Montana Wife (Historical) (15 page)

Daniel. Sitting so straight and substantial on the seat, despite the rain falling with a winter's cold. His hat brim hid his face. Betsy was right. He was a fine-looking man. Would love grow between them in time?

She didn't know how it could. Maybe her life would stay like this cold, wet season, barren and grim.

“Ma! You won't believe it!” Kirk hollered from the front seat, hopping down before the wagon was fully halted. “I got one hundred on my exam! The best in my class.”

“I knew you could do it.”

She longed for the days when she could pull Kirk close, but those days were gone, too. Her baby, her first-born, was almost a man now. He walked with a wide stand, talked with a deeper voice, but there was enough of a boy that he forgot to stomp the wetness off his shoes.

He charged into the house shouting, “I smell cinnamon rolls!”

Daniel held up a hand for Hans, but the boy ignored him and hopped the last step to the ground. Big eyes wary as he gazed up at the man in his father's place.

“Ma.” Somber, her littlest came to her side and filled his fist with her apron. “That man is still here.”

“That's Daniel.” Not at all sure how to begin to explain things, Rayna knelt, taking her apron ruffle from her son's tight grip. “Did you have a good day at school?”

“No. Can I have a cimma-non roll, too?”

“Yes. Go on in.”

With one backward glance at the man securing the horses, Hans took off for the front door and slammed it hard behind him.

It was just the two of them, her and Daniel, with the cold rain falling between them. “Would you like to come in? I have plenty of cinnamon rolls.”

“I want to get one more haystack moved before supper.” Daniel knocked the rain from his brim. “But I wouldn't mind another of those rolls. They sure are tasty, Rayna.”

“I'm glad you like them. Did you want me to wrap them for you?”

“That'd be best. I'll just drip all over your floor, and your little one isn't too sure about me.” Daniel moseyed up the steps. He seemed to accept Hans's reticence
handily enough. “Is there anything I can do for you before I go?”

“I'm planning dinner early tonight, if you don't mind. If you'd rather, I can leave a plate for you in the warmer, if you don't want to interrupt your hauling. But I need to get to town early.”

“For?”

“My job. Three nights a week, remember? Tonight I'm doing laundry, and I need a head start so I can finish up before dawn.”

Daniel swept off his hat and the cool wind ruffled his hair. Maybe that could startle his brain into thinking. He couldn't have heard her right. “You're keeping that job?”

“If you don't mind. I'm as much to blame for the debts, because they're everywhere. The feed store, the mercantile, the grocery, the butcher. Even the dress shop. I want to do my part.”

“I'm surprised, is all. Like you said, two working together makes a load lighter.”

“Good. Then I'll go fetch those rolls for you.” She hurried off, closing the door, leaving him alone as hail started to fall. Hard, icy bits that felt like his old life breaking apart and falling way.

Some of the ice inside him, too. Maybe that's what came of living like this, caring about people. Wanting them to care about you. He liked the way Rayna looked at him when she returned a few moments later with a small pail, lid on tight to keep out the weather.

She looked up at him, as if he was something to her. He didn't feel the bite of the wind or the ice of the hail as he rode off, knowing she was watching.

And feeling glad that she'd be waiting for him to return.

 

“Ma.” Hans tugged once at her apron. “That man is here again.”

“You can call him Daniel.” She checked the corn boiling in the kettle. A few more minutes. After peeking in at the potatoes roasting in their skins, she saw the stew was bubbling and fragrant. Everything was on schedule.

She whirled toward the sideboard, looking to sidestep her son, but he was climbing onto the window seat, staring out at the cloaked figures in the barnyard. Kirk and Daniel, working fast to get the last of the hay stacked and shaped so it would shield the weather.

“How come he's doin' that?”

“So the horses have something to eat for breakfast. His horses are our horses now.”

“No. We oughta go get our horses from town.”

“Can't do that, baby.” She gathered flatware from the drawer. “Daniel is going to stay with us and share his horses with us. Like the table.”

