The Convenient Mail Order Bride (18 page)

“I’ll tell you what to do,” he replied. “You
have to be careful with these things. One wrong move could leave
you with a broken finger or thumb.”

She snickered. “You’re trying to scare
me.”

“No, I’m not.” He picked up the trap. “This
is the free jaw.” He lifted one of the jaws and moved it back and
forth. “It’s the part that catches the animal and holds it in
place. The other jaw is fixed.” He pointed to the other one. “It
doesn’t move. This is how you set the trap.”

She watched as he snapped the free jaw in
place. Then, making sure his fingers weren’t in the way, he
released the trap. She jumped when it snapped shut.

“That’s why you have to be careful,” he
said. “If you make the wrong move, you could hurt yourself. Think
you got the idea, or should I show you again?”

“I think I can do it.” She took it from him
and repeated the process, surprised it was as easy as it looked.
Once she set it in the hole, she couldn’t resist teasing him. “At
what point am I supposed to get squeamish and run for the next
stagecoach?”

As she’d hoped, the corner of his lip turned
up. He, however, forced the stern expression back on his face.
“Just wait until you have to get the animal out and skin it. That’s
when things get tough.” He nodded toward the pile of dirt and
leaves. “Go on and hide the trap.”

She proceeded to do so, taking care to keep
the trap set. When she was done, she got up and gathered the
blanket and trowel. “Are you going to teach me how to shoot a
gun?”

“I said I would, and I will.”

“Good. I wouldn’t want you to wiggle your
way out of our deal.”

“I stay true to my word. I do not practice
the ways of the white man.”

“Well, I’m going to show you a white woman
can, and will, keep her word. You’ll be surprised, Abe. I just know
it.”

“I can tell you’re determined, but there’s a
difference between being determined and being able to do the
work.”

“That’s why you’ll be surprised. You’re
going to learn you can’t put limits on me.”

“Were you this stubborn in Ohio?”

“No, but then I didn’t need to be. As you
pointed out, life out here will be hard. In order to stay, I have
to be willing to do whatever it takes to survive. I’m not afraid of
doing any of it. I just need to learn what I need to do.”

She caught the spark of respect in his eyes
but chose not to comment. Even if Abe didn’t say it, she sensed he
was glad she was as determined as she was to stick around. He
hadn’t protested all that hard when she moved into his bedroom, and
those curtains were still hanging up. If he really didn’t want her
there, he would have protested harder.

Nope. She suspected the truth was, he was
hoping she would prove him wrong. And she would. The only question
was, how long was it going to take for her to do it.

Chapter Seventeen

A
fter a light lunch, Abe took Phoebe to the barn and handed her
a revolver. Phoebe frowned as she turned the gun over in her
hands.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, checking to make
sure there were enough bullets in the sack.

“I thought it’d be bigger,” she said. She
gestured to the gun rack on the wall. “Like that one.”

His gaze went to the rifle before he looked
back at her. “It’s not the size of the gun that matters. It’s how
well you handle what you got.”

She didn’t seem all that pleased with what
he said but continued to examine it.

“It’ll be better for you to learn on a
smaller gun,” he assured her. “When you first shoot, you’ll
probably jerk back a little. Better to do that with the Colt than a
rifle.”

“But I thought you didn’t want to make
things easy for me,” she said.

He wouldn’t have laughed, except her
eyebrows were raised in a challenge. Once he managed to settle the
urge to chuckle, he told her, “It’s a matter of convenience. If you
wish to start with the larger gun, by all means, do so.”

She drummed her fingers on the gun, and he
could tell she was weighing the pros and cons of getting the rifle.
In the end, good sense won out when she said, “Alright. I’ll use
this one. I might be eager to learn, but I don’t want to be foolish
about it.”

“When you realize those things aren’t as
easy as they look, you’ll be glad you started small.”

From there, he led her out of the barn and
down a ways from the cabin where he had set up targets. He put up a
couple of bottles along the posts of an old fence his uncle had set
up.

He went back over to her. “Don’t expect to
hit your target on the first try. You have six shots until you need
more bullets, so you might as well start practicing. But first, you
need to know how to stand. Spread your feet apart like this.”

He demonstrated by setting his feet about
twelve inches apart.

“Do they have to be exactly that far apart?”
she asked.

“As far apart as you’re comfortable with. I
don’t think this,” he spread his legs as far apart as they would
go, “would be comfortable.” Noting her laughter, he added, “And you
might even fall.” He got back into a comfortable stance. “Just
whatever’s comfortable is fine.”

“Alright.” She spread her legs apart, her
long skirt swirling around her boots. “Do I start shooting?”

“Not yet. Hold onto the gun with both hands,
and lift it up so it’s about eye level. Keep your arms and wrists
firm. There’s going to be a kickback when you fire, so keeping your
arms and wrists firm will help buffer you from it,” he added,
figuring she’d want to know why. She was, after all, curious by
nature.

She glanced his way.

It took him a moment to understand she was
asking if there was anything else she needed to know before she
started shooting. “Shoot whenever you’re ready,” he said.

With a nod, she turned her
focus back to the bottle directly in front of her. She took a deep
breath then released it. He expected her to fire the gun, but she
hesitated. He hid his smile. She was so intent on doing a good job
on her first try. Yep, she was a lot like his uncle. His uncle
would have liked her.
She might be white,
but she has the heart of a Cherokee,
his
uncle would have said.

Abe forced the thought aside. He couldn’t be
distracted. She’d asked him to teach her how to shoot a gun, and
since she’d graciously set the trap that morning, he would fulfill
his part of the deal.

