A Bride in the Bargain Page 17

  It was several moments before she realized he wasn’t reading. Glancing up, she froze. He surveyed her hair, her delicate facial features, her creamy neck, and the way her dress stretched across her shoulders and chest.

  “Shouldn’t you be marrying Mrs. Wrenne soon?” she whispered.

  “I should have married her two weeks ago.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Several reasons.”

  She went back to her sorting.

  “Anna?”

  The stiffening of her shoulders was his only indication she’d heard him.

  Unfolding himself from the chair, he joined her on the floor, stretching one leg out and bending the other one. “I don’t want to marry Bertha.”

  She stopped sorting but didn’t look up. “She’ll be devastated.”

  He rested an elbow against his upraised knee. “I don’t think so.”

  “I know so.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I spent many hours with her on the Continental. We became quite close.” She raised her gaze. “You should have told her long before.”

  “You needn’t worry. She’ll be well provided for as long as needed. There’s even talk of a man who’s shown extreme interest in her. A man much more suited to her.”

  “Who?”

  “You don’t know him.”

  “That doesn’t mean her distress from being left at the altar won’t be humiliating.” The firelight added shades of amber to her troubled brown eyes. She lowered her chin. “I just don’t want to see her hurt.”

  “Which do you think would hurt her more? Canceling the wedding or marrying her, even though my interests are elsewhere?”

  Scooping up a pile of unsorted shells, she began returning them to a tin. “It’s really none of my business what you do.”

  He covered the tin with his hand. “Look at me.”

  She shook her head.

  Placing his finger under her chin, Joe lifted her face. “My interest lies elsewhere, little robin. My interest lies with—”

  “Perhaps you should redirect your interest.”

  She tried to pull away, but he captured her chin between his thumb and finger.

  “Too late.” He lowered his mouth.

  Slapping his hand away, she scrambled back and avoided his kiss. “You’re betrothed, Joe.”

  “Consider it broken.”

  “I will not. You cannot. She’ll be—”

  “Quit harping about Bertha. Accepting my proposal was just as calculated on her part as it was on mine. No feelings were involved for either one of us. What kind of man would I be if I married one woman when I was interested in another?” He grabbed her wrist before she could fly. “Marry me, Anna.”

  Her eyes filled. “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s too big a responsibility.”

  “What is?” he asked. “The commitment?”

  “No. Not that.”

  “Then what?” He searched his mind for possible objections. It couldn’t be homemaking. She excelled in that area. If it wasn’t that or the commitment, then . . . “Children? Do you not want children?”

  She started to deny it, then gave him a shattered look. “Actually, Joe, I wouldn’t want children.”

  His mouth went slack. “Why not?”

  “I’d make a terrible mother.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. My answer is no.”

  “Just like that? Because you don’t think you’d be a good mother?”

  She tugged at his hand.

  “Do you have feelings for me?”

  “Let me go.”

  “Answer me.”

  She pierced him with her glare, tears rushing to her eyes. “All right, then. I refuse to have feelings for a man who will marry a woman—any woman—for the sole sake of saving his acreage.”

  “It’s not just that, Anna. It’s you. I care for you.”

  “Really? As much as your land?”

  He paused, mulling over her words. Did he? Did he care for her the way he did his land? Anna seized on his hesitation.

  “You see?” she said. “You don’t care for me any more than you do Mrs. Wrenne. It’s the acreage you love. As a matter of fact, you care more about that one chestnut tree out there than you do about any woman.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Let me go.”

  “I’ll never let you go, Anna.” But he did and she raced from the room, skirt flouncing, ribbons flying. Seconds later, her door slammed shut.

  Swiping his hand across the unsorted pile of shells, he sent them to all corners. Why couldn’t he make her see they were an excellent match?

  He lurched to his feet. He hadn’t intended to propose. His declaration was spontaneous and clumsy. Her challenge had confused him, though. If his land were not at risk, would he have still proposed?

  It was an impossible question. Because if his land hadn’t been at risk, he wouldn’t have bought himself a bride. He wouldn’t have been in town to greet Mercer’s girls and most likely he would never have even met Anna. She’d have been bought by some farmer and taken far away.

  He did know one thing; he wasn’t interested in finding himself some other Mercer girl—even if there were any to be had, which there weren’t.

  He wanted Anna. And he wanted her for a lifetime. But she’d said no. A very clear, articulate, emphatic no.

  He grabbed the bowls of sorted shells, then slammed them onto the table, making no concession for those that jumped free. Returning to his chair, he began to pull on his boots.

  Why couldn’t she see he cared for her? And it wasn’t just attraction. Pausing, he realized she’d carefully evaded his questions about feelings. And if he didn’t miss his guess, she did care for him. Maybe even as much as he cared for her.

  So why wouldn’t she marry him? Was it the chestnut tree? Swiping up his ax, he crunched across the scattered shells and slammed out the back door. If it was the tree, he could certainly dispel any doubts she had on that account.

  Huddled in front of the fire, Anna rested her head against drawn-up knees. It was well past time to retire, but she knew she’d be unable to sleep.