“No.” Hans said nothing more, his little shoulders tensed tight, his hands white-knuckled fists on the sill.

She didn't push him. Lord knew he'd been through enough already. He would understand in time. Perhaps when he was ready. She set the table, popped a fresh pan of rolls into the warmer to heat, and poured fresh milk into the glasses. She'd never felt so grateful for the necessities in her life. Milk for her sons. A table to eat at. This kitchen full of sweet memories.

She had supper on the table when Kirk came to the door. He said to dish up a plate for Daniel and leave it. After she did so, they all sat down to eat. The space at his table—the same spot where Kol sat—remained empty.

Daniel was a hardworking man, the hardest worker she'd ever seen. Hours later, while she soaped sheet after sheet on a worn washboard in the lonely corner of the boardinghouse kitchen, she would bet that Daniel had brought over a third haystack after he'd driven her to work. He was probably in the damp night air, fog shrouding him as he pitched forkload after forkload of hay.

As the hours passed, she wondered if he was asleep yet in the modest upstairs bed. Sleeping beneath the old spare blanket she'd used as a cover. She didn't know how to ask him if he planned to ask more of her than to sleep.

She still didn't know hours later when the sheets were clipped up to dry in the boiler room and she'd mopped up the wash tubs, stored them and scrubbed the floor where she'd worked. That he was on time didn't surprise her. She knew he was out there in the fog before he came into sight abruptly, the mist breaking apart.

A day's growth blackened his jaw and his hair was tousled, what she could see of it beneath his hat brim. He said nothing on the eerie drive home, the fog as thick as the stew she'd prepared for supper. The prairie slept, obscured by fog and dark. Not even an owl hooted. She noticed the rifle against the seat, held in place by Daniel's knee, but didn't ask about it.

He let her off by the back gate. The walk to the kitchen wasn't far, although she was freezing by the time she arrived. Cold from the inside out. Heat welcomed her. Daniel had made the fire before he'd left. He was a thoughtful man. She held her hands out, letting them warm. Did she wait for him? Or would it be better to go up and be first in bed?

The door was opening, stopping her debate, and there
was Daniel, shrugging out of his overcoat. He wore his long johns, the dark gray fabric clinging to him everywhere. She could not look away. He was mesmerizing. The hard planes of his chest and abdomen, the lean strength of his long legs and in between, a sizable bulge that hinted he was no small man in any sense of the word.

Betsy's prediction haunted her and she looked away blushing.
He's that strong, silent type of man. It's the quiet ones that make the best lovers.
It was wrong to even think of another man in that way. Or was it? The man stalking toward her was her husband. The brush of his hand against her cheek, pushing the hair from her eyes, was rough and awkward and tender all at the same time. It was the tenderness in his touch that made the void in her chest, where her heart used to be, bleed.

She could take anything but Daniel's tenderness.

“You're tired, pretty lady.” Affection, naked and honest, made his baritone rough. “Come, let me put you to bed.”

“To sleep?”

If he was disappointed, he didn't show it. Stoic, as yielding as granite, he led her upstairs, his hand at her elbow, and opened the door to her room. Their room.

He stopped at the doorway. “Sleep well. I'll get the boys ready for school if you need to sleep late.”

“That's my responsibility.”

“You look as though you haven't slept much at all since the funeral. Sleep. I'm here. You're not alone.” His kiss to her brow was chaste. Gentlemanly.

Why, then, did her pulse thud wildly in her ears? Why did she long to lean against his chest? His words had touched her, found her weakest spot. She was alone. She would always be desperately alone. This was not a mar
riage. It was an arrangement. And it could never be much more.

Love happened in time, Mariah said, but Rayna didn't believe it. Her time for that had passed, turning like a season from the bright summer to the cold shroud of fall, a season of despair.

She sat at the window a long while, watching the last of the leaves fall before climbing into her bed. Sleep did not come.

“M
a. That man's here.” Hans hopped down from the window seat. “It's been days and days and he's
still
here.”

