The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn (26 page)

Cade was slow in following him out to the yard. When he shadowed the doorway at last, he had his pipe in hand, freshly lit. Jesse gave a nod toward the stable. They walked in silence down to where the creek burbled a stone’s throw off.

“Exactly what do you aim to with that girl, Jesse?”

“Let her catch her breath for now. Hide her. If the hunt dies down, give her time to decide what it is she wants to do.”

“She hasn’t told you what she wants to do?”

“I don’t know that she knows.” Jesse’s raised voice made one of the horses start with a ruckle, muffled through the stable logs. “Why’d you tell me to keep her safe, back on the trace, if you didn’t want her around? What did you think I was going to do with her? Wisk her over the mountains and set her loose?”

“I never said I begrudged her shelter, Jesse. Don’t go putting words in my mouth.”

“Then I don’t see what’s got you riled.”

“Abduction? Murder? You forget about those?”

“Not hardly.” Jesse struggled to tame his rising anger. “But I promised to keep her safe. Reverend Teague bid me give her time. That’s what I aim to do.”

“With us two fixing to leave? One of us has to, if we want to keep eating.”

He couldn’t see Cade’s face to read it, just the set of his brows in the glow of the pipe he finally brought to his lips. “If it’s a matter of trusting me alone with her, you can do that, Pa. That promise I made to keep Tamsen safe—I meant from
me
as well. I won’t touch her. Not unless she wants me to. Not even then till we’re married before God. That put your worries to rest?”

Cade blew out smoke, and what might have been a laugh, save it held no humor. “What if she never wants that from you?”

“Then she can leave. Go back to the Teagues or wherever she wants to go.” His voice had risen again. One of the horses kicked at its stall. Jesse held his ground. “But
if
once she knows what she wants, and
if
that’s me … I want something of worth to offer her.”

“I’m of the opinion that, had you nothing but yourself to give, it would be more’n most deserve.”

Cade spoke so stiffly the meaning of his words took a moment to sink in.

“Pa …” Jesse’s throat clamped tight. He didn’t know how to put it into words, to make Cade understand how Tamsen had stirred up the embers of a longing he’d kept hidden. The longing to know where he came from. How to say it without sounding like who he was wasn’t good enough, or that he disregarded all Cade had done for him. Neither thing was true and yet …

“I been meaning to tell you. When her mother died, Tamsen found out some things, things kept secret from her till then.”

Cade’s pipe glowed, a tiny sun in the darkness. He coughed a bit on the draw, and his voice rasped as he asked, “What sort of things?”

Jesse told him about Sarah Parrish having been a slave, freed by Tamsen’s father, a truth concealed so her parents could live together and raise their daughter without the stigma of slavery hanging over her. “It got me wondering, if I could learn where I come from, who my people were—or maybe
are
—it might turn out I’ve something to give her. I don’t know what. Land. An inheritance. Something more’n living season to season.” He hurried to add, “It’s been good for us, Pa, and I wouldn’t think of changing except I don’t reckon it’s the life to be asking a wife to lead.”

He’d said it. Poorly, no doubt, but it was out.

Cade had let the pipe fall to his side, forgotten. “I never knew you thought on that. About where you come from, before the Shawnees.”

“Didn’t seem talking would do anyone good. But I think on it. I’ve thought on it most every night I can recall. Guess Tamsen’s talk of her parents started me thinking in the daylight hours too.”

Cade drew on his pipe but found it had gone out. He tapped the bowl against his thigh, looked out to the open land where the dark-shadowed hills rolled away to the west. “So you fixing to turn farmer on me?”

“I’m fixing to do what it takes to win her. And now I come to think on it, right before we met Tamsen, that day in Morganton, weren’t you the one talking about planting more corn, getting that cow? Sounded to me like you were the one thinking on turning farmer.”

Cade blew out an exasperated breath. “I hardly remember what I was thinking then. We got a different set of circumstances facing us now, and sounds to me like you’re risking an awful lot for this girl you’ve hardly had the chance to know.”

