Elizabeth Grayson (8 page)

Before she could think of how to respond to Frenchy’s words, he took up a wad of toweling and opened the door to one of the ovens. The fire’s hot breath rolled over her and inside she could see rows of perfectly browned loaves of bread.

With a long wooden paddle Frenchy lifted them out one by one, and flipped them onto the counter. Ann went faint with pleasure as the full, yeasty richness rolled over her.

Once Frenchy dusted the shelves of the oven with flour again, he refilled them with unbaked loaves and shut the door with a satisfying
whump.
After that, he turned to where dough was rising in bowls, flopped the contents onto a board, and began punching the fat, white billow with his fists.

“You want to help?” he asked when he saw Ann watching him.

“I’ve never touched bread dough in my life!”

Frenchy sniffed. “A child could do this.”

Before Ann could refuse, he’d knotted one of his big floury aprons around her middle. Leading her to the table, he showed her how to work the dough, divide it in halves, and form it into loaves. Ann was shaping her fourth lopsided loaf when the door at the far end of the galley snapped open.

Chase stepped inside, rumpled with sleep. “Coffee ready?”

Frenchy poured a cup of dense, black liquid. “You come scowling at me every morning wanting coffee. Why not go see Harley Crocker sometimes, eh?”

“He’s too busy flipping griddle cakes at this hour of the morning,” Chase grumbled, scrubbing a hand across his unshaven cheeks. “Besides, your coffee’s better.”

“But of course.” On the strength of that compliment, Frenchy handed the cup to him.

Chase took a deep swallow, grimaced at the scalding heat, then sighed with pleasure.

“So—” Frenchy went on, stepping aside, “have you met my new assistant?”

Chase raised his gaze beyond the rim of his cup to where Ann stood forearm deep in bread dough. Surprise flashed across his features, as if he couldn’t imagine how his very proper bride could be involved in such a common activity.

“I—I didn’t know you baked,” he finally said.

Ann’s first impulse was to tell Chase Hardesty she’d been baking all her life. But she didn’t want to lie to him, not about this. Not when there were far more significant lies she might have to tell him.

“Frenchy’s offered to teach me,” she said.

“Has he really?”

His skeptical tone made Frenchy bristle. “You don’t think I can teach her?”

Chase raised his cup in defense. “I didn’t say that.”

“Soon men will swoon from just one taste of her pies and cakes,” Frenchy insisted. “And her bread...”

The Frenchman rolled his eyes as if in an ecstatic swoon and glanced at her. “You come tonight, Ann Hardesty. Together we will show this husband of yours what you can do.”

“Is that all right?” Ann turned to Chase and asked permission, just as she might have asked her father’s.

Chase’s eyebrows levered upward. “Five days ago you stormed aboard the
Andromeda
like a pirate boarding a treasure ship and demanded passage.
Now
you’re asking my permission to learn to bake?”

Ann inched backwards, not sure how she should answer him.

“I think you scared poor Skirlin half to death by the time I got there to rescue him.” Chase’s eyes twinkled, and Ann realized all at once that he was teasing her.

She gave a surprised peep of laughter at the image he’d conjured up of her. No one had ever teased her in her life, and it made her feel light-headed and frivolous.

“Well, I certainly didn’t mean to frighten the poor man,” she offered tentatively.

Chase rewarded her with a grin. “Oh, I don’t think it hurts to give someone like Skirlin a start,” he assured her, “at least once in awhile.”

Ann smiled back as Chase turned toward the door. “Do what you like about the baking. Just don’t expect to be aboard long enough to accomplish much.”

His warning doused the warmth that had flickered briefly between them. “I won’t go back to St. Louis!” she declared.

But Chase had already left the galley.

THE DEEP BELLOWING HOOT OF THE ANDROMEDA’S WHISTLE and the clanging of the landing bell awakened Ann at midmorning.

She’d stumbled up to the captain’s cabin just at dawn after her first full night as Frenchy’s student. She’d learned the exact temperature for water when mixing yeast and how to put the ingredients for bread together. She’d punched down dough, shaped more loaves than she could count, and shuffled them in and out of the oven.