“I know. Remember I told you? Daniel is going to be staying with us from now on.”

“No he isn't.”

Rayna covered the warm muffins with a cloth and set the basket on the breakfast table and considered her son. He'd woken before dawn from terrible nightmares each night since the wedding. She could hear his voice in memory calling out in fear for her and for his papa.

Wishing she could take the pain from him, she knelt to draw him into her arms. Exhausted and heartbroken, he pushed away to stare hard at the back door.

He needed to handle his father's loss in his own way. She felt so helpless. She didn't know how to help him.

In the meanwhile, the eggs were sizzling, the sausage patties needed turning, and the coffee was ready to burn. She turned to the immediate needs of preparing their morning meal. Cooking breakfast was something she could take care of without a problem. But Hans…she was too exhausted to see any easy explanation.

Boots rang on the porch and snow blew in with Daniel. He handed over the pail of fresh milk and she set it aside, to be strained later. The meal was ready. She poured Daniel a cup of coffee first, for he looked as if he'd gotten little sleep, too. Snowflakes clung to his dark hair as he folded his big frame into the chair by the fire.

“That's just what I need. Thank you, Rayna.”

“You're welcome.” The sausages were getting a little too brown—she snatched up her spatula and rescued them from the popping grease.

“That's where my papa sits.” Hans's voice, low with anger.

Rayna moved, but not fast enough. The little boy had launched toward Daniel's chest and was hitting him with all the fury of his little fists. “Get out! Out. I want my papa!”

The look on Daniel's face— Rayna scooped her little boy, grown so big and heavy, into her arms. Held him as he kicked and punched at the air.

Sobs racked him from head to toe and she sank into the closest chair, the one Daniel had vacated. It was his hands guiding her down, his movements at the stove saving their breakfast from crisping.

He set a cup of coffee beside her, filled two plates and left the room.

Hans's cries had changed to sobs. Her poor baby boy. She held him tight, humming the melodies she'd sung him to sleep with long ago, waiting for him to quiet.

Kirk came to grab his muffler from the wall pegs by the back door. He looked exhausted, too.

“Daniel's going to let me ride his gelding to school, if that's all right, since he's not going.” Misery settled on Kirk's face. He laid a hand on Hans's back.

Rayna understood, for it was the same misery she felt. “I have your lunch ready on the counter.”

Kirk nodded, ruffled his little brother's fine hair with affection and left, only to return to grab his lunch. Then he was gone, the door slamming shut.

Rayna couldn't get warm. Daniel came in to stoke the fire. Hans stiffened, tension coiling in his muscles, and he buried his face against her throat and held on with all his might.

“Is there anything I can do?” Daniel knelt. What a steady, good man he was. His touch to her arm was welcome.

She didn't know what he was thinking. She couldn't guess what he would do next. Would she ever? But his goodness surprised her as he brushed the palm of his big hand against Hans's head.

The tenderness etched into his face was genuine.

Of all the men who could have made this same offer to her, there couldn't have been a better one. Not just to work the ranch and to step into a man's duties around this place.

But who better to know a child's worth than one who'd never been valued.

She could see that, too, in his dark eyes, shadowed with a strange longing. The man who'd kept himself separate from others, a true loner, so much so that his neighbors hardly knew him by name, had dreams, too.

“Do you need me to stay?” he asked, his gaze searching hers, and she swore she could feel the impact deep within her.

“No, he's calming. I just need to hold him.”

Daniel rose, greater for his kindness as he rubbed something from her cheek. A teardrop marked the pad
of his thumb. “Let me know if you ever need someone to hold you.”

She didn't ask and the seconds beat between them before he turned. His boots thudded on the floor and the hinges squeaked. Then he was gone for town with a click of the door, taking a part of her broken heart.

 

There it was again. The itch at the back of his neck that had Daniel's senses on alert and had been troubling him on and off. When he looked up to wipe the sweat from his eyes, he saw why.

