To Wed in Texas (4 page)

“Before that I lived with a farm family outside of town and rode a circuit to preach every Sunday.” He glanced around as though it were the first time he’d been in the room. “I hope you have everything you’ll need up here.”

“Thank you, I’ll be fine.” She tried to hide the awkwardness of the moment by straightening the lacetrimmed pillows on the bed.

“Main Street is only a few blocks from here.” He moved closer to the window. “Willow always walked with the twins, but if you like, I’ll hitch the wagon before I leave each morning. I’ll tell the bank and all the merchants Monday that you’re to charge whatever you need to my account.” He hesitated, as though choosing his words carefully. “The climate is warmer here. You may want to buy a few new dresses.”

Karlee looked at her threadworn “best” dress. She couldn’t remember ever having had a new dress. It had taken great skill to cut this one down to fit her after Aunt Violet tired of it.

When she didn’t say anything, Daniel paced in front of the window, making the room seem smaller. “Charge the things you need to me, but I’ll have the bank open an account in your name. I’ll deposit ten dollars a month. You’ll need your own funds.”

She was speechless. No one had ever offered to pay her. Most thought just giving her a roof over her head should be payment enough. Except for the times she traveled, she’d never had any money.

He frowned at her. “That might not be enough. I was just guessing.”

“No!” Karlee answered. “It’s very generous. I read
somewhere the cowhands make that a month in Texas.” In truth, she’d read everything she could get her hands on about Texas.

“Corralling longhorns may be easier than keeping up with the twins,” Daniel guessed. “But it’s your money to use or save as you choose. I’ll pay for anything you need while you’re here.”

On impulse, Karlee closed the distance between them and hugged him lightly, placing her cheek against his for the briefest of moments.

The muscles in his arms tightened beneath her fingertips. A twitch along his square jaw line reacted to her touch. He stepped backward so fast he almost toppled over the trunk.

Karlee froze. She’d done something wrong. She’d been too personal. Should she apologize? Should she try to explain? How could she take back her action? They might have touched in the darkness when he’d comforted her, but this was in the light, and in her bedroom.

She wished desperately she were alone. Then she could dig into her trunk and find one of her favorite books. She could lose herself in a story and no longer have to worry about doing the proper thing. In her stories, the characters knew what to say and do. In real life, when Karlee didn’t show affection, the aunts had accused her of being cold and heartless. When she did, they’d laughed at her and called her childish.

“I’m sorry.” She steeled herself to face the consequences of her action.

“No.” Daniel held up a hand. “It’s not your fault.” He glanced at the window as though wishing for an escape. “I’m not used to anyone hugging me.”

“It won’t happen again,” Karlee promised.

“You did nothing wrong.” Daniel took a deep breath. “I think it quite normal that people living under the same
roof would occasionally touch. In a proper way, of course.”

Karlee watched him closely. “Of course,” she whispered. He was justifying her action, letting her get away without criticism. He wasn’t going to make fun of her.

“We have to figure out how to make this arrangement work.” His words were painstakingly slow. “I’ve had no woman in my house since my wife died. I want no woman in my life now. I only want someone to care for the twins, nothing more. There are things I must do here, times I’ll be away.”

“I understand.” Karlee felt the room suddenly grow warmer. “I didn’t come here, Reverend McLain, for any purpose other than the children.” How could he think she’d been making an advance? She’d never done anything like that in her life. Even when she’d thought of it a few times with young men, her aunts had lectured her in shifts for hours.

A proper young lady never flirts, she’d been drilled. The lesson always ended with a list of reasons no man would ever look her way. After all, she had no family, no money and no land. She was taller than almost every man she met, a trait no husband would want, not to mention the curse of her red hair.

“Well, good night.”

He looked every bit as uncomfortable as she felt.

She raised her head with another idea. “Maybe we should shake hands on our bargain?…to keep everything proper.”

Daniel offered his hand. “I like that idea, Spinster Whitworth.”