She finally pulled the trigger. As he’d
expected, she missed the bottle. What he hadn’t expected, however,
was the fact that she let out a surprised shriek.

She rubbed her wrists and shook her arms. “I
didn’t think that’d happen. Does the gun always push back when you
shoot?”

“What did you think I meant when I told you
there would be a kickback?”

After a moment, she shrugged. “I’d never
heard the term before, so I didn’t know. I figured I’d experience
it for myself when the time came.”

“Well, you did experience it.”

She blinked, as if she didn’t expect his
answer. Then she laughed. “Yes, I suppose I did. Is there anything
else I should expect?”

“I think that’s it, but if you actually hit
one of those bottles today, I’ll be shocked.”

“How long will you let me try?”

“Until you’re bored or until your ma rings
the dinner bell. One thing we’ll be doing, though, is filling the
chamber of that gun with more bullets. A shooting match does you no
good if you can’t load up an empty gun.”

She gasped, her eyes growing wide. “You have
gunfights out here?”

“This is the West. Anything goes. It’s why
I’m pushing so hard for you to get out of here. Find a good,
civilized place and live a peaceful life.”

For a brief moment, he thought his warning
was finally getting through to her. But then that spark flashed in
her eyes and she straightened her posture, as if daring anyone to
come right out of the trees and start shooting her right here on
the spot.

“I can do it,” she said. “A woman can fire a
gun just as well as a man can, and I’ll be one of the best shots in
this territory.”

Then, without another word, she positioned
herself as he’d taught and fired off five bullets back to back. She
didn’t hit any of the bottles, but maybe that hadn’t been her
point. Her point might just have been to show him she was going to
keep shooting as long as she had bullets left.

She turned to him and gestured to his bag.
“Are you going to show me how to load the gun?”

Even if he found her actions a bit hasty, he
couldn’t help but admire her willpower. Yes, his uncle would have
loved having her out here. He’d probably even lock her and Abe in
the bedroom until Abe got the consummation of their marriage over
with. But since his uncle wasn’t here, there was no threat of that
happening.

Though, would it really be so bad? Just get
it over with and enjoy the feel of her soft body against him?
Experience the joy of a kiss? Get to share a moment with her he’d
never share with anyone else?

Snapping out of his thoughts, he opened the
sack. He’d be better off tending to the lesson. He took the gun
from her and showed her how to open the chamber and slip in the
bullets. After he was done, he spun the chamber and handed it back
to her.

“Think you can do it next time?” he
asked.

“Sure,” she replied. “It wasn’t all that
complicated.” She took the gun, her fingers brushing his.

He didn’t know whether to be irritated or
excited. Did she do it on purpose? And if she had, would he have
enjoyed it even more?

This time when she fired the gun, she didn’t
rush to fire the next bullet. She furrowed her eyebrows and
concentrated on her aim. She waited for a few seconds, tracing her
lower lip with her tongue, and then pulled the trigger. To his
surprise, the bullet brushed the edge of the bottle, making it
teeter for a moment before it settled back in place.

Phoebe let out a cheer and jumped up and
down. “I did it! I did it!”

Since she was so excited, he didn’t have the
heart to tell her it didn’t count unless she hit the bottle head
on. For a first time with a gun, she did well, and he’d let her
have her victory.

“Can you believe it?” she asked him, her
smile growing wider. “I bet you didn’t think I could do it.”

“Not so soon,” he consented.

“Well, you just wait. I proved you wrong
here, and I’ll prove you wrong when I catch the animal in my
trap.”

“Tapping a bottle and skinning an animal are
two different things.”

“But I’ll do it. You’ll see.”

She turned her attention back to the bottle
and resumed her lesson, and deep down, he couldn’t deny the small
part of him that hoped she was right.

***

“It took me an hour, but I finally got that
bottle off the post,” Phoebe told her mother during their meal that
evening. “I bet Abe didn’t think I’d get it done on my first day,
but I did.”

“To be fair,” Abe interrupted as he buttered
his roll, “you hadn’t shot a gun before. I don’t think your
expectations were any higher than mine.”

She paused and thought over his statement.
He was right. She hadn’t expected to hit the bottle on her first
day of shooting, either. Inspired, she said, “That just goes to
show I’m meant to be here since it came so easy.”

He cocked his eyebrow but didn’t argue with
her.

Her mother looked up from her mashed
potatoes and met her gaze. “Was it scary to shoot a gun?”

“A little,” Phoebe admitted, almost hating
to say it right in front of Abe. “But,” and she hoped Abe would
remember this part, “it got easier the more I did it.”

Her mother nodded. “That’s to be expected, I
suppose. Anything new can be intimidating.” She glanced at Abe and
smiled. “It’s a lot different out here than it was in
Cincinnati.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Abe replied after he
swallowed the roll.

“We checked the trap I set earlier today,”
Phoebe said, deciding it might not be best to let him dwell on how
different things were. Or, at the very least, get him to start
persuading her mother to leave. “So far, the trap is empty, but
maybe there’ll be something there tomorrow. Then I’ll learn how to
get us meat to put in stews or fry up in a skillet.”

Her mother’s eyes widened. “Why, you weren’t
joking when you said you were going to learn how to do everything
Abe does.” She winked at Abe. “I thought she was exaggerating. I
thought maybe she’d learn how to shoot a gun and tend the garden. I
didn’t think catching animals would be a part of it.”

Abe shot Phoebe a pointed look. “There’s
also mucking out stalls, cleaning the horses and cow, gathering
eggs—”

“And repairing the barn roof when there’s a
hole in it,” Phoebe finished for him.