Last Chance Bride
Last Chance Bride
Jillian Hart
Last Chance At Love… The lonely bearer of a shameful secret, Libby Hodges needed to make a new start - in Montana Territory as Jacob Stone's mail-order bride and mother to his little girl. Hoping to meet a loving husband, she found instead a man shattered by by loss and wary of affection.Libby could read in his gentle gray eyes a desperate plea for the tenderness they both craved. But how could she claim the heart of a man who'd vowed never to give it away again, or tell her prospective groom that she carried another man's child?
“I never wanted a wife.” (#u3113af78-052e-5166-91ec-bdc13df27000)Letter to Reader (#u8cf7d51d-43ee-5388-8596-d673874181fc)Title Page (#u63a53e05-f3f8-590b-951c-0a4e56a8e1a2)About the Author (#ub4df6748-9684-5267-b39a-06f9cf138379)Dedication (#u28f21868-b682-5348-938c-4a9eadea97eb)Chapter One (#ue24dd710-6904-59af-a75d-faa17b05ddb7)Chapter Two (#u98d15002-8a27-5059-8578-3a13eaa73e67)Chapter Three (#ubc0f85b4-08db-513b-96b5-4041e82b408b)Chapter Four (#ub03b8975-425c-5565-87c8-09819434349d)Chapter Five (#udfc5cf10-1ff0-5c46-9efd-731f9cdebe93)Chapter Six (#u3d02e92d-9102-5cab-be1c-7de2f2ca5d59)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“I never wanted a wife.”
He stood before the opened window, sunlight glinting on his dark hair, brightening it, and casting his face in shadow. “I took one look at you and I bolted.”
“You ran?”
“I’d ventured halfway down the street this morning before I realized my foolishness. I invited you out here, and yet I am terrified of you. You’re young and pretty. From your letters, I expected someone different. Older.”
“I’m not all that pretty.” Libby spoke up, touched by his words. “I just want a home. A real one.”
Jacob Stone remained silent, staring out the window, still and motionless. “I can’t give you what you want.” He didn’t turn to look at her. “We’ve spent over six months corresponding. That amount of time should tell you right there how unsure I am of making a marriage again.”
Grief haunted his words, and the echoes of that grief hung in the air like the thick Montana dust. Libby wanted to reach out and comfort him, but how could she?
It was not her right.
Dear Reader,
March is the time of spring, of growth, and the budding of things to come. Like these four never-before-published authors that we selected for our annual March Madness Promotion. These fresh new voices in historical romance are bound to be tomorrow’s stars!
Among this year’s choices for the month is The Maiden and the Warrior by Jacqueline Navin, a heartrending medieval tale about a fierce warrior who is saved from the demons that haunt him when he marries the widow of the man who sold him into slavery. Goodness also prevails in Gabriel’s Heart by Madeline George. In this fltrty Western, an ex-sheriff uses a feisty socialite to exact revenge, but ends up falling in love with her first!
Last Chance Bride by Jillian Hart is a touching portrayal of a lonely spinster-turned-mail-order-bride who shows an embittered widower the true meaning of love on the rugged Montana frontier. And don’t miss A Duke Deceived by Cheryl Bolen, a Regency story about a handsome duke whose hasty marriage to a penniless noblewoman is tested by her secret deeds.
Whatever your tastes in reading, you’ll be sure to find a romantic journey back to the past between the covers of a Harlequin Historical.
Sincerely,
Tracy Farrell, Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to
Silhouette Reader Service
U S : 3010 Walden Ave, P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian PO. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
Last Chance Bride
Jillian Hart
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
JILLIAN HART currently lives near Phoenix, Arizona, but as a Washington State native feels very much out of her element. The desert is beautiful, but she misses the rain. She feels the value of a good rainy day is the opportunity to curl up in a comfortable chair with her twenty-pound cat on her lap and read the day away. Now she’s learned to read in the sunshine.
When she isn’t reading the day away, Jillian likes to spend time with her husband, whom she met on a blind date set up by a mutual friend nine years ago. It was love at first sight, and she’s been living happily ever after since.
To my husband,
who did the dishes so I could
write this book.
Thanks.
Chapter One
Montana Territory, 1866
Where was Jacob Stone?
Her heart tight, Libby searched the knot of the small crowd. Strangers surrounded her, but she saw no sign of Jacob and his child in the hustle of this busy post. Surely they had not given up on her. Surely they remembered she was arriving today.
Disappointed, Libby stepped away from the stagecoach, patting at her wilting hair. She must look a fright. The ride overland had been dusty and dirty, not at all kind. Her best dress was wrinkled and dust stained, her wheat blond hair sliding into her eyes. She felt like a rag used to scrub a particularly filthy floor, all wadded up in the bottom of a sodden bucket. Hardly an attractive appearance for a prospective bride.
Perhaps Mr. Stone had taken one look through the confusion of the crowd and run for the hills at the sight of her. She feared he could see beyond her new dress, soiled as it was, to the real woman inside, to the very reason why she had to answer a man’s advertisement for a wife instead of finding a husband on her own.
She felt a rush weaken her knees, and heat crept up her face. Surely he would not run off without a word. He couldn’t. She needed to meet him, to know if he would be a good man to marry. From his thoughtfully penned letters, he seemed so gentle. A man who would make a good husband and father, a man worth traveling so far to meet. That is, if he decided to show up.
Placing a hand to her stomach, Libby eased through the excited crowd, past those greeting newly arrived loved ones, and walked quietly to a lone bench fronting the station. Her hopes began to wane. The blistering heat of the late August sun bore down on her, even on the partly shaded bench, and she sat baking like an egg on a frying pan.
“There she is, Pa!”
Libby turned toward the child’s excited voice. The spindly girl skipping across the dusty road had to be Emma. Libby’s heart twisted hard at the sight of the beautiful child. The child who could become her daughter.
Her hand to her heart, Libby stood through the long seconds it took for the girl to dash across the street.
“It is her! I knew it!” Emma skipped to a hoppity-stop, her twin braids bobbing too, and tipped up her face. Bright blue eyes shone like the sky overhead and her sweet smile stretched twice as wide. “You have to be Miss Hodges!”
“Yes, I am. I’m so pleased to meet you, Emma.” Libby managed a wobbly smile. She could only stare at the little girl dressed in a crisp red calico dress. Twin brown braids pointed stiffly over her shoulders, adorned with matching red ribbon.
“We’ve been waiting for hours for the stage to come.”
Libby laughed, delighted. Already she adored this small girl, not more than six years old, whom she read about so hungrily in Jacob Stone’s letters. She wanted a home and. a family, but had not imagined having such a wonderful stepdaughter.
“I saw so many interesting things on the stagecoach here,” she said now. “I saved up all the memories to tell you about.”
“Did you see any Indian ponies?” the girl asked.
“Yes, and even the Indians sitting on them.” Matching Emma’s smile, Libby’s mouth stretched painfully. She’d been so worried traveling so far from civilization—and feared she was making the worst mistake of her life. Anything could happen. Jacob Stone could be a drunk or a brutal man. But seeing this child reassured her. Anyone could see how well cared for she was—and what a good father Jacob Stone must be.
“Miss Hodges?”
The sound of a man’s voice—of his voice—sliced through her joy, making her nervous all over again. Libby turned, feeling so small and inadequate as she looked up into the gray eyes of a tall man, into eyes as deep as a winter sky. A gentleness lived there, and she knew him at once.
“You’re Jacob.”
He bowed his chin, and his firm mouth lifted in the corner; an attempt at a smile. Her heart thudded against her breastbone. Her knees trembled. This handsome man, so powerfully built and confident, was more than her dreams. Her gaze roamed over his wide shoulders—over nice, dependable shoulders.
He cleared his throat. “You arrived safely, I see. Heard there was Indian trouble.”
“Nothing serious at all.” Libby shrugged. She’d been so ill during the journey, she’d hardly noticed the danger. “I was afraid you weren’t coming.”
The smile slid from his firm mouth. “I’m a man of honor, Miss Hodges. I said I would be here, and I am.”
He was kind and strong and honorable. Anyone could see it. Libby’s throat filled. She had not been wrong in traveling so far. He was so much more than she expected, than she deserved.
“I like your hat,” the girl said.
“Thank you.” Libby murmured the words, placing a hand to the brim of her straw poke bonnet. The nervousness in her stomach eased. It was going to be all right. “Maybe I can make you a hat just like this.”
“Could you? Please?”
Emma clasped both hands, and Libby melted. “I’d be happy to.”
“Emma, go with Jane. Now. She’ll take care of you while I speak with Miss Hodges alone.”
The stern words made Libby wince.
“But—”
“Do as I say, now.”
The brightness slipped right out of Emma’s blue eyes and she trotted away, glancing back wistfully before joining up with an elderly woman who waited beneath a green-striped awning. The two walked away together, young and old, and Libby watched as some emotion tugged to life inside her. The child and woman entered one of the many storefronts and disappeared inside, out of the glaring heat of the brutal sun.
“I don’t want you making promises to my daughter.”
“I didn’t mean to. I just thought—”
“Emma lost her mother. I don’t intend to allow her to be hurt like that again.”
“Of course not.” Libby stood, pulse racing and speechless. A hot breeze tugged at her skirt. She’d angered him without meaning to. Did he have a quick temper? Without the gentleness shining in his eyes, he looked formidable, almost frightening. “I would never want to hurt Emma.”
His gaze skirted over her. “You seem sincere. You seem everything I had hoped you would be.”
“Everything?” He hardly knew her, but surely that was a good sign. She needed a home and a husband. Her hand strayed to her stomach.
He shrugged one powerful shoulder. “I suppose I’m leaping ahead of myself. I should fetch your bags and get you settled. You look exhausted, and we have much to discuss.”
Libby watched, breath held, as he turned, his navy blue shirt and his black trousers casting him as if in shadow. He walked out onto the boardwalk and snatched up two lone carpet bags. “I assume these are yours?”
“Yes.” Libby quietly followed the strong-shouldered back of Jacob Stone down the dusty street to the neatly painted hotel.
It was going to work out. It had to.
She’d never told a lie in her life, and she wasn’t sure if she could do it now. Guilt weighed down her step as she slipped through the glass door Jacob held open for her. Her elbow brushed his arm, and she caught a pleasant scent of wood smoke.
Jacob Stone was a good man, polite enough to hold the door and treat her like a lady. Anyone could see it. Her stomach tightened. He didn’t deserve being deceived.
It took her a moment to adjust to the change of light inside the hotel. Her eyes saw only momentary dimness, but she still detected the sound of men’s voices and the solid scent of tobacco. Libby followed Jacob Stone into a front lobby where a large glass window gazed pleasantly out at the dirt street.
Could she live with a lie? Could she look this good and honorable man in the eyes—and she knew this about him from his thoughtful letters and these first few minutes in his presence—and make him live a lie too?
“I brought you here so we could talk quietly,” he began, his voice rumbling low. He settled his large frame into a flowery wing back chair, so big and powerful he looked out of place in the dainty furniture.
She could see him better in this soft light. Heavens, he was a handsome man. Thick jet-black hair peeked out from beneath the narrow brim of his modest hat and cascaded over a tall, square forehead. Equally dark brows arched over his cool gray eyes. His straight nose slanted down a chiseled face that had been weathered by time and sun and cold. The face of the man she wanted to marry.
It had to work. It just had to. Libby clung to that belief, choosing a chair opposite him. The loud men’s talk rising from the bar, the ring of the bell at the front desk, and the drum of her nervous heart faded as his gray gaze snared hers.
Time stopped and Libby saw only her future. He simply had to like her.
“I suppose we need to get right to the point,” he began, his voice quietly controlled. “We’ve corresponded. Now we have met. Are you comfortable with the idea of marrying me?”
“Yes.” Libby bit her lip, catching it between her teeth. It took all her willpower to keep her voice low. She feared her whole heart showed in her words. “I—I will do my best to make you and Emma happy. You have my word.”
“Good.” His smile, slow and endearing, revealing the tender man she’d known through his letters. “This is awkward, speaking with you in person. We are still strangers in many ways.”
Her heart twisted. “Yes. But you don’t feel like a stranger to me.”
“Or to me, either.” His smile deepened, carving handsome lines into his face and reaching his eyes. “I want to be honest. There were many things I couldn’t say to you in a letter. Although I tried.”
“What things?”
Jacob Stone watched her pale face grow paler beneath the straw brim of her plain bonnet. Her soft blue eyes widened with alarm.
Damn, he knew this wouldn’t be easy. Jacob tore his gaze from her pretty face and stared hard at his big hands. “I don’t know how to begin. I should just say it.”
“You’ve changed your mind?” A hint of panic vibrated in her soft voice.
He shook his head. He wanted to change his mind, Lord knew. He didn’t want to involve his heart with another woman. And he wouldn’t. “No, my mind is set. I want to marry again. Emma needs a mother to care for her, not a hired woman, but someone who will love her.”
“Yes, I know. I read your letters, Jacob—”
“You don’t know,” he corrected, holding himself rigid in the uncomfortable chair. Her eyes glimmered with hope; he could see her heart shining there. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair. “I asked you to marry me for my daughter’s sake.”
“Yes, I—”
“Not for mine.” His heart broke as understanding struck her like a slap to the face. Her jaw slackened, and she looked lost.
“You don’t want me.” Her blue gaze met his without accusation, but puzzlement. “You proposed to me.”
“I offered an arrangement.”
“You said your Emma needed a mother. I thought—” She stopped. “I don’t understand.”
Jacob closed his heart against memories sharp enough to tear him apart. “I want you to know this right from the start. I want there to be no misunderstandings between us, only honesty. You will be my wife in name only. Not in my heart and not in my bed.”
Elizabeth Hodges glanced up at him, white as snow. Guilt tore through him. How did he tell her what Mary’s death did to him? Every day had been a battle, from morning until late at night, living without her. He would never give his heart again. Not even to a pretty, slender woman with eyes as blue as morning glories.
“But what about children?” A tiny wrinkle frowned across her forehead, half hidden by the scatters of wheat blond curls escaping from beneath her bonnet.
“I have one child too many.” Tiny, helpless dependent creatures who could steal a man’s heart. He couldn’t bear that. “I wanted you to know how it is with me right up front. I never meant to deceive you.”
“You could have told me.” She stared hard at the old reticule clutched in her lap. “I know you are widowed. I understand it might take time to finish grieving, even to build a relationship between us.”
“That isn’t what I want.”
Beneath the starkness in those gray eyes, Libby caught sight of a kindness, a decency that gave her pause.
Jacob Stone possessed the integrity she had so hoped he might have. She imagined he failed to speak of the death of his wife in his letters because of deep personal pain, but he did so now for the sake of honesty. She respected him for that, even if it left her alone and ashamed. Hadn’t she considered deceiving him?
Then he stood, the starkness gone from his eyes and a gentle softness shaping his mouth. He held out one big hand, strong and callused from honest work, and she gave him hers. Her belly twisted, low and pleasant.
“Let’s see about getting you a room.”
Jacob helped her to her feet, and Libby could not stop the awareness trickling through her. Her fingertips tingled long after he’d released her hand.
She needed to marry and she wanted him for her husband. But when she looked into his eyes, she saw a good and decent man still hurting from his wife’s death. How could she deceive him? How could she tell him the truth?
Chapter Two
Libby waited patiently while Jacob checked her into the hotel, surprising her by paying ahead for the entire week. He stood solemnly, counting out bills.
Every worried knot inside her unraveled. He was an admirable man. Strong. Dependable. He was a man strong enough to be tender.
Last winter she had nearly dropped her newspaper at the sight of the advertisement. “Lonely widower seeks kindhearted woman for mother to six-year-old daughter.” Just the sight of those words gave her hope; a hope she needed so desperately. Kind. Wife. Mother. Images of a family fell into her mind like the snow from the sky outside the boarding house window.
She had hoped he would never have to know. Honesty. He wanted honesty between them.
“I’ll take her bags,” Jacob said in his low, rumbling voice that skidded down her spine like warm water.
Libby watched him thank the desk clerk. He was wellspoken and polite; she liked that. He ambled toward her, sure and powerful, and the sight of him made her stomach twist.
She followed him up the stairs and into the first room on the second floor. With every step she took, Libby knew she had to be honest with Jacob Stone. He deserved the truth.
He set the bags on the foot of the bed, and she closed the door. A question lit his gray eyes.
“You were honest with me,” she said, clenching her hands together. She didn’t want him to see how she trembled. “It’s the least I can do for you.”
“I see.” He straightened, a wariness creeping into his face. “So, I’m not the only one with secrets.”
“No.” Libby squared her shoulders and met his unflinching gaze. What she had to say would not be easy. “As you suspect I am not an innocent.”
He neither grimaced nor judged her. Jacob Stone merely dipped his head slightly as he answered. “That does not matter to me.”
“Good, because there’s more.” She would tell him the truth, and he would leave. Libby stared hard at the plank floor. “I don’t know, I mean, I’m not certain.”
It’s too early to tell.
“You don’t want to marry me?” he asked.
She looked up into eyes filled with concern. His concern for her. She didn’t want to say what followed. Best to just blurt it out. “I could be pregnant.”
“Pregnant?”
“I’m not certain,” Libby hedged. He’s going to leave me.
But Jacob Stone said nothing. He stared down at his large, empty hands. Libby stood motionless, her heart thudding painfully in her chest. She thought of Emma and that big sparkle of hope in the girl’s blue eyes.
“This is unexpected news.” He spoke slowly, as if carefully weighing his words. “After all, we have been corresponding.”
She could hear his condemnation. “I did not come here thinking I could pawn off another man’s child on you.” Although she had considered not telling him during the overland trip.
“I didn’t think you would.” Jacob Stone faced her, his gaze no longer averted but leveled powerfully on hers. At that moment Libby could not deny the physical strength in the man nor the emotional power she felt with the blast of that gaze. He spoke. “In your letters you led me to understand you had no other prospects for marriage.”
“I have none now,” Libby admitted sadly, feeling her heart drum ever harder in her chest.
“Not even with the man who may have fathered a child with you?” Jacob stepped closer, so close she could see the black flecks of color in his gray eyes and smell the leather and smoke scent of him.
“No.”
“You could have written me about this.”
“I didn’t know what to say,” Libby answered honestly. He looked both sad and angry at once with his thick fingers gripping the brim of his hat and his jaw set like stone. He would never understand. “You had the same problem, letting me believe you wanted a real wife.”
He bowed his head. “Yes, I guess that’s true. We’re even then.”
Silence fell between them like sunlight through the windowpanes.
Libby braced herself. “If you decide you no longer have any interest in me, I thoroughly understand, Mr. Stone.”
There, she had said it. Those words had taken more courage than she knew she had.
Jacob Stone cleared his throat and didn’t speak. After a quick glance around the room, he lowered his eyes. Libby watched him, clearly a proper, hardworking and decent man, who had no doubt caught sight of the wide bed in the exact center of the room. A bed she was also aware of.
What must he think of her? She looked at the plain quilted coverlet, once white and already yellowing. Did Jacob Stone look at that bed and wonder what kind of woman she was?
He strode across the small room and tugged open the window. A hot, dry breeze tumbled inside, but it was far from refreshing. The street noise from below blew in with the wind. Libby knew she would never be good enough for him, not now when he knew she had considered deceiving him.
“I never wanted a wife.” He stood before the opened window, sunlight glinting on his dark hair, brightening it, and cast his face in shadow. “I took one look at you and I bolted.”
“You ran?”
“I’d ventured halfway down the street this morning before I realized my foolishness. I invited you out here, and yet I am terrified of you. You’re young and pretty. From your letters, I expected someone different. Older.”
“I’m not all that pretty,” Libby spoke up, touched at once by his words. “I just want a home. A real one.”
Jacob Stone remained silent, staring out the window still and motionless, outlined by the distant blue-white peaks of the Bitterroot mountains. What was he thinking?
“I can’t give you what you want.” He didn’t turn to look at her. He stood broad-shouldered, his muscled legs parted, his booted feet planted on the bare plank boards. “We’ve spent over six months corresponding. That amount of time should tell you right there how unsure I am of making a marriage again.”
Grief haunted his words, and the echoes of that grief hung in the air like the thick Montana dust. She hated seeing him hurt. Libby wanted to reach out and comfort him, but how could she? It was not her right.
He turned, approaching, his jaw set, his gaze intense, a decision clear in his eyes. “Tell me something. Will he follow you here?”
“No.”
“Then it is none of my concern.” Jacob pinned her with his hard, assessing gaze. “You say you are not certain.”
Libby blanched. “No. It is too early yet to know for sure either way.”
“When will you know?”
It was such a private question, and while Libby wanted to say so, she also knew he was affected by the answer. “Soon enough, maybe this week.”
“Fine.” He frowned. Libby watched his gaze stray to her bags that were still on the bed where he’d left them. “You’ll stay here until you know the answer to my question. We will make the appropriate arrangements then.”
He hadn’t sent her away outright. Libby’s breath caught. “If I’m not...will you still wish to marry me?”
“I don’t know.” Jacob Stone pinned her with the full weight of his cool gaze. “I counted on this match working. Emma needs a mother. We’ve spent time exchanging letters, and you’ve traveled all this way. I don’t want to go through that again.”
In those eyes Libby didn’t see hatred or condemnation, and it surprised her. Standing before him, aware of his height and his breadth and his strength, she saw not his handsomeness but the sadness in his eyes. And an understanding that touched her inside, in her heart where nothing had touched her for years.
“Then there’s hope?” she asked.