  Was it possible that Joe loved her? He hadn’t said those words, only that he “cared” for her. Still, he hadn’t pretended to have feelings for Mrs. Wrenne.

  The thought gave her pause. If all he cared about was his land, then he could simply remain betrothed to Mrs. Wrenne. Instead, he’d asked for Anna’s hand.

  What possible motivation could he have for that, if not feelings? Strong feelings?

  She sighed. She shouldn’t have accused him of loving the land to the exclusion of all else, but it was either that or tell him what happened to anyone who got too close to her.

  His hurt expression played itself again in her mind. She pushed the image away. She could not afford to feel guilty. Otherwise, he might discover the truth. Something that only Ronny and herself knew: She was in love with Joe Denton.

  She smoothed her nightdress over her knees. How could she not be drawn to him? With such an intriguing combination of gentleness and fierceness, loneliness and fullness, intelligence and simplicity?

  She pictured him again as he shouted over the mighty redwood he’d felled. As he shaved and washed up in the mornings. As he laughed and joked with his crew. As he read by the fire. As he watched her in the evenings.

  She loved him, all right. But her love would go unrequited. It must.

  Scooting over to her bed, she reached underneath it and drew out her carpetbag. Its wooden frame peeked through the worn edges of the fabric. Undoing the buckle, she opened the bag and pulled away the false bottom. Her father’s letters stared back at her. Smudged. Wrinkled. Dog-eared.

  She drew them out and untied the leather cord binding them together. One by one she reread them, though she knew them all by heart. The first few were optimistic and full of patriotism.

  Then Pa
pa saw his first battle. And his second. And his third. And the tone of his letters changed. He became tired, weary, worried.

  Fingering the last one, she closed her eyes, remembering the day it arrived as clearly as if it had just happened.

  After settling her mother in the parlor, she had returned to the entry hall and picked up the letter Mama had dropped upon hearing of Leon’s flight. Anna had skimmed over Papa’s justification and reasons for leaving. It was a recurring theme, and even though she was older now and knew he couldn’t have stayed home while the rest of the town did the fighting, she still resented it.

  I know Leon wants to join up as a drummer, but you must not let him, Josephine. Tell him that when I come home I’ll make him a tent he can sleep under. Then he’ll see what it’s like to be a soldier.

  He described the countryside but never the details from the battlefields. Finally, she came to what ordinarily was her favorite part. A section at the bottom that he always addressed especially to her.

  My dearest Anna, I received news through the Jordans that Mama is in poor health, and I worry that you and Leon are not doing as much as you should. Be sure the two of you fetch all the water, make all the fires, work in the garden, help with the wash, and take on as much as you can.

  She and Leon already did that and more. Much more. She’d not mentioned Mama’s decline in her letters, not wanting to worry her father. She wondered again if the Jordans had written him or if Ralph Jordan had caught up to him and given him the news firsthand.

  I’ve also been made to understand that you have become somewhat unruly. Don’t you realize that when you and Leon argue and misbehave, the rebel bullets come closer to me? But if you and Leon are good, then God will take care of me and bring me home safely.

  A slow chill had filled the pit of her stomach. The fight she’d had with Leon was, in fact, her fault. She’d been tired and irritated with him for playing when there was so much work still to be done. So she’d not only made him angry, but she’d struck Mama as well.

  Had Papa been on the battlefield during all that? Had the rebel bullets gone closer to him because of her behavior? What if hitting Mama made a bullet hit Papa at the same time?

  She’d squeezed her eyes shut and promised God she’d be good if He’d keep Papa safe. She hadn’t known about the bullets. She hadn’t known.

  Three weeks later, her mother was dead. The doctor said she’d died of a broken heart. But Anna knew better. It was because Anna hadn’t been the kind of daughter she should have been. She’d been impatient and surly and picked fights with Leon for the sole purpose of garnering Mama’s attention.

  How would she tell Papa that Leon had run off? That Mama was dead? And that both were entirely her fault? Still, she knew she must.

  Penning that letter was the hardest thing she’d done in her entire life. But even worse was never hearing back from him. It wasn’t until his name appeared in the local newspaper as one of the casualties of war that she discovered he’d died at the Antietam Battle. The same day she’d picked a fight with Leon and accidentally hit her mother.

  A tear fell on her nightdress. Anna looked up, recalling where she was, the letter gripped in her hand.

  The rain had started again. Bit by bit, a rhythmic pounding penetrated her consciousness. Frowning, she moved to the window and pulled back its sheer covering.

  She couldn’t see anything but the reflection of the glowing logs from her room’s fireplace. Yet she didn’t need to see. She knew Joe was out there. With his ax. Chopping down a tree. The tree. The chestnut she’d accused him of loving more than anything else.

  She leaned her forehead against the window. Please don’t do this, Joe. Not now. Not after I’ve hurt you. I didn’t know it was her tree when I first asked you to fell it. I didn’t know.

  But she’d known what it was when she’d made her nasty charge against him. Bile churned in her stomach. She hadn’t changed at all. Deep down, she was that same impatient, surly girl who picked fights.

  The rain’s intensity increased, hammering the glass. She wondered, not for the first time, if the downpour made it hard to grip his ax or secure his footing.

