The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn (21 page)

It was two rooms, between them a wide stone hearth with a crane for cooking. A few pots and skillets lined the hearthstones. The ceiling was open beamed, but a loft reached by a pole ladder was built above the room behind the chimney.

A rough-hewn table with benches occupied the main room. Smaller tables and shelves lined the walls, holding possessions her eyes skated over until they landed on the books—half a dozen at least, lined up neat with their spines facing out. The sight was a welcome surprise.

Clothing hung on pegs—breeches, leggings, shirts—as well as traps and snowshoes. Heavy winter moccasins stood in pairs beneath. Everything was tidy. More surprising, the cabin bore a woman’s touch. Checked curtains hung at the window, matching a runner that spanned the table under a burl-wood bowl heaped with red-striped apples. Fresh apples?

Frowning, she stepped closer, the quilt in her arms.

“Well, forevermore. Where on earth did you come from?”

Tamsen’s heart leapt to her throat as she froze midstep. Framed in the doorway between the cabin’s rooms, hands on slender hips, a girl in faded blue homespun stood scowling at Tamsen.

The girl looked about fifteen. She was small boned and pretty—even with the scowl—with pale hair loose to her waist and eyes so blue Tamsen could see their color from across the dim room.

“We … Jesse and I …” It took a moment for a suitable reply to surface through startlement and weariness. “We’ve just come from Reverend Teague. Who are you?”

Tamsen set the quilt on the table.

“Don’t put that there—I just prettied that table!” The girl rushed forward as if to snatch the quilt away. Tamsen placed a hand between it and the girl.

“You haven’t told me who you are—or what you’re doing here.”

Fury twisted the girl’s features. Instead of going for the quilt, she raised a hand to Tamsen, who stepped back out of reach.

“Bethany!” Jesse thundered from the doorway. He strode across the cabin and took the girl by the arm. “What in blazes are you doing?”

Instead of pulling away, the girl flung her slight person against his broad chest, one fist striking him, the other clinging.

Jesse got hold of her by the wrists. “What’s got into you? Do Tate and Janet know you’re here?”

She pulled out of his grasp, stricken face shining with tears. “I came to tidy the place for you, but … you got married? Why?”

Jesse’s face drained of color. Ignoring the question, he crossed to Tamsen and touched her cheek. “What happened? Did you walk in and give her a fright?”

Behind Jesse’s back the girl glared venom.

“I must have.” Impulsively Tamsen took his hand in hers and heard a sound from the girl as she did so. Quite possibly a growl. “I’m all right.”

Jesse’s fingers squeezed. Then he drew a breath and glanced around the cabin. “Those are nice curtains, and the table looks pretty. It was kind of you, Beth, ’specially as you couldn’t know I’d be bringing home …” Seeming at a loss for what to call her, he said simply, “Tamsen. But I’d take it kinder still,” he added with an edge to his voice, “if you’d make your apologies to her.”

The girl’s face went a humiliated red. There was a moment when Tamsen thought she might actually say the words. Then her vivid eyes iced over.

“I shan’t.” She whirled toward the door, the movement fanning out her pale hair. On the threshold she looked back, gaze raking Tamsen. “And those are my mama’s clothes you’re wearing.”

She fled as the last of the sun’s angled light vanished, throwing the dooryard into shadow. Tamsen and Jesse stood in thundering silence, staring after her.

Tamsen heard him swallow.

“That,” he said, “was Bethany. Tate and Janet’s daughter.”

Come morning, Jesse was wishing Cade hadn’t hung a sturdy door between the cabin’s rooms. Best he could tell, staring at it, Tamsen hadn’t stirred off the bedstead that used to be his own. He’d gone down to see to the horse, come back up, fixed breakfast, and was just rising from the table when he finally heard the pad of feet behind the door.

He sat back down, rubbed a hand down his face. Waited.

A crash in the next room had him leaping up, heart doing a jig. At the door he stopped, chary of barging in.

“Tamsen? You all right?”

Silence. Then her voice, tear filled, muffled through the door. “I’m fine.”

He took leave to doubt it. “You dressed decent? Can I come in?”

“No.”

Presuming that answered both questions, he leaned against the door-jamb, hand hovering on the latch. “Don’t reckon you’d come out?”

“Not now.”

“You hungry?”

“Mr. Bird … Jesse. Please. I’m fine. Really.”

Behind the cabin he split up a hickory trunk, hurling pieces into a stack. Time, the preacher had said. Time was what she needed. Time wore on, and the morning with it. He was sitting in the cabin threshold sipping from a canteen, sweaty from work, when Tate and Janet Allard came into view on the path that crossed the ridge to their homestead.

He leaned his rifle against the logs and rose.

Janet, blond as her daughter but nigh as tall as her husband, came forward holding out a pie, and an uncertain smile. Jesse took the pie, never one to turn down his neighbor’s cooking. It was apple.

“Thankee kindly. What a fine welcome home.” Compared to the one they’d had last night, he didn’t say.

Tate, toting a covered basket, darted a gaze into the cabin. But Janet took the basket and the bull by the horns, stepping inside and asking brightly, “What’s this we hear of you bringing home a wife from back east?”

Tate followed her in, Jesse on their heels. He set the pie on the table while the Allards took in the barefaced lack of anything resembling a wife. Their gazes rested on the door beside the hearth.