Clay Dayton's fine team—Rayna's former driving horses—were tied up in the far corner of the yard, near to the office door.

That lowlife. Hatred for the man churned in his guts and if it weren't for the job he had to keep, he would hunt Dayton down and make it clear. Rayna was his. The land was his. The old man needed to stay far away or he'd be sorry.

In Daniel's view, a man did what he had to in order to protect his family. Last time, he'd dragged the man out of the barn and thrown him on his horse. He'd had to hold himself back from doing more.

He wouldn't next time. One thing he intended to do was to keep his wife safe. He went back to work, but the back of his neck kept feeling itchy. It was as if Dayton was keeping an eye on him from inside the building. The windows made it impossible to see in, but Daniel kept vigilant.

He didn't know much about Clay Dayton. Only that he had a wife and a large, extended family. And that it was rumored he owned more land than anyone else in the county. How he got that land, by hook or by crook, was up to debate. Either way, Daniel figured that Dayton
was none too happy losing out on getting his hands on the Ludgrin property. And on the Ludgrin widow.

Yeah, he pretty much despised the man. He knew the exact moment when the office door opened and Dayton strolled into sight. He wore a fine black suit as if it was Sunday, acting so fine when he'd have violated Rayna if he hadn't come along.

Daniel sunk his shovel deep into the coal pile and from the top of the rail car sized up his enemy. Dayton glowered at him across the distance and there was no mistaking the look of hatred in the man's eyes. And something else. A glitter of warning that had Daniel wishing he could take care of Dayton here and now.

Later. Daniel vowed to choose the place and the time. He glared right back at the man who climbed into the fine buggy as if there were no better man in the county.

All Daniel could think about was his lovely wife, her precious children and how he would give his life to keep them safe.

 

Rayna turned the gelding off Main Street, slipping a little because she just couldn't get used to the blasted sidesaddle. She steadied herself, nearly dropping the bundle of mending she'd done for Betsy, when she saw him. Clay Dayton watching her from the benches near the bank building.

She set her chin and met his glare before he disappeared from her sight. But not from her mind. She'd worried about meeting up with him on the road alone. Daniel, if he knew she'd come to town by herself, would not be pleased. But this was business—she had promised Betsy she'd bring the clothes by before she left on her afternoon deliveries.

So she was stunned when Mariah opened Betsy's kitchen door. Her eyes were shining. “Surprise!”

“What are you doing here?” Rayna stepped through the threshold to see Betsy and their new neighbor Katelyn Hennessey at the kitchen table, slicing up some very delicious-looking desserts. “I smell apple pie!”

“Guilty!” Katelyn admitted with the pie cutter gripped firmly. “Congratulations on your marriage, Rayna. There's nothing as nice as being a new bride. A doting husband, everything is so exciting and, oh, just lovely.”

“It sounds as if Katelyn has found the secret to a good marriage.” Betsy winked as she passed silverware around the table. “The trick is to never let the honeymoon be over.”

“Life gets in the way,” Mariah argued, glancing over to check on her little boy toddling around the kitchen, hand outstretched after their gray house cat, who kept one step ahead of that grasping hand. “But an enterprising wife can find a way to make time for what's important.”

“And that is important.” Katelyn blushed again. “Especially to a marriage made for convenience's sake. It's a…well…a way of bonding.”

“Well said!” Mariah didn't seem the least bit bashful about the subject of marital relations as she shut the door and led the way to the table. “My marriage was for convenience, so Nick and I were friends first, before we became lovers. I imagine that's what Rayna is struggling to do. Just to get to know this man she married. He's a stranger to all of us.”

“He certainly keeps to himself,” Katelyn agreed as she began filling dessert plates with the rich cinnamony
apple treat. “Dillon knows him, though, and speaks of him highly. He says it's a fine man you married, Rayna.”

“He certainly is that.” His patience, his hard work, his care. She could still picture him kneeling before her as she'd held Hans and offering to hold her if she needed it. If she needed comfort from her pain.