“I have no promises to give you.” Jacob shook his head. “You put me in an awkward situation. I don’t know how Emma will take this if you have to leave.”
He didn’t want her now. Libby closed her eyes, tears hot beneath her lids. It was over.
She heard the sounds of the door opening, of Jacob Stone’s boots striding out into the hall, of the door closing and latching. But when she opened her eyes, Libby still hoped to see him standing there at the window, a man with honesty and compassion ringing in his voice.
Who was she fooling, Libby asked herself. Anyone could see she’d ruined her chances of marrying Jacob Stone. She brought up her unvirtuous situation. She caused him to be angry and forced him to walk out on her.
Anyone could see he wasn’t coming back.
Jacob pounded down the stairs and through the lobby, out into the glaring summer heat, inwardly cussing himself for what he’d done. But any way he looked at it—whether Elizabeth Hodges was pregnant or not—she was not the woman he wanted to raise his daughter.
He marched down the long boardwalk, dodging Mrs. Holt carrying packages out of the mercantile, hardly aware of the traffic on the street and the ever present buzz of the sawmill at the end of town.
He didn’t know her well enough to expect her to show up pregnant. No, possibly pregnant. She didn’t even know for sure.
Then why the hell did she have to tell him?
Because she was an honest woman.
“Pa!” Emma hopped out onto the boardwalk in a swirl of red calico. “Where’s Miss Hodges?”
Jacob’s heart wrenched at the sight of hope so bright in his daughter’s blue eyes. “She’s in her hotel room.”
Better Emma know nothing of the type of woman who stepped off that stage.
“Doing what?”
“Unpacking. Resting from her long trip.”
Emma sighed, sounding disappointed. “She’s still comin’ to supper, right?”
Jacob felt the weight of the little girl’s hope settle on his shoulders. His heart wrenched. “I’m not sure, Emma.”
“But you promised.” Her quietly spoken words struck him like an ax.
“Yes, I guess I did.” He had so little to give her. How could he go back on his promise?
Emma’s sweet smile stretched across her small face. “Pa, I want just one more thing.”
“One more thing?” He rolled his eyes, teasing. “I’m afraid to ask. What is it?”
She giggled. “I just want some new hair ribbons for tonight.”
“Whew. I think we can do that. Have Jane help you.”
“Oh, Pa. Thank you. I have to look my best for Miss Hodges.” Her entire heart shone in those words. She spun away, dashing back into the store, braids flying.
He couldn’t disappoint Emma. Yet he couldn’t allow her to be hurt, either.
Jacob stepped out into the street and gazed back at the hotel. How could Elizabeth go and ruin everything?
Libby sank onto the soft mattress. She did the right thing, she knew it. Whatever lay ahead, she had faced her greatest fear. Now she could face herself. A lightness settled across her shoulders, and she felt calm for the first time in weeks. She’d done the right thing.
When Jacob had written, asking her to marry him, she sat and cried over what she’d done. She feared she could never face him, nor tell him the truth about what happened. But as the long hours passed and the night deepened, Libby began to hope. Maybe it could still be. Maybe Jacob need never know. Perhaps she wasn’t pregnant.
Libby had clung to that belief during the trying journey west, but as the nausea hit, she feared it was more than travel sickness. And she told herself it would be all right.
Except now he didn’t want a wife in the real sense.
Libby closed her eyes. She never meant to deceive him. She just wanted to love this man, the Jacob she’d created in her mind. She so wanted him to love her. Even now, she could not let go of hope.
She could not bear to think she had lost him.
Late that afternoon, washed and changed and nervous, Jacob took a step closer to the door and hesitated, standing like a fool in the middle of the narrow hotel corridor. Emma was home with Jane. A meal would be waiting.
What would he say? He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to face the pretty and fragile woman he’d come to know through her letters. The woman he’d made up in his mind, so gentle and quietly humorous, would not have slept with another man.
Anger thudded in his chest and he almost turned away. But he’d promised Emma. The remembered hope in her blue eyes kept him from running out of the hotel. He lifted his fist and knocked.
“Who is it?” asked a quiet voice through the wood door. Elizabeth’s voice.
“It’s Jacob.”
The door swung open to reveal her thin, pale face. Kind blue eyes met his and he felt the impact straight to his gut. He caught a whiff of rose water, sweet and light, saw the careful coronet of tightly plaited braids crowning her head, heard the gasp of her breath telling him he’d surprised her.
Hell, he surprised himself.
“Can I come in? I want to talk with you.”
“Yes.” Slim, graceful fingers gripped the edge of the door, pulling it open, allowing him room.
He wanted to hate her for her duplicity. It would be easier if he could. Jacob slipped past her and stood in the middle of the room, the bed between them.
Elizabeth carefully pushed the door to, but not shut. Silence settled between them. He fingered the hat he gripped in both hands.
“Jacob,” she began. She looked breakable. “I’m sorry about this. I need you to believe that.”
Sincerity burned in her eyes. He looked away. “I gave you a surprise, too. I’m sorry about that. I should have told you, I should have prepared you. You came all this way with expectations about a marriage and a family I can’t meet.”
She blinked, embarrassment pinkening her pleasant face. “I’m the one who is wrong.”
He couldn’t answer her. It took all his will to hold back the burning edge of rage—rage at her for being less than he had hoped, less than the mother Emma needed.
“I received over fifty letters.” Hell, he shouldn’t have told her that.
Surprise flickered in her eyes. “Fifty women wrote you?”
“Emma and I read through every letter.”
“I never imagined so many women would write you.”
“Neither did I.” His breath caught. “Yours was the one she liked the most. So I wrote you.”
She smiled, a softness crept across her plain oval face, changing her from pretty to beautiful.
“I can’t tell you what your letters meant to me,” she said. “I was so alone, and suddenly I had someone to talk to, even if it was in writing.”
His throat constricted. “Your letters meant a lot to Emma, too.”
“I’m so glad.”
Their gazes met. He saw sadness large enough to touch him.
“Yours was the only advertisement I have ever answered,” she confessed. “Or that I ever wanted to.”
She seemed so innocent, a touch shy. Beneath it all, she had to be a good woman. Jacob’s anger and disappointment tangled inside his chest, twisting painfully. He wanted to vent the rending confusion of his emotions. Hell if he knew what to say, and how to say it without hurting her. He’d never felt so helpless in his life.
Maybe he should call this whole thing off. He could walk out the door and never look back.
But he didn’t want to start looking for another woman. Elizabeth met every one of his requirements. She was kind, honest and gentle. And Emma wanted her. It was too late to go back, too soon to go forward.
She ambled away from him with a swishing of her simple skirts. She wore a blue calico, he noticed now, nothing fancy or pretty, just a serviceable dress. This was the woman he’d imagined during those long months of correspondence.
“I’ve brought a gift for Emma. May I give it to you? I want her to have it.”
Jacob said nothing.
Libby took that as an agreement as she crossed to the small bureau near the door. “I didn’t want to show up empty-handed. Now that things between us have changed...” Her throat closed. “I know I won’t be seeing her again, but this still belongs to her.”
“You shouldn’t have gone to any trouble.”
“Oh, it was no trouble, only pleasure.” She tugged out the drawer, risking a glance at him.
He stood with hat in hand, his black hair neatly combed. He wore a crisp red flannel shirt and dark trousers and his boots shone, despite the thin light in the room.
If only. Libby held back her heart as she extracted a wrapped bundle from the top bureau drawer and folded back the paper. She wanted Jacob’s friendship and his respect. How could she earn it now?
Her hands trembled as she laid the doll on the dresser.
“That is a lovely gift,” Jacob said, stepping forward to join her.
Libby glanced up into the mirror’s reflection. With his head bent, she could see the cowlick at the back of his scalp. He seemed vulnerable somehow, despite his obvious strength and height and breadth. He lifted one thick-knuckled hand and brushed a finger across the doll’s happy cloth face and brown yarn braids.
“You wrote me and said Emma had brown hair.”
“Yes, I did.” He towered above her with emotion shining in his eyes. “This is an expensive doll.”
“I purchased the fabric, but I made the doll,” Libby explained, pleased with her work. “I wanted something special to give Emma, something a mother might make for her daughter.”
Jacob’s throat worked, and he turned away.
She’d said the wrong thing. “I know I can’t expect anything from you, anything we agreed to months ago, but I made this doll for Emma, from my heart. It would mean everything to me if she could have it, no strings attached.”
“Why?”
Because losing dreams hurt. Libby carefully covered the doll with the brown paper. “I put my heart into making this for Emma. It belongs to her.”
His jaw firmed, and he looked away without speaking. He wouldn’t accept the gift. Libby stared hard at her hands. She was alone now. Without Jacob, without a home. Perhaps she’d been foolish to tell him the truth when she wasn’t even certain. But in her heart Libby knew, she could never hurt Jacob.
“I have dinner waiting for us at home,” he said quietly.
Did he mean...? Hope beat in her heart. Home. It had been a lifetime since that word meant anything to her. She had been a small girl. Libby remembered the little trundle bed tucked in the corner of the shanty where she slept at night, safe from the rain and the wind and the harshness of the world. Now she caressed the word over and over in her mind, as if home could mean that again.
“Do you mean—” she didn’t dare hope “—you haven’t changed your mind?”
“You have come only to meet us, nothing more.” Jacob turned toward the door. His boots rang on the floorboards. “You and I may decide not to marry for many reasons. I’m willing to see what happens.”
He was such a fair man. Libby’s chest ached. Please, let it work out.
“I just don’t want Emma hurt.” His cool gaze trapped hers with the weight of his heart.
“Then we are in agreement. I don’t want her hurt, either.”
Jacob smiled. Truly smiled. Libby watched his face soften and the tension in his shoulders ease. This man, with his gentle smile warming the stark gray of his eyes, was the man she’d dreamed of.
“Emma can talk the ears off a mule, if she sets her mind to it,” he said, leading the way out into the hall. “I thought I’d better warn you.”
A lightness burst in Libby’s chest. “She’s a lively child.”
“And too much for me to raise all alone.” He waited while she closed and locked her door. “I’m outnumbered.”
“And I suspect Emma knows it.”
“Yes, she uses it to her advantage constantly.” Jacob’s smile sparkled.
Libby felt dazzled all the way to her toes. Somehow she managed to walk down the stairs and through the hotel’s busy lobby without tripping. He was willing to see what happens. She wanted him so much. She’d never met a man like him before.
The sun threw long-fingered rays across the sky and slanted into her eyes when she stepped out onto the boardwalk. She blinked against the light as Jacob halted beside a small, well-kept buckboard.
“Are you ready?” His gray eyes swept hers.
“I think so.”
He offered his hand.
Big fingers closed over hers and, palm to palm, he helped her up into the wagon. Her heart did crazy flipflops. She settled on the buckboard’s comfortable seat, waiting for Jacob to circle around the vehicle and join her.
It was going to work out. It had to. She had never wanted anything so much.
“Emma named the horses.” He hopped up and settled into the seat beside her. The buckboard swayed slightly, adjusting to his weight. “She insisted.”
“Life must be like sunshine sharing it with her.”
Jacob gripped the thick leather reins. “Yes. That little girl is everything to me.”
“I can see why.” Libby looked at the package she clutched safely in her lap. Would Emma like the doll? It was homemade, not bought at a fancy store. The sleek, perfectly matched bays drawing this handsome buckboard told her something new about Jacob: He wasn’t poor the way she was.
“The near one is Pete,” he said with an easy grin. “The other is Repeat.”
Libby laughed.
Smile lines crinkled around Jacob’s sparkling eyes.
He didn’t need to tell her which house was his. She knew without words when it came into view, tucked between the thick boughs of cedar and pine. Neat and tidy, with precisely cut logs and thick stripes of chinking, the log cabin sat in a small clearing. Two large windows watched them from either side of a solid wood door. The house looked sturdy and cozy and built to withstand an eternity of winters.
Home. The one word buzzed through her mind, rendering her incapable of speech. She felt warm down to her toes.
Jacob reined in the horses with the jangle of the harness, and Libby stared at the house, trying not to let her hopes grow.
The door flew open and Emma’s red-dressed figure hurled into view, braids flying, black-shoed feet pounding the hard-packed earth. “You’re here! I’ve been waiting forever.”
Libby laughed. Happiness welled in her heart, spilling over with joy. With the sun slanting through the thickboughed pines and the sight of the little girl bouncing to a stop before her, Libby’s throat filled with happy tears. She knew every hardship in her life had brought her here, to this shining, singular moment.
She’d come home.
Chapter Three
Nothing in Libby’s life had ever prepared her for this heart-aching hope smoldering inside her chest. Like embers, she could feel that hope burn.
“We’re having a treat for dessert.” Emma’s voice rang like a merry bell in the hot air. “I’m not supposed to tell what it is because it’s a secret.”
“A secret dessert?” Libby repeated, enchanted.
Emma nodded. Excitement pinkened her cheeks. “We worked on it this morning to pass the time. Your stage didn’t come in until noon, and I couldn’t wait.”
“Neither could I.”
Emma clasped her hands together. “Jane and me made pie...ah, the dessert and then it was time to go meet you.”
Libby’s throat felt too full to speak.
“It’s even a secret from Pa,” the little girl confessed.
“That’s enough now, Emma,” Jacob circled around the wagon, his voice gently amused. “Don’t wear out Miss Hodges’ ear before we even get her inside the house.”
“Ah, Pa. How can I wear out her ear? Ears don’t wear out.”
“Yes they do. You know Grandpa can’t hear well.”
Emma laughed wholeheartedly. “That’s because he’s old.”
“It’s because you talked too much.”
They could be a family. Libby’s chest hurt just thinking of it.
“May I help you down?” Jacob offered his hand.
She slipped her bare fingers into his broad palm. Male-hot skin scorched hers. Libby swallowed at the sensation. He overwhelmed her like a dream, a hero, a fairy-tale prince come true. Her stomach twisted with a knot of need. She hadn’t been sick all day. Maybe it was all right. Maybe she could have her own happy ending.
Libby hopped to the ground, skirts swishing. She kicked up a small puff of dust with the impact of her worn shoes against the solid earth.
“I like your doll.”
At the sight of Emma’s shy, wistful face, Libby had no doubts. She had chosen her gift to the girl well. “This isn’t my doll.”
“She isn’t?” Hope shivered in those words.
“No. I made her.”
“You made her?” Her mouth opened into a round O.
“Yes. I chose everything carefully. The big blue button eyes. The brown yarn braids. The calico dress.”
“It’s red too. We match.”
“Yes. It’s a coincidence, isn’t it?”
Emma nodded solemnly, the puff of wind teasing her skirt. “Did you make her for me?”
“Yes.”
Emma didn’t move, didn’t blink, didn’t even breathe.
“She doesn’t have a name yet. I thought you might have a few ideas.” Libby stepped closer and pressed the gift against the girl’s chest. Immediately those reed thin arms embraced the rag doll, hugging her hard.
“Oh, thank you!” Now that Emma had found her voice, it vibrated with the deepest joy. “Pa, look! I have a real doll! Not just a wooden carving, but a real doll!”
“I see that, Emma.” Jacob’s eyes twinkled.
Emma squeezed her doll tightly. “Oh, I do hope you can stay with us.”
Silence.
Libby stared hard at the ruffle hemming her skirts. She could feel Jacob’s gaze on her, feel his silence.
“Well, now, Emma, you know we’ll just have to wait and see how things work out.” His words came gently, like a loving touch.
Libby’s eyes smarted. Maybe she wasn’t pregnant.
“Pa, Miss Hodges has to stay. Everything is going to be perfect. I just know it.”
Libby glanced up. Jacob pinned her with his hard, assessing gaze. Her heart kicked in her chest. If only he could understand.
“Dinner’s ready!” a woman’s voice called from the door, fracturing the tension strung as tight as a clothesline.
“Thanks, Jane.” Jacob snagged hold of the harness, turning his back to Libby. “I’ve got to take care of these horses. Emma, take Miss Hodges into the cabin.”
“Can I show her my room?”
Libby closed her eyes. She could feel dreams slipping between her fingers, impossible to grasp.
“Just don’t keep Jane waiting.” Jacob led the horses off, the buckboard rattling over the rocks and ruts in the yard.
“Jane made chicken pie.” Emma slipped her small hand inside Libby’s. “I helped her. I got to make the dough and everything.”
Libby stared down at the hand within hers, so small and trusting. “I bet it will be the best chicken pie I’ve ever had.”
“Jane put carrots and peas in it.” Emma led the way across the dusty front yard toward the snug cabin.
Heavens. Libby paused in the threshold, glancing about the pleasant room with its puncheon floors and log walls and simple furnishings. Emma bounced through the front room as if there were nothing special about the solid walls so carefully made and sealed tight against the winds. But to her...this cabin came right out of her dreams.
Libby belonged here. She could feel it. A tremble of joy shivered through her.
“It isn’t much.” Jacob’s voice startled her, and she spun around.
He could read the surprise on her face. She hadn’t heard him approach.
“Oh.” She placed a slender hand to her chest. “This is the most beautiful home. Did you build it yourself?”
“Yes. Felled the trees. Chinked the walls. It’s snug and it’s sturdy.” Pride simmered in his chest. No matter what she was, Elizabeth Hodges was a woman of simple tastes. He liked that.
“It’s so roomy and bright.” Her eyes shone not with greed or want, but with something deeper. “Why, with curtains at the windows and a rug on the floor, this would look like a picture in a book.”
He smiled. “I’m glad you think so.”
She confused him. He didn’t know if he wanted to marry a woman with a questionable reputation. Yet he liked her. She was soft and pretty. He suspected life had not been easy for her, a woman alone in the world.
“Pa, come on.” Emma crowded next to Elizabeth, grabbing hold of the woman’s capable hands. “Jane’s puttin’ supper on the table. I want to show Miss Hodges where to sit.”
Alone on the front step, Jacob watched his little girl drag Elizabeth away. It was best not to think of the future.
But as he glanced about his simple, adequate home, he noticed the polished furniture and the glistening windowpanes. Jane and Emma must have scrubbed the room from floor to ceiling hoping to make a good impression.
Now she stood at the table, patiently listening while Emma set her doll down in the chair by the window, as if to make the rag doll a part of the family. Elizabeth leaned down and meant to brush a strand of hair from Emma’s eyes but snatched back her hand, uncertain.
Jacob’s stomach tightened. He could see the goodness in her. He didn’t want to like her.
“Come sit down while it’s still hot,” Jane said, barreling around the corner with the potatoes steaming in a glass bowl.
He clomped across the room and pulled back his chair. Elizabeth looked so uncertain. She certainly wasn’t a bad woman. He had to give her the benefit of the doubt. “Go ahead and sit down. I’m wagering Emma has a chair all picked out for you.”
“She’s sittin’ beside me.” The girl beamed.
“I could have guessed that.” Jacob sat down in his chair.
Emma grabbed Elizabeth’s hand and showed her to the chair between them. The woman looked overwhelmed. She lifted her chin and happiness filled her eyes.
“This is all so wonderful,” she said in a voice as gentle as morning. “I’m just so grateful to be here.”
“I’m glad, too,” Emma chimed.
Guilt kicked Jacob like an ill-tempered mule. He’d not been fair to Elizabeth Hodges from the start. Promising her marriage when he never intended to love her. He’d dreaded her arrival, and if it hadn’t been for Emma, Elizabeth wouldn’t be sitting at his table right now, pregnant or not.
“I picked the beans fresh today.” Emma clutched the cut-glass bowl in both small hands. “You like beans, don’t you Miss Hodges?”
“I love them.” Delight shimmered in her eyes like sunlight playing in the creek.
He’d harbored so many worries. Would she be a decent woman? Would she be a loyal wife? A loving mother? They evaporated now like fog before sun.
“Pa bought these hair ribbons just for tonight,” Emma chattered. “They’re velvet. For a special occasion, Jane said.”
“Very fancy. The color makes you look very pretty.”
Emma beamed. “Tell me about the Indians. They ride their ponies bareback.”
“Yes, they do.”
Jacob could hardly swallow, and he stared down at his empty plate. He hadn’t dished up. Now, he wasn’t hungry. He reached for the bowl of beans Elizabeth passed to him. His fingers brushed hers, and in that instant of contact he raised his gaze. Their eyes met and held.
He had to start risking again, for Emma’s sake. His gut clenched. If only it wasn’t so hard. If only...
“I want to ride a pony wild in the meadows,” Emma’s voice broke between them. “Would you let me, Pa?”
“Not a chance.”
“I knew you were gonna say that.”
Unable to move, Libby sat perfectly still, her heart beating wildly like the wings of a grounded bird. Happiness threatened to fill her up so full she couldn’t breathe. The normal sounds of the meal—Emma’s fork scraping against her tin plate, the clink of the pan as Jacob dished up generous pieces of succulent chicken pie, the tinkle of water in the glasses amazed her. She’d never known a home like this, safe and cozy, so happy.
Emma asked questions about riding in the stage. Between mouthfuls of the good food, Libby answered the best she could. No, they didn’t meet any road agents on the trail. No, they didn’t get robbed. Yes, the teams of horses were pretty.
“You can see why my father went deaf,” Jacob mumbled.
“Pa!” Emma protested, laughing at the same time.
Happiness skidded down Libby’s spine like cool water, refreshing and sustaining. “I think I’m losing hearing in this one ear.”
Emma giggled.
“I told you, you talk too much,” Jacob teased.
Oh, no. Libby placed a hand on her stomach. The laughter slid from her mouth and she stood, fighting the abrupt twist of nausea rising in her stomach.