She’d discovered that baking bread was hard, exhausting work. Still, when her first loaves lay in precise brown rows on the long wooden counter, Ann had glowed with satisfaction.

Curled up now, lazing and half-asleep, she could tell from the shouted orders and lagging speed that the
Andromeda
was coming into a landing. She nudged the window curtains aside, but all she could see was a haze of half-budded treetops and an undulating line of distant bluffs.

Where were they?

Ann scrambled to her knees to get a better look, but as she did, a wave of dizziness caught her. She grabbed the berth’s low bedrail and hung on tight as the room tilted and her ears rang. Then with a moan, she rolled onto her back and lay there panting. This is what happened these days when she moved too quickly. She had to learn to make allowances since she was carrying a child.

As the spinning slowed, she lay there gathering herself and stroking her palm along the rise of her belly. How full she felt, how warm and firm. She was expanding so fast she could almost feel her muscles flexing and fluttering. It was as if something was stirring inside her, right there where her fingers lay against her...

Ann went still.

The ruffling came again. A gentle bump, a faint squirming, a flicker of the faintest restlessness.

It was her baby!
Her baby was moving inside her.

Ann laughed in surprise. Wonder filled her chest. Her heart fluttered with unexpected joy. She hadn’t doubted there was a baby growing in her, but she hadn’t exactly wanted to believe it, either.

Now that she knew what the feeling was, she could feel her child shifting, turning, stretching. Growing right here beneath the palm of her hand, closer to her than any living soul would ever be. A child that was, for awhile at least, a part of her.

How odd and how miraculous.

She never imagined that this child could awaken this joy in her. She hadn’t expected to feel such delight—but she did. Tenderness for her baby wafted through her, as soft and airy as dandelion down.

Then tears rose in her eyes, though she couldn’t think why she was crying. Swiping at the wetness, Ann rolled onto her side and lay there waiting. When the flutter came again, she drew up her knees and wrapped herself around the wondrous new life astir within her.

Were other women so stunned and astounded by this? Did they wonder about giving birth? Were they as afraid of it as she was?

Ann wished she had someone to ask. She’d been too young to understand what was happening when her mother died. She’d been schooled in the most proper of finishing schools back East. The commodore had cut her off from all female companionship the moment he discovered she was pregnant. There might have been a few women passengers aboard the
Andromeda
she could have asked, but pregnancy and childbirth weren’t subjects one generally broached with strangers.

Ann sighed away her concerns and stroked the dome of her belly. God knows, she hadn’t wanted this child. She couldn’t bear remembering the night it was conceived or how horrified she’d been when she realized she was pregnant. Then why did she feel so possessive, so overcome with pride? How could she feel this need to shelter and protect something that was a reminder of everything she longed to forget?

Yet when the baby stirred, she was astonished and awed all over again.

Ann emerged from the cabin a good while later and rambled across the deck to where Rue was leaning against the railing.

“Where are we?” she asked him.

“We’re at a woodlot just north of Arrow Rock,” he explained by way of greeting. “We’re taking on a full rank of wood.”

“How much is that?”

“One of those rows,” he told her, gesturing. “Twenty cords.”

Along the fringe of the river, a hundred-yard-wide swath of bottomland was piled chest-high with row upon row of split and seasoned wood. At the back of the lot a number of men were working industriously to split and stack even more.

“If a row is twenty cords”—Ann pointed to a peg-legged man and sandy-haired young officer using what looked to be about an eight-foot-long stick to take the dimensions of one of the rows. “—why are they measuring?”

“Beck Morgan, the one with the sounding pole, and our mate Goose Steinwehr are checking because most woodhawks will steal you blind if you let them,” Rue answered. “Except our pa. He’d give away one of us kids before he’d cheat anyone. And Ma would have his ears if he even thought about overcharging.”

“Is this what your father does?” She and Chase hadn’t gotten much past introductions, and Ann was curious.

“Pa has a wood yard between Council Bluffs and Sioux City,” Rue said with a nod. “That’s why Chase likes having a regular Sioux City run—so he can stop by Hardesty’s Landing once or twice a month.”

“Will I meet your parents?” she asked him, not at all sure she wanted to. How was Chase’s family likely to take the news that their son had married a woman they’d never met? One who was carrying another man’s child?