A wife from back east
. Bethany had rushed out before he could correct that misunderstanding. Till last night he hadn’t credited that she’d fixed romantic notions on him. Of late she’d taken to dogging his steps more often than he liked—like a pesky little sister, he’d thought. He’d been patient, tried to be kind. Had he misled her in some way? Had Tate and Janet been thinking he was sweet on their girl?

Janet dropped her voice. “She sleeping this far up into the day?”

Jesse busied himself emptying the basket of cornbread, cheese, butter, and huckleberry preserves. “Tamsen’s awake, I think. She just hasn’t come out of that room today.”

The Allards shared a look. “Is she your wife?” Janet asked. “We weren’t sure Beth got the story straight.”

Jesse’s mind raced over how much truth to tell. While he trusted the Allards, and having Tate looking out for anyone asking after Tamsen might be the wiser course, there was another thing. Here was Tamsen living under his roof. Even if the Teagues knew about his vow to keep his distance, why should anyone else presume it?

“We saw Reverend Teague yesterday.” Jesse watched those words do their work, expecting Tamsen to come barging out to dispute their implication. She didn’t, though she must have heard.

Janet cleared her throat. “I was happy lending you my gown, but you didn’t mention
you
were marrying the woman needing to borrow it.”

When he’d run over the ridges yesterday morning to fetch something decent for Tamsen to wear, it happened a calf had busted its pen and Tate had taken Bethany and her little brothers traipsing after it, leaving Janet the only one home. She’d assumed one of Cade’s settlers needed the gown for a hasty wedding. Jesse hadn’t amended the notion.

Janet Allard had a sweet smile—and a forbearing nature. She graced Jesse with both now. “Not that I mind.”

Knowing he was in the midst of deceiving her again, the tightness in Jesse’s chest didn’t uncoil.

Tate offered a callused hand to shake. “Think she’ll come out so we can meet her?”

Tamsen had suffered enough to make anyone shut themselves in a room for a week. “It was a rough crossing. Reckon she’ll come out when—”

The door opened, silencing him. All three turned to look.

Tamsen’s hair was neatly parted, pinned up under a cap that covered the back of her head. She wore the top part of Janet’s gown, with a petticoat made of the new homespun—basted, it looked like, and hastily hemmed. Janet’s petticoat draped her arm. Her eyes were a bit puffy, rimmed in red.

“Tamsen.” He wished mightily they’d talked before now. Last night she’d been so tired she’d fallen onto the bed tick with barely two words left to speak to him—a mumbled “good night.”

She came into the room, eyes on Jesse’s tall blond neighbor. “Are you Mrs. Allard?”

Janet paused a beat before smiling in welcome. “I am. And you’ll be Jesse’s wife? Tamsen, is it?”

Tamsen’s glance at Jesse was brief. She’d heard him tell the lie. “Yes,” she said, and Jesse let out a breath.

“Tamsen Bird,” Janet said. “What a lovely name. This is my husband, Tate.”

“Mr. Allard.” Not quite hiding her startlement at the sound of Jesse’s name paired with hers, Tamsen dipped a curtsy to Tate, who whipped off his hat.

“Pleased to meet ye, ma’am. I’m Tate to my neighbors.”

Jesse had never seen Tate blush, but in that rough-hewn cabin, Tamsen was as dazzling as an angel come to earth, even if she’d spent the morning in tears, which he feared was the case.

“You been in there sewing all this while?” he asked her.

“Part of the time.” Tamsen spared him a nod, a small smile, before turning back to Janet. “Thank you for lending me your gown. I can return the petticoat now, but I’ve yet to sew a bodice. Or launder my own.” She handed the petticoat to Janet, then touched the waist of the borrowed bodice, a short gown of looser fit than the clothes she’d worn over the mountains. “Would you mind my keeping this a bit longer?”

“Keep it as long as need be. I don’t wear it save for go-to-meeting. With harvest nigh, that won’t be for a spell.” Janet moved so Tamsen could see the table. “We brought along a little hearth warming.”

Tamsen stared at the table’s bounty, clearly moved by the kindness. “Thank you. That’s … that’s lovely.”

“No one makes a better pie west of the mountains,” Jesse said.

“Bethany made that one.” Janet glanced guardedly at Tamsen, who managed a smile.

“It’s kind of Bethany. Please relay my thanks.”

The relief on his neighbors’ faces filled Jesse with warmth. They weren’t disappointed, just surprised.

Tate and Janet made to take their leave, the petticoat folded inside the empty basket. Jesse stepped from the cabin with them, leaving Tamsen inside. Having decided on enlisting Tate’s eyes and ears, after all, he took him aside long enough to tell him Tamsen’s story and his part in it.

“Kidnapping?” Tate’s face darkened at hearing the charge laid against Jesse—the only one he chose to share. “Parrish and Kincaid, eh? I’ll keep an ear out, ’specially down in Sycamore Shoals.”

“Tell Janet,” Jesse added, glancing at her waiting at the head of the path. “If you think she ought to know. But let’s keep this to the four of us—and Cade, of course. All right?”

Jesse watched them go, torn in his soul over letting the world
beyond the Teagues and Cade think them married. And he’d completely forgotten to mention Tate’s cow shot dead by Chickamaugas on the drove.