It couldn’t be. She knocked over her chair and bolted for the door. Tears blurred her vision as she pounded down the front steps, holding her skirts out of the way as she raced blindly around the house. A second twist of nausea roiled in her belly, and she tasted the acidic burn of bile.
She would not leave a mess in the yard.
The outhouse was a tidy, sturdy building just behind the cabin. Libby raced past the elderly woman’s surprised face, and flung open the privy’s simple door. She fell to her knees on the clean floorboards and leaned over the carved hole.
The contents of her stomach hurled violently up her throat, and Libby didn’t hold back her hot tears or her choking sobs. After three violent retches, her stomach was empty.
Exhausted and hopeless, Libby leaned against the wall and buried her face in her hands. There was no blaming this on travel sickness. She was pregnant.
“Are you all right, dear?”
Libby raised her face from her hands and turned to gaze up at the spry, time-weathered woman. A gentle understanding shone in Jane’s eyes.
“I will be fine,” Libby insisted, firming her chin. She climbed to her feet and dusted off her skirt.
“I only hope it wasn’t my cookin’,” Jane said lightly, although no humor shone in her eyes. “My Albert always used to say my cookin’ could rot a man’s gut.”
“No, it wasn’t your cooking, trust me.” Libby summoned up a polite smile.
“I see.” Sober eyes looked up into her own. “Well, now, Jacob’s here. I suppose you’ll be wantin’ to talk to him. Emma, come with me into the house and show me that new doll of yours.”
As the woman and small girl ambled off, Libby could feel the weight of Jacob’s gaze. The pain of what she had just lost speared through her like an Indian’s arrowhead. This couldn’t be happening.
He said nothing, and the silence stood between them as the weight of the night began to drain the webby light from the sky.
“I thought you said you weren’t sure.”
Holding the pieces of her heart, she managed an answer. “I wasn’t.”
The wind tugged at her skirts. An owl hooted from the high boughs of a nearby pine.
Pregnant. Jacob fisted his hands, wanting to will the truth away. He studied her pale face. His gaze swept downward. Her stomach looked so flat. She looked so fragile.
He glanced up to read the pain in her eyes and saw the broken pieces of her heart. He twisted away, marching out toward the stable, then stopped. Frustrated. Angry. He didn’t know what to do. “You lied to me. You came here tonight knowing your condition.”
“No, I wouldn’t do that to you. To Emma.”
“You had to know. Were you going to use me? Did you accept my offer to cover your own mistakes? To come here and pretend the bastard was mine?”
“Not exactly. I wasn’t sure—”
Anger flashed through him. “I’m not about to let you use me. Or Emma. She’s the reason you are here in the first place.”
“I never meant—”
“She needs a mother, not a lying woman of questionable reputation.” Jacob closed his eyes. It wasn’t fair. He was angry with himself. Angry for agreeing to find a mother for Emma. Angry for thinking such a plan would ever work.
“I’m sorry.” The words squeaked, broken by emotion. He looked at Elizabeth. He remembered the look of affection on her pretty oval face when she’d shown him the rag doll, remembered the way she’d almost brushed the curls from Emma’s eyes, and her loving manner as she joked with the girl.
Damn it. The loss was Emma’s. Elizabeth would have been the right mother. If only she hadn’t... He didn’t know what she’d done. If she was an innocent forced or went willingly with a lover. He didn’t know anything about the woman except she was going to break his little girl’s heart.
Damn her for doing this to Emma.
Elizabeth surprised him by bursting into tears and without another word, she simply walked away.
He watched her go.
“Where’s Miss Hodges?” Emma tugged at his shirtsleeve. Dust cast a blue-gray light over the world and shadowed her button face. “Is she all right? Jane is afraid her cooking made her sick.”
“Miss Hodges left.” An odd roaring echoed in his head.
“If she’s feelin’ better tomorrow, maybe she can come have some of that pie we made.” Emma’s face wrinkled with worry. “You like Miss Hodges, don’t you, Pa?”
Hope and adoration lit his daughter’s face. How did he disappoint her? Damn it, how could Elizabeth Hodges disappoint her? Jacob felt ready to explode. He forced the breath from his lungs in a long hiss. “No, Emma, I don’t like Miss Hodges.”
“You don’t?”
Jacob forced the hot rage from his chest. “No. She’s not going to stay. We’ll have to go about finding you another mother.”
“But she made me a doll!” Pain rang high in the girl’s voice.
“I know she did. But it’s not your decision.” Night was falling, in his heart and in the forest. “Go inside and finish your meal. Jane will put you to bed.”
The girl knew better than to cry. It wouldn’t get her what she wanted. Emma hung her head, a single sob escaping as she dashed toward the cabin.
Disappointment battered him. He couldn’t change Elizabeth’s situation. He couldn’t allow her to be Emma’s mother.
Relief slid through his chest, and Jacob sat down on the front stone steps. Truth be told, he was glad. He didn’t want another woman in his house to remind him of Mary. He didn’t want the sweet scent of a woman, her touches of softness and care anywhere in his life.
The coming night fell silently, and Jacob didn’t move. He watched the skies darken, stealing the last bit of light from the day. Owls screeched, bugs chirruped and bats circled harmlessly overhead, but nothing could penetrate the sadness in his heart.
For a moment, he let himself remember the dark, souldevouring despair that consumed him after Mary died in childbirth. He could not risk going through that again.
Chapter Four
Her heart empty, Libby stepped to the window and gazed out on the main street below. Even this early in the morning, the thriving town, perched on the side of a rugged mountain, buzzed with activity. The sawmill upriver whined, wagons rattled, busy voices rose from the boardwalk below.
She’d learned from the other passengers on the stagecoach yesterday that Cedar Rock was a boomtown. Men came from all parts of the country to work the gold mines or prospect on their own. Montana Territory was filled with stories of men striking it rich on gold and quartz and silver.
There had to be something for her here, Libby reasoned. She did not have the money to return home, if she could call Omaha home. Perhaps she could make her own opportunities, just as she had always done before. She could cook and sew. Libby had never been afraid of hard work.
It wasn’t the end of the world, although it felt like it. There was no going back. She had her chance—and lost it. Now she would do what she must.
With trembling hands, Libby tugged her reticule from its place in the bureau drawer and sorted through its contents. Her fingers brushed upon the smooth, heavy parchment folded in neat, even creases. Her hands shook, rattling the paper, as she unfolded the outmost letter.
“Dear Elizabeth,” she read. “I am pleased you have agreed to come visit and see if a marriage between us will work. Emma pesters me daily as to when you shall arrive. I fear she does not understand the great distance involved....”
She tore her gaze from the page. Squeezing the tears from her eyes, she removed all of Jacob’s letters from her reticule and bundled them in her satchel. Happily-ever-afters don’t happen to you, Elizabeth Charlotte Hodges.
After carefully locking her door, she approached the kind man behind the front counter. He politely referred her to a woman’s boardinghouse off Clinton Avenue.
Armed with determination, Libby stepped out into the already hot morning sun. One thing was certain, she would not be beholden to any man, not even Jacob, for her survival. She could find her own lodging, and pay for it, too.
“Good morning, miss.” A man balanced a barrel of flour on his shoulder. “Nice day.”
She dropped her gaze. “Good morning, sir.”
Strangers unsettled her, and she kept walking. Jacob had never felt like a stranger, not from the first moment she opened his letter.
The town bustled with activity. Libby kept her gaze low, hearing the wagons rattling by, the clop of horses, the jingle of harnesses. Men’s voices rose discussing the weather and the business of the day. She dodged them the best she could.
The Faded Bloom was a bright blue, three-story structure gracing the wide alley behind a row of saloons and gaming houses. A painted sign swung from the eaves of the front porch. Rooms Let, it said. Women only.
Well, it looked homey. That was a start. Libby climbed the few steps to the porch and knocked on the door.
A window slammed opened, startling her.
“Can I help you?” A plump, wise-eyed woman pulled the pane higher and popped her head out. A wild tangle of rich black curls framed a friendly face.
“I’m looking for a room. Something not too expensive.”
The woman frowned sternly, eyeing her up. “I ain’t seen you before. Are you new in town?”
“Yes. I just arrived on the stage yesterday.” Libby stared down at her fingers. “I’m staying over at the Cedar Rock Hotel for now, but I need something more affordable.”
“Are you here for a few days or longer?”
It wouldn’t be easy living in the same town as Jacob, seeing him and being reminded of what she’d lost. “Longer. I plan to find work in town. What might a room cost?”
“Ten dollars a week. Breakfast is fifty cents and dinner is a dollar.”
Libby wilted at the price, but the boarding house appeared clean and respectable, the owner friendly. She glanced about, noting a nng of sturdy yellow flowers marching around the house. She couldn’t do much better, and she knew it. She’d seen most of the town on her walk here. “I’d like to see what rooms you have available, please.”
“Sure thing, deary. Wait by the door and I’ll let you in.”
Libby hadn’t considered how hard it would be to stay. Now she realized how awkward she might feel bumping into Jacob in the mercantile or seeing Emma buying hair ribbons. If she had the money, she would leave.
The door opened into a dim, narrow foyer. The woman appeared, her hair tied back neatly and her plain green calico dress serviceable and pretty. “Call me Maude. Everyone around these parts does. Come on inside out of that sun.”
Libby introduced herself as she stepped inside and glanced around. She noticed a door at her elbow and realized it led to Maude’s apartment. Across the hall she could see a pleasant parlor for receiving guests and ahead of her the narrow staircase leading into the dim second story.
“The girls who usually live here work over at the dance hall,” the woman explained, her keys jingling in her hand as she climbed the stairs with a heavy, confident gait. “They get in late, most of ‘em, and sleep late. I try to be quiet so as not to wake ’em. We got other gals too, one works in the diner across from the livery.”
Jacob. The thought of him hurt. Jacob owned the livery.
“What kind of work do you do?” Maude asked over her shoulder.
Libby followed the woman up to the hotter third floor. “I—I came here to meet s-someone, but I’m on my own now. I’m normally employed as a seamstress.”
“A seamstress?” Humming thoughtfully, Maude marched down the narrow door-lined hallway. “Old Harv over at the dry goods has been talkin’ about gettin’ a woman to alter some of the ready-made clothes. You just might want to talk with him. Tell him I sent you.”
“Thank you.” Libby brightened. Perhaps she might find a suitable position right away.
Maude stopped at the end of the hall. “Whew, this heat would melt the core of hell, that’s for sure. I’m afraid it don’t get much cooler, just hotter right through the summer until autumn comes.”
Libby’s problems were more serious than the heat. “As long as the room’s clean.”
“Oh, it’s clean. Don’t tolerate filth in my place.” Maude swung open the door and stepped into the corner room.
Libby peered inside, almost afraid to enter. She’d learned to expect the worst, but her outlook brightened as she studied the little room.
A bare straw-tick mattress sat on a small wooden frame. A simple, scarred bureau was tucked into the corner beside a battered, but newly painted wardrobe. Maude crossed the polished wood floor and tugged open first one window and then the other. Crisp white curtains fluttered back in the hot breeze.
“It’ll be uncomfortable hot for the rest of the summer.” Maude turned to glance at the unmade bed. “I’ve got linen downstairs I’ll let you use.”
“This will be perfect.” So much more than she deserved. Libby managed a wobbly smile.
“Good.” Maude offered her hand, and they shook. “Since you’re such a nice young gal, I’ll knock off two bucks due to the heat.”
Eight dollars a week. It was too good to be true.
Maude had invited Libby into the dining room and offered her a free cup of coffee. While she turned down the offer of breakfast, placing a hand over her queasy stomach, the cup of strong, bitter coffee knocked some of the lightness out of her head.
Things were going to be fine. As she ventured out into the hot morning, Libby felt hopeful with her new keys tucked safely in her pocket and two week’s lodging paid ahead. Only $21.21 remaining. While it wasn’t a fortune, it was much more than she’d had at some points in her life.
Maude’s friend, old Harv, turned out to be the proprietor of Ellington’s Dry Goods. Libby hesitated in the doorway. The fine establishment was empty of shoppers, but stuffed with a variety of goods. Ready-made garments sat in neatly folded stacks on tables. Trousers and canvas, shirts and skirts, and a few bolts of colorful fabric. She spotted a row of fancy ribbons.
Emma. Libby tripped, and caught herself. Sadness tore at her heart.
A tall, thin man wearing spectacles appeared from a doorway in the back. “Can I help you find something, miss?”
Libby gathered her courage. It wasn’t easy. “Are you Mr. Ellington?”
“That I am.”
“I heard from Maude Baker you might be interested in hiring a seamstress. I sew tight and even seams, and I do excellent buttonholes.”
Mr. Ellington folded his arms across his chest. He was well dressed in a gray silk vest and a tailored white shirt. He looked like a man able to afford help in his store.
“I can’t say if I plan to take on someone full-time.” Ellington shook his head. “As you can plainly see, I sell ready-made. Too many bachelors up here, or married men who left their womenfolk behind. It takes only a few minutes to find them what they need.”
No work. Libby hid her disappointment. “Well, perhaps you would keep me in mind if circumstances change,” she said cordially.
“I will at that.” But he didn’t sound promising.
“I’m rooming at Mrs. Baker’s. Good day.”
No work for a seamstress. Well, she’d see about that. Libby vowed to try the other shops as she stepped out on the boardwalk. The pummeling heat of the sun slammed into her as she walked out of the building’s shade. Already the burning disc of the sun climbed toward the zenith, marking the passage of the morning.
She had little time to look for work before she ran out of money. This was a busy town. Someone would hire her. Someone had to. Her remaining funds would not last her long.
The tentative knock on the hotel room’s door startled Libby from her packing. Her morning had been an exhausting string of rejections. Expecting it to be the Indian woman she’d seen cleaning rooms down the hall, Libby tugged open the door without thought.
“Surprise!”
Emma stood in the dimly lit hallway, a covered pie plate balanced carefully in both hands. Jane shadowed the girl, standing back against the far wall.
“You left before dessert,” Emma explained, “so Jane and I brought ya some.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, but—” Libby’s throat tightened. “Does your pa know you’re here?”
Excitement slipped from Emma’s round blue eyes. “Pa’s busy at the livery. We brought fried chicken and everything.”
How could she say no? Libby held open the door. “You are the best thing to happen to me all day. Come in. You too, Jane.”
Emma walked past, careful to keep the pie balanced. Jane, bone thin and slightly stooped at the shoulders, carried a basket on one arm. Wise eyes met hers.
“Oh!” Emma stood stock-still, gazing about the room in fascination. “Look at the pretty quilt!”
Libby remembered the sparse interior of the Stone’s snug log cabin.
“Some would think that there quilt has seen better days.” Jane chuckled, meeting Libby’s gaze. “Emma, don’t touch.”
“I want a quilt of my own,” the girl said wistfully.
Libby’s heart went out to her. Emma needed a mother’s touch. Is that why she’d come, to try to fix what Jacob couldn’t?
Jane’s voice broke through her thoughts. “Are you still feelin’ poorly?”
“I’m a bit better today.” She felt heat creep up her face. Jane knows, she thought. “I’m embarrassed about last night. I just left without even thanking you for the wonderful meal. You went to all that trouble.”
“Didn’t look to me as if you had the chance to enjoy it. If your belly’s feeling settled, maybe you’d like some of my tasty chicken.”
“I want to have a picnic. We can eat right here.” Emma knelt to set the pie plate on the varnished bare floorboards and looked up expectantly. Hope shone bold in her blue eyes.
Today Emma wore a sunshine yellow calico cut in a princess style with a small yoke and rounded collar. Her sleeves were rolled up to her forearms, giving her growing room, and her skirt sported a sassy ruffle edged with yellow satin ribbon.
“Maybe Miss Hodges doesn’t want to sit on the floor, Emma,” Jane said gently.
“I don’t mind.” Bittersweetness tugged at her heart. She might never get another chance to see Emma. “It’s too hot for a picnic outside.”
“And too dusty. I don’t like town.” The girl wrinkled her nose.
“I don’t like town, either. The forest is so beautiful.” Libby settled onto the floor and tried not to sound wistful for the log cabin home in the woods.
“Sometimes we get trouble with bears. They wanna eat our horses.”
Jane began unpacking the basket. “But your pa built the stable doors solid, so the bears can’t get in.”
Libby helped with setting out the food. Jane brought tin plates and flatware knives and forks, and crisp blue cotton napkins. Libby fetched fresh water from the hotel’s kitchen to go along with the corn bread, fried chicken and fresh, raw green beans.
They talked of Jane’s upcoming trip, of the town and the people in it. Libby managed to keep the conversation light until Emma burst out, “Don’t you like my Pa?”
Jacob. Libby felt her heart twist. “I think your pa is a fine man,” she hedged.
“But do you like him enough to marry him?”
Libby stared hard at her plate. She knew what the girl wanted to hear. “That question goes two ways, Emma. Your pa has to like me well enough, too.”
“He’s awful lonesome.” Emma’s blue eyes widened, an obvious show of her not-so-innocent intentions.
The little matchmaker. Libby hid her smile. “I’m awful lonesome, too. But I don’t think your pa will marry me.”
“That’s not fair. He likes you. I know he does.”
“Sometimes liking someone isn’t enough reason to marry them.” Libby studied the pain pinching Emma’s deep blue eyes. “I’m sure glad you came to visit me. I wondered what kind of surprise you and Jane made for dessert.”
“Huckleberry pie!” Emma announced. “Jane and I spent all morning picking berries. It took forever to get enough.”
“That’s because you kept eatin’ ’em.” Jane teased.
Libby’s stomach tolerated the meal. She ate slowly, because Emma would leave when the meal was over. Libby didn’t want her to go.
“I tried to invite Pa, but he was busy with a customer.” Emma finished her piece of chicken and caught Jane’s gaze. “I cleaned my plate. Can we have dessert now?”
“Yes, little one.”
While Jane cut thick wedges of juicy pie, Libby cleared the dishes and stacked them neatly in the basket.
“I think Pa would have come if I asked him. He hardly saw you at all yesterday,” Emma commented, her eyes sincere, her face pink with hope.
Libby’s heart sank. Now she knew Emma’s and Jane’s true purpose—to convince her to stay, then talk Jacob into wanting her. “I thought we already talked about this.”
“I want you to be my mother.”
“I’d like that, too, Emma. Very much. But wanting doesn’t make it so.” Libby felt the words cut like a razor blade against the back of her too dry throat.
“Pa has to like you. I know he will if I ask him to.”
So much pain rose in those heartfelt words. Libby winced. I don’t want to hurt you, Emma. “It’s not that simple. I’m sorry. I wish things could be different.”
The little girl bowed her head, hiding what shimmered in her eyes.
Tears. Libby ached with them. “I hope you’ll keep the doll I made for you and always remember me.”
“I’ll never forget you.” A depth of feeling resonated in her small voice, sad like the dying ring of a church bell.
“Have you decided on a name for her?”
“I’m going to call her Beth.”
Even Libby knew why Emma had chosen it. Jacob called her by her given name, Elizabeth.
Heavy boots thudded to a stop outside her open door. Libby twisted around to gaze up at the darkly dressed man framed in the threshold.
Jacob.
At the dark wrath in his eyes, Libby braced herself. He didn’t want her. And he didn’t want her near his daughter.
Libby stood. “We were just saying goodbye.”
The tight slash of Jacob’s mouth told her the depth of his disbelief. “It didn’t sound like it to me.”
“Pa, this is the pie I helped Jane make.” Emma hopped to her feet, excitement shining in her eyes. “Come have a piece with us. Please.”
“No, Emma. This isn’t going to work. I’m not changing my mind.”
“But—”
“Help Jane pick up the dishes.” His hands fisted tightly at his sides, an effort at control.
Libby’s heart skidded in her chest. He didn’t understand. She tore her gaze from the sight of him, so strong and heart-drawing, framed by the threshold, and began stacking the huckleberry-juice-stained plates into the bottom of the basket.
“Pa’s got a temper,” Emma whispered. “But don’t go away because of that. Nobody’s perfect.”
She certainly wasn’t Libby closed her eyes. Awareness tingled down her spine. She turned around to find him watching her.
“Don’t get angry with Emma because of me,” she pleaded.
Tall and formidable, he said nothing, stepping into the room. “Say goodbye, Emma.”
He thought the worst of her. Libby slipped the last plate into the basket. The packing was done.
Emma obediently stood. “I know I already thanked you for making me the doll, but I really love her.”
All those hours spent late into the night pushing a threaded needle through muslin now felt like too little. “You take good care of Beth for me.”
“I will.” With sadness in her eyes, Emma ambled past her father, into the hallway and out of Libby’s sight.
Jane placed a hand on her arm. “I live in the little white house on the trail north out of town. I won’t be leaving for another few weeks yet. Remember me, if you need anything. Even someone to talk to.”
Jane’s kindness warmed her like nothing she’d known in so long. “Thank you,” she managed to reply.
Jacob waited until Jane closed the door before he turned to her, his gray eyes as harsh and as cold as a winter’s storm. “Just what game are you playing with my daughter?”
Chapter Five
The color drained from her face, her slender hands clenched rigidly at her sides. She looked ready to break apart.
“Jacob...” Elizabeth’s lower lip trembled. “I’m so sorry about the way this looks. I didn’t invite her, although I’m glad she came.”
“You had no right to keep her here.”
“You have no right to think I would use her.” Embarrassment might flicker in her eyes, but pride lifted her chin. “I promised you I would never hurt Emma, and I meant it.”
“Why was she here in your room?”
“Why do you think?” Her eyes filled. “She thinks she can still get us together.”