  He labors in the rain all the time, she thought. Only violent storms and the danger of fire could keep the lumberjacks from their work. That and darkness. But it was dark now.

  Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

  She pictured his strong, agile body swinging the ax, shoulders bunched, knees bent, rain sluicing down his face and neck, finding its way beneath his shirt.

  The telltale cracking of a tree ready to fall drew her attention. No shout of timber accompanied it, but then, there wouldn’t be anyone in its way.

  She held her breath, waiting for the impact, but heard instead a second splintering followed by two consecutive crashes. Then nothing.

  The hairs on her arm rose. No scream of victory.

  But, of course, Joe wouldn’t consider felling that tree a triumph. Yet even as she tried to reassure herself, she forsook her boots, grabbed her wrap and a lantern, then raced down the stairs and flew out into the rain.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  Joe stood before Lorraine’s chestnut tree, emotion clogging his throat. He should have taken it down long ago. It was just a tree.

  Lifting the ax, he made his first swing. What was this one little tree compared to the three hundred twenty acres of trees he’d be losing to Tillney? Along with a portion of his skid road. And a section of his brand-new log chute. And the streams and springs coursing through that half.

  And Anna. What was it compared to Anna?

  It was nothing. It really was just a tree. But with each stroke, he knew the felling of it wouldn’t win her hand. He was going to lose her and he was going to lose his land.

  He settled into a rhythm as frustration and anger welled up inside him. He didn’t want to think about Anna.

  So he thought about his land. He should never have relied on Mercer. He should have gone out east himself and found his own bride. Being away all that time wouldn’t have been near as bad as losing his land.

  And if he was going to lose his land, why did it have to be to Tillney? Bits of rain sprinkled through the leaves, moistening his face and hands.

  The prospect of losing his land, really losing his land, became a serious possibility in his mind for the very first time. Before, he’d figured he could somehow work it out. But not anymore. He needed a wife and his last chance had just said no. Again. Judge Rountree wouldn’t be offering any more extensions.

  Joe recalled the year he’d signed up for the grant and received his acreage. He’d had nothing but an ax and six wild oxen. It had taken him three weeks to break them. Once he had, he hired a four-man logging crew, then started every day at first light.

  He cooked and fed the men in one old shanty, then fed the oxen in another. He acted as foreman, bucker, bullwhacker, and faller.

  It had taken years of hard work and perseverance to build what he had. And he stood to lose half. Simply because he didn’t have a wife.

  The rain beat down with a vengeance now, but he was almost done. Directing the chestnut to fall in the opposite direction from which it leaned was child’s play. Still, he eyed the spot he was aiming for.

  Between the darkness and the rain, he couldn’t see a thing. No matter. He knew the lay of his land. After a couple more chops, he felt the tree start to give.

  I’m sorry, Lorraine. I’m sorry for not loving you the way I should have.

  The sharp splintering of the fibers gave their own cry of warning. Joe jumped out of the way, then watched as it began its descent right where he’d planned.

  The sound of another tremendous crack caught him by surprise. He knew without looking up that the falling timber had struck a second tree, breaking off the top of it and redirecting the chestnut’s path.

  He started to run, praying the portion of the second tree— falling who knew where—wouldn’t crush him and that any ricocheting debris wouldn’
t impale him.

  His pant leg snagged on something. I’m not wearing my sawed-off pants.

  It was his last thought.

  A cold sheet of rain hit Anna as she left the lean-to, soaking her wrapper and nightdress. By the lantern’s light, she slowed as she approached the chestnut tree. Only a stump was left. The rest lay prostrate beside it. Her heart clutched; then she scanned the area.

  “Joe?” Lifting the lantern, she crept closer, ignoring the rocky ground poking into her feet. “Joe?”

  She picked her way along the fallen tree, but the limbs and debris made it near impossible. “Joe? Can you hear me?”

  The rain swallowed any response he might have made. Something sharp jabbed into her tender sole. Yelping, she hopped back.

  She would have to get her shoes. Retracing her steps, she paused to look around the clearing, squinting in an effort to see through the darkness.

  The vague silhouette of a splintered log a few yards away captured her attention. Lifting the lantern, her breath caught. It wasn’t a log.

  “Joe!”

  He lay facedown and unmoving on the ground. Dropping to her knees, she touched his shoulder. “Joe? Are you all right? Can you hear me?”

  Putting the lantern down, she slid a hand under his heavy head, lifted it a little, then turned his face so it was no longer buried. She placed her fingers on his neck, then held her breath. His pulse thrummed with a strong and steady beat.

  Thank you, Lord.

  She ran her hands along his arms and back and legs, checking for breaks and blood. Nothing.

  “Joe?”

  No response.

  “Joe, please. Can you hear me?” She combed his hair away from his face and pulled back quickly when she encountered something sticky.

  Oh no. She tentatively reached again for the spot that had blood on it. A knot the size of a lemon grew behind his ear.

  Anna's heart dropped. This was her fault. If only she hadn’t been so thoughtless with her rejection of him. If only she hadn’t mentioned the tree again.

  “Joe?” She gently shook his shoulder, tears mingling with the rain on her face. “Wake up. Can you hear me?”