A place to call home, p.1
A Place to Call Home, page 1
Table of Contents
Other Books by Jae
Acknowledgments
Oregon City, Oregon - October 14, 1851
Near Willow Island, Oregon - October 14, 1851
Hamilton Horse Ranch - Baker Prairie, Oregon - October 16, 1851
Hamilton Horse Ranch - Baker Prairie, Oregon - October 18, 1851
Hamilton Horse Ranch - Baker Prairie, Oregon - October 25, 1851
Hamilton Horse Ranch - Baker Prairie, Oregon - October 30, 1851
Other Books from Ylva Publishing
About Jae
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Other Books by Jae
Happily Ever After
Standalone Romances:
Chemistry Lessons
Wrong Number, Right Woman
The Roommate Arrangement
Paper Love
Just for Show
Falling Hard
Heart Trouble
Under a Falling Star
Something in the Wine
Shaken to the Core
Fair Oaks Series:
Perfect Rhythm
Not the Marrying Kind
The Hollywood Series:
Departure from the Script
Damage Control
Just Physical
The Hollywood Collection (box set)
Portland Police Bureau Series:
Conflict of Interest
Next of Kin
The Vampire Diet Series:
Good Enough to Eat
The Oregon Series:
Backwards to Oregon
Beyond the Trail
Hidden Truths
The Complete Oregon series (box set)
The Shape-Shifter Series:
Second Nature
Natural Family Disasters
Manhattan Moon
True Nature
Acknowledgments
I’m so grateful to my editor, Claire, and to my wonderful team of beta readers, especially Anne-France, Melanie, and