“She’s wrong.”
“I know that.”
Silence.
Jacob watched the fight slide from the rigid line of her shoulders. Fragile. She was so fine-boned, so small. He suspected most women were fragile, tenderhearted and easily hurt.
“Jacob, I’ve hurt her, haven’t I? By coming here, letting her think we would marry and I would be her mother.” Tears stood in her eyes. She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth.
His breath caught. “No, she understood all along this might not work out. I prepared her. I wanted to make sure she wouldn’t end up with a broken heart.”
“She’s just a child. She doesn’t understand....”
Their gazes met. He saw anguish in her morning-sky gaze, remorse, and guilt. But her heart was there, too, pure and good.
She wasn’t a bad, deceitful woman. Deep down, he knew it. Jacob’s heart twisted in his chest. “Emma will be disappointed,” he said at last. “I will make sure she understands. She won’t show up here trying to matchmake again.”
It wasn’t Elizabeth’s fault. He knew Emma had motives of her own and needed a talking to.
“Jane left the basket of food.” Elizabeth’s voice quavered as she turned away, her pink dress shivering around her slender form. “Here. You should take it home with you.”
The sight of her hands curling around the woven handle—red and rough from years of work—stabbed him with a sad knowledge. Life for her had been hard. She’d never said it, never hinted at it, but he sensed it now.
“No.” He said, too gruff. “Jane left it here, she meant for you to keep it.”
“The basket is mighty fine. And there are plates inside.”
“Then return the plates and basket. Keep the food.”
She stared hard at the basket. “So much good food. Thank you.”
More silence. They continued to stand there. Questions and the explanations he owed her knotted in his throat. He wanted to tell her why. He wanted to make her understand it had nothing to do with her. And everything to do with the fragile hold he had on survival.
Mary had been pretty and kind, gentle and honest. And those qualities hadn’t spared her from a painful, frightening death. He was fortunate Emma had been spared.
“Cedar Rock isn’t so small a town, I suppose we will probably see one another now and then.” She spoke softly, as if she trusted him enough with her confidences.
Jacob leaned closer. The scent of her rose water tickled his nose, made his stomach twist. Sunlight filtered through the window, casting gold shimmers in her light hair.
“Are you staying?” The idea neither frightened nor pleased him.
“I’ve let a room in Maude Baker’s boarding house. That’s not too far away from your livery stable.” Uncertainty flickered in her eyes. “I didn’t plan it that way. The man at the hotel’s desk said it was the only respectable place for women.”
“He told you correctly. Baker’s is the best place. I’m glad you’re there. It’s safe. Maude boards her gelding at my stable.”
“Then you’re not angry I’m staying in town?”
He wanted to be. “What I think doesn’t matter.” He watched regret shape her mouth. “You insisted on paying your passage here, so I have little to say.”
“I wanted to come.”
“Do you want to leave? I’m guessing you can’t afford your way home.” He felt like a jackass. At the time he hadn’t argued over the money. “I always intended to reimburse you for the journey.”
“I don’t want your money, Jacob.”
Just my name and my home. Bitterness soured his mouth, then shame. He knew those accusations weren’t true. Elizabeth could have lied to him. Chances were, he would have married her without knowledge of her pregnancy—and it would have forced him to relive fears and memories of Mary he couldn’t face.
“It isn’t right, you coming all this way for no reason after all.” Jacob tugged his billfold from his shirt pocket.
“I had every reason to come.” Shyly averting her eyes, Elizabeth brushed at her plain cotton skirts.
The truth hit him. She’d wanted to love him. She came because he’d unintentionally led her to believe... He couldn’t think about it. Angry at himself, Jacob counted out the crisp bills.
“Let me do this for you.” He looked up. “Please. You gave up your job and left your home to come here.”
“But I owe you money.”
“That can’t be right, Elizabeth.”
She withdrew a thin collection of bills and coins from her skirt pocket and pressed it into his shirt pocket “I won’t be staying here in the hotel any longer. I feel as if I should reimburse you for last night, too.”
Jacob’s stomach twisted. He stared down at the money in his hands, not so much at that, and realized what Elizabeth was giving him. She was letting him know this wasn’t about money, but about respect.
He wouldn’t argue. He would find a way to give her what he owed her. “You don’t need to be so fair.”
“I have to. Your letters changed my life.” She smiled in memory. “I can’t tell you how nervous I was when I held your first envelope in my hand. You could have been any kind of man, but I had to meet you. I had to know if I could have what I saw in your advertisement.”
“What did you see?”
“Everything missing from my life.” She looked hard at the window. “From your first sentence, I wanted to love you. You seemed so gallant and educated. And with each letter, you made me want to believe men could be good to their wives, good to their children. You seemed to care so much for your Emma. How I wanted you.”
He heard what she did not say. The loneliness that prompted a single woman without family to answer a newspaper advertisement. The pain behind the man who’d made her pregnant.
Tears brimmed her eyes. “Coming here to meet you felt like a dream come true. I haven’t had many dreams.”
He would have married her. She would have been so right for Emma—for him. “You knew you were pregnant when you left Omaha.”
“No. I honestly didn’t.” She clasped her hands. “I’m so sorry, Jacob. I never m-meant...I n-never w-wanted t-to hurt you.”
Sobs tore through her, strong enough to break her in two. He reached out, and before he knew it she was in his arms, crying against his chest. He wanted to comfort her. He wanted to push her away.
“I’ve hurt Emma,” she sobbed. “I don’t know how I can live with that.”
Perhaps it was the luminous depth of her eyes or the attraction he’d felt buzz through him the first moment he’d seen her in the street. Jacob didn’t know. He didn’t care. Acting on impulse, he touched a callused finger to her gently rounded chin and tilted her face upward.
Her mouth looked soft and ripe. Jacob brushed her lips delicately, tenderly. She tasted of sweet berries. She felt like fine velvet. At the explosion of feeling, his pulse leaped.
What was he doing? He would not give his heart a second time. And not to a woman who could die the way Mary did.
Jacob stepped back, his hand falling away from her chin. She gazed up at him with startled eyes, her goodness shining there like a constant light.
She needed him. She wanted him.
Tenderness for her welled in his heart. A useless tenderness. He couldn’t marry her. He could not even bear to look at her, knowing and remembering his Mary. Jacob closed his eyes before he turned away. He did not want to remember Elizabeth’s face as he walked out of her life.
Libby settled in her new room that afternoon. Even with the windows open, the hot breeze offered no relief from the baking heat. She didn’t mind. This was a new start in a new town. She wanted to think optimistically.
It didn’t take too long to unpack. She hung her dresses in the tidy wardrobe and folded her underwear and winter things into the small bureau. After she’d made the bed with Maude’s clean, white sheets, Libby opened her second satchel and withdrew the precious quilt.
The blues and pinks in the double wedding ring design were set against the background of snowy white. Her mother had sewn the careful stitches and the sturdy ties long ago before her own marriage, well before Libby was born. It was the only item she had of her mother’s, and she cherished it. The memories of the gentle-voiced woman who liked to sing had blurred with time.
Unpacking had helped her block all the unpleasant thoughts from her mind...and the pleasant sensation of Jacob’s remembered kiss.
Now that the bed was made, her unpacking was done, Libby could not hide. She had no idea what she would do next. She had no husband. No marriage. But she did have a baby on the way.
She sank down into the lone wooden chair. She needed to keep her hands busy so she wouldn’t long for the man she could not have.
Determined to forget the amazing sensation of being in his strong arms, of being kissed by him, Libby grabbed her scrap bag from the bureau drawer and began sorting through it.
She withdrew a tiny piece of pink calico, cut into pieces to be sewn into a doll’s dress. A terrible longing stole over her. She planned to make a whole wardrobe of clothes fitted with tiny ruffles and lace and ribbons, scraps from her own sewing and from the shop she’d worked at in Virginia long ago. The owner had allowed her to take the smaller scraps since they were simply thrown away.
Now, years and a lifetime later, she’d found a good use for those scraps. It broke her heart that she couldn’t finish the dress for Emma’s sake.
Jacob wanted her to stay away from his girl. She understood why. It just hurt.
But the good fabric would go to waste, she reminded herself.
Libby fingered the darling dress pieces. She hated waste; she had so little all her life that wastefulness felt like a sin. Perhaps Jacob wouldn’t mind if she finished up the bits of fabric she’d already cut. She didn’t have the right to try to see him again, but she felt happier. As if doll’s dresses made from scraps could make up for the hurt she’d caused.
Jacob set down his pitchfork and wiped the sweat from his brow. The August sun beat with an inferno’s fury, heating the inside of his stable until it felt like an oven.
Weeks had passed since he’d last spoken with Elizabeth. He thought of her often, usually when he was alone with his work or in the silence of night when sleep eluded him.
He couldn’t get her out of his mind, damn it.
Long distance proposals didn’t work out all the time. Elizabeth had come here without a promise of marriage. Neither one of them had made promises in their numerous letters, as if equally afraid of the future. But as Jacob unbuttoned his shirt, then tossed it off, he didn’t feel comforted. No, he felt empty, troubled. He pitched the soiled straw from the box stall as hard as he could, trying to purge his feelings. Sweat ran off his brow like water. He ignored it.
Already he was thinking of her. He’d asked Maude Baker how Elizabeth was doing, and he learned she worked at a hotel near the blacksmith’s shop, cooking in the kitchen.
Before Jane left for her trip south, she’d let him know the gossip concerning Elizabeth Hodges. As the new woman, she was the talk of town. Single. Pretty. Young. Scores of bachelors lined up to ask her to supper, but she declined every offer.
Jacob suspected he was the only man in town who knew the most popular woman was pregnant.
He stopped pitching and closed his eyes. Guilt battered him. Couldn’t he go to her and ask her back? He wanted to. He truly wanted to look past her pregnancy—past the shadows of his own fears—and try again.
She was the right woman for them.
But he didn’t want a real marriage. He didn’t want more children. He never wanted to sit in the parlor waiting for another woman to give birth, knowing the risks. Life is too short. Love doesn’t last forever. Death intervenes and leaves you with nothing but suffocating grief.
Jacob learned these lessons the hard way. He was a fool to consider, even for a second, he could march up to Mrs. Baker’s boardinghouse and ask Elizabeth to be his wife.
“Deary, I’m sorry but I can’t accept your money.”
Libby took a step back in Maude’s crowded apartment. Knickknacks crammed the surface of the many tables, low shelves and whatnots in the corners, making maneuvering difficult. “I don’t understand. I owe you next week’s rent.”
“You don’t owe me a thing.” Maude smiled.
It only confused Libby more. “I owe you money if I want to live here come Monday.”
Mischief twinkled in Maude’s wise eyes. “Oh, you’ll be here on Monday, all right. Someone paid your rent for you.”
What? The moon could tumble from the sky and it wouldn’t shock her as much. “Who would do such a thing? Eight dollars is a lot of money.”
“Not to some people.” Maude turned with a rustle of homemade petticoats and marched into the small kitchen. “I was just gonna have me some refreshment. Come join me for lemonade and cookies.”
Refreshment? Her stomach felt too troubled. “It was Jacob, wasn’t it?”
“He told me not to tell you. He wanted to keep it a secret.”
“Well, you didn’t try very hard, Maude.”
“True.” The kitchen echoed with her jolly laughter. “You’re paid up for the entire month of August.”
“That can’t be. He wouldn’t do that. He doesn’t even like me.” But he kissed me. The remembered tingle of his lips caressing hers heated her face.
Maude set a plate of sugar cookies on the small round oak table. “A man doesn’t gotta like you in order to love you.”
Libby stepped over to the table, the kitchen as crammed with breakable knickknacks as the front room. “I want you to refund Jacob his money.”
“Can’t do it.” Maude grabbed a pitcher tinkling with ice. She poured two cups. “This came over from Trace’s diner. The best in town.”
Not even the sight of the luxurious lemonade soothed the ache in her chest. “Maude, it’s simple. You find Jacob at his livery and give him his money.”
“He won’t take it. Besides, after he gave me thirty-two dollars for this month, he and I made an arrangement. He’s giving me free care of the horse I’ve got over at his livery, and I give you free room and board. It’s a fair deal for me.”
“You can’t do that. I won’t be obligated to him.” She’d caused him enough trouble. Thinking of the baby growing in her belly, Libby blushed.
“Pish posh. You listen to me. This world is tough on a woman alone. If a well-off gentleman wants to help you out—with no expectations—then I would let him. A girl needs all the help she can get.”
Not this one. Libby sank into the offered chair. “You don’t understand, Maude. I owe Jacob more than I can pay him.”
He’d given her beautiful dreams—for as long as they lasted. She’d wasted all his time corresponding when he could have spent the time finding another woman who would be good enough for Emma. Not that Libby blamed him. Oh, no. She blamed herself for making promises she could not honor, for letting Jacob down.
Maude’s hand covered hers. “It’s a matter you must take up with him. He and I have an arrangement I like. And he’s good to my horse. Have a cookie, now. They’re fresh from the diner, too.”
Jacob secured the Baker’s palomino in his stall, trying not to remember.
“Jacob?” Her voice. Elizabeth’s.
He didn’t realize she wasn’t a dream until he turned. The wide front doors of the bam framed her slim shape, allowing glimpses of Main Street with its dusty boardwalk and painted shop fronts. The hot, early September wind breezed the green fabric of her plain calico dress.
She looked beautiful to him with wisps of honey blond hair whipping around her oval face.
She self-consciously dipped her chin. “I hope I’m not bothering you.”
“Not at all.” He stepped forward.
“I need to speak to you about my rent.” She tucked her lush bottom lip between her teeth, looking uncertain.
He grabbed hold of the worn-smooth handle of his favorite pitchfork. “Seems to me your rent is a matter you should talk about with Mrs. Baker.”
Her eyes searched his. “I know you are the one, and it has to stop. Not that I don’t appreciate it.”
He wished so much could be different between them. “I’m glad to help out, Elizabeth. You refused my money, if you remember.”
She remembered the heat of his mouth over hers, burning a blessed sensation straight through her belly. In the dim interior of the barn, she could see only Jacob’s shadow. She moved closer. Make him understand how important this is to her.
The comforting scent of wood smoke and new hay filled her nose. The same scent clung to Jacob’s clothes the few times she’d been close to him.
“I want to pay my own way, Jacob. I need to do it.”
Jacob moved toward her with a slow, hesitant gait, gripping his pitchfork. “Maybe I need to help you.”
“But you should be trying to find Emma a mother, not worrying over me.” Although she wanted him to.
“Somebody has to care about you. Have you given a thought to what you will do when that baby comes?”
He eased into the spill of sunshine through the wide stable door. He wore trousers and no shirt. Sweat glistened across the mesmerizing expanse of his muscled chest, touched by the sun.
She had never seen such a chest. She had never seen such a man. He isn’t yours to touch, Libby. Her face hot, she dipped her chin. “I’m getting along considerably well at the boardinghouse, and I’ve found a job.”
“Not as a seamstress,” he corrected, as if he knew all about her position serving men their meals.
“It was the only job I could find. Mr. Oleson offered to hire me as a dancing girl in his saloon, but I had to decline. Apart from my...condition I don’t know how to dance.”
Jacob’s rich chuckle vibrated across her skin. “I know a few dances. My mother taught me.”
“My aunt thought dancing was sinful.” Libby fingered the soft bundle she held. “I suppose the sort of dancing in Mr. Oleson’s parlor might be considered that.”
“The new minister in town thinks so. He’s started to picket some of those establishments.”
“Sometimes the women joining him spill over onto Leah’s front steps and keep away the hotel’s business. It makes her furious.” Libby’s smile faded. “Will you stop giving Maude free board for her horse?”
“No.” His eyes turned somber, pinching thoughtfully in the corners. “You need my help, Elizabeth.”
What kind of woman did he think she was?
“No, I don’t need you,” she said, chin lifted. “I’ve never depended on a man’s generosity, and I’m not about to do it now. I have always managed just fine on my own, no matter what you think of me.”
Face flaming, Libby turned, the bundle in her hands forgotten as she walked as fast as she could toward the street.
“Don’t leave. Please.” His voice echoed in the loft overhead. “Do you have a moment?”
Libby considered his words, then stopped. She couldn’t look back at him. “I was on my way to the hotel.”
“Let me buy you a glass of lemonade over at the diner so we can talk.”
Talk. Libby’s stomach flipped over. Looking at him made her want him. He wasn’t hers to have. “I—I start work soon.”
Jacob nodded, as if that suited him fine, and held up one finger indicating she should wait.
Wait? She should hightail it out of here and put as much distance between them as humanly possible. He didn’t want her, would never love her. But she wanted him to.
Jacob appeared from the back of the stable, now wearing a plain blue muslin shirt, open at the collar. It had been tucked hastily into his trousers and looked sadly wrinkled.
“Has Jane left?”
“What gave you that idea?” He smiled ruefully. “I never learned how to iron. Without Jane, I use the laundry in town, but by the time I get the clothes home, they look like this.”
“What does Emma say about it?”
“She says I ought to get myself a wife. That there’s a nice lady living in town I could ask.” His joke failed. The light left his eyes. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s all right.” But it wasn’t. As they walked the half block together, she felt his gaze stray to her stomach.
He held open the door of the diner and smiled as if... Libby tried not to complete that thought. He was just being polite.
“We’ll have two glasses of lemonade,” Jacob informed the young woman who wandered into sight. “Let’s sit near the window,” he said to Libby.
Libby sat down while Jacob folded himself into a too small chair. The opened window gave her something to look at besides Jacob.
“I guess I really just wanted to know how you are doing. If you need anything.” Concern rumbled in his voice.
And brought tears to her eyes. She blinked hard. “How is Emma doing?”
“She misses Jane. I haven’t found anyone to replace her yet”
Would he find someone to replace me? Libby laid the cloth bundle she carried on the clean table. She waited as the young woman placed two ice-filled glasses between them. Fresh, sour-sweet lemonade scented the air.
“What do you have there?” he asked.
“Something for Emma. If you will let her have them.” Waiting for his rejection, she unwrapped the small bundle of clothes. Folds of happy calico and gingham peeked out from the soft flannel. Aprons. Bonnets. Dresses. Nightgowns. Shoes.
“Elizabeth, I don’t think—” He fisted his hands. “Emma will get her hopes up.”
“Then don’t tell her they are from me. Say you bought them. It’s important to me she has these for her doll.”
“Why?”
Libby rubbed the condensation from the glass. “I had planned to finish the clothes before I arrived, but time got the best of me. It isn’t Emma’s fault I didn’t sew them before I arrived.”
Jacob’s face twisted. “Emma will know they came from you.”
“I see.” All these pretty things. Libby folded the flannel back over the clothes. “The fabric was already cut and would only go to waste. I couldn’t bear that. I didn’t think it would make you angry.”
Jacob raised his gaze to hers. “I’m not angry.”
“Then you’ll give them to her?”
“Yes.” Jacob reached for the bundle. “Emma will be thrilled with these pretty things.”
Thank you. Libby’s throat tightened, and she did not say the words. It was enough to know she would make Emma happy.
“You have a talent.” His gray gaze caught hers. Held.
Libby longed for his touch. Unable to look away, her heart hammered. “I’m just an ordinary seamstress.”
“Seems with this skill you could find work in town.”
“I just started doing piecework for Mr. Ellington. Mostly altering and mending and hemming. It isn’t much, but enough to fill my Sundays.”
“That’s good.” Jacob wrapped his able fingers around the thick, cold glass and drank deeply.
She sipped the ice-cold lemonade, too. “My time is up. I don’t want to keep Leah waiting. The hotel has been so busy lately.”
“Is she treating you right? Kitchen work can’t be easy.”
She could hear his thoughts. For a pregnant woman like you. Libby looked down. “Leah is a generous boss. I’m lucky to be working for her.”
A flicker built in her heart—the beginnings of hope. Maybe he would look past her pregnancy. Maybe he wanted to marry her for her—the woman with whom he’d exchanged hopes, stories and words from his heart.
Libby stood, fishing for coins in her skirt pocket. “Goodbye, Jacob.”
And it was goodbye.
“It’s my treat.” His firm voice stilled her hand, and he laid an array of small coins on the table.
He cared about her. And it hurt more than his hatred.
“Take care of yourself, Elizabeth.” He stood, his unreadable gaze trapping hers, causing a tingling warmth through every nerve in her body.
He was never going to kiss her again. Libby turned away, not looking back, fighting the weakness for him in her heart.
She’d never ached for a man’s touch. She’d never felt this way about anyone.
Chapter Six
“Miss Hodges! Miss Hodges!” The child’s voice rang like a merry bell above the din of the dusty streets.
Libby turned, her errand forgotten at the sight of Emma Stone, dressed in a white calico dress, trimmed with lace and velvet, racing down the boardwalk, braids flying.
She glanced around for Jacob and relaxed when she saw he was nowhere near. She wanted to see him; she didn’t want to see him.
Emma bounced to a noisy halt on the boardwalk, her brown braids slamming against her back. “I saw you and I just had to come over. I like your dress.”
“And I like yours.”
Emma’s grin flashed.
Libby smiled back. “Don’t tell me your pa is letting you run all over town by yourself.”
“No.” Emma laughed. “I ran away.”
“From your pa?” Confused, Libby glanced down the street. Shoppers traveled from one shop to another, men hauled freight through the busy town.
