Texas Bride: A Bitter Creek Novel Read online

  “You’re the one who jumped out and untied the tarpaulin.”

  Jake realized he was enjoying the argument. Not the fact that they were arguing, exactly, but matching wits with someone with enough spunk to fight back. He found himself comparing Miranda to Priss, who’d given him his own way in everything. It made for a peaceful household, all right, but with Miranda, he felt the first spark of … excitement … in a very long time. And felt guilty for it.

  Priss loved him, that’s why she hadn’t fought with him. This woman was a stranger, someone he never wanted to love, and who was unlikely ever to love him. No wonder she was so persnickety.

  “What’s your daughter’s name?” she asked.

  Jake was suspicious of the question because Miranda had changed the subject from her brothers to his daughter. He told her anyway. “Anna Mae.”

  “How did your father-in-law get crippled?”

  Another question. But better questions than accusations, so he said, “He was breaking wild mustangs and one fell on him.”

  “Breaking them?”

  “Taming them by riding them till they stop bucking.”

  She stayed silent long enough to imagine what he was talking about, then said, “That sounds dangerous.”

  “It can be.”

  “Do you break horses, too?”

  “When necessary.”

  “What are we supposed to do if you get crippled?” she asked.

  Jake turned and met her concerned gaze. He was taken aback when he looked into her eyes because he had the sensation of falling. He quickly averted his gaze, focusing instead on his horses’ rumps. “This is a hard land. A man does what needs to be done. Sometimes he gets hurt. Sometimes he gets killed. Sometimes the woman in his life gets hurt. Or dies.”

  His throat tightened on the last word. He tried swallowing past the pain, but it hurt too much, so he stopped talking.

  It would have been a silent journey, except the irrepressible boys in back began a conversation with their sister. He listened. And learned.

  His wife turned to check on the boys and said, “Don’t suck your thumb, Harry.”

  “I’m hungry, Miranda,” the runt replied.

  “Will there be something to eat when we get there?” Nick asked.

  “I’ll make sure there’s supper for everyone when we arrive,” his wife promised, eyeing him sideways.

  Did she think he was going to let two little kids go hungry? Fine opinion she had of him. He knew that Slim would have something prepared for supper when they got there, but he wondered what she would have done if there was nothing on the stove. Could she cook? Or sew? Or do any of the things she’d mentioned she could in her letter? Had that all been a lie, too? He would find out soon enough.

  “I’d like a big juicy steak,” Nick said dreamily. “I can’t remember the last time I had a steak.”

  “What’s a steak?” the runt asked.

  “It’s bloody red meat from a cow,” Nick explained to his brother. “It’s been a long time, but I can still remember that it tastes delicious.”

  “I don’t want anything bloody,” the runt said. “I want oatmeal.”

  Jake ignored his wife’s furtive glance in his direction. She must be wondering what he thought about Nick’s revelation. It was obvious they hadn’t been getting steak at the orphanage. It was also clear the Wentworths must have eaten steak at some time before they’d gone there.

  The boys settled down and it was quiet, except for an occasional whimper from the older boy when his wrist got jarred and a sneeze or two from the runt.

  The crickets were beginning to chirp, a herald of the evening, when he asked, “What were you thinking when you decided to bring them along?”

  “I was thinking I might be able to find a better life for my two little brothers. I was thinking they could be a help to you on your ranch.”

  “Bears’ll eat ’em. Snakes’ll bite ’em. Bulls’ll stomp ’em. Horses’ll trample ’em. Cold’ll freeze ’em. Especially the runt.”

  “If it’s so dangerous,” she said in a huff, “why are you living here?”

  “I was born here. I grew up here. This is my home.”

  He watched her chew on a tiny thumbnail for a minute before she asked, “How did your wife die?”

  “In childbirth. I buried her with our stillborn son.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” She hesitated, then said, “So you needed a bride to take care of your daughter?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. That’s about it.”

  “Why didn’t you just marry someone from around here?”