“Maybe I am,” Jesse said, heart sinking under the strain come between him and Cade. “And call me a fool for it. But I think I’ve known her since I first looked into her eyes. I love her, Pa.”

Cade didn’t call him a fool. He stared at Jesse through the dark for a moment, then went into the stable to check the stock, leaving Jesse alone under the stars.

In the covered dogtrot between the cabins, Tamsen perched on a bench, letting Janet Allard rub salve into her hands, which were cut and blistered after helping harvest corn in the fields. “It’s lard,” Janet said of the salve. “With sweet-balm and mallow-root from my garden.”

The same Jesse gave her, in the mountains. She caught a softer fragrance beneath the grease and herbs. Rose petals, doubtless from the trellised canes climbing both cabins, still producing blossoms into October. Though across the nearby slopes sparks of red and gold heralded autumn’s blaze, nearer the cabins late vegetables and herbs thrived in sprawling plots that must have presented a veritable Eden in the warmer months.

With the flora of the Allard homestead came fauna aplenty. Tamsen had counted four cats, two dogs, six goats, an ox team, two horses, a milch cow, a flock of hens, and, in a large wicker cage mounted under the dogtrot, a pair of birds the size of doves. Upon spying their brilliant green and yellow plumage and ruddy-feathered heads, Tamsen had exclaimed in delight, making Bethany ask, “Ain’t you ever seen a parakeet? They flock about these parts, driving farmers to distraction. These ’uns would be shot dead long since if I didn’t keep ’em to myself.”

Tamsen watched the pair now, preening with their curved beaks, until Janet turned her hands over for a last inspection.

“Keep them out of water if’n you can. Come morning they’ll feel better.”

Bethany stepped from the cabin, mixing seed in a pan to feed her captive birds. The girl had been in motion since Tamsen and Jesse arrived that
morning for the harvesting, yet looked as lively as ever, pale hair falling in a smooth sheath to her waist.

Tamsen had yet to see her don a proper cap.

“You do have the prettiest hands. Or did till today.” A giggle accompanied Bethany’s words as she turned to tend her birds. The parakeets fluttered to the bottom of the cage as she cast the seed. “Reckon you’d slaves to do for you, back in Morganton.”

“Beth,” Janet said. “Don’t go making assumptions.”

As assumptions went, it wasn’t wholly inaccurate. Tamsen had never worked as she’d done today—or every day since her arrival in Greenbird Cove, and blistered palms weren’t the only change that work had wrought. Even now she could feel the sunburn across her cheeks. Her hair was in a simple braid, pinned and covered in a plain cap. Her homespun gown was a far cry from the lace-trimmed silk she’d been painted in.

No doubt Mr. Parrish was out there somewhere, toting around that wretched miniature, showing her image to any who’d stop and look. How much did she still resemble that ringleted girl in the portrait?

Lord, keep him miles and miles from this cove
.

She stood as Janet corked the salve. “I didn’t live in Morganton, and I wasn’t wealthy. Not really.”

“No?” Bethany drew one of the parakeets from the cage, clipped wings extended, clawed feet clinging to her finger. She stroked the bird’s bright head, eying Tamsen. “You never churned butter afore coming here. Never brought in corn. Bet you never strung shucky beans or plucked a chicken or put up any kind of food at all.”

“Not since I was small,” Tamsen admitted, then smiled at Janet. “Except for plucking chickens, which I’ve never attempted.”

“Then how d’you mean to do for Jesse?” Bethany asked.

Janet had started inside the cabin but paused to level a look at her daughter. “Tamsen will do just fine. Besides, she has us to show her anything she might need to know.”

A breeze wafted through the dogtrot, wisping pale hairs against Bethany’s cheeks. “Mama, you ain’t got time to sit for the sewing you pine to do. Where you gonna find time for teaching Tamsen how to be the wife Jesse needs?”

“It’s Tamsen could teach us a thing or two about sewing.” Janet appraised her gown. “I’d give you the linen and a year’s worth of cheese if you’d borrow my good jacket and petticoat again and make another along their pattern for me. I’ll never match your skill with a needle.”