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Jillian Hart
Last Chance At Love… The lonely bearer of a shameful secret, Libby Hodges needed to make a new start - in Montana Territory as Jacob Stone's mail-order bride and mother to his little girl. Hoping to meet a loving husband, she found instead a man shattered by by loss and wary of affection.Libby could read in his gentle gray eyes a desperate plea for the tenderness they both craved. But how could she claim the heart of a man who'd vowed never to give it away again, or tell her prospective groom that she carried another man's child?
“I never wanted a wife.” (#u3113af78-052e-5166-91ec-bdc13df27000)Letter to Reader (#u8cf7d51d-43ee-5388-8596-d673874181fc)Title Page (#u63a53e05-f3f8-590b-951c-0a4e56a8e1a2)About the Author (#ub4df6748-9684-5267-b39a-06f9cf138379)Dedication (#u28f21868-b682-5348-938c-4a9eadea97eb)Chapter One (#ue24dd710-6904-59af-a75d-faa17b05ddb7)Chapter Two (#u98d15002-8a27-5059-8578-3a13eaa73e67)Chapter Three (#ubc0f85b4-08db-513b-96b5-4041e82b408b)Chapter Four (#ub03b8975-425c-5565-87c8-09819434349d)Chapter Five (#udfc5cf10-1ff0-5c46-9efd-731f9cdebe93)Chapter Six (#u3d02e92d-9102-5cab-be1c-7de2f2ca5d59)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“I never wanted a wife.”
He stood before the opened window, sunlight glinting on his dark hair, brightening it, and casting his face in shadow. “I took one look at you and I bolted.”
“You ran?”
“I’d ventured halfway down the street this morning before I realized my foolishness. I invited you out here, and yet I am terrified of you. You’re young and pretty. From your letters, I expected someone different. Older.”
“I’m not all that pretty.” Libby spoke up, touched by his words. “I just want a home. A real one.”
Jacob Stone remained silent, staring out the window, still and motionless. “I can’t give you what you want.” He didn’t turn to look at her. “We’ve spent over six months corresponding. That amount of time should tell you right there how unsure I am of making a marriage again.”
Grief haunted his words, and the echoes of that grief hung in the air like the thick Montana dust. Libby wanted to reach out and comfort him, but how could she?
It was not her right.
Dear Reader,
March is the time of spring, of growth, and the budding of things to come. Like these four never-before-published authors that we selected for our annual March Madness Promotion. These fresh new voices in historical romance are bound to be tomorrow’s stars!
Among this year’s choices for the month is The Maiden and the Warrior by Jacqueline Navin, a heartrending medieval tale about a fierce warrior who is saved from the demons that haunt him when he marries the widow of the man who sold him into slavery. Goodness also prevails in Gabriel’s Heart by Madeline George. In this fltrty Western, an ex-sheriff uses a feisty socialite to exact revenge, but ends up falling in love with her first!
Last Chance Bride by Jillian Hart is a touching portrayal of a lonely spinster-turned-mail-order-bride who shows an embittered widower the true meaning of love on the rugged Montana frontier. And don’t miss A Duke Deceived by Cheryl Bolen, a Regency story about a handsome duke whose hasty marriage to a penniless noblewoman is tested by her secret deeds.
Whatever your tastes in reading, you’ll be sure to find a romantic journey back to the past between the covers of a Harlequin Historical.
Sincerely,
Tracy Farrell, Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to
Silhouette Reader Service
U S : 3010 Walden Ave, P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian PO. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
Last Chance Bride
Jillian Hart
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
JILLIAN HART currently lives near Phoenix, Arizona, but as a Washington State native feels very much out of her element. The desert is beautiful, but she misses the rain. She feels the value of a good rainy day is the opportunity to curl up in a comfortable chair with her twenty-pound cat on her lap and read the day away. Now she’s learned to read in the sunshine.
When she isn’t reading the day away, Jillian likes to spend time with her husband, whom she met on a blind date set up by a mutual friend nine years ago. It was love at first sight, and she’s been living happily ever after since.
To my husband,
who did the dishes so I could
write this book.
Thanks.
Chapter One
Montana Territory, 1866
Where was Jacob Stone?
Her heart tight, Libby searched the knot of the small crowd. Strangers surrounded her, but she saw no sign of Jacob and his child in the hustle of this busy post. Surely they had not given up on her. Surely they remembered she was arriving today.
Disappointed, Libby stepped away from the stagecoach, patting at her wilting hair. She must look a fright. The ride overland had been dusty and dirty, not at all kind. Her best dress was wrinkled and dust stained, her wheat blond hair sliding into her eyes. She felt like a rag used to scrub a particularly filthy floor, all wadded up in the bottom of a sodden bucket. Hardly an attractive appearance for a prospective bride.
Perhaps Mr. Stone had taken one look through the confusion of the crowd and run for the hills at the sight of her. She feared he could see beyond her new dress, soiled as it was, to the real woman inside, to the very reason why she had to answer a man’s advertisement for a wife instead of finding a husband on her own.
She felt a rush weaken her knees, and heat crept up her face. Surely he would not run off without a word. He couldn’t. She needed to meet him, to know if he would be a good man to marry. From his thoughtfully penned letters, he seemed so gentle. A man who would make a good husband and father, a man worth traveling so far to meet. That is, if he decided to show up.
Placing a hand to her stomach, Libby eased through the excited crowd, past those greeting newly arrived loved ones, and walked quietly to a lone bench fronting the station. Her hopes began to wane. The blistering heat of the late August sun bore down on her, even on the partly shaded bench, and she sat baking like an egg on a frying pan.
“There she is, Pa!”
Libby turned toward the child’s excited voice. The spindly girl skipping across the dusty road had to be Emma. Libby’s heart twisted hard at the sight of the beautiful child. The child who could become her daughter.
Her hand to her heart, Libby stood through the long seconds it took for the girl to dash across the street.
“It is her! I knew it!” Emma skipped to a hoppity-stop, her twin braids bobbing too, and tipped up her face. Bright blue eyes shone like the sky overhead and her sweet smile stretched twice as wide. “You have to be Miss Hodges!”
“Yes, I am. I’m so pleased to meet you, Emma.” Libby managed a wobbly smile. She could only stare at the little girl dressed in a crisp red calico dress. Twin brown braids pointed stiffly over her shoulders, adorned with matching red ribbon.
“We’ve been waiting for hours for the stage to come.”
Libby laughed, delighted. Already she adored this small girl, not more than six years old, whom she read about so hungrily in Jacob Stone’s letters. She wanted a home and. a family, but had not imagined having such a wonderful stepdaughter.
“I saw so many interesting things on the stagecoach here,” she said now. “I saved up all the memories to tell you about.”
“Did you see any Indian ponies?” the girl asked.
“Yes, and even the Indians sitting on them.” Matching Emma’s smile, Libby’s mouth stretched painfully. She’d been so worried traveling so far from civilization—and feared she was making the worst mistake of her life. Anything could happen. Jacob Stone could be a drunk or a brutal man. But seeing this child reassured her. Anyone could see how well cared for she was—and what a good father Jacob Stone must be.
“Miss Hodges?”
The sound of a man’s voice—of his voice—sliced through her joy, making her nervous all over again. Libby turned, feeling so small and inadequate as she looked up into the gray eyes of a tall man, into eyes as deep as a winter sky. A gentleness lived there, and she knew him at once.
“You’re Jacob.”
He bowed his chin, and his firm mouth lifted in the corner; an attempt at a smile. Her heart thudded against her breastbone. Her knees trembled. This handsome man, so powerfully built and confident, was more than her dreams. Her gaze roamed over his wide shoulders—over nice, dependable shoulders.
He cleared his throat. “You arrived safely, I see. Heard there was Indian trouble.”
“Nothing serious at all.” Libby shrugged. She’d been so ill during the journey, she’d hardly noticed the danger. “I was afraid you weren’t coming.”
The smile slid from his firm mouth. “I’m a man of honor, Miss Hodges. I said I would be here, and I am.”
He was kind and strong and honorable. Anyone could see it. Libby’s throat filled. She had not been wrong in traveling so far. He was so much more than she expected, than she deserved.
“I like your hat,” the girl said.
“Thank you.” Libby murmured the words, placing a hand to the brim of her straw poke bonnet. The nervousness in her stomach eased. It was going to be all right. “Maybe I can make you a hat just like this.”
“Could you? Please?”
Emma clasped both hands, and Libby melted. “I’d be happy to.”
“Emma, go with Jane. Now. She’ll take care of you while I speak with Miss Hodges alone.”
The stern words made Libby wince.
“But—”
“Do as I say, now.”
The brightness slipped right out of Emma’s blue eyes and she trotted away, glancing back wistfully before joining up with an elderly woman who waited beneath a green-striped awning. The two walked away together, young and old, and Libby watched as some emotion tugged to life inside her. The child and woman entered one of the many storefronts and disappeared inside, out of the glaring heat of the brutal sun.
“I don’t want you making promises to my daughter.”
“I didn’t mean to. I just thought—”
“Emma lost her mother. I don’t intend to allow her to be hurt like that again.”
“Of course not.” Libby stood, pulse racing and speechless. A hot breeze tugged at her skirt. She’d angered him without meaning to. Did he have a quick temper? Without the gentleness shining in his eyes, he looked formidable, almost frightening. “I would never want to hurt Emma.”
His gaze skirted over her. “You seem sincere. You seem everything I had hoped you would be.”
“Everything?” He hardly knew her, but surely that was a good sign. She needed a home and a husband. Her hand strayed to her stomach.
He shrugged one powerful shoulder. “I suppose I’m leaping ahead of myself. I should fetch your bags and get you settled. You look exhausted, and we have much to discuss.”
Libby watched, breath held, as he turned, his navy blue shirt and his black trousers casting him as if in shadow. He walked out onto the boardwalk and snatched up two lone carpet bags. “I assume these are yours?”
“Yes.” Libby quietly followed the strong-shouldered back of Jacob Stone down the dusty street to the neatly painted hotel.
It was going to work out. It had to.
She’d never told a lie in her life, and she wasn’t sure if she could do it now. Guilt weighed down her step as she slipped through the glass door Jacob held open for her. Her elbow brushed his arm, and she caught a pleasant scent of wood smoke.
Jacob Stone was a good man, polite enough to hold the door and treat her like a lady. Anyone could see it. Her stomach tightened. He didn’t deserve being deceived.
It took her a moment to adjust to the change of light inside the hotel. Her eyes saw only momentary dimness, but she still detected the sound of men’s voices and the solid scent of tobacco. Libby followed Jacob Stone into a front lobby where a large glass window gazed pleasantly out at the dirt street.
Could she live with a lie? Could she look this good and honorable man in the eyes—and she knew this about him from his thoughtful letters and these first few minutes in his presence—and make him live a lie too?
“I brought you here so we could talk quietly,” he began, his voice rumbling low. He settled his large frame into a flowery wing back chair, so big and powerful he looked out of place in the dainty furniture.
She could see him better in this soft light. Heavens, he was a handsome man. Thick jet-black hair peeked out from beneath the narrow brim of his modest hat and cascaded over a tall, square forehead. Equally dark brows arched over his cool gray eyes. His straight nose slanted down a chiseled face that had been weathered by time and sun and cold. The face of the man she wanted to marry.
It had to work. It just had to. Libby clung to that belief, choosing a chair opposite him. The loud men’s talk rising from the bar, the ring of the bell at the front desk, and the drum of her nervous heart faded as his gray gaze snared hers.
Time stopped and Libby saw only her future. He simply had to like her.
“I suppose we need to get right to the point,” he began, his voice quietly controlled. “We’ve corresponded. Now we have met. Are you comfortable with the idea of marrying me?”
“Yes.” Libby bit her lip, catching it between her teeth. It took all her willpower to keep her voice low. She feared her whole heart showed in her words. “I—I will do my best to make you and Emma happy. You have my word.”
“Good.” His smile, slow and endearing, revealing the tender man she’d known through his letters. “This is awkward, speaking with you in person. We are still strangers in many ways.”
Her heart twisted. “Yes. But you don’t feel like a stranger to me.”
“Or to me, either.” His smile deepened, carving handsome lines into his face and reaching his eyes. “I want to be honest. There were many things I couldn’t say to you in a letter. Although I tried.”
“What things?”
Jacob Stone watched her pale face grow paler beneath the straw brim of her plain bonnet. Her soft blue eyes widened with alarm.
Damn, he knew this wouldn’t be easy. Jacob tore his gaze from her pretty face and stared hard at his big hands. “I don’t know how to begin. I should just say it.”
“You’ve changed your mind?” A hint of panic vibrated in her soft voice.
He shook his head. He wanted to change his mind, Lord knew. He didn’t want to involve his heart with another woman. And he wouldn’t. “No, my mind is set. I want to marry again. Emma needs a mother to care for her, not a hired woman, but someone who will love her.”
“Yes, I know. I read your letters, Jacob—”
“You don’t know,” he corrected, holding himself rigid in the uncomfortable chair. Her eyes glimmered with hope; he could see her heart shining there. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair. “I asked you to marry me for my daughter’s sake.”
“Yes, I—”
“Not for mine.” His heart broke as understanding struck her like a slap to the face. Her jaw slackened, and she looked lost.
“You don’t want me.” Her blue gaze met his without accusation, but puzzlement. “You proposed to me.”
“I offered an arrangement.”
“You said your Emma needed a mother. I thought—” She stopped. “I don’t understand.”
Jacob closed his heart against memories sharp enough to tear him apart. “I want you to know this right from the start. I want there to be no misunderstandings between us, only honesty. You will be my wife in name only. Not in my heart and not in my bed.”
Elizabeth Hodges glanced up at him, white as snow. Guilt tore through him. How did he tell her what Mary’s death did to him? Every day had been a battle, from morning until late at night, living without her. He would never give his heart again. Not even to a pretty, slender woman with eyes as blue as morning glories.
“But what about children?” A tiny wrinkle frowned across her forehead, half hidden by the scatters of wheat blond curls escaping from beneath her bonnet.
“I have one child too many.” Tiny, helpless dependent creatures who could steal a man’s heart. He couldn’t bear that. “I wanted you to know how it is with me right up front. I never meant to deceive you.”
“You could have told me.” She stared hard at the old reticule clutched in her lap. “I know you are widowed. I understand it might take time to finish grieving, even to build a relationship between us.”
“That isn’t what I want.”
Beneath the starkness in those gray eyes, Libby caught sight of a kindness, a decency that gave her pause.
Jacob Stone possessed the integrity she had so hoped he might have. She imagined he failed to speak of the death of his wife in his letters because of deep personal pain, but he did so now for the sake of honesty. She respected him for that, even if it left her alone and ashamed. Hadn’t she considered deceiving him?
Then he stood, the starkness gone from his eyes and a gentle softness shaping his mouth. He held out one big hand, strong and callused from honest work, and she gave him hers. Her belly twisted, low and pleasant.
“Let’s see about getting you a room.”
Jacob helped her to her feet, and Libby could not stop the awareness trickling through her. Her fingertips tingled long after he’d released her hand.
She needed to marry and she wanted him for her husband. But when she looked into his eyes, she saw a good and decent man still hurting from his wife’s death. How could she deceive him? How could she tell him the truth?
Chapter Two
Libby waited patiently while Jacob checked her into the hotel, surprising her by paying ahead for the entire week. He stood solemnly, counting out bills.
Every worried knot inside her unraveled. He was an admirable man. Strong. Dependable. He was a man strong enough to be tender.
Last winter she had nearly dropped her newspaper at the sight of the advertisement. “Lonely widower seeks kindhearted woman for mother to six-year-old daughter.” Just the sight of those words gave her hope; a hope she needed so desperately. Kind. Wife. Mother. Images of a family fell into her mind like the snow from the sky outside the boarding house window.
She had hoped he would never have to know. Honesty. He wanted honesty between them.
“I’ll take her bags,” Jacob said in his low, rumbling voice that skidded down her spine like warm water.
Libby watched him thank the desk clerk. He was wellspoken and polite; she liked that. He ambled toward her, sure and powerful, and the sight of him made her stomach twist.
She followed him up the stairs and into the first room on the second floor. With every step she took, Libby knew she had to be honest with Jacob Stone. He deserved the truth.
He set the bags on the foot of the bed, and she closed the door. A question lit his gray eyes.
“You were honest with me,” she said, clenching her hands together. She didn’t want him to see how she trembled. “It’s the least I can do for you.”
“I see.” He straightened, a wariness creeping into his face. “So, I’m not the only one with secrets.”
“No.” Libby squared her shoulders and met his unflinching gaze. What she had to say would not be easy. “As you suspect I am not an innocent.”
He neither grimaced nor judged her. Jacob Stone merely dipped his head slightly as he answered. “That does not matter to me.”
“Good, because there’s more.” She would tell him the truth, and he would leave. Libby stared hard at the plank floor. “I don’t know, I mean, I’m not certain.”
It’s too early to tell.
“You don’t want to marry me?” he asked.
She looked up into eyes filled with concern. His concern for her. She didn’t want to say what followed. Best to just blurt it out. “I could be pregnant.”
“Pregnant?”
“I’m not certain,” Libby hedged. He’s going to leave me.
But Jacob Stone said nothing. He stared down at his large, empty hands. Libby stood motionless, her heart thudding painfully in her chest. She thought of Emma and that big sparkle of hope in the girl’s blue eyes.
“This is unexpected news.” He spoke slowly, as if carefully weighing his words. “After all, we have been corresponding.”
She could hear his condemnation. “I did not come here thinking I could pawn off another man’s child on you.” Although she had considered not telling him during the overland trip.
“I didn’t think you would.” Jacob Stone faced her, his gaze no longer averted but leveled powerfully on hers. At that moment Libby could not deny the physical strength in the man nor the emotional power she felt with the blast of that gaze. He spoke. “In your letters you led me to understand you had no other prospects for marriage.”
“I have none now,” Libby admitted sadly, feeling her heart drum ever harder in her chest.
“Not even with the man who may have fathered a child with you?” Jacob stepped closer, so close she could see the black flecks of color in his gray eyes and smell the leather and smoke scent of him.
“No.”
“You could have written me about this.”
“I didn’t know what to say,” Libby answered honestly. He looked both sad and angry at once with his thick fingers gripping the brim of his hat and his jaw set like stone. He would never understand. “You had the same problem, letting me believe you wanted a real wife.”
He bowed his head. “Yes, I guess that’s true. We’re even then.”
Silence fell between them like sunlight through the windowpanes.
Libby braced herself. “If you decide you no longer have any interest in me, I thoroughly understand, Mr. Stone.”
There, she had said it. Those words had taken more courage than she knew she had.
Jacob Stone cleared his throat and didn’t speak. After a quick glance around the room, he lowered his eyes. Libby watched him, clearly a proper, hardworking and decent man, who had no doubt caught sight of the wide bed in the exact center of the room. A bed she was also aware of.
What must he think of her? She looked at the plain quilted coverlet, once white and already yellowing. Did Jacob Stone look at that bed and wonder what kind of woman she was?
He strode across the small room and tugged open the window. A hot, dry breeze tumbled inside, but it was far from refreshing. The street noise from below blew in with the wind. Libby knew she would never be good enough for him, not now when he knew she had considered deceiving him.
“I never wanted a wife.” He stood before the opened window, sunlight glinting on his dark hair, brightening it, and cast his face in shadow. “I took one look at you and I bolted.”
“You ran?”
“I’d ventured halfway down the street this morning before I realized my foolishness. I invited you out here, and yet I am terrified of you. You’re young and pretty. From your letters, I expected someone different. Older.”
“I’m not all that pretty,” Libby spoke up, touched at once by his words. “I just want a home. A real one.”
Jacob Stone remained silent, staring out the window still and motionless, outlined by the distant blue-white peaks of the Bitterroot mountains. What was he thinking?
“I can’t give you what you want.” He didn’t turn to look at her. He stood broad-shouldered, his muscled legs parted, his booted feet planted on the bare plank boards. “We’ve spent over six months corresponding. That amount of time should tell you right there how unsure I am of making a marriage again.”
Grief haunted his words, and the echoes of that grief hung in the air like the thick Montana dust. She hated seeing him hurt. Libby wanted to reach out and comfort him, but how could she? It was not her right.
He turned, approaching, his jaw set, his gaze intense, a decision clear in his eyes. “Tell me something. Will he follow you here?”
“No.”
“Then it is none of my concern.” Jacob pinned her with his hard, assessing gaze. “You say you are not certain.”
Libby blanched. “No. It is too early yet to know for sure either way.”
“When will you know?”
It was such a private question, and while Libby wanted to say so, she also knew he was affected by the answer. “Soon enough, maybe this week.”
“Fine.” He frowned. Libby watched his gaze stray to her bags that were still on the bed where he’d left them. “You’ll stay here until you know the answer to my question. We will make the appropriate arrangements then.”
He hadn’t sent her away outright. Libby’s breath caught. “If I’m not...will you still wish to marry me?”
“I don’t know.” Jacob Stone pinned her with the full weight of his cool gaze. “I counted on this match working. Emma needs a mother. We’ve spent time exchanging letters, and you’ve traveled all this way. I don’t want to go through that again.”
In those eyes Libby didn’t see hatred or condemnation, and it surprised her. Standing before him, aware of his height and his breadth and his strength, she saw not his handsomeness but the sadness in his eyes. And an understanding that touched her inside, in her heart where nothing had touched her for years.
“Then there’s hope?” she asked.
“I have no promises to give you.” Jacob shook his head. “You put me in an awkward situation. I don’t know how Emma will take this if you have to leave.”
He didn’t want her now. Libby closed her eyes, tears hot beneath her lids. It was over.
