Love by the Letter (4 page)

She sat and pointed at the book. “You can’t get out of reading that easily, Dex.” His name felt better on her lips than she imagined.

She grimaced.
Get yourself together; you’re supposed to be helping, not entertaining the daydreams you’ve given up.
“I want you to read another page before you go.”

He dragged himself away from the wall and sat as if his seat were a pin cushion. “How is this doing any good? You’re not teaching me anything.”

“I’m assessing your needs.”

“My needs?”

Why did his question sound so breathy? “Yes, how you read lets me understand what might help you.” Though if he read and wrote like Allen, a handful of lessons wouldn’t do much good.

“You make me sound like a science experiment.”

“More like a puzzle.”

“You like puzzles, do you?”

She stopped rubbing her hands together. “Yes, and research is awfully fun too.”

“You’re too smart for this town.” He frowned. “Too smart.”

He picked up the book as if she’d asked him to eat a cow patty, then abruptly put it down. “I should save us the time and call this what it is: a dumb plan. I haven’t even finished one page.”

“No, don’t give up.” Maybe it was a dumb plan. It was certainly dumb for her heart to pine . . . but he needed her. “I’ll help as much as I can.”

Hours later, Dex tugged on his sleeves as he stepped onto the church lawn where tables of food and a small dance floor were set up for the wedding’s reception. He’d looked all over the sanctuary for Rachel’s family while the mayor’s daughter married a friend of his, but he hadn’t seen any of them. Surely they’d attend since Mr. Oliver supported Mayor Isaacs’s reelection campaign.

He jammed his hands in his pockets, scrunching the sleeves to the middle of his forearms where they always crept up anyway. He needed a suit with longer sleeves, but what was the point? Soon he’d be more worried about his shirts holding together until his crops turned a profit than whether his sleeves fit.

A fiddle sounded and another out-of-tune one joined in. The fiddlers were huddled together, tuning and checking the sound against Everett’s guitar.

Everett. His eyes were always glued to Patricia, and Rachel couldn’t be far behind her sister.

What would he say to her if he found her anyway? Would she turn pretty pink like she had this afternoon? She’d blushed a lot even after the open window had sucked out all the warm air and he’d butchered two paragraphs of
Robinson Crusoe
. Or had she really been overheated?

Dex stopped next to his friend and turned to scan the crowd. “Where’s your girl?”

Everett had won Patricia with very little effort. And they made a pretty pair—the two blond, blue-eyed angels belonged together. Whereas a girl genius like Rachel needed someone who could read more than seed catalogs that had pictures and do fancier math than count the skimmed gallons of milk every day.

Everett adjusted his guitar to match the fiddles. “Haven’t seen her yet.”

“I know this is a strange question, but how long did it take you to win over Patricia?” Dex kept his eyes pinned on the people spilling out of the church.

The silence grew so long, he looked down at Everett, whose foot was hooked on his knee as he rested his arms atop his guitar. “I’ll tell you when you tell me why you’re bothering with a mail-order bride service.”

He dropped his hands from his hips. “Who told you that?”

“You’re avoiding my question.”

Grant. He’d have to strangle his thick-necked brother when he got home. “I’m twenty-four. You no more than turn eighteen and Patricia is ready to follow you to the middle of nowhere on nothing but a promise.”

“I can’t give her anything until I have something.” He turned a peg on the head of his guitar and strummed.

He didn’t have much either, and yet Rachel hadn’t snubbed him even after listening to him trip over every other word on an entire page. Maybe she might consider a man who couldn’t pass a test to get into college—not even a ladies’ college. He touched the back of his hand where hers had landed not twice but almost three times.

He was letting a little hand touching get the best of him. A girl as smart as Rachel wouldn’t throw away school to turn over Kansas dirt even if she did like him a little. But maybe after she had her degree, and he’d built a home . . .

“I don’t get why you’d try to write for a girl though. Any woman agreeing to marry through the post has something wrong with her.” Everett’s eyes wandered to the left of the dance floor.

Dex followed his gaze and found Patricia, swathed in flounces of white with pink ribbons strung along every conceivable edge. Flushed with youth, she waved exuberantly when she saw Everett.

Dex sighed. His friend wouldn’t be able to do much beyond strum and stare now. “I’m going to find Neil. He can’t be far behind his sister.”

“Sure.” Everett made an effort to sort of glance at him before fastening his gaze on Patricia and flashing her a silly grin.