Karlee placed her hand in his. “To working together, Reverend McLain.”

He held her fingers for only a moment then turned and vanished from the room.

She remained still until she heard his footsteps end at
the bottom of the stairs, then unpacked. Within minutes, the room was hers. Hers! She’d placed a coverlet her mother hand quilted across her bed and, for lack of a shelf, lined her books up along the windowsill. A jewelry box with a broken lid held handkerchiefs atop the chest. Her few clothes fit easily into the drawers. And her hatbox filled with yellowed letters was shoved beneath her bed.

Slipping into a nightgown almost twice her size, she quickly crawled beneath the covers. Monday, if she lasted that long, she’d buy a nightgown and ship this one back to Aunt Rosy. Her aunt had made such a production of giving it to her when Karlee packed, as if it were a great sacrifice and Karlee hadn’t known that it was really her oldest gown.

She’d also select material for a new dress on Monday. And scraps, if the stores in Texas had scrap barrels. She’d make her dress and the twins each a cloth doll with button eyes. She might not be able to cook, but she could sew. It would be a delight to make a dress from clean, new material.

Karlee closed her eyes, smiling into the darkness. At the end of the month, if she lasted that long, she’d use just a few cents of her own money to buy a comb for her hair. A real comb, not just pins. She’d save the rest of the money, for in thirty days she’d no longer be penniless. She’d be a woman of means.

Daniel stood on the porch just below her room. He could hear her moving around, moving in. He’d been so sure he wanted her gone from his life. Only minutes ago when he’d returned from town, he planned to ask her to leave, but then he had seen her silently crying in the shadows.

Daniel rubbed his forehead with his fist. She wasn’t some old woman or slow-witted girl he could easily fool.
She wouldn’t be tricked, or satisfied with half-truths. He was insane to allow her to stay. She’d be good with the twins, but it was only a matter of time before she saw the lie that was his life.

How long could he explain the riders at night as drunks? Or call Wolf just a friend and nothing more? One night she’d hear him leaving, or maybe she’d hear the sound of the hidden gun case sliding open. Some time she’d see blood on his shirt or a bruise only a fist could have made and she’d guess there was more to the preacher than met the eye. When she figured it out, he’d know for sure if she were an ally or an enemy.

Then, if she stood with Gerilyn, this woman moving a floor above him might have the power to destroy his world.

K
ARLEE SPENT MOST OF THE NIGHT PRACTICING THE
speech she’d say to Daniel. She’d promise to learn to cook and do her best with the twins and go to church, and keep house, and try not to kill any of his friends or relatives. She’d promise anything. This place might be the end of the world, but he’d made her a fair offer and she planned to live up to her half.

By the time she’d dressed in her wrinkled Sunday best and headed downstairs, Daniel had gone to church. He left her breakfast of oatmeal and bread warming by the stove and Wolf watching the twins.

Disappointed, Karlee sat down at the table with her bowl in hand. Finally, someone had asked her to stay, and she couldn’t even remember saying thank you to him.

“What’s the matter, Carrot Top?” Wolf lowered his huge frame into the chair across the table from her. A twin, dressed in white, climbed on each of his knees. “You sorry you didn’t get to cook breakfast?”

“No. I only wanted to talk with Daniel. And please don’t call me Carrot Top.” Once, she thought, I’ll ask him nice once. “I hate that name. I don’t call you Rootbrain or Tree head.”

She smiled at the twins, wondering if anyone usually brushed their curls before church. They were so beautiful, so perfect, like an angel mirrored before her.

“I’ll try to remember.” Laughing, Wolf fed one twin a biscuit half topped with jelly. “As for Daniel, if he were here you could talk to him, but there’s no guarantee he’ll listen…or answer. From the stories his brothers tell, he never put more than a few words together in his life. Seems May, his wife, was the only one he ever really talked to.”

