“You want to name her Sugar?” he asked, not entirely sure he’d guessed her meaning correctly. Maybe she just wanted a spoonful of sugar to eat. Which would be a quick
no
.

She beamed. “Sugar! Puppy!”

“Sugar’s white,” Ray protested, joining the conversation. “Should be Pepper or at least something black, seems like.”

“Sugar,” Mae insisted.

The puppy jumped up and propped her front paws on the edge of Mae’s chair, tail wagging furiously. Her whole body swayed with the motion, her liquid brown eyes filled with pure doggish devotion. A picture of puppy ecstasy.

“Sugar,” Mae crooned happily. She bent to rub the soft fur behind the pup’s ear. “Good Sugar.”

“That’s it then,” Ray said

Jem shrugged. A dog named Sugar. It was a name at least.

“You going to check on that woman of yours?” Ray asked.

Jem inclined his head and held up the rags. “What do I do with these?”

Ray waved to the back door, giving a grimace of distaste. “There’s an iron laundry kettle around the side of the house. You can set ’em in that to soak. It’s got water and lye in it already. Got a pump out there too. Wash yourself up.”

Jem nodded and headed outside, his thoughts turning to Annie. Seems like she should have come downstairs by now. Was something wrong with her? Only one way to find out, he supposed.