Dex walked up to her and she frowned, as if his obstructing her view of Everett would make him disappear in a puff of smoke.

“You look lovely, Miss Oliver. Where’s your brother?”

“There.” She didn’t even look, just pointed behind her at the food-laden tables where Neil stacked a plate while juggling punch cups.

No Rachel. “And your sister?”

Patricia cocked her head to the side, causing a ringlet to slide off her neck. “You need to talk to her?”

More than he’d admit. He rubbed the slight stubble on his upper lip. “Not really.”

“Well then, I suppose it won’t make any difference if I say she’s not coming?”

Why was she looking at him like that? He ran his tongue over his teeth. “I thought she said she was.”

Neil sidled up beside his sister and held out a glass of punch.

“She doesn’t dance anymore. Said if she isn’t getting married, there isn’t any point in dancing and she’d rather study.” Patricia rolled her eyes and took the drink. “Which she finds fun for some odd reason.”

Never marry? He’d known she’d go to school, but he hadn’t thought she was that dedicated. For a second he’d thought maybe he could write her, but she’d evidently perused all the bachelors around town and found them wanting—including him. And that was before she knew he couldn’t read or write for nothing. “Of course she wouldn’t marry someone from around here. She’s too good for any of us.” Oh, how he wished the woman’s standards weren’t so high. But what had he expected?

Neil took a sip of red liquid from an etched-glass punch cup, his eyes pinning Dex to an invisible wall.

He needed to excuse himself before Neil figured out what he’d been thinking. “Too bad she isn’t here. I wouldn’t have minded a dance about the floor with her. Save me a dance if you would, Miss Oliver.”

“Of course. I have plenty free since Everett’s stuck in the band.” She sighed.

He’d stay long enough to dance a jig with Patricia and then go home and make sure his wagon was ready for the long, lonely drive over the Kansas plains.

“I thought you and Allen said turning small words into pictures would help.” Dex growled, fidgeting in the straight back chair.

“It’s not magic.” Only his fourth lesson and he wanted her to conjure a miracle. Rachel clamped her hands under the little table, almost afraid to look at him. He turned downright trying with a book in his hand.

“But I still missed the word.” He slapped the book down and glared at her as if she were a five-year-old questioning his authority. “And I know what the word
from
is. I use it all the time.”

“Of course you do.” She hadn’t said anything to produce this testiness. Should she growl back at him? The mirth fighting to upturn her lips and the chuckle stuck in her throat were not helping the situation. “How about we move to the settee? Maybe if you were more comfortable—”

“You think I’m stupid.” He raked a hand through his hair and winced when a split fingernail stuck in a strand. He grumbled while disentangling himself.

“No, I don’t.” Her lips fought against her determination not to smile. She wouldn’t let them get the best of her, not if she wanted to suppress the laughter. She pressed her lips together hard. Really hard.

“How can I not be?” By the way his hands snatched up the book, he was a second or two away from throwing
Robinson Crusoe
across the room.

“Shh.” He needed to be gathered up and held tight. Like she’d do for a frightened little kitten. Three feet taller than his nephew, Dex
seemed a hundred times more vulnerable. The laugh choking the back of her throat faded.

She couldn’t imagine not being able to learn whatever she wanted to with ease. Her mother’s book collection, her father’s willingness to answer her every question, and her ability to soak it all in came without effort. What if her mind hadn’t been so quick? “We just have to find something that works for you. Maybe the picture thing only works for Allen.”

“But it makes sense.” He grumbled and grabbed a cookie.

She set another cookie on his plate and took two for herself. “Well then, maybe you need more practice. I certainly didn’t learn to read in a day.”

“Are you sure about that?”

She stilled. She couldn’t remember not reading.

He huffed and glanced at the mantle clock. “It’s been four days.”

“You sure don’t give yourself much time to do things.”

He tore apart his cookie in chunks but didn’t eat the pieces. “Nothing else is this hard.”

“But see? If you naturally excel at everything else, you can’t be stupid.”

“Even little kids read better than me.” He shoved his plate away.

She reached toward him but let her hand fall beside him before making contact. If she started touching his hand again today she wouldn’t stop. “But you dropped out of school when you were twelve.”

“My pa dropped out at eight, and he could read better than this.” He shook his head. “And you were six then and read circles around the reading I’m doing now.”

