The Unexpected Bride (The Brides Book 1) (14 page)

“We need to eat quick-like in order to get up to the service on time.”

She nodded. Reaching for his Bible, Isaac paused a moment, moved his scrap of paper back into position, and looked at her, a question in his dark brown eyes.

Her heart fluttered. “Would you like milk in your coffee?” she asked quickly to distract him, even though she knew he liked it black. She wasn’t sure, but based on how her father felt about his Bible, she didn’t want Isaac to know she’d been reading his every morning.

“No, thanks.” He closed his Bible and rubbed a loving hand over the worn leather binding.

They ate their meal in silence. As Becky washed the dishes, Isaac helped dry them with a kitchen towel. Sharing the simple task with the man at her side gave Becky a warm feeling of belonging she hadn’t felt in years, maybe not since Jack had left for the war. Holding the feeling close, she excused herself and ran to her room to replace her hooped crinoline for a trio of ruffled cotton petticoats. The effect wasn’t nearly as dramatic without the crinoline, but she could hardly ride a horse in the stiff monstrosity. She exchanged her slippers for a pair of practical half boots, tied her bonnet tightly under her chin, and buttoned up her warm, navy-blue wool cape.

With a flutter of excitement in her stomach, she hurried back to the main room to join Isaac for their trip to the logging camp.

FOURTEEN

I
saac watched with growing concern as Rebecca sat her mount beside him. The mare was too spirited by half, but Rebecca had told him she rode sidesaddle, and this mare had been the only sidesaddle-trained mount available. A more placid horse would have suited her better, he felt, but he hadn’t had any other options. At least Rebecca seemed to like Siren well enough. In fact, she’d seemed quite touched that he’d bought her a horse. Unfortunately, she didn’t appear entirely comfortable riding. That was too bad. He would have liked to take her riding through the mountain paths. Maybe he could teach her to ride astride? She’d likely be shocked if he mentioned the idea, he was sure, but her balance would improve greatly.

That is, if she stayed here much longer.

Lord
, he prayed,
what direction do you want me to go here? I feel so confused. Do you want me to keep Rebecca here and make her my wife in truth?
His stomach did that funny little knotting thing at the idea.
Or should I ask her if she wants to return to Massachusetts to mend things with this Jack fellow?

It was a terrible thought, one that filled him with dread.

You’re a coward
, Isaac told himself with a deep sigh. He couldn’t even bring up the subject of Jack with the woman. He should ask her to tell him more about the man and why she’d come here instead of staying with him. Had the man died in the war? She hadn’t spoken of him in the past tense, but sometimes people slipped and spoke of the dead as if they were still living. He remembered doing that after his own mother had died. Glancing over at Rebecca concentrating so hard to keep upright in the saddle, he couldn’t bring himself to say the words:
Tell me about Jack
. Just thinking of saying it aloud gave him a serious case of heartburn.

His attention turned to the trail. They’d be at the logging camp soon. What would she think of it?

Why did he care?

He tried to picture the camp in his mind, tried to see it through a woman’s eyes. A city woman’s eyes. Logging was his life. He’d poured drops of his own blood into this soil, trying to build a successful business. He had a ways to go yet, but his dream was taking shape before him every day. Though his peers scorned his tactics, he refused to clear huge swaths of trees, preferring to thin out small areas and then moving on to the next. This made the work longer and less profitable, but left the mountain’s beauty more or less intact.

His investments in the mills down in Teekalet were likely to reap benefits in the not-too-distant future. He liked to think things were going well enough. He straightened a little in his saddle.

It didn’t matter what Rebecca thought. Sure, it would be nice to see her face light up with admiration at what he’d accomplished, but in the end it only mattered what he thought, and not anyone else. At least that was what he told himself.

***

As they broke through the stand of thick, tall trees into a clearing, Becky brought Siren to a halt and stared around at what looked to be a neighborhood of tents and several long rectangular log cabins, set amid huge tree stumps, impressive in their own right. Some of the trunks looked wide enough to be the floor of an entire house, or a good-sized room at least. It was really quite amazing to see. She never would have imagined such a thing.

Isaac reined his horse in and looked back at her. He was staring at her so intently, as if he expected some response from her.

“It’s quite a place.” This didn’t seem to be exactly what he wanted to hear, but he gave a slight smile, and jerked his head toward the largest log cabin.

“Worship is over there in the cookhouse.” He kicked his horse into a slow walk over to the building. After dismounting and tethering his bay to a post, he tethered Siren too and turned to help Becky down. She couldn’t seem to find her balance sitting today in the awkward sidesaddle position, especially with her skirt and voluminous petticoats bunched up under her. So it was a relief to have her feet planted firmly on the ground. She enjoyed the brief sensation of being in Isaac’s arms before he released her and turned to open the cookhouse door.

Inside proved to be a long spare room with two columns of simple wood-plank tables and benches. The windows along each wall helped illuminate the room with bright spring sunshine, but the air seemed old and thin, possibly due to the number of loggers already packed onto the benches. They all seemed to turn as one man, gawking at her with unabashed curiosity. There wasn’t another woman in the building, but then she remembered Mrs. Pearson saying as much.

Becky felt much like a rare beetle on a pin being twirled about for a group of entomologists. Except the entomologists in this instance were big burly men with suspenders and beards. They also looked a little hungry, as if they hadn’t had breakfast yet. Either that or they were interested in her as a woman. She edged closer to Isaac, felt his hand at the small of her back, warming her in a way, as if he’d claimed her. That alone gave confidence to her faltering steps. Her chin lifted higher, and her lips relaxed into a more natural smile.

Isaac led her past the staring eyes to the other end of the room near a makeshift podium. She sat on the bench next to Sam, who grinned widely at her.

“Glad to see you, gal. Son.” He nodded first to Becky then to Isaac.

“Pop.” Isaac nodded back and took his place next to Becky, his big black leather Bible balanced on his knees.

“Good morning, Sam,” Becky greeted her father-in-law, admiring his slicked-back white hair, tied at his neck with a leather cord as usual, but seemingly with greater care today. His silvery-blue eyes scanned hers for an instant, leaving her feeling slightly exposed again, but in a different way, for his eyes were kind and his half grin contagious. She smiled.

“My son been treating you right, gal?” He whispered loudly enough for Isaac to hear, and his son scowled at him.

Becky noticed how Isaac shot a quick glance at her as though waiting for her reply.

“Just fine, Sam. Thank you.” She couldn’t very well tell him she hardly ever saw her new husband. Couldn’t tell him Isaac slept in the other room. How could she? It would be nice to open up about the state of her life and marriage with someone. Another woman preferably—ideally her mother—but Sam actually looked like the sort of person you could say such a thing to and not get an offended reaction. Just not now, of course.

Becky glanced down at her white-gloved hands and loosened her grip on her reticule when she noticed how tightly she was grasping the bag.

“Preacher here yet?” Isaac leaned forward to address his father.

“Saw him out and about trying to rustle up a few more pew warmers.”

“Pew warmers?” Becky couldn’t resist a little chuckle at his description.

“Well, if you have to drag ’em here they’re not doing much more than warming the bench, I say.”

“Now, Pop,” Isaac protested, “some folks just need a little more encouragement.”

“I reckon.”

Their exchange was interrupted when a man shuffled up front with a stiff, sort of running gait Becky was coming to associate with the loggers who took the logs down the Skid Road to the mill. She sometimes saw them in the distance while she was hunting. This man’s face stirred up a blurry memory of her wedding day, and she recognized him as the preacher who’d performed the ceremony.

He conducted a brief lesson, complete with a solemn communion, led them in some hearty, somewhat rowdy hymns, and then called on Isaac to read a scripture.

Becky watched with interest as Isaac stood and strode to the podium to replace the logger-preacher. He opened up his unwieldy Bible, found his place, then read with a forceful voice, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else... He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.” He stared out across the room of attentive faces. His eyes seemed to bore into each man.

Silence stilled the room. Not a logger coughed. No one wiggled or even scratched.

He continued in a softer voice, “God did this so that men would seek him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’” His words reverberated in the quiet of the room.

Becky desperately tried to remember each word. It wasn’t the passage she’d expected him to read. Though she felt certain the message could change her very life, she wasn’t able to grasp it at that moment.

Isaac’s face split into a wide smile, and the whole room seemed to take a breath as he returned to his seat. The preacher took his place at the podium to thank Isaac and to close the service with another round of energetic singing and a prayer.

Meanwhile, Becky’s gaze slipped again and again to Isaac’s profile, assessing him anew. She felt the respect his men had for him. A sense of wifely pride filled her. Her first impressions of him being a good man took on renewed weight.

After the last song, the men hanging near the door deserted the room rather quickly, but the others milled around talking and laughing. Becky felt odd to be the only woman in the room, so she kept to Isaac’s side, waiting for his cue as to what they would do next.

He turned to his father. “I wanted to thank you properly for the game, Pop.”

Becky’s stomach clenched. She darted a quick glance at Sam’s rather bemused face. “Yes, thank you, Sam.” She pleaded silently with her eyes for her father-in-law to play along with her.

“It was nothing.” His cryptic reply didn’t give her secret away and seemed to satisfy Isaac for the moment for he looked away, as if searching for someone. Sam’s brows lifted slightly at her, his eyes curious, and Becky sensed he’d return to the subject the first chance he got.

“Brody, there you are.” Isaac’s greeting served to turn Sam’s attention from Becky to the burly red-haired man charging toward them, and she felt a momentary sense of relief.

“Well, if it ain’t the lovebirds.” The loud booming voice was unmistakable. She immediately placed him as the man who’d inadvertently revealed Isaac’s reason for marrying her in the first place.

Becky’s memories of that moment drained the joy from the worship service and replaced it with sober reality. Isaac had married her out of a sense of duty to his father. She was nothing more to him than an obligation.

“Been seeing too much of you lately, Jessup, working like a man possessed. Ain’t tired of your new wife already are you?” Brody laughed.

Becky saw Isaac’s strained smile, and it hurt her, as if he’d come right out and said he didn’t want her. His actions had said as much when he’d left the marriage bed after one night. The air seemed suddenly staler, the press of bodies stifling. The room rocked and swayed like an all-too-familiar ship cabin. Becky had to get outside and see the sun—breathe in some crisp mountain air.

“Would you excuse me a moment, gentlemen? It’s rather warm in here.” She forced a smile at the men, not focusing on their faces, but casting the comment out as she pushed through a cluster of loggers and made her way to the door. Without looking back to gauge Isaac’s reaction, she stumbled through the door into the blessedly cool, shady air of the pines.

Breathing deeply settled her nerves a bit, but her heart still ached from thinking of her troubled marriage. There didn’t seem to be another course except the one she’d set for herself over the past couple of weeks: Be the perfect lady for Isaac. Help out in whatever ways she could.