She heard the sounds of the door opening, of Jacob Stone’s boots striding out into the hall, of the door closing and latching. But when she opened her eyes, Libby still hoped to see him standing there at the window, a man with honesty and compassion ringing in his voice.
Who was she fooling, Libby asked herself. Anyone could see she’d ruined her chances of marrying Jacob Stone. She brought up her unvirtuous situation. She caused him to be angry and forced him to walk out on her.
Anyone could see he wasn’t coming back.
Jacob pounded down the stairs and through the lobby, out into the glaring summer heat, inwardly cussing himself for what he’d done. But any way he looked at it—whether Elizabeth Hodges was pregnant or not—she was not the woman he wanted to raise his daughter.
He marched down the long boardwalk, dodging Mrs. Holt carrying packages out of the mercantile, hardly aware of the traffic on the street and the ever present buzz of the sawmill at the end of town.
He didn’t know her well enough to expect her to show up pregnant. No, possibly pregnant. She didn’t even know for sure.
Then why the hell did she have to tell him?
Because she was an honest woman.
“Pa!” Emma hopped out onto the boardwalk in a swirl of red calico. “Where’s Miss Hodges?”
Jacob’s heart wrenched at the sight of hope so bright in his daughter’s blue eyes. “She’s in her hotel room.”
Better Emma know nothing of the type of woman who stepped off that stage.
“Doing what?”
“Unpacking. Resting from her long trip.”
Emma sighed, sounding disappointed. “She’s still comin’ to supper, right?”
Jacob felt the weight of the little girl’s hope settle on his shoulders. His heart wrenched. “I’m not sure, Emma.”
“But you promised.” Her quietly spoken words struck him like an ax.
“Yes, I guess I did.” He had so little to give her. How could he go back on his promise?
Emma’s sweet smile stretched across her small face. “Pa, I want just one more thing.”
“One more thing?” He rolled his eyes, teasing. “I’m afraid to ask. What is it?”
She giggled. “I just want some new hair ribbons for tonight.”
“Whew. I think we can do that. Have Jane help you.”
“Oh, Pa. Thank you. I have to look my best for Miss Hodges.” Her entire heart shone in those words. She spun away, dashing back into the store, braids flying.
He couldn’t disappoint Emma. Yet he couldn’t allow her to be hurt, either.
Jacob stepped out into the street and gazed back at the hotel. How could Elizabeth go and ruin everything?
Libby sank onto the soft mattress. She did the right thing, she knew it. Whatever lay ahead, she had faced her greatest fear. Now she could face herself. A lightness settled across her shoulders, and she felt calm for the first time in weeks. She’d done the right thing.
When Jacob had written, asking her to marry him, she sat and cried over what she’d done. She feared she could never face him, nor tell him the truth about what happened. But as the long hours passed and the night deepened, Libby began to hope. Maybe it could still be. Maybe Jacob need never know. Perhaps she wasn’t pregnant.
Libby had clung to that belief during the trying journey west, but as the nausea hit, she feared it was more than travel sickness. And she told herself it would be all right.
Except now he didn’t want a wife in the real sense.
Libby closed her eyes. She never meant to deceive him. She just wanted to love this man, the Jacob she’d created in her mind. She so wanted him to love her. Even now, she could not let go of hope.
She could not bear to think she had lost him.
Late that afternoon, washed and changed and nervous, Jacob took a step closer to the door and hesitated, standing like a fool in the middle of the narrow hotel corridor. Emma was home with Jane. A meal would be waiting.
What would he say? He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to face the pretty and fragile woman he’d come to know through her letters. The woman he’d made up in his mind, so gentle and quietly humorous, would not have slept with another man.
Anger thudded in his chest and he almost turned away. But he’d promised Emma. The remembered hope in her blue eyes kept him from running out of the hotel. He lifted his fist and knocked.
“Who is it?” asked a quiet voice through the wood door. Elizabeth’s voice.
“It’s Jacob.”
The door swung open to reveal her thin, pale face. Kind blue eyes met his and he felt the impact straight to his gut. He caught a whiff of rose water, sweet and light, saw the careful coronet of tightly plaited braids crowning her head, heard the gasp of her breath telling him he’d surprised her.
Hell, he surprised himself.
“Can I come in? I want to talk with you.”
“Yes.” Slim, graceful fingers gripped the edge of the door, pulling it open, allowing him room.
He wanted to hate her for her duplicity. It would be easier if he could. Jacob slipped past her and stood in the middle of the room, the bed between them.
Elizabeth carefully pushed the door to, but not shut. Silence settled between them. He fingered the hat he gripped in both hands.
“Jacob,” she began. She looked breakable. “I’m sorry about this. I need you to believe that.”
Sincerity burned in her eyes. He looked away. “I gave you a surprise, too. I’m sorry about that. I should have told you, I should have prepared you. You came all this way with expectations about a marriage and a family I can’t meet.”
She blinked, embarrassment pinkening her pleasant face. “I’m the one who is wrong.”
He couldn’t answer her. It took all his will to hold back the burning edge of rage—rage at her for being less than he had hoped, less than the mother Emma needed.
“I received over fifty letters.” Hell, he shouldn’t have told her that.
Surprise flickered in her eyes. “Fifty women wrote you?”
“Emma and I read through every letter.”
“I never imagined so many women would write you.”
“Neither did I.” His breath caught. “Yours was the one she liked the most. So I wrote you.”
She smiled, a softness crept across her plain oval face, changing her from pretty to beautiful.
“I can’t tell you what your letters meant to me,” she said. “I was so alone, and suddenly I had someone to talk to, even if it was in writing.”
His throat constricted. “Your letters meant a lot to Emma, too.”
“I’m so glad.”
Their gazes met. He saw sadness large enough to touch him.
“Yours was the only advertisement I have ever answered,” she confessed. “Or that I ever wanted to.”
She seemed so innocent, a touch shy. Beneath it all, she had to be a good woman. Jacob’s anger and disappointment tangled inside his chest, twisting painfully. He wanted to vent the rending confusion of his emotions. Hell if he knew what to say, and how to say it without hurting her. He’d never felt so helpless in his life.
Maybe he should call this whole thing off. He could walk out the door and never look back.
But he didn’t want to start looking for another woman. Elizabeth met every one of his requirements. She was kind, honest and gentle. And Emma wanted her. It was too late to go back, too soon to go forward.
She ambled away from him with a swishing of her simple skirts. She wore a blue calico, he noticed now, nothing fancy or pretty, just a serviceable dress. This was the woman he’d imagined during those long months of correspondence.
“I’ve brought a gift for Emma. May I give it to you? I want her to have it.”
Jacob said nothing.
Libby took that as an agreement as she crossed to the small bureau near the door. “I didn’t want to show up empty-handed. Now that things between us have changed...” Her throat closed. “I know I won’t be seeing her again, but this still belongs to her.”
“You shouldn’t have gone to any trouble.”
“Oh, it was no trouble, only pleasure.” She tugged out the drawer, risking a glance at him.
He stood with hat in hand, his black hair neatly combed. He wore a crisp red flannel shirt and dark trousers and his boots shone, despite the thin light in the room.
If only. Libby held back her heart as she extracted a wrapped bundle from the top bureau drawer and folded back the paper. She wanted Jacob’s friendship and his respect. How could she earn it now?
Her hands trembled as she laid the doll on the dresser.
“That is a lovely gift,” Jacob said, stepping forward to join her.
Libby glanced up into the mirror’s reflection. With his head bent, she could see the cowlick at the back of his scalp. He seemed vulnerable somehow, despite his obvious strength and height and breadth. He lifted one thick-knuckled hand and brushed a finger across the doll’s happy cloth face and brown yarn braids.
“You wrote me and said Emma had brown hair.”
“Yes, I did.” He towered above her with emotion shining in his eyes. “This is an expensive doll.”
“I purchased the fabric, but I made the doll,” Libby explained, pleased with her work. “I wanted something special to give Emma, something a mother might make for her daughter.”
Jacob’s throat worked, and he turned away.
She’d said the wrong thing. “I know I can’t expect anything from you, anything we agreed to months ago, but I made this doll for Emma, from my heart. It would mean everything to me if she could have it, no strings attached.”
“Why?”
Because losing dreams hurt. Libby carefully covered the doll with the brown paper. “I put my heart into making this for Emma. It belongs to her.”
His jaw firmed, and he looked away without speaking. He wouldn’t accept the gift. Libby stared hard at her hands. She was alone now. Without Jacob, without a home. Perhaps she’d been foolish to tell him the truth when she wasn’t even certain. But in her heart Libby knew, she could never hurt Jacob.
“I have dinner waiting for us at home,” he said quietly.
Did he mean...? Hope beat in her heart. Home. It had been a lifetime since that word meant anything to her. She had been a small girl. Libby remembered the little trundle bed tucked in the corner of the shanty where she slept at night, safe from the rain and the wind and the harshness of the world. Now she caressed the word over and over in her mind, as if home could mean that again.
“Do you mean—” she didn’t dare hope “—you haven’t changed your mind?”
“You have come only to meet us, nothing more.” Jacob turned toward the door. His boots rang on the floorboards. “You and I may decide not to marry for many reasons. I’m willing to see what happens.”
He was such a fair man. Libby’s chest ached. Please, let it work out.
“I just don’t want Emma hurt.” His cool gaze trapped hers with the weight of his heart.
“Then we are in agreement. I don’t want her hurt, either.”
Jacob smiled. Truly smiled. Libby watched his face soften and the tension in his shoulders ease. This man, with his gentle smile warming the stark gray of his eyes, was the man she’d dreamed of.
“Emma can talk the ears off a mule, if she sets her mind to it,” he said, leading the way out into the hall. “I thought I’d better warn you.”
A lightness burst in Libby’s chest. “She’s a lively child.”
“And too much for me to raise all alone.” He waited while she closed and locked her door. “I’m outnumbered.”
“And I suspect Emma knows it.”
“Yes, she uses it to her advantage constantly.” Jacob’s smile sparkled.
Libby felt dazzled all the way to her toes. Somehow she managed to walk down the stairs and through the hotel’s busy lobby without tripping. He was willing to see what happens. She wanted him so much. She’d never met a man like him before.
The sun threw long-fingered rays across the sky and slanted into her eyes when she stepped out onto the boardwalk. She blinked against the light as Jacob halted beside a small, well-kept buckboard.
“Are you ready?” His gray eyes swept hers.
“I think so.”
He offered his hand.
Big fingers closed over hers and, palm to palm, he helped her up into the wagon. Her heart did crazy flipflops. She settled on the buckboard’s comfortable seat, waiting for Jacob to circle around the vehicle and join her.
It was going to work out. It had to. She had never wanted anything so much.
“Emma named the horses.” He hopped up and settled into the seat beside her. The buckboard swayed slightly, adjusting to his weight. “She insisted.”
“Life must be like sunshine sharing it with her.”
Jacob gripped the thick leather reins. “Yes. That little girl is everything to me.”
“I can see why.” Libby looked at the package she clutched safely in her lap. Would Emma like the doll? It was homemade, not bought at a fancy store. The sleek, perfectly matched bays drawing this handsome buckboard told her something new about Jacob: He wasn’t poor the way she was.
“The near one is Pete,” he said with an easy grin. “The other is Repeat.”
Libby laughed.
Smile lines crinkled around Jacob’s sparkling eyes.
He didn’t need to tell her which house was his. She knew without words when it came into view, tucked between the thick boughs of cedar and pine. Neat and tidy, with precisely cut logs and thick stripes of chinking, the log cabin sat in a small clearing. Two large windows watched them from either side of a solid wood door. The house looked sturdy and cozy and built to withstand an eternity of winters.
Home. The one word buzzed through her mind, rendering her incapable of speech. She felt warm down to her toes.
Jacob reined in the horses with the jangle of the harness, and Libby stared at the house, trying not to let her hopes grow.
The door flew open and Emma’s red-dressed figure hurled into view, braids flying, black-shoed feet pounding the hard-packed earth. “You’re here! I’ve been waiting forever.”
Libby laughed. Happiness welled in her heart, spilling over with joy. With the sun slanting through the thickboughed pines and the sight of the little girl bouncing to a stop before her, Libby’s throat filled with happy tears. She knew every hardship in her life had brought her here, to this shining, singular moment.
She’d come home.
Chapter Three
Nothing in Libby’s life had ever prepared her for this heart-aching hope smoldering inside her chest. Like embers, she could feel that hope burn.
“We’re having a treat for dessert.” Emma’s voice rang like a merry bell in the hot air. “I’m not supposed to tell what it is because it’s a secret.”
“A secret dessert?” Libby repeated, enchanted.
Emma nodded. Excitement pinkened her cheeks. “We worked on it this morning to pass the time. Your stage didn’t come in until noon, and I couldn’t wait.”
“Neither could I.”
Emma clasped her hands together. “Jane and me made pie...ah, the dessert and then it was time to go meet you.”
Libby’s throat felt too full to speak.
“It’s even a secret from Pa,” the little girl confessed.
“That’s enough now, Emma,” Jacob circled around the wagon, his voice gently amused. “Don’t wear out Miss Hodges’ ear before we even get her inside the house.”
“Ah, Pa. How can I wear out her ear? Ears don’t wear out.”
“Yes they do. You know Grandpa can’t hear well.”
Emma laughed wholeheartedly. “That’s because he’s old.”
“It’s because you talked too much.”
They could be a family. Libby’s chest hurt just thinking of it.
“May I help you down?” Jacob offered his hand.
She slipped her bare fingers into his broad palm. Male-hot skin scorched hers. Libby swallowed at the sensation. He overwhelmed her like a dream, a hero, a fairy-tale prince come true. Her stomach twisted with a knot of need. She hadn’t been sick all day. Maybe it was all right. Maybe she could have her own happy ending.
Libby hopped to the ground, skirts swishing. She kicked up a small puff of dust with the impact of her worn shoes against the solid earth.
“I like your doll.”
At the sight of Emma’s shy, wistful face, Libby had no doubts. She had chosen her gift to the girl well. “This isn’t my doll.”
“She isn’t?” Hope shivered in those words.
“No. I made her.”
“You made her?” Her mouth opened into a round O.
“Yes. I chose everything carefully. The big blue button eyes. The brown yarn braids. The calico dress.”
“It’s red too. We match.”
“Yes. It’s a coincidence, isn’t it?”
Emma nodded solemnly, the puff of wind teasing her skirt. “Did you make her for me?”
“Yes.”
Emma didn’t move, didn’t blink, didn’t even breathe.
“She doesn’t have a name yet. I thought you might have a few ideas.” Libby stepped closer and pressed the gift against the girl’s chest. Immediately those reed thin arms embraced the rag doll, hugging her hard.
“Oh, thank you!” Now that Emma had found her voice, it vibrated with the deepest joy. “Pa, look! I have a real doll! Not just a wooden carving, but a real doll!”
“I see that, Emma.” Jacob’s eyes twinkled.
Emma squeezed her doll tightly. “Oh, I do hope you can stay with us.”
Silence.
Libby stared hard at the ruffle hemming her skirts. She could feel Jacob’s gaze on her, feel his silence.
“Well, now, Emma, you know we’ll just have to wait and see how things work out.” His words came gently, like a loving touch.
Libby’s eyes smarted. Maybe she wasn’t pregnant.
“Pa, Miss Hodges has to stay. Everything is going to be perfect. I just know it.”
Libby glanced up. Jacob pinned her with his hard, assessing gaze. Her heart kicked in her chest. If only he could understand.
“Dinner’s ready!” a woman’s voice called from the door, fracturing the tension strung as tight as a clothesline.
“Thanks, Jane.” Jacob snagged hold of the harness, turning his back to Libby. “I’ve got to take care of these horses. Emma, take Miss Hodges into the cabin.”
“Can I show her my room?”
Libby closed her eyes. She could feel dreams slipping between her fingers, impossible to grasp.
“Just don’t keep Jane waiting.” Jacob led the horses off, the buckboard rattling over the rocks and ruts in the yard.
“Jane made chicken pie.” Emma slipped her small hand inside Libby’s. “I helped her. I got to make the dough and everything.”
Libby stared down at the hand within hers, so small and trusting. “I bet it will be the best chicken pie I’ve ever had.”
“Jane put carrots and peas in it.” Emma led the way across the dusty front yard toward the snug cabin.
Heavens. Libby paused in the threshold, glancing about the pleasant room with its puncheon floors and log walls and simple furnishings. Emma bounced through the front room as if there were nothing special about the solid walls so carefully made and sealed tight against the winds. But to her...this cabin came right out of her dreams.
Libby belonged here. She could feel it. A tremble of joy shivered through her.
“It isn’t much.” Jacob’s voice startled her, and she spun around.
He could read the surprise on her face. She hadn’t heard him approach.
“Oh.” She placed a slender hand to her chest. “This is the most beautiful home. Did you build it yourself?”
“Yes. Felled the trees. Chinked the walls. It’s snug and it’s sturdy.” Pride simmered in his chest. No matter what she was, Elizabeth Hodges was a woman of simple tastes. He liked that.
“It’s so roomy and bright.” Her eyes shone not with greed or want, but with something deeper. “Why, with curtains at the windows and a rug on the floor, this would look like a picture in a book.”
He smiled. “I’m glad you think so.”
She confused him. He didn’t know if he wanted to marry a woman with a questionable reputation. Yet he liked her. She was soft and pretty. He suspected life had not been easy for her, a woman alone in the world.
“Pa, come on.” Emma crowded next to Elizabeth, grabbing hold of the woman’s capable hands. “Jane’s puttin’ supper on the table. I want to show Miss Hodges where to sit.”
Alone on the front step, Jacob watched his little girl drag Elizabeth away. It was best not to think of the future.
But as he glanced about his simple, adequate home, he noticed the polished furniture and the glistening windowpanes. Jane and Emma must have scrubbed the room from floor to ceiling hoping to make a good impression.
Now she stood at the table, patiently listening while Emma set her doll down in the chair by the window, as if to make the rag doll a part of the family. Elizabeth leaned down and meant to brush a strand of hair from Emma’s eyes but snatched back her hand, uncertain.
Jacob’s stomach tightened. He could see the goodness in her. He didn’t want to like her.
“Come sit down while it’s still hot,” Jane said, barreling around the corner with the potatoes steaming in a glass bowl.
He clomped across the room and pulled back his chair. Elizabeth looked so uncertain. She certainly wasn’t a bad woman. He had to give her the benefit of the doubt. “Go ahead and sit down. I’m wagering Emma has a chair all picked out for you.”
“She’s sittin’ beside me.” The girl beamed.
“I could have guessed that.” Jacob sat down in his chair.
Emma grabbed Elizabeth’s hand and showed her to the chair between them. The woman looked overwhelmed. She lifted her chin and happiness filled her eyes.
“This is all so wonderful,” she said in a voice as gentle as morning. “I’m just so grateful to be here.”
“I’m glad, too,” Emma chimed.
Guilt kicked Jacob like an ill-tempered mule. He’d not been fair to Elizabeth Hodges from the start. Promising her marriage when he never intended to love her. He’d dreaded her arrival, and if it hadn’t been for Emma, Elizabeth wouldn’t be sitting at his table right now, pregnant or not.
“I picked the beans fresh today.” Emma clutched the cut-glass bowl in both small hands. “You like beans, don’t you Miss Hodges?”
“I love them.” Delight shimmered in her eyes like sunlight playing in the creek.
He’d harbored so many worries. Would she be a decent woman? Would she be a loyal wife? A loving mother? They evaporated now like fog before sun.
“Pa bought these hair ribbons just for tonight,” Emma chattered. “They’re velvet. For a special occasion, Jane said.”
“Very fancy. The color makes you look very pretty.”
Emma beamed. “Tell me about the Indians. They ride their ponies bareback.”
“Yes, they do.”
Jacob could hardly swallow, and he stared down at his empty plate. He hadn’t dished up. Now, he wasn’t hungry. He reached for the bowl of beans Elizabeth passed to him. His fingers brushed hers, and in that instant of contact he raised his gaze. Their eyes met and held.
He had to start risking again, for Emma’s sake. His gut clenched. If only it wasn’t so hard. If only...
“I want to ride a pony wild in the meadows,” Emma’s voice broke between them. “Would you let me, Pa?”
“Not a chance.”
“I knew you were gonna say that.”
Unable to move, Libby sat perfectly still, her heart beating wildly like the wings of a grounded bird. Happiness threatened to fill her up so full she couldn’t breathe. The normal sounds of the meal—Emma’s fork scraping against her tin plate, the clink of the pan as Jacob dished up generous pieces of succulent chicken pie, the tinkle of water in the glasses amazed her. She’d never known a home like this, safe and cozy, so happy.
Emma asked questions about riding in the stage. Between mouthfuls of the good food, Libby answered the best she could. No, they didn’t meet any road agents on the trail. No, they didn’t get robbed. Yes, the teams of horses were pretty.
“You can see why my father went deaf,” Jacob mumbled.
“Pa!” Emma protested, laughing at the same time.
Happiness skidded down Libby’s spine like cool water, refreshing and sustaining. “I think I’m losing hearing in this one ear.”
Emma giggled.
“I told you, you talk too much,” Jacob teased.
Oh, no. Libby placed a hand on her stomach. The laughter slid from her mouth and she stood, fighting the abrupt twist of nausea rising in her stomach.
It couldn’t be. She knocked over her chair and bolted for the door. Tears blurred her vision as she pounded down the front steps, holding her skirts out of the way as she raced blindly around the house. A second twist of nausea roiled in her belly, and she tasted the acidic burn of bile.
She would not leave a mess in the yard.