“I wouldn’t count on being aboard when we reach Hardesty’s Landing,” Chase advised her.

Ann turned as Chase sauntered toward where she and Rue were braced against the railing. That he moved across the deck with such rangy grace, with such confidence and self-possession, surprised Ann a little. Back at the commodore’s house, his size and rough-hewn looks had seemed coarse and out of place. Here, that broad, bony face conveyed authority and strength—and a kind of blatant masculinity that made Ann’s heart beat faster.

“I won’t go back,” she told him for what seemed like the dozenth time since she’d come aboard.

Chase let his gaze run over her in a perusal so thorough it made Ann flush. The way his eyes lingered on the rise of her belly made his most compelling argument for sending her home.

“A woman in your condition,” Chase pointed out, “has no business aboard a boat that’s headed for Montana.”

Ann shifted away from the rail and faced him directly. “If one of the women passengers was expecting a child, you wouldn’t consider putting her off.”

“If one of the women passengers was expecting a child, she wouldn’t be my responsibility.”

Ann knew he was right to be concerned for her. If she was honest with herself, she had to admit the journey frightened her. Carrying this child frightened her. But she was here, and she was staying—no matter what.

“I won’t be any trouble,” she assured him.

Chase shook his head. “You can’t promise that, Ann; no one could. And you’ve already been trouble.

“By taking your meals upstairs on a tray, you’ve made more work for the kitchen staff,” he enumerated. “You’ve shut me out of my own cabin and disrupted my work. I don’t even have a bed to sleep in.”

But his scent still lingered on her sheets, Ann realized with an odd, hollow feeling in her chest. It was a musky masculine smell, tempered with a good dose of woodsmoke. And not in the least unpleasant.

“I’m sorry about the bed,” Ann offered.

Chase dipped his head in acknowledgment. “We’ll call things even if you stop taking your meals in the cabin. Come eat supper with me tonight, with me and my officers.”

Though Ann might be comfortable with Frenchy, the notion of facing Chase’s men and a salon full of passengers, intimidated her more than she cared to admit.

“I still prefer,” she answered softly, “to take my meals in the cabin.”

At her refusal, Chase’s eyebrows clashed over the bridge of his nose. “Do you think you’re too good to share a meal with me and my men because you’re the commodore’s daughter?”

Ann retreated a step in surprise. “I most certainly do not think that!”

“Then have supper with us tonight and prove it,” Chase challenged her.

Ann bristled at his tone. But before she could answer, Rue’s applause cut her off.

“Well done, big brother,” he observed laconically, rubbing at one corner of his mustache. “You argue with her, bargain with her, insult her, then expect Ann to want to join you for supper. Ma taught you better; try being polite!”

It was Chase’s turn to flush, but after a moment he accepted Rue’s advice. “We’ll be putting in at a town this evening, Mrs. Hardesty,” he tried again. “That means supper will be something a little special. My officers and I would be pleased if you’d agree to join us.”

Ann saw the effort Chase was making, and it seemed mean-spirited to refuse him. “I’ll join you if you like,” she agreed reluctantly.

“I’ll come by for you at seven o’clock.”

ANN WAS STILL PRIMPING IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR IN the captain’s cabin when Chase came by to escort her down to supper. Before she answered his knock, she skimmed her palms down the front of her bodice, then frowned. Even laced as tightly as she could manage by herself, her condition was obvious. Hadn’t anyone ever mentioned to Chase Hardesty that ladies who were
enceinte
didn’t flaunt themselves in public?

Chase’s knock became more insistent. “Ann?” he called out. “Are you ready?”

Maybe she could plead a headache and stay in the cabin. Maybe she could sneak down to the galley once the waiters had begun serving dinner and steal a slice of the chocolate cake Frenchy had been icing this afternoon. Maybe she could...

Ann sighed and opened the cabin door.

Chase inclined his head in a bow. “You’re looking very lovely tonight, Mrs. Hardesty.”

Ann might have returned the compliment. When he hadn’t been brawling on the waterfront, Chase Hardesty cleaned up passably well. Tonight he was freshly scrubbed and barbered, wearing crisp linen, buff trousers, and a deep blue frock coat that emphasized the breadth of his shoulders.