  “That’s a long story.”

  “It’s a long ride.”

  He might as well tell her what she’d gotten herself into. The problem wasn’t going away. “My stepfather wants Three Oaks. He thinks my mother should have inherited it instead of me. He thinks I forged the will.”

  In the silence that followed she asked, “Did you?”

  It was a fair question. It made him mad anyway. “No. Hell, no!”

  “Please watch your—”

  He held up a hand to cut her off. “Fine.” Priss had warned him when Anna Mae was born that he was going to have to watch his language. His daughter had already picked up a few words that he’d rather she didn’t have in her two-year-old vocabulary.

  “What happened to your father?” she asked.

  That was another painful subject but another fair question. “He never came home from the war.”

  “He died?”

  “He was reported killed at the Battle of Gettysburg. My stepfather is a foreigner who caught my mother at a weak moment, right after she’d heard of my father’s death in battle.”

  “A foreigner? From where?”

  “England. He was a gambler, I think, before he met her. Certainly, he took a lot of risks—and won big. There are rumors he was a lord or something in England. But if that was true, why would he have left? That bastard—”

  “Jake, please!”

  He lowered his voice and said, “That bastard has made my life miserable. He’s determined to get my land. I’m just as determined he won’t.”

  “He can’t very well roll it up and steal it, can he?”

  “He can deny me credit for feed and seed in Bitter Creek, the town closest to my ranch, so I have to travel half the day to San Antonio for supplies.”

  “How can he do that?” she asked. “I mean, if your credit is good.”

  Jake smirked. “He owns the store. He owns pretty much everything in town. The saloon, the hotel, the mercantile. He even built the schoolhouse and the town hall. Nobody dares to cross him, because he could ruin them financially and socially and every which way.”

  “Which is why, I presume, you had to send for a mail-order bride from Chicago.”

  “Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, New Orleans. Anywhere away from here,” he said. Funny that he’d ended up with a bride from the city farthest away. It was the damned idea of a woman with blue eyes and blond curls that had caught his fancy. The blue eyes, at least, had met—all right, exceeded—his expectations. He wasn’t so sure about the blond curls, since he hadn’t seen any yet. He forced his thoughts away from her attributes and back to the conversation at hand.

  “My stepfather’s attitude is also why life is harder for anyone living at Three Oaks,” he continued. “There’s no help to be had from anyone. I don’t know how you’re going to take care of three little ones and the old man and do all the chores, too.”

  “I’m very strong,” she said. “And I’m a hard worker. Honestly, you won’t be sorry you let the boys stay.”

  “I haven’t made up my mind yet whether those boys are staying. And I’m already sorry.”

  A voice from the back piped up, “If you ask me, Miranda, he’s another Miss Birch.”

  “You’re not helping, Nick,” she replied.

  “Who’s Miss Birch?” Jake asked.

  “The headmistress at the Chicago Institute for Orphaned Children,” Mir
anda said. “She’s not a nice person.”

  “Humph,” Jake said. He didn’t appreciate the comparison. He was a very nice person, that is, when he wasn’t lied to and deceived. Of course, he’d done his own share of deceiving—and lying by omission—so he didn’t have much room to complain.

  “Give Nick and Harry a chance,” Miranda pleaded. “I know they can be a big help to you.”

  He spotted a golden curl that had escaped from the tight bun at her nape and wondered what her hair would look like if she let it down. He chastised himself for even thinking about such things. That was a can of worms he didn’t want to open.

  “All right,” he said, coming to a decision. “Here’s what we’re going to do. The older boy can share my daughter’s room. I don’t want the runt anywhere near her until that cold is gone. He can sleep in the room with the old man until he’s well.”

  Slim wouldn’t like it, but he could lump it. Jake wasn’t taking any chances with his daughter’s health, and he didn’t have anyplace else to put the runt except his own bed, which he intended to share with no one but his wife.

  “That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”

  She lifted her chin and stared up at him, “Fine. I have a condition of my own.”