“So you have a problem we didn’t.” One that had caused him years of suffering she’d never known about. “Doesn’t mean you can’t overcome it. With enough practice, you could even go to college one day.”

He snorted. “Not unless I packed you in my suitcase and hid you under my desk to do the work for me.” He colored for some reason and turned to look out the window. “My ma handled all the farm’s bookwork.”

“Who’s handling that now?”

“Grant.”

“Who’ll handle that in Kansas?”

He fidgeted in his chair.

He’d need somebody to do that for him. She scooted closer but bit back the idea, curling her tongue. Too forward. Unasked-for. Foolish.

But what if she was in love with the man?

She’d been trying hard lately not to offer people advice or help unless they asked. Most men thought her ideas weren’t worth much because she was female. Did Dex feel threatened by her superior academic skills?

He shouldn’t. He may not be able to parse
ambulo
, but he’d saved his mother from financial ruin at the age of twelve, worked every day from dawn to dusk so his brothers could finish school, and now ran the best little dairy in town. She’d follow him anywhere without an ounce of worry that he could provide.

But was she crazy enough to propose a convenient marriage when he’d never shown interest in her? She could do his paperwork, and surely he’d come to love her, right? Her shaky hand pressed against the jitters in her stomach. If anyone needed her, Dex did. People married for convenience all the time, in fact for lesser—

“That’s the beauty of a homestead: no need to write or read anything to succeed at farming.” Dex stared at the pen in his hand as if it were his nemesis.

The air left her lungs, sagging her shoulders. How dumb to jump back so quickly into her schoolgirl dreams. She stared at her twiddling thumbs. As if academic abilities were reason enough to push herself onto Dex when her skills mattered little to a farmer.

“And it doesn’t matter how poorly I write my grocery list if I’m the only one reading it.”

Right. What farmer needed to know Cicero? Or algebra? Well, some algebra would come in handy—

“Where’s the cookies?” Patricia swooped in from the hall, and Rachel scowled. The door had to be open for propriety, but her sister didn’t need cookies enough to interrupt.

Rachel held up the plate and didn’t even look at her sister. “Here, take one.”

“Hello, Dex.”

Dex draped his arm over the back of the settee and hitched his ankle up onto his knee. “You look lovely today, Patricia.”

And when didn’t her little sister look stunning? Rachel put the plate of cookies back down with a thump and stuffed half of one in her mouth to keep her from grinding her teeth uselessly.

Her sister twirled, the rose-sprigged calico flaring about her feet and letting white cotton eyelets peek out from underneath her skirt. “I had a trunk full of practical dresses made, but sensible doesn’t have to mean ugly.”

Rachel humphed. Patricia’s lace collar added considerable cost to the dress when the money could have been used for useful supplies instead.

“Rachel disapproves.” Patricia’s mouth scrunched to the side in a sorry attempt to look chastened. “But then, if she’d ordered my dresses, they’d all be brown, black, or gray. And you can’t catch a man’s eye in those.”

Was her sister already feeling restless? Rachel narrowed her eyes. “If you’ve a need to catch a man’s eye other than Everett’s, you ought to stay in town and let Neil go alone.”

Patricia slapped a hand to her heart. “I can’t believe you’d think such a thing.” She dropped in the chair on the other side of Dex. “Now tell me, what married man ain’t gonna want his wife to look a vision?”

“
Isn’t
,” Rachel said through clenched teeth. More because of how much Patricia’s eyelashes fluttered at Dex than her poor grammar.

“
Ain’t
works perfectly fine. You know what I meant.” Patricia turned her big eyes back on Dex. “And
she
calls
me
insensible. Why fight over words when they don’t hurt nobody? School ain’t going to make you a better person.”

Dex folded his arms over his chest. “I agree, it won’t.”

Rachel caught the quick glance he threw her way before he angled his body to face her little sister. She tried to smile but couldn’t keep her lips from trembling, so she let the frown have its reign. Surely some man in her future would want a woman of an improved mind.

“Rachel says people who don’t go to school are doomed to have closed minds. Says how else are people going to improve themselves?”

And with that, her little sister took away the teeny tiniest hope Dex might have wanted a woman like her. The little vixen. Rachel pressed her finger into her cookie until she poked a hole clean through.

Dex glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “School won’t improve your sister any—”

“I just don’t get why she wants a silly degree anyway.” Patricia didn’t even flinch at the scowl Rachel sent her way. “They won’t give you a man’s job unless they’re trying to save money. And they’d still have to be desperate.”