The outhouse was a tidy, sturdy building just behind the cabin. Libby raced past the elderly woman’s surprised face, and flung open the privy’s simple door. She fell to her knees on the clean floorboards and leaned over the carved hole.
The contents of her stomach hurled violently up her throat, and Libby didn’t hold back her hot tears or her choking sobs. After three violent retches, her stomach was empty.
Exhausted and hopeless, Libby leaned against the wall and buried her face in her hands. There was no blaming this on travel sickness. She was pregnant.
“Are you all right, dear?”
Libby raised her face from her hands and turned to gaze up at the spry, time-weathered woman. A gentle understanding shone in Jane’s eyes.
“I will be fine,” Libby insisted, firming her chin. She climbed to her feet and dusted off her skirt.
“I only hope it wasn’t my cookin’,” Jane said lightly, although no humor shone in her eyes. “My Albert always used to say my cookin’ could rot a man’s gut.”
“No, it wasn’t your cooking, trust me.” Libby summoned up a polite smile.
“I see.” Sober eyes looked up into her own. “Well, now, Jacob’s here. I suppose you’ll be wantin’ to talk to him. Emma, come with me into the house and show me that new doll of yours.”
As the woman and small girl ambled off, Libby could feel the weight of Jacob’s gaze. The pain of what she had just lost speared through her like an Indian’s arrowhead. This couldn’t be happening.
He said nothing, and the silence stood between them as the weight of the night began to drain the webby light from the sky.
“I thought you said you weren’t sure.”
Holding the pieces of her heart, she managed an answer. “I wasn’t.”
The wind tugged at her skirts. An owl hooted from the high boughs of a nearby pine.
Pregnant. Jacob fisted his hands, wanting to will the truth away. He studied her pale face. His gaze swept downward. Her stomach looked so flat. She looked so fragile.
He glanced up to read the pain in her eyes and saw the broken pieces of her heart. He twisted away, marching out toward the stable, then stopped. Frustrated. Angry. He didn’t know what to do. “You lied to me. You came here tonight knowing your condition.”
“No, I wouldn’t do that to you. To Emma.”
“You had to know. Were you going to use me? Did you accept my offer to cover your own mistakes? To come here and pretend the bastard was mine?”
“Not exactly. I wasn’t sure—”
Anger flashed through him. “I’m not about to let you use me. Or Emma. She’s the reason you are here in the first place.”
“I never meant—”
“She needs a mother, not a lying woman of questionable reputation.” Jacob closed his eyes. It wasn’t fair. He was angry with himself. Angry for agreeing to find a mother for Emma. Angry for thinking such a plan would ever work.
“I’m sorry.” The words squeaked, broken by emotion. He looked at Elizabeth. He remembered the look of affection on her pretty oval face when she’d shown him the rag doll, remembered the way she’d almost brushed the curls from Emma’s eyes, and her loving manner as she joked with the girl.
Damn it. The loss was Emma’s. Elizabeth would have been the right mother. If only she hadn’t... He didn’t know what she’d done. If she was an innocent forced or went willingly with a lover. He didn’t know anything about the woman except she was going to break his little girl’s heart.
Damn her for doing this to Emma.
Elizabeth surprised him by bursting into tears and without another word, she simply walked away.
He watched her go.
“Where’s Miss Hodges?” Emma tugged at his shirtsleeve. Dust cast a blue-gray light over the world and shadowed her button face. “Is she all right? Jane is afraid her cooking made her sick.”
“Miss Hodges left.” An odd roaring echoed in his head.
“If she’s feelin’ better tomorrow, maybe she can come have some of that pie we made.” Emma’s face wrinkled with worry. “You like Miss Hodges, don’t you, Pa?”
Hope and adoration lit his daughter’s face. How did he disappoint her? Damn it, how could Elizabeth Hodges disappoint her? Jacob felt ready to explode. He forced the breath from his lungs in a long hiss. “No, Emma, I don’t like Miss Hodges.”
“You don’t?”
Jacob forced the hot rage from his chest. “No. She’s not going to stay. We’ll have to go about finding you another mother.”
“But she made me a doll!” Pain rang high in the girl’s voice.
“I know she did. But it’s not your decision.” Night was falling, in his heart and in the forest. “Go inside and finish your meal. Jane will put you to bed.”
The girl knew better than to cry. It wouldn’t get her what she wanted. Emma hung her head, a single sob escaping as she dashed toward the cabin.
Disappointment battered him. He couldn’t change Elizabeth’s situation. He couldn’t allow her to be Emma’s mother.
Relief slid through his chest, and Jacob sat down on the front stone steps. Truth be told, he was glad. He didn’t want another woman in his house to remind him of Mary. He didn’t want the sweet scent of a woman, her touches of softness and care anywhere in his life.
The coming night fell silently, and Jacob didn’t move. He watched the skies darken, stealing the last bit of light from the day. Owls screeched, bugs chirruped and bats circled harmlessly overhead, but nothing could penetrate the sadness in his heart.
For a moment, he let himself remember the dark, souldevouring despair that consumed him after Mary died in childbirth. He could not risk going through that again.
Chapter Four
Her heart empty, Libby stepped to the window and gazed out on the main street below. Even this early in the morning, the thriving town, perched on the side of a rugged mountain, buzzed with activity. The sawmill upriver whined, wagons rattled, busy voices rose from the boardwalk below.
She’d learned from the other passengers on the stagecoach yesterday that Cedar Rock was a boomtown. Men came from all parts of the country to work the gold mines or prospect on their own. Montana Territory was filled with stories of men striking it rich on gold and quartz and silver.
There had to be something for her here, Libby reasoned. She did not have the money to return home, if she could call Omaha home. Perhaps she could make her own opportunities, just as she had always done before. She could cook and sew. Libby had never been afraid of hard work.
It wasn’t the end of the world, although it felt like it. There was no going back. She had her chance—and lost it. Now she would do what she must.
With trembling hands, Libby tugged her reticule from its place in the bureau drawer and sorted through its contents. Her fingers brushed upon the smooth, heavy parchment folded in neat, even creases. Her hands shook, rattling the paper, as she unfolded the outmost letter.
“Dear Elizabeth,” she read. “I am pleased you have agreed to come visit and see if a marriage between us will work. Emma pesters me daily as to when you shall arrive. I fear she does not understand the great distance involved....”
She tore her gaze from the page. Squeezing the tears from her eyes, she removed all of Jacob’s letters from her reticule and bundled them in her satchel. Happily-ever-afters don’t happen to you, Elizabeth Charlotte Hodges.
After carefully locking her door, she approached the kind man behind the front counter. He politely referred her to a woman’s boardinghouse off Clinton Avenue.
Armed with determination, Libby stepped out into the already hot morning sun. One thing was certain, she would not be beholden to any man, not even Jacob, for her survival. She could find her own lodging, and pay for it, too.
“Good morning, miss.” A man balanced a barrel of flour on his shoulder. “Nice day.”
She dropped her gaze. “Good morning, sir.”
Strangers unsettled her, and she kept walking. Jacob had never felt like a stranger, not from the first moment she opened his letter.
The town bustled with activity. Libby kept her gaze low, hearing the wagons rattling by, the clop of horses, the jingle of harnesses. Men’s voices rose discussing the weather and the business of the day. She dodged them the best she could.
The Faded Bloom was a bright blue, three-story structure gracing the wide alley behind a row of saloons and gaming houses. A painted sign swung from the eaves of the front porch. Rooms Let, it said. Women only.
Well, it looked homey. That was a start. Libby climbed the few steps to the porch and knocked on the door.
A window slammed opened, startling her.
“Can I help you?” A plump, wise-eyed woman pulled the pane higher and popped her head out. A wild tangle of rich black curls framed a friendly face.
“I’m looking for a room. Something not too expensive.”
The woman frowned sternly, eyeing her up. “I ain’t seen you before. Are you new in town?”
“Yes. I just arrived on the stage yesterday.” Libby stared down at her fingers. “I’m staying over at the Cedar Rock Hotel for now, but I need something more affordable.”
“Are you here for a few days or longer?”
It wouldn’t be easy living in the same town as Jacob, seeing him and being reminded of what she’d lost. “Longer. I plan to find work in town. What might a room cost?”
“Ten dollars a week. Breakfast is fifty cents and dinner is a dollar.”
Libby wilted at the price, but the boarding house appeared clean and respectable, the owner friendly. She glanced about, noting a nng of sturdy yellow flowers marching around the house. She couldn’t do much better, and she knew it. She’d seen most of the town on her walk here. “I’d like to see what rooms you have available, please.”
“Sure thing, deary. Wait by the door and I’ll let you in.”
Libby hadn’t considered how hard it would be to stay. Now she realized how awkward she might feel bumping into Jacob in the mercantile or seeing Emma buying hair ribbons. If she had the money, she would leave.
The door opened into a dim, narrow foyer. The woman appeared, her hair tied back neatly and her plain green calico dress serviceable and pretty. “Call me Maude. Everyone around these parts does. Come on inside out of that sun.”
Libby introduced herself as she stepped inside and glanced around. She noticed a door at her elbow and realized it led to Maude’s apartment. Across the hall she could see a pleasant parlor for receiving guests and ahead of her the narrow staircase leading into the dim second story.
“The girls who usually live here work over at the dance hall,” the woman explained, her keys jingling in her hand as she climbed the stairs with a heavy, confident gait. “They get in late, most of ‘em, and sleep late. I try to be quiet so as not to wake ’em. We got other gals too, one works in the diner across from the livery.”
Jacob. The thought of him hurt. Jacob owned the livery.
“What kind of work do you do?” Maude asked over her shoulder.
Libby followed the woman up to the hotter third floor. “I—I came here to meet s-someone, but I’m on my own now. I’m normally employed as a seamstress.”
“A seamstress?” Humming thoughtfully, Maude marched down the narrow door-lined hallway. “Old Harv over at the dry goods has been talkin’ about gettin’ a woman to alter some of the ready-made clothes. You just might want to talk with him. Tell him I sent you.”
“Thank you.” Libby brightened. Perhaps she might find a suitable position right away.
Maude stopped at the end of the hall. “Whew, this heat would melt the core of hell, that’s for sure. I’m afraid it don’t get much cooler, just hotter right through the summer until autumn comes.”
Libby’s problems were more serious than the heat. “As long as the room’s clean.”
“Oh, it’s clean. Don’t tolerate filth in my place.” Maude swung open the door and stepped into the corner room.
Libby peered inside, almost afraid to enter. She’d learned to expect the worst, but her outlook brightened as she studied the little room.
A bare straw-tick mattress sat on a small wooden frame. A simple, scarred bureau was tucked into the corner beside a battered, but newly painted wardrobe. Maude crossed the polished wood floor and tugged open first one window and then the other. Crisp white curtains fluttered back in the hot breeze.
“It’ll be uncomfortable hot for the rest of the summer.” Maude turned to glance at the unmade bed. “I’ve got linen downstairs I’ll let you use.”
“This will be perfect.” So much more than she deserved. Libby managed a wobbly smile.
“Good.” Maude offered her hand, and they shook. “Since you’re such a nice young gal, I’ll knock off two bucks due to the heat.”
Eight dollars a week. It was too good to be true.
Maude had invited Libby into the dining room and offered her a free cup of coffee. While she turned down the offer of breakfast, placing a hand over her queasy stomach, the cup of strong, bitter coffee knocked some of the lightness out of her head.
Things were going to be fine. As she ventured out into the hot morning, Libby felt hopeful with her new keys tucked safely in her pocket and two week’s lodging paid ahead. Only $21.21 remaining. While it wasn’t a fortune, it was much more than she’d had at some points in her life.
Maude’s friend, old Harv, turned out to be the proprietor of Ellington’s Dry Goods. Libby hesitated in the doorway. The fine establishment was empty of shoppers, but stuffed with a variety of goods. Ready-made garments sat in neatly folded stacks on tables. Trousers and canvas, shirts and skirts, and a few bolts of colorful fabric. She spotted a row of fancy ribbons.
Emma. Libby tripped, and caught herself. Sadness tore at her heart.
A tall, thin man wearing spectacles appeared from a doorway in the back. “Can I help you find something, miss?”
Libby gathered her courage. It wasn’t easy. “Are you Mr. Ellington?”
“That I am.”
“I heard from Maude Baker you might be interested in hiring a seamstress. I sew tight and even seams, and I do excellent buttonholes.”
Mr. Ellington folded his arms across his chest. He was well dressed in a gray silk vest and a tailored white shirt. He looked like a man able to afford help in his store.
“I can’t say if I plan to take on someone full-time.” Ellington shook his head. “As you can plainly see, I sell ready-made. Too many bachelors up here, or married men who left their womenfolk behind. It takes only a few minutes to find them what they need.”
No work. Libby hid her disappointment. “Well, perhaps you would keep me in mind if circumstances change,” she said cordially.
“I will at that.” But he didn’t sound promising.
“I’m rooming at Mrs. Baker’s. Good day.”
No work for a seamstress. Well, she’d see about that. Libby vowed to try the other shops as she stepped out on the boardwalk. The pummeling heat of the sun slammed into her as she walked out of the building’s shade. Already the burning disc of the sun climbed toward the zenith, marking the passage of the morning.
She had little time to look for work before she ran out of money. This was a busy town. Someone would hire her. Someone had to. Her remaining funds would not last her long.
The tentative knock on the hotel room’s door startled Libby from her packing. Her morning had been an exhausting string of rejections. Expecting it to be the Indian woman she’d seen cleaning rooms down the hall, Libby tugged open the door without thought.
“Surprise!”
Emma stood in the dimly lit hallway, a covered pie plate balanced carefully in both hands. Jane shadowed the girl, standing back against the far wall.
“You left before dessert,” Emma explained, “so Jane and I brought ya some.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, but—” Libby’s throat tightened. “Does your pa know you’re here?”
Excitement slipped from Emma’s round blue eyes. “Pa’s busy at the livery. We brought fried chicken and everything.”
How could she say no? Libby held open the door. “You are the best thing to happen to me all day. Come in. You too, Jane.”
Emma walked past, careful to keep the pie balanced. Jane, bone thin and slightly stooped at the shoulders, carried a basket on one arm. Wise eyes met hers.
“Oh!” Emma stood stock-still, gazing about the room in fascination. “Look at the pretty quilt!”
Libby remembered the sparse interior of the Stone’s snug log cabin.
“Some would think that there quilt has seen better days.” Jane chuckled, meeting Libby’s gaze. “Emma, don’t touch.”
“I want a quilt of my own,” the girl said wistfully.
Libby’s heart went out to her. Emma needed a mother’s touch. Is that why she’d come, to try to fix what Jacob couldn’t?
Jane’s voice broke through her thoughts. “Are you still feelin’ poorly?”
“I’m a bit better today.” She felt heat creep up her face. Jane knows, she thought. “I’m embarrassed about last night. I just left without even thanking you for the wonderful meal. You went to all that trouble.”
“Didn’t look to me as if you had the chance to enjoy it. If your belly’s feeling settled, maybe you’d like some of my tasty chicken.”
“I want to have a picnic. We can eat right here.” Emma knelt to set the pie plate on the varnished bare floorboards and looked up expectantly. Hope shone bold in her blue eyes.
Today Emma wore a sunshine yellow calico cut in a princess style with a small yoke and rounded collar. Her sleeves were rolled up to her forearms, giving her growing room, and her skirt sported a sassy ruffle edged with yellow satin ribbon.
“Maybe Miss Hodges doesn’t want to sit on the floor, Emma,” Jane said gently.
“I don’t mind.” Bittersweetness tugged at her heart. She might never get another chance to see Emma. “It’s too hot for a picnic outside.”
“And too dusty. I don’t like town.” The girl wrinkled her nose.
“I don’t like town, either. The forest is so beautiful.” Libby settled onto the floor and tried not to sound wistful for the log cabin home in the woods.
“Sometimes we get trouble with bears. They wanna eat our horses.”
Jane began unpacking the basket. “But your pa built the stable doors solid, so the bears can’t get in.”
Libby helped with setting out the food. Jane brought tin plates and flatware knives and forks, and crisp blue cotton napkins. Libby fetched fresh water from the hotel’s kitchen to go along with the corn bread, fried chicken and fresh, raw green beans.
They talked of Jane’s upcoming trip, of the town and the people in it. Libby managed to keep the conversation light until Emma burst out, “Don’t you like my Pa?”
Jacob. Libby felt her heart twist. “I think your pa is a fine man,” she hedged.
“But do you like him enough to marry him?”
Libby stared hard at her plate. She knew what the girl wanted to hear. “That question goes two ways, Emma. Your pa has to like me well enough, too.”
“He’s awful lonesome.” Emma’s blue eyes widened, an obvious show of her not-so-innocent intentions.
The little matchmaker. Libby hid her smile. “I’m awful lonesome, too. But I don’t think your pa will marry me.”
“That’s not fair. He likes you. I know he does.”
“Sometimes liking someone isn’t enough reason to marry them.” Libby studied the pain pinching Emma’s deep blue eyes. “I’m sure glad you came to visit me. I wondered what kind of surprise you and Jane made for dessert.”
“Huckleberry pie!” Emma announced. “Jane and I spent all morning picking berries. It took forever to get enough.”
“That’s because you kept eatin’ ’em.” Jane teased.
Libby’s stomach tolerated the meal. She ate slowly, because Emma would leave when the meal was over. Libby didn’t want her to go.
“I tried to invite Pa, but he was busy with a customer.” Emma finished her piece of chicken and caught Jane’s gaze. “I cleaned my plate. Can we have dessert now?”
“Yes, little one.”
While Jane cut thick wedges of juicy pie, Libby cleared the dishes and stacked them neatly in the basket.
“I think Pa would have come if I asked him. He hardly saw you at all yesterday,” Emma commented, her eyes sincere, her face pink with hope.
Libby’s heart sank. Now she knew Emma’s and Jane’s true purpose—to convince her to stay, then talk Jacob into wanting her. “I thought we already talked about this.”
“I want you to be my mother.”
“I’d like that, too, Emma. Very much. But wanting doesn’t make it so.” Libby felt the words cut like a razor blade against the back of her too dry throat.
“Pa has to like you. I know he will if I ask him to.”
So much pain rose in those heartfelt words. Libby winced. I don’t want to hurt you, Emma. “It’s not that simple. I’m sorry. I wish things could be different.”
The little girl bowed her head, hiding what shimmered in her eyes.
Tears. Libby ached with them. “I hope you’ll keep the doll I made for you and always remember me.”
“I’ll never forget you.” A depth of feeling resonated in her small voice, sad like the dying ring of a church bell.
“Have you decided on a name for her?”
“I’m going to call her Beth.”
Even Libby knew why Emma had chosen it. Jacob called her by her given name, Elizabeth.
Heavy boots thudded to a stop outside her open door. Libby twisted around to gaze up at the darkly dressed man framed in the threshold.
Jacob.
At the dark wrath in his eyes, Libby braced herself. He didn’t want her. And he didn’t want her near his daughter.
Libby stood. “We were just saying goodbye.”
The tight slash of Jacob’s mouth told her the depth of his disbelief. “It didn’t sound like it to me.”
“Pa, this is the pie I helped Jane make.” Emma hopped to her feet, excitement shining in her eyes. “Come have a piece with us. Please.”
“No, Emma. This isn’t going to work. I’m not changing my mind.”
“But—”
“Help Jane pick up the dishes.” His hands fisted tightly at his sides, an effort at control.
Libby’s heart skidded in her chest. He didn’t understand. She tore her gaze from the sight of him, so strong and heart-drawing, framed by the threshold, and began stacking the huckleberry-juice-stained plates into the bottom of the basket.
“Pa’s got a temper,” Emma whispered. “But don’t go away because of that. Nobody’s perfect.”
She certainly wasn’t Libby closed her eyes. Awareness tingled down her spine. She turned around to find him watching her.
“Don’t get angry with Emma because of me,” she pleaded.
Tall and formidable, he said nothing, stepping into the room. “Say goodbye, Emma.”
He thought the worst of her. Libby slipped the last plate into the basket. The packing was done.
Emma obediently stood. “I know I already thanked you for making me the doll, but I really love her.”
All those hours spent late into the night pushing a threaded needle through muslin now felt like too little. “You take good care of Beth for me.”
“I will.” With sadness in her eyes, Emma ambled past her father, into the hallway and out of Libby’s sight.
Jane placed a hand on her arm. “I live in the little white house on the trail north out of town. I won’t be leaving for another few weeks yet. Remember me, if you need anything. Even someone to talk to.”
Jane’s kindness warmed her like nothing she’d known in so long. “Thank you,” she managed to reply.
Jacob waited until Jane closed the door before he turned to her, his gray eyes as harsh and as cold as a winter’s storm. “Just what game are you playing with my daughter?”
Chapter Five
The color drained from her face, her slender hands clenched rigidly at her sides. She looked ready to break apart.
“Jacob...” Elizabeth’s lower lip trembled. “I’m so sorry about the way this looks. I didn’t invite her, although I’m glad she came.”
“You had no right to keep her here.”
“You have no right to think I would use her.” Embarrassment might flicker in her eyes, but pride lifted her chin. “I promised you I would never hurt Emma, and I meant it.”
“Why was she here in your room?”
“Why do you think?” Her eyes filled. “She thinks she can still get us together.”
“She’s wrong.”
“I know that.”
Silence.
Jacob watched the fight slide from the rigid line of her shoulders. Fragile. She was so fine-boned, so small. He suspected most women were fragile, tenderhearted and easily hurt.