Tamsen smiled, deciding not to mention that they were the plainest clothes she’d ever worn. “I wish you might have seen my mother’s creations.” A burn of tears pressed behind her eyes as she added, “I’d be happy to stitch a gown for you.”

Bethany’s mouth twisted, as if the conversation hadn’t gone according to her liking. “What did your mama think, you coming Overmountain to marry our Jesse?”

“My mother died not long ago. She never met Jesse.”

Janet expressed her sympathy, until Bethany cut in, “So Jesse met your pa in Morganton?”

Tamsen turned to the girl, wondering at the probing questions. “Papa died years ago. I was …” She searched for the line between truth and discretion. “I was alone in Morganton when Jesse offered to take me west with him.”

Bethany wore a puzzled look, those big blue eyes of hers far too innocent. “You weren’t one of them … What’s the Bible call ’em, Mama? Those women that charge men for their favors?”

“Beth!” Janet’s face flamed with mortification. “Of course Tamsen was no such thing.”

“Indeed not.” Tamsen surprised herself by laughing, causing Janet visible relief.

Bethany frowned. “An orphan? Jesse and Cade took you on out of charity?”

Tamsen bit back her grin. “Wrong again.”

“Bethany Ann Allard,” Janet said in exasperation. “It is none of your business why they chose to marry. Tamsen isn’t obliged to share it with you if she doesn’t choose. Now hush.”

Bethany returned the bird to the cage and shut the wicker door. “Sorry, Mama. I was just curious.”

Tamsen wished she could tell them the truth. Despite Bethany’s apology and offer of friendship, she clearly hadn’t reconciled herself to Tamsen’s status as Jesse’s wife.
Supposed
wife. But truth—as pertained to her and Jesse—had become a thing too muddled to pin down in words. Since Luther Teague talked her out of marrying, she’d had time to be relieved she and Jesse hadn’t taken such a drastic measure. Time to wonder what it would be like for them now if they had. Time to wish she’d never left the Teagues, never come to this isolated cove at all. Time to think that if she hadn’t, there just might be another gaping hole in her heart where Jesse Bird had, to her surprise, begun to fit himself.

If only things could have been different. If only Cade—

“Why don’t I teach Tamsen how to make butter?” Bethany turned with a brighter countenance, small hands brushing off a residue of birdseed. “What else can’t you do? You got a kettle for boiling laundry in the yard, a battling stick?” When Tamsen said she’d neither, the girl’s brows shot high. “How’re you keeping your clothes clean?”

“Rinsing them in the creek.” Jesse did his own washing thus. Unless he’d come straight from working or riding, he always smelled clean. She’d surmised he bathed himself in the creek each morning too.

“You’d do better boiling your laundry,” the girl pronounced.

“One thing at a time, Beth.” Janet offered Tamsen a conciliatory smile. “Keeps busy as a bee in clover, my girl. Just like her brothers—Lord help their tired mama.”

As if they’d waited out of sight for this herald, Bethany’s little brothers came swerving around the cabin from the direction of the barn.

“Pa’s coming!” seven-year-old Nathan announced, white-blond hair in straggles over stick-out ears.

“And he’s hungry!” Zeb, a year younger, plowed into his brother’s back. He grinned up at Tamsen, who was close enough to playfully yank a lock of his shaggy hair, dark like his father’s.

Jesse appeared next, quiet in his moccasins. Bethany greeted him with a blazing smile, but he came straight to Tamsen and took up her hands, turning them palms up. “How are they?”

Tamsen felt a tingle on her skin at his touch—something deeper at his focused concern. Sensing every other eye on them, she blushed and pulled away. “Janet tended them.”

Jesse smiled and lowered his voice. “You want to share supper with the womenfolk or head back and have our own? Tate invited us, but I said I’d ask you first.”

It had been a good day, even with the unaccustomed work, the awkward moments with Bethany. On the whole, Tamsen found the lively Allard clan good company, but she was ready for a space of quiet.

“What would you like me to fix for our supper?” she asked.