Patricia turned back to Dex. “I think she ought to come with us. She could do Neil’s books or keep me company or teach school. No one would think she was uppity for those things.”

He rubbed at the back of his neck. “She’d certainly be a help—”

“And you’re right about no one around here wanting to marry her since she acts so snooty about things—”

“Yoo-hoo, Patsy!” A melodic voice belonging to one of the myriad girls her sister giggled with in the afternoons called from the front entrance.

Swiping the cookie plate, Patricia left without a wave of good-bye.

No one wanted to marry her? Was she that haughty?

Rachel bowed her head, staring down at the crumbs on the table as though a dunce cap pressed against her brow. She couldn’t deny what Patricia had accused her of saying.

But she hadn’t known how hard school was for some people until she’d started working with Allen.

The silence Patricia left in her wake grew long. Should she apologize?

Dex’s hand ran agitatedly over the tablecloth. “Um, that’s not what I said exactly, and I need to apologize for my earlier attitude.”

Rachel frowned. “No, I’m the one that said those things, but—”

“But those of us without schooling are in a world of hurt.” He dropped his leg with a thump onto the floor and leaned forward on both elbows, his hands clasped between his knees. “I didn’t mean to get so fired up earlier. I was angry at me, not you. I thought I could pick up on this reading and writing thing quicker. And we haven’t even started working on my spelling, which is what I really need fixed.”

She tilted her head. “I’ve been working with Allen for months now and his reading isn’t close to stellar. You can only learn so much in a few days.”

“But I’m older. I should take to instruction better.”

“I don’t think it’s a matter of instruction, per se.” She ran her finger along the lamp shade’s fringe. “I have a feeling there’s something in your brain that makes reading difficult.”

“Great. Then I’m hopeless.” He sat back and crossed his arms.

Why was he so down on himself? He could learn to read better, maybe not in a week, but surely with help. “I didn’t say that.”

Dex sighed and took the book from her. “I guess we might as well continue.”

Maybe she should stop these lessons. He needed more help than she could provide. But if he didn’t think he benefited from the brief effort, he might never try again. Neil could help him in Kansas, surely. “You’ve done fine until now, and as you’ve said, reading won’t affect running a homestead much. Plus Neil and Patricia will be nearby, they could—”

“No, I need to write better.”

“But again, Neil and—”

“They can’t write what I need written.” He jabbed her pen into one of her equations, poking a hole through the paper.

“Sure they can. You could always ask them how to spell things if you want to write in your own hand.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. With his eyes fixed on the pen and paper in front of him, he mumbled something.

“I’m sorry?”

“They can’t help me write to my future bride.”

Her heart froze. “Bride?” she sputtered. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

“I’ve got to be able to write letters she can understand.”

No wonder he’d never given her a second glance. A woman she didn’t know had won him.

Oh! This tutoring had to end. Now.

Lord, get me out of this, please.

“I think perhaps a dictionary would be a wise purchase. Then you could forget these lessons and spend more time with your family and prepare for your trip.” She lowered her eyes. Had this woman sat across from him in church and every community dance for years hoping to catch his eye? Had she dreamed about Dex for more than a decade?

But it didn’t matter what the woman had or had not given up. Dex had chosen her.

“I’ve borrowed Lily’s dictionary, but it doesn’t help if you don’t know how to spell in the first place.” He flicked his hand as if he’d been holding all his confidence in his grasp and flung it away. “Maybe I just have to get over myself. Patricia would probably find the letter
writing thing romantic, but I couldn’t have her write down the personal stuff.”

Personal words and feelings that would never be written to her. What would Dex write the woman he loved? Probably the same things she couldn’t say to him. But it wasn’t her inability to spell that had kept her quiet—a very good thing she’d stayed quiet.

Rachel’s eyes grew warm, but she wouldn’t blink lest she loose a tear over something that had never been hers anyway. “A woman in love would overlook your misspellings or your need for someone’s help.”

He paled. “A woman in love, perhaps, but not a mail-order bride.”

Her lungs squeezed, and her hands sought one another to wring out the tension.

He’d not just chosen another woman. He’d chosen any woman but her.

The silence in the room weighed upon Dex’s shoulders. Rachel’s eyes had turned cloudy, and she’d grown pale though she hadn’t said anything more. Probably because she hadn’t anything nice to say about his mail-order bride decision. Everett and Grant hadn’t either.