“Daniel is a good husband, but we are still getting to know one another.”

“Still?” Betsy looked crestfallen.

“Give her and Daniel time to come to know one another first.” Mariah pretended to scold. “So, you and Daniel are getting to know one another, right?”

“We have a companionable arrangement.”

“What does that mean?” Katelyn looked confused as she put the pie cutter in the wash basin.

“It means—” Betsy waved her fork in midair “—that they are not quite consummated. Right, Rayna?”

“I'm not going to dignify that with an answer.”

“See? She's blushing. It's true. I bet by this time next week, she'll be humming a different tune.”

Rayna took a bite of pie, hoping to distract Betsy. “Katelyn, this is excellent. I would love your rule.”

“I'll be happy to write it down.” Katelyn's eyes twinkled. “I bet your Daniel looks at you like you were a piece of this pie and he was the hungriest man in the world.”

“I give up!” Rayna tossed down her fork and covered her face with her hands. These women were apparently having a lot of fun at her expense. “I'm not in love with Daniel. This is a practical arrangement.”

“You know what's
practical?
” Mariah rose to top off the coffee cups. “Sharing body heat to keep warm
through the night. It's a good idea. You should invite him to your room.”

“And if any snuggling is involved, then that's just another way to keep from getting frostbite,” Katelyn said, stirring sugar into her cup as if she hadn't said anything outrageous. “True love deepens with time. It certainly did for me. I'm just very hopeful that Rayna and Daniel will have a happy marriage.”

“We've all been married.” Betsy turned serious and reached for Rayna's hand. “We know how important that is.”

Mariah had slipped into the pantry and quietly returned with a ribbon wrapped around the folded square of a wooden frame. A quilt frame.

“We knew you needed a new one.” Betsy's grip squeezed, conveying all the love and friendship of a lifetime. “This way you can work on your new quilt at home, instead of having to borrow Mariah's.”

“Oh.” It was too expensive. It was too lavish. It was…just right.

“This is from all of us, to wish you a happy marriage,” Mariah explained as she set the gift into the seat of an empty chair. “In time, I hope you will find great love with your Daniel.”

In time? She doubted she could love again if she had her entire life to recover from her loss. She thought of the past nights, coming home from the boardinghouse in the freezing cold. How Daniel was there waiting for her at three o'clock sharp in town. How tired and cold he must be, but he never seemed to mind. Not when he would drop her off at the door and head off to the barn to put up the team.

Not when he made up his bed on the sofa, shivering with cold, to crawl beneath the pile of blankets alone.

Marital relations. She couldn't deny she longed to have said yes this morning. To lean against his chest and to let his comfort sift over her like powdered snow.

He was her husband. She wore his ring. But what if her heart remained lost? As frozen as the Montana prairie in midwinter?

 

Daniel saw her coming through the stubborn snowfall, the lunch hamper hung over her good arm. It heartened him to see her bundled well against the cold. He had to keep his attention on the plow. Every time he glanced up to check her progress across the acres of upturned earth, crowned with snow, the plow went off course and he had a crooked row to show for it.

There she was, wearing a hooded woolen cloak that draped around her face and gold curls and made her so dang beautiful it made his chest hurt just to look at her.

He halted the horses, lathered and panting. “How's your little fella?”

“Finally asleep.” She looked tortured as she bit her bottom lip, as if thinking. Or debating what to share with him. She must have come to a decision because she kept on talking. “Maybe it was too much for him to have returned to school yesterday, but he wanted to go. He seemed to be doing better, and there was no reason not to send him.”

“You did right. It'll take a long time. A papa is a lot to lose for a little boy.”

“It was everything.”

For her, too. He could see it. He didn't know much about what bonded a man and a woman together, but spending time with her, he had some notion.

“I can't leave the team standing for long.” He snapped the reins and the Clydesdales dug in, pulling
the heavy plow like a spear through the thick, rich earth. “Walk with me.”