“But he’s a preacher.” She thought about how hard it had been for Daniel to say all he did last night in her room.

Wolf nodded. “He’s more a teacher. Always studying and writing papers. When he started preaching, folks said he would look straight down at May on the first row and talk to her like there was no one else in the church. They say his words were blessed, making a body feel closer to Heaven just from listening.”

Wolf buttered another biscuit and handed it to the twin on his left. “I ain’t one to get within shouting distance of a church, but those who do say he still stares at the third place on the first pew like he was talking the whole time to his dead wife.”

An invisible icicle slid along her spine. “That’s spooky.” She didn’t want to think the man who’d held her last night might be a little mad. He hadn’t said a word of comfort, but when he’d touched her he’d made her pain and loneliness go away.

“Maybe.” Wolf scratched his head. “I seen so much during the war, I ain’t saying nothing’s spooky now days.”

Karlee leaned closer, her breakfast completely forgotten. “Like what?” She’d lived with her aunts when the conflict ended. They’d allowed no stories of war told at their table. And this man, who looked like he might be
the first person she’d ever met to have fleas and not mind, would never have been allowed in the aunts’ house.

The corner of Wolf’s lip lifted at her interest. “Once,” he whispered as if afraid to continue too loudly, “I saw a Yankee private, his head blown half off in battle, get up and walk off the field like he was out for a stroll.”

Karlee leaned closer. “What did you do?”

Wolf straightened. “I cocked my rifle and followed him for a spell. Pretty soon, he stuck his hands in his pockets and started whistling.” Wolf paused, his bushy eyebrows dancing.

“And?” Karlee couldn’t wait.

“Well, I circled around the Yank, not wanting to shoot him in the back unless I had to. The sight of his face, half-missing from the cheek up, blood sloshing out with each step, stopped me cold. I never seen anything like it.”

Karlee closed her eyes, almost smelling the blood.

Wolf’s Southern voice was low and slow as it drifted to her. ” ‘Course, I can’t be positive, him only having one eye and all, but I think he winked at me as he passed.” Wolf stared directly at her and winked. “I guess that proves Yanks don’t need more than half a brain.”

Karlee jumped to her feet as she realized he’d been pulling her leg.

Wolf had the sense to look alarmed amid his chuckling. “I didn’t mean nothing,” he mumbled as fast as the words could fight their way past the mass of hair around his mouth. “I was just joshing.”

She took a deep breath and pushed aside the thought of hitting him with the frying pan again. “Well, I’m more gullible than most, I guess.” She straightened, deciding not to fight the war all over in this kitchen. “But Daniel did talk to me last night. In fact, he asked me to stay.”

One eyebrow shot up. “The truth?”

“Truth. I’ve been asked to remain and help.” Karlee nodded once. “In fact, he wants me to stay as long as I like.” She added the lie for good measure.

“Well, I’ll be. The only woman Daniel has let within a hundred miles of him is Willow. She took over the twins’ care at birth. Every other woman you would have thought was poison.”

“Willow?” She remembered Daniel saying someone named Willow sometimes slept on the bed in the twins’ room. “Where is she, now?”

Wolf set one of the twins down gently. “We all thought Willow had a mountainsize heart and a child’s mind, but there was enough woman in her for one man to love. She married one of the Buchanan boys last fall and will be calving by summer. They live down by Big Cypress Bayou in a house full of relatives. I’m sure you’ll meet her. She doesn’t let more than a day pass without dropping by to see the twins. You’ll probably see her in church this morning.”

Karlee glanced at the open window, trying to guess the time.

Wolf read her mind. “Daniel will ring the bells when it’s time to start for church.” As if drawn by his words, a bell began to toll.

“I’ll be saying good-bye,” Wolf mumbled as he stood. He picked up his rifle as though it were an extension of his arm. “The twins are all yours.”

“But where …”

He moved to the door. “Just follow the bells, and you’ll find the church.” He vanished without another word, not bothering to close the door behind him.