“Jacob, I’ve hurt her, haven’t I? By coming here, letting her think we would marry and I would be her mother.” Tears stood in her eyes. She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth.
His breath caught. “No, she understood all along this might not work out. I prepared her. I wanted to make sure she wouldn’t end up with a broken heart.”
“She’s just a child. She doesn’t understand....”
Their gazes met. He saw anguish in her morning-sky gaze, remorse, and guilt. But her heart was there, too, pure and good.
She wasn’t a bad, deceitful woman. Deep down, he knew it. Jacob’s heart twisted in his chest. “Emma will be disappointed,” he said at last. “I will make sure she understands. She won’t show up here trying to matchmake again.”
It wasn’t Elizabeth’s fault. He knew Emma had motives of her own and needed a talking to.
“Jane left the basket of food.” Elizabeth’s voice quavered as she turned away, her pink dress shivering around her slender form. “Here. You should take it home with you.”
The sight of her hands curling around the woven handle—red and rough from years of work—stabbed him with a sad knowledge. Life for her had been hard. She’d never said it, never hinted at it, but he sensed it now.
“No.” He said, too gruff. “Jane left it here, she meant for you to keep it.”
“The basket is mighty fine. And there are plates inside.”
“Then return the plates and basket. Keep the food.”
She stared hard at the basket. “So much good food. Thank you.”
More silence. They continued to stand there. Questions and the explanations he owed her knotted in his throat. He wanted to tell her why. He wanted to make her understand it had nothing to do with her. And everything to do with the fragile hold he had on survival.
Mary had been pretty and kind, gentle and honest. And those qualities hadn’t spared her from a painful, frightening death. He was fortunate Emma had been spared.
“Cedar Rock isn’t so small a town, I suppose we will probably see one another now and then.” She spoke softly, as if she trusted him enough with her confidences.
Jacob leaned closer. The scent of her rose water tickled his nose, made his stomach twist. Sunlight filtered through the window, casting gold shimmers in her light hair.
“Are you staying?” The idea neither frightened nor pleased him.
“I’ve let a room in Maude Baker’s boarding house. That’s not too far away from your livery stable.” Uncertainty flickered in her eyes. “I didn’t plan it that way. The man at the hotel’s desk said it was the only respectable place for women.”
“He told you correctly. Baker’s is the best place. I’m glad you’re there. It’s safe. Maude boards her gelding at my stable.”
“Then you’re not angry I’m staying in town?”
He wanted to be. “What I think doesn’t matter.” He watched regret shape her mouth. “You insisted on paying your passage here, so I have little to say.”
“I wanted to come.”
“Do you want to leave? I’m guessing you can’t afford your way home.” He felt like a jackass. At the time he hadn’t argued over the money. “I always intended to reimburse you for the journey.”
“I don’t want your money, Jacob.”
Just my name and my home. Bitterness soured his mouth, then shame. He knew those accusations weren’t true. Elizabeth could have lied to him. Chances were, he would have married her without knowledge of her pregnancy—and it would have forced him to relive fears and memories of Mary he couldn’t face.
“It isn’t right, you coming all this way for no reason after all.” Jacob tugged his billfold from his shirt pocket.
“I had every reason to come.” Shyly averting her eyes, Elizabeth brushed at her plain cotton skirts.
The truth hit him. She’d wanted to love him. She came because he’d unintentionally led her to believe... He couldn’t think about it. Angry at himself, Jacob counted out the crisp bills.
“Let me do this for you.” He looked up. “Please. You gave up your job and left your home to come here.”
“But I owe you money.”
“That can’t be right, Elizabeth.”
She withdrew a thin collection of bills and coins from her skirt pocket and pressed it into his shirt pocket “I won’t be staying here in the hotel any longer. I feel as if I should reimburse you for last night, too.”
Jacob’s stomach twisted. He stared down at the money in his hands, not so much at that, and realized what Elizabeth was giving him. She was letting him know this wasn’t about money, but about respect.
He wouldn’t argue. He would find a way to give her what he owed her. “You don’t need to be so fair.”
“I have to. Your letters changed my life.” She smiled in memory. “I can’t tell you how nervous I was when I held your first envelope in my hand. You could have been any kind of man, but I had to meet you. I had to know if I could have what I saw in your advertisement.”
“What did you see?”
“Everything missing from my life.” She looked hard at the window. “From your first sentence, I wanted to love you. You seemed so gallant and educated. And with each letter, you made me want to believe men could be good to their wives, good to their children. You seemed to care so much for your Emma. How I wanted you.”
He heard what she did not say. The loneliness that prompted a single woman without family to answer a newspaper advertisement. The pain behind the man who’d made her pregnant.
Tears brimmed her eyes. “Coming here to meet you felt like a dream come true. I haven’t had many dreams.”
He would have married her. She would have been so right for Emma—for him. “You knew you were pregnant when you left Omaha.”
“No. I honestly didn’t.” She clasped her hands. “I’m so sorry, Jacob. I never m-meant...I n-never w-wanted t-to hurt you.”
Sobs tore through her, strong enough to break her in two. He reached out, and before he knew it she was in his arms, crying against his chest. He wanted to comfort her. He wanted to push her away.
“I’ve hurt Emma,” she sobbed. “I don’t know how I can live with that.”
Perhaps it was the luminous depth of her eyes or the attraction he’d felt buzz through him the first moment he’d seen her in the street. Jacob didn’t know. He didn’t care. Acting on impulse, he touched a callused finger to her gently rounded chin and tilted her face upward.
Her mouth looked soft and ripe. Jacob brushed her lips delicately, tenderly. She tasted of sweet berries. She felt like fine velvet. At the explosion of feeling, his pulse leaped.
What was he doing? He would not give his heart a second time. And not to a woman who could die the way Mary did.
Jacob stepped back, his hand falling away from her chin. She gazed up at him with startled eyes, her goodness shining there like a constant light.
She needed him. She wanted him.
Tenderness for her welled in his heart. A useless tenderness. He couldn’t marry her. He could not even bear to look at her, knowing and remembering his Mary. Jacob closed his eyes before he turned away. He did not want to remember Elizabeth’s face as he walked out of her life.
Libby settled in her new room that afternoon. Even with the windows open, the hot breeze offered no relief from the baking heat. She didn’t mind. This was a new start in a new town. She wanted to think optimistically.
It didn’t take too long to unpack. She hung her dresses in the tidy wardrobe and folded her underwear and winter things into the small bureau. After she’d made the bed with Maude’s clean, white sheets, Libby opened her second satchel and withdrew the precious quilt.
The blues and pinks in the double wedding ring design were set against the background of snowy white. Her mother had sewn the careful stitches and the sturdy ties long ago before her own marriage, well before Libby was born. It was the only item she had of her mother’s, and she cherished it. The memories of the gentle-voiced woman who liked to sing had blurred with time.
Unpacking had helped her block all the unpleasant thoughts from her mind...and the pleasant sensation of Jacob’s remembered kiss.
Now that the bed was made, her unpacking was done, Libby could not hide. She had no idea what she would do next. She had no husband. No marriage. But she did have a baby on the way.
She sank down into the lone wooden chair. She needed to keep her hands busy so she wouldn’t long for the man she could not have.
Determined to forget the amazing sensation of being in his strong arms, of being kissed by him, Libby grabbed her scrap bag from the bureau drawer and began sorting through it.
She withdrew a tiny piece of pink calico, cut into pieces to be sewn into a doll’s dress. A terrible longing stole over her. She planned to make a whole wardrobe of clothes fitted with tiny ruffles and lace and ribbons, scraps from her own sewing and from the shop she’d worked at in Virginia long ago. The owner had allowed her to take the smaller scraps since they were simply thrown away.
Now, years and a lifetime later, she’d found a good use for those scraps. It broke her heart that she couldn’t finish the dress for Emma’s sake.
Jacob wanted her to stay away from his girl. She understood why. It just hurt.
But the good fabric would go to waste, she reminded herself.
Libby fingered the darling dress pieces. She hated waste; she had so little all her life that wastefulness felt like a sin. Perhaps Jacob wouldn’t mind if she finished up the bits of fabric she’d already cut. She didn’t have the right to try to see him again, but she felt happier. As if doll’s dresses made from scraps could make up for the hurt she’d caused.
Jacob set down his pitchfork and wiped the sweat from his brow. The August sun beat with an inferno’s fury, heating the inside of his stable until it felt like an oven.
Weeks had passed since he’d last spoken with Elizabeth. He thought of her often, usually when he was alone with his work or in the silence of night when sleep eluded him.
He couldn’t get her out of his mind, damn it.
Long distance proposals didn’t work out all the time. Elizabeth had come here without a promise of marriage. Neither one of them had made promises in their numerous letters, as if equally afraid of the future. But as Jacob unbuttoned his shirt, then tossed it off, he didn’t feel comforted. No, he felt empty, troubled. He pitched the soiled straw from the box stall as hard as he could, trying to purge his feelings. Sweat ran off his brow like water. He ignored it.
Already he was thinking of her. He’d asked Maude Baker how Elizabeth was doing, and he learned she worked at a hotel near the blacksmith’s shop, cooking in the kitchen.
Before Jane left for her trip south, she’d let him know the gossip concerning Elizabeth Hodges. As the new woman, she was the talk of town. Single. Pretty. Young. Scores of bachelors lined up to ask her to supper, but she declined every offer.
Jacob suspected he was the only man in town who knew the most popular woman was pregnant.
He stopped pitching and closed his eyes. Guilt battered him. Couldn’t he go to her and ask her back? He wanted to. He truly wanted to look past her pregnancy—past the shadows of his own fears—and try again.
She was the right woman for them.
But he didn’t want a real marriage. He didn’t want more children. He never wanted to sit in the parlor waiting for another woman to give birth, knowing the risks. Life is too short. Love doesn’t last forever. Death intervenes and leaves you with nothing but suffocating grief.
Jacob learned these lessons the hard way. He was a fool to consider, even for a second, he could march up to Mrs. Baker’s boardinghouse and ask Elizabeth to be his wife.
“Deary, I’m sorry but I can’t accept your money.”
Libby took a step back in Maude’s crowded apartment. Knickknacks crammed the surface of the many tables, low shelves and whatnots in the corners, making maneuvering difficult. “I don’t understand. I owe you next week’s rent.”
“You don’t owe me a thing.” Maude smiled.
It only confused Libby more. “I owe you money if I want to live here come Monday.”
Mischief twinkled in Maude’s wise eyes. “Oh, you’ll be here on Monday, all right. Someone paid your rent for you.”
What? The moon could tumble from the sky and it wouldn’t shock her as much. “Who would do such a thing? Eight dollars is a lot of money.”
“Not to some people.” Maude turned with a rustle of homemade petticoats and marched into the small kitchen. “I was just gonna have me some refreshment. Come join me for lemonade and cookies.”
Refreshment? Her stomach felt too troubled. “It was Jacob, wasn’t it?”
“He told me not to tell you. He wanted to keep it a secret.”
“Well, you didn’t try very hard, Maude.”
“True.” The kitchen echoed with her jolly laughter. “You’re paid up for the entire month of August.”
“That can’t be. He wouldn’t do that. He doesn’t even like me.” But he kissed me. The remembered tingle of his lips caressing hers heated her face.
Maude set a plate of sugar cookies on the small round oak table. “A man doesn’t gotta like you in order to love you.”
Libby stepped over to the table, the kitchen as crammed with breakable knickknacks as the front room. “I want you to refund Jacob his money.”
“Can’t do it.” Maude grabbed a pitcher tinkling with ice. She poured two cups. “This came over from Trace’s diner. The best in town.”
Not even the sight of the luxurious lemonade soothed the ache in her chest. “Maude, it’s simple. You find Jacob at his livery and give him his money.”
“He won’t take it. Besides, after he gave me thirty-two dollars for this month, he and I made an arrangement. He’s giving me free care of the horse I’ve got over at his livery, and I give you free room and board. It’s a fair deal for me.”
“You can’t do that. I won’t be obligated to him.” She’d caused him enough trouble. Thinking of the baby growing in her belly, Libby blushed.
“Pish posh. You listen to me. This world is tough on a woman alone. If a well-off gentleman wants to help you out—with no expectations—then I would let him. A girl needs all the help she can get.”
Not this one. Libby sank into the offered chair. “You don’t understand, Maude. I owe Jacob more than I can pay him.”
He’d given her beautiful dreams—for as long as they lasted. She’d wasted all his time corresponding when he could have spent the time finding another woman who would be good enough for Emma. Not that Libby blamed him. Oh, no. She blamed herself for making promises she could not honor, for letting Jacob down.
Maude’s hand covered hers. “It’s a matter you must take up with him. He and I have an arrangement I like. And he’s good to my horse. Have a cookie, now. They’re fresh from the diner, too.”
Jacob secured the Baker’s palomino in his stall, trying not to remember.
“Jacob?” Her voice. Elizabeth’s.
He didn’t realize she wasn’t a dream until he turned. The wide front doors of the bam framed her slim shape, allowing glimpses of Main Street with its dusty boardwalk and painted shop fronts. The hot, early September wind breezed the green fabric of her plain calico dress.
She looked beautiful to him with wisps of honey blond hair whipping around her oval face.
She self-consciously dipped her chin. “I hope I’m not bothering you.”
“Not at all.” He stepped forward.
“I need to speak to you about my rent.” She tucked her lush bottom lip between her teeth, looking uncertain.
He grabbed hold of the worn-smooth handle of his favorite pitchfork. “Seems to me your rent is a matter you should talk about with Mrs. Baker.”
Her eyes searched his. “I know you are the one, and it has to stop. Not that I don’t appreciate it.”
He wished so much could be different between them. “I’m glad to help out, Elizabeth. You refused my money, if you remember.”
She remembered the heat of his mouth over hers, burning a blessed sensation straight through her belly. In the dim interior of the barn, she could see only Jacob’s shadow. She moved closer. Make him understand how important this is to her.
The comforting scent of wood smoke and new hay filled her nose. The same scent clung to Jacob’s clothes the few times she’d been close to him.
“I want to pay my own way, Jacob. I need to do it.”
Jacob moved toward her with a slow, hesitant gait, gripping his pitchfork. “Maybe I need to help you.”
“But you should be trying to find Emma a mother, not worrying over me.” Although she wanted him to.
“Somebody has to care about you. Have you given a thought to what you will do when that baby comes?”
He eased into the spill of sunshine through the wide stable door. He wore trousers and no shirt. Sweat glistened across the mesmerizing expanse of his muscled chest, touched by the sun.
She had never seen such a chest. She had never seen such a man. He isn’t yours to touch, Libby. Her face hot, she dipped her chin. “I’m getting along considerably well at the boardinghouse, and I’ve found a job.”
“Not as a seamstress,” he corrected, as if he knew all about her position serving men their meals.
“It was the only job I could find. Mr. Oleson offered to hire me as a dancing girl in his saloon, but I had to decline. Apart from my...condition I don’t know how to dance.”
Jacob’s rich chuckle vibrated across her skin. “I know a few dances. My mother taught me.”
“My aunt thought dancing was sinful.” Libby fingered the soft bundle she held. “I suppose the sort of dancing in Mr. Oleson’s parlor might be considered that.”
“The new minister in town thinks so. He’s started to picket some of those establishments.”
“Sometimes the women joining him spill over onto Leah’s front steps and keep away the hotel’s business. It makes her furious.” Libby’s smile faded. “Will you stop giving Maude free board for her horse?”
“No.” His eyes turned somber, pinching thoughtfully in the corners. “You need my help, Elizabeth.”
What kind of woman did he think she was?
“No, I don’t need you,” she said, chin lifted. “I’ve never depended on a man’s generosity, and I’m not about to do it now. I have always managed just fine on my own, no matter what you think of me.”
Face flaming, Libby turned, the bundle in her hands forgotten as she walked as fast as she could toward the street.
“Don’t leave. Please.” His voice echoed in the loft overhead. “Do you have a moment?”
Libby considered his words, then stopped. She couldn’t look back at him. “I was on my way to the hotel.”
“Let me buy you a glass of lemonade over at the diner so we can talk.”
Talk. Libby’s stomach flipped over. Looking at him made her want him. He wasn’t hers to have. “I—I start work soon.”
Jacob nodded, as if that suited him fine, and held up one finger indicating she should wait.
Wait? She should hightail it out of here and put as much distance between them as humanly possible. He didn’t want her, would never love her. But she wanted him to.
Jacob appeared from the back of the stable, now wearing a plain blue muslin shirt, open at the collar. It had been tucked hastily into his trousers and looked sadly wrinkled.
“Has Jane left?”
“What gave you that idea?” He smiled ruefully. “I never learned how to iron. Without Jane, I use the laundry in town, but by the time I get the clothes home, they look like this.”
“What does Emma say about it?”
“She says I ought to get myself a wife. That there’s a nice lady living in town I could ask.” His joke failed. The light left his eyes. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s all right.” But it wasn’t. As they walked the half block together, she felt his gaze stray to her stomach.
He held open the door of the diner and smiled as if... Libby tried not to complete that thought. He was just being polite.
“We’ll have two glasses of lemonade,” Jacob informed the young woman who wandered into sight. “Let’s sit near the window,” he said to Libby.
Libby sat down while Jacob folded himself into a too small chair. The opened window gave her something to look at besides Jacob.
“I guess I really just wanted to know how you are doing. If you need anything.” Concern rumbled in his voice.
And brought tears to her eyes. She blinked hard. “How is Emma doing?”
“She misses Jane. I haven’t found anyone to replace her yet”
Would he find someone to replace me? Libby laid the cloth bundle she carried on the clean table. She waited as the young woman placed two ice-filled glasses between them. Fresh, sour-sweet lemonade scented the air.
“What do you have there?” he asked.
“Something for Emma. If you will let her have them.” Waiting for his rejection, she unwrapped the small bundle of clothes. Folds of happy calico and gingham peeked out from the soft flannel. Aprons. Bonnets. Dresses. Nightgowns. Shoes.
“Elizabeth, I don’t think—” He fisted his hands. “Emma will get her hopes up.”
“Then don’t tell her they are from me. Say you bought them. It’s important to me she has these for her doll.”
“Why?”
Libby rubbed the condensation from the glass. “I had planned to finish the clothes before I arrived, but time got the best of me. It isn’t Emma’s fault I didn’t sew them before I arrived.”
Jacob’s face twisted. “Emma will know they came from you.”
“I see.” All these pretty things. Libby folded the flannel back over the clothes. “The fabric was already cut and would only go to waste. I couldn’t bear that. I didn’t think it would make you angry.”
Jacob raised his gaze to hers. “I’m not angry.”
“Then you’ll give them to her?”
“Yes.” Jacob reached for the bundle. “Emma will be thrilled with these pretty things.”
Thank you. Libby’s throat tightened, and she did not say the words. It was enough to know she would make Emma happy.
“You have a talent.” His gray gaze caught hers. Held.
Libby longed for his touch. Unable to look away, her heart hammered. “I’m just an ordinary seamstress.”
“Seems with this skill you could find work in town.”
“I just started doing piecework for Mr. Ellington. Mostly altering and mending and hemming. It isn’t much, but enough to fill my Sundays.”
“That’s good.” Jacob wrapped his able fingers around the thick, cold glass and drank deeply.
She sipped the ice-cold lemonade, too. “My time is up. I don’t want to keep Leah waiting. The hotel has been so busy lately.”
“Is she treating you right? Kitchen work can’t be easy.”
She could hear his thoughts. For a pregnant woman like you. Libby looked down. “Leah is a generous boss. I’m lucky to be working for her.”
A flicker built in her heart—the beginnings of hope. Maybe he would look past her pregnancy. Maybe he wanted to marry her for her—the woman with whom he’d exchanged hopes, stories and words from his heart.
Libby stood, fishing for coins in her skirt pocket. “Goodbye, Jacob.”
And it was goodbye.
“It’s my treat.” His firm voice stilled her hand, and he laid an array of small coins on the table.
He cared about her. And it hurt more than his hatred.
“Take care of yourself, Elizabeth.” He stood, his unreadable gaze trapping hers, causing a tingling warmth through every nerve in her body.
He was never going to kiss her again. Libby turned away, not looking back, fighting the weakness for him in her heart.
She’d never ached for a man’s touch. She’d never felt this way about anyone.
Chapter Six
“Miss Hodges! Miss Hodges!” The child’s voice rang like a merry bell above the din of the dusty streets.
Libby turned, her errand forgotten at the sight of Emma Stone, dressed in a white calico dress, trimmed with lace and velvet, racing down the boardwalk, braids flying.
She glanced around for Jacob and relaxed when she saw he was nowhere near. She wanted to see him; she didn’t want to see him.
Emma bounced to a noisy halt on the boardwalk, her brown braids slamming against her back. “I saw you and I just had to come over. I like your dress.”
“And I like yours.”
Emma’s grin flashed.
Libby smiled back. “Don’t tell me your pa is letting you run all over town by yourself.”
“No.” Emma laughed. “I ran away.”
“From your pa?” Confused, Libby glanced down the street. Shoppers traveled from one shop to another, men hauled freight through the busy town.
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Jillian Hart
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Last Chance At Love… The lonely bearer of a shameful secret, Libby Hodges needed to make a new start – in Montana Territory as Jacob Stone′s mail-order bride and mother to his little girl. Hoping to meet a loving husband, she found instead a man shattered by by loss and wary of affection.Libby could read in his gentle gray eyes a desperate plea for the tenderness they both craved. But how could she claim the heart of a man who′d vowed never to give it away again, or tell her prospective groom that she carried another man′s child?