  He felt stabbed to the heart by the desolate look in her eyes. It wasn’t all his fault that things were so messed up. “I’m listening,” he said past the knot in his throat.

  “I’m willing to be a mother to your daughter and take care of your father-in-law and cook and clean and do chores. In return, I expect you to treat my brothers with respect, to teach them and care for them as a father would.”

  “That’s a tall order.”

  “That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”

  He didn’t agree right away. Be a father to the kid and the runt? He barely knew how to be a father to his own daughter. Besides, his new wife was in no position to be making demands. Where could she go, what could she do, if he didn’t agree?

  Except, women were so scarce here, that even if she didn’t have such a pretty face, she could probably find a new husband without too much trouble. And he wasn’t about to go through the trouble of finding another wife.

  Sending the boys back to Chicago wasn’t an option. First, he didn’t have the money. He’d spent most of what he had getting his bride here. The woman with the blue eyes and blond curls had demanded first-class tickets, and he’d been afraid she would back out if he sent anything less. It had seemed worth the sacrifice to spend the extra dollars to get the right bride. After all, he was going to spend the rest of his life—or hers—living with her.

  Second, he didn’t have anyone he could send on the trip with the boys. He’d spent too much time and effort getting his mail-order bride here. He wasn’t about to turn around and send her back to Chicago with her brothers. She might decide to stay there, and then where would he be?

  Back where he started, that’s where.

  “All right,” he said. “We have a deal.” He would have shaken hands with a man to seal the bargain. He would have kissed Priss to confirm an agreement. In this case, he guessed words were going to have to be enough.

  By the time he’d reached that conclusion, he saw a small, callused hand with the nails chewed down to the nub had been extended in his direction. He switched the reins he was holding in both hands to his left one, and shook her hand with his right. “I expect you to keep your word,” she said as she released his hand.

  “And if I don’t?” He was pretty sure he was the one in the position of power here.

  She looked him in the eye and said, “I will make you very, very sorry.”

  She sounded like she meant it.

  Miranda’s first view of Three Oaks left her feeling breathless, but not with awe. She was suddenly filled with doubt. Maybe she’d made a mistake. Maybe she should have left Nick and Harry in Chicago. This was not the home of a maiden’s dreams. This was more like something she might conjure in a nightmare.

  The Southern mansion was in far worse shape than Jake had led her to believe. One wing of the house was a charred ruin, all right. But Jake had failed to mention that white paint was peeling off the rest of it, exposing black, rotted wood, and that numerous rails were missing from the once-beautiful second-floor gallery porch. She’d have to be sure those rails were replaced as soon as possible, so neither Harry nor Anna Mae accidentally fell through the gaps.

  He hadn’t mentioned that three enormous trees—oaks, she supposed—shadowed the house like a shroud. He hadn’t mentioned that shrubs and bushes and tall grass had grown up around the front porch, leaving only a narrow path to get inside. Or the abandoned double row of facing log cabins she’d noticed a half mile before they reached the house, which had once been home to the fifty or sixty field slaves who’d worked the cotton.

  He didn’t carry her over the threshold, apparently didn’t even realize he was forgetting that part of the marriage ritual. She felt the loss as one more missing piece of a marriage that was a far cry from what she’d hoped or dreamed.

  Once inside the house, she found chaos, the result, she supposed, of two bachelors and a baby living for six months without a woman in the house. The entryway smelled of wet horse. It was crowded with a Western saddle and horse blanket, boots, halters, bridles, rope, and other things that belonged in the stable.

  Jake led them into a parlor where horsehair stuffing gaped through tears in the delicate brocade sofa and a mouse-eaten cowhide-covered chair sat behind a battered oak desk strewn with tin plates and cups and stacks of paper. A mother cat had created a nest out of a man’s plaid shirt in the corner and a litter of five kittens lay nursing at her side.

  “Kitty cat!” Harry cried as he made a beeline for the cat.

