Elizabeth Grayson (25 page)

“Please try to understand that I can’t be with you,” she entreated him.

“Why?” he asked her.

She hesitated, wanting to tell him everything, but she just couldn’t seem to form the words. “It’s just too soon, too soon after the baby.”

It was a lie, and Chase knew it. She could sense the hurt and concern in him, as well as the need and longing. Still, he seemed willing to be patient. But for how long? And how, in God’s name, would she ever find the courage to do what he wanted, when the mere thought of it made her quiver inside?

Chase skimmed his fingers along her cheek, stroked the length of her throat, then curled his palm around her shoulder. He looked deep into her eyes. “Then I guess we’ll just have to wait a little longer.”

chapter eleven

HIS LIFE WAS VERY NEARLY PERFECT—OR AT LEAST that’s how it seemed to Chase Hardesty as he stood braced against the
Andromeda
’s railing on this fine midsummer morning. He was master of the fastest and most beautiful steamer on the whole of the Missouri River. His first run of the packet season to Sioux City had been so profitable that once the cargo was unloaded, he’d taken Ann, Christina, and Evie on a spree in town.

Now, two days into the homebound run, Chase had cargo stacked to the guards and nearly every stateroom was occupied. When he’d peeked into the captain’s cabin a few minutes earlier, both his baby daughter and his sister were tucked up in their beds and fast asleep. Now he was braced against the rail on the boiler deck, waiting for his wife to join him for coffee and a few quiet words before their responsibilities claimed them both.

Maybe he was a simple man for taking such joy in simple things—but he was content.

Or at least almost content.

Chase glanced off to the east, where the swath of sunlight on the horizon was spreading seamless black and gold reflections across the surface of the Missouri. The river was so still this morning, it was impossible to discern where the sky and trees and bank merged into lovely liquid illusion.

Ann stepped out on deck a few minutes later smelling of yeast and warmth and perhaps just the slightest hint of vanilla. He turned and smiled at her, then reached to dust a smudge of flour from her chin. Her skin was warm beneath his fingertips, flushed and dewy from the heat of the ovens.

“Long night?” he asked her.

Her elbow nudged his as she leaned against the railing.

“No longer than most.” She scuffed out of her shoes and wiggled her bare toes against the decking. “We made white bread, rye bread, and
twelve dozen
shortcakes.”

“I hear Frenchy drafted half of Joel Curry’s deckhands to pick raspberries last night when we wooded up.”

“I doubt Mr. Curry was pleased with him,” she observed with some asperity.

Ann resented Joel Curry because he’d taken Goose Steinwehr’s place, and Goose had been Ann’s special friend. On the long trip to Fort Benton, he’d taught her German, picked her flowers, and found her a honey tree. He’d been the only man aboard brave enough to sit with her through those last long hours of labor.

Chase couldn’t say he was much more pleased about having Joel Curry aboard than Ann was. Goose led men; Curry drove them. Goose knew where he put every paper of pins when he packed a cargo; Joel Curry’s methods were a good deal less exacting. Still, the commodore had assigned Curry to the boat, which meant that until Chase took full ownership of the
Andromeda
at the end of the season, he had to make the best of it.

Chase put thoughts of Joel Curry aside and turned to his wife. Ann had changed since she’d come aboard the
Andromeda.
She baked with Frenchy every night, had become a gracious hostess to his cabin passengers, and forged friendships with his crew.

When she took Christina in her arms, she simply glowed. Chase loved watching Ann with the baby and listening to her explain the world to their wide-eyed daughter. Ann was gentle with her, warm and tender and playful in a way Chase hadn’t expected she’d be.

Drawn by his appreciation of that warmth, Chase leaned nearer. Now that the light was stronger, he could see Ann’s mouth was moist and faintly tinged with purple.

“It looks to me,” he teased her, “like you’ve been sampling Joel Curry’s raspberries.”

Ann smiled guiltily.

“And were they sweet?”

She licked her lips and laughed. “Delicious!”

For a moment all Chase could do was stare at her, at that soft, raspberry-tinted mouth, at the flush of color in her cheeks, and the tendrils of butterscotch hair trailing against her throat. Never had he wanted to kiss her more than he did right then. He wanted to wrap his arm around her and draw her to him. He wanted to trail his tongue along her lips, sip the tartness of those raspberries, and the sweetness of Ann herself.

He wanted to take her to bed and make love to her.

It was something that might have been as natural as breathing for another man and another wife, but as congenial as their life seemed, Ann foiled every attempt he made to become more intimate. He ached to touch her and hold her, but invariably when the moment came for them to steal off alone together, she pulled away. He was willing to be patient, but the constraint between them was something Chase had no idea how to breach.

He’d seen the contradictions in Ann’s eyes the day they met, and he’d been as drawn by the shade in them as the sunshine. He’d been drawn as much by the longing and the reticence he’d sensed in her, as by her integrity and her resolve to do what she thought was right.

What he’d seen had made him want to take care of her, and he had. He’d wanted her to trust him, and she did.

Just not enough.

So Chase stared out at the dawn instead of turning to Ann. He drank down the dregs of his coffee instead of taking her in his arms and licking that raspberry color from her mouth.

Ann put the “very nearly” in his otherwise perfect life, and Chase didn’t know how to set things right between them.

Just then, Ann leaned over the railing for a better look at what seemed even to Chase, who knew every eddy and every bend, an unremarkable stretch of riverbank.

“Where are we?” she asked him. “Why are we stopping?”

“I don’t know.” Chase braced his palms on the railing and leaned over, too. “This is northeastern Nebraska; there can’t be more than a handful of homesteaders here yet.”

Still, the
Andromeda
was making a landing. The engines changed their pitch and the wheel its tempo. The deck shivered underfoot.

Chase peered ahead even more intently. He knew they were far enough down the Missouri that they didn’t need to worry about being set upon by Indians. Yet something about this place, about the man waiting at the edge of the river, and the heavy, high-sided wagon parked back in the trees made Chase’s palms itch.

Rue nuzzled the steamer up tight to the sandy bank in a feat of impressive steersmanship. Cal held the boat against the brisk downstream current as the deckhands ran out the gangway. Jake Skirlin strode across it with a sheaf of papers in hand. Joel Curry and his roustabouts followed, straining under the weight of four heavy wooden boxes.

“Mr. Skirlin,” Chase called down. “I don’t recall seeing a landing scheduled for so early this morning.”

Skirlin glanced up at him. “Morning, Captain,” he said, his expression as bland as tapioca. “We missed this delivery on the way upriver.”

Chase knew that happened sometimes, especially in such swampy, broken country as this. It was easy to steam right past a transfer point unless someone was there to flag them down. Yet something about this landing felt wrong to him.

“Is there more to be off-loaded, Mr. Skirlin?” Chase pushed back from the railing. “You need any help?”

Curry answered him from where he and his rousters were wrestling the boxes into the back of the wagon. “No, sir. This is the whole of it.”

“There’s just the bill of lading to see to,” Skirlin told him, “and we can get underway.”

In spite of his misgivings, Chase nodded and let his officers get on about their work.

He didn’t even think about Barnaby Greene’s allegations until they were a good long way downstream. When he did, Chase swung around and stared upriver. Had this been one of the “unscheduled stops” Barnaby claimed the Gold Star boats were making? Had the
Andromeda
just off-loaded contraband?

Chase did his best to remember everything he could about that sandy stretch of riverbank, the tangle of scrub trees, and especially about those big, oblong boxes. His impressions just weren’t sharp enough to answer the questions plaguing him. Had the boxes they’d just delivered to this godforsaken corner of Nebraska been full of rifles?

Beside him, Ann drained her coffee and slid her feet into her shoes. The sun was up. The passengers were stirring, taking their morning constitutionals or making trips to the privy.

“The girls will be rising anytime now,” Ann said as she pushed away from the railing. “And the minute she’s awake, Christina is going to want her breakfast.”

Chase caught her arm, needing to have Ann to himself for a few moments longer. He wished she would turn and smile at him. He wished she’d say just one word that would make him feel that if he was steadfast and patient, everything would turn out the way he wanted it to.

He wished she’d say something that would divert him from the suspicion knotting his belly.

But Ann didn’t smile. She didn’t reassure him.

“I need to go,” was all she said and slid away toward the steps that led up to the Texas deck.

ANN WAS ALL TOO FAMILIAR WITH THE LONGING IN Chase’s eyes—and she fled from it. She darted up the steps two at a time, darted toward the cabin where her daughter lay sleeping. Once she got inside she’d be able to close the door on Chase’s hope and his boundless expectation. Until she did, his need for her would follow her like smoke.

“Annie?”

Chase’s voice caught up with her as she reached the top of the stairs. That deep, rich timbre stroked gooseflesh up her back and made her turn to him, almost against her will. He stood where she had left him braced against the railing, magnificent in all his rangy grace, big and rumpled and unabashedly masculine, limned by the copper light of the early morning sun.

Her mouth went dry just looking at him.

“Annie,” he asked, “shall I come and escort you to supper?”

He liked doing that. He liked knocking on her door, draping the shawl around her shoulders, offering her his arm. He liked that she dressed just for him and wore the silver filigree earbobs he’d given her as a belated wedding gift. He liked that she took extra time with her hair and dabbed lavender water on her wrists and throat.

And Ann liked doing it.

She liked pleasing Chase with these simple things. But he wanted so much more from her than a little primping and her company at dinner.

He’d made what he wanted clear enough that night three weeks ago, and Ann wished with all her heart she’d been able to give in to him.

God knows, Chase deserved what other husbands had. He’d married her and given her his protection. He’d lent her his strength the night Christina was born and given her baby his name. He’d opened his world to her and made her a part of his family. Never in her life had anyone been so generous or so patient or cared for her so much.

And Ann loved him for it.

But Chase wanted it all, everything a marriage could be. He wanted a place to come home to at the end of a run, a wife who would welcome him with open arms, and children who were truly his. He wanted kisses and caresses, tenderness and trust. He wanted to lie with her and hold her and touch her in ways Ann couldn’t even bear thinking about. He wanted her to open herself to him and accept him as her true husband.

Ann couldn’t do that.

Chase was poised and waiting for their life to start, waiting for it to turn into something wonderful. Ann didn’t know if she could go on from where they were. Her reticence made her ache with shame and regret.

She loved this good, strong man with all her heart, but she couldn’t give him the things he needed. She couldn’t be the kind of wife she ought to be to him. And if she couldn’t give him what he deserved, she knew the longing she saw in his eyes would turn to disappointment. It would become bitterness or anger, and he would end up hating her—or hating himself. Ann refused to let that happen.

She had to leave.

As long as she was who she was, she had no choice. The money her mother had left her, gave her—and Chase—a chance to make new lives for themselves. And since she couldn’t give Chase a home and family, she at least owed him his freedom.

Without her and Christina to encumber him, Chase could set off and see the world. He could find another woman, someone who was able to give him the warmth and affection Ann never could. He could start a family of his own.

She blinked back tears at the thought of someone else going down to supper on Chase’s arm, of someone else smiling at him and turning her face up for his kisses. Of him holding some other woman’s baby in his arms. Yet Ann knew that if she couldn’t be the wife Chase needed her to be, then she ought to give him the chance to be happy with somebody else.

She’d speak to Mr. Throckmorton when they got back and make arrangements for a bank draft to be waiting at the end of the
Andromeda
’s next run.

“Annie?” Chase called out, still looking up at her from the deck below.

Looking up at her as if the world hadn’t changed in this single moment.

“Shall I come get you for supper?”

Ann swallowed hard and nodded. “I’ll be ready.”

ANN WISHED THAT PULLING IN AT HARDESTY’S LANDING didn’t feel so much like coming home.

She took delight in the way the children came running at the first blast of the
Andromeda
’s whistle, appreciated how the men in the woodlot lay down their tools and headed to the riverbank to greet them. She loved that the women scurried down from houses at the top of the bluff, waving and shouting their hellos. But today Ann watched through a veil of tears as the Hardestys gathered to welcome them.