  The instant the calico cat saw Harry, she turned into a spitting fanged creature with an arched back and a high tail.

  Harry screamed and came running back to the safety of Miranda’s arms. She picked him up and said to Jake, “What’s your cat’s name?”

  “Doesn’t have one,” Jake said. “Barn cat sort of moved in after Priss …” He stopped there and called out, “Slim? Where are you?”

  Miranda heard the sound of creaking wooden floors and a man in a wheelchair with a wicker back showed up in the parlor door. A barefoot baby wearing a nightgown sat in his lap.

  The baby’s face lit up when she saw Jake.

  Miranda’s first thought was that the baby needed some warm woolen socks on her feet. Then she remembered she was in Texas. Though it was February, the night air was warm.

  The little girl cried, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” Her arms reached out to Jake and a moment later she was snuggled against her father’s chest, her arms tight around his neck.

  The old man didn’t look nearly so happy. “I sent you to town to pick up a wife.” He eyed Nick and Harry sourly and said, “Where’d the extra young’ns come from?”

  “They’re my brothers,” Miranda explained, anxious to make friends with the old man, since they’d be spending all their time together in the house. “You must be Slim. I’m Miranda. This boy in my arms is Harry. The tall young man over by the fireplace is Nick.”

  “Let’s get some light in here,” Jake said, setting his daughter back in Slim’s lap. She didn’t want to be put down and began to whine.

  “There, there, missy,” the old man cooed.

  Slim wasn’t totally against children, Miranda thought. He obviously adored his granddaughter.

  The sun was almost gone, leaving the parlor strewn with shadows. Miranda shivered. She had a dreadful feeling of foreboding and tried to shake it off.

  Jake lit several kerosene lanterns situated around the parlor. Somehow, the room looked more cheerful in the lamplight.

  “I smell food,” Nick said, sniffing the air.

  “I made stew to last for a week,” Slim said. “Guess there’s enough for a few extra mouths.”

  “Is there beef in it?” Nick asked.

  “Beef a
nd potatoes and carrots,” Slim said.

  “Do you think we could have some?” Nick asked, looking from Slim to Jake.

  Miranda realized that for the first time, Nick wasn’t looking to her as the one in charge. He was consulting the two men. She wasn’t sure whether to feel insulted or gratified.

  She merely felt relieved when Jake said, “Sure. There’s tin plates in the cabinet, forks in the drawer. Help yourself. Just don’t burn yourself on the stove.”

  At last Nick turned to her. “Can I, Miranda?”

  “Sure. Take Harry with you.”

  Miranda realized there was going to be no special first dinner, where the family sat down together. Not unless she orchestrated it. “Let Harry help you set the dining room table for all of us. We’ll join you in a few minutes. Don’t start without us.”

  Nick took a lantern in one hand and Harry’s hand in the other and headed for the kitchen.

  “I already ate,” the old man said as he watched them go. “Don’t figure to eat again.”

  Miranda realized she would be fighting an uphill battle to get Slim to the supper table. Tomorrow would be soon enough to make it plain that, from now on, they would be eating as a family.

  She turned instead to Jake and said, “Would you introduce me to your daughter?”

  He picked up the little girl from Slim’s lap and brought her over to Miranda. “This is Anna Mae. Honey, this is Miranda.”

  “Mama?” the baby said.

  “No, sweetie,” Miranda said, feeling a sudden ache in her throat. “I’m not your mama.”

  “You should go eat,” Jake said to Miranda. “You must be hungry, too.”

  “Yes, I am. Aren’t you? I thought we could all sit down together. I mean, this is our first dinner as man and wife.”

  “It’s Anna Mae’s bedtime. I usually spend some time reading to her.”

  “Oh, I know the boys would love to listen, if you wouldn’t mind waiting and reading to her here in the parlor after supper.”

  He hesitated, then said, “I suppose I could do that.”

  “Could you—would you—join us for dinner?”

  He hesitated again, and said, “I’m not sure there’s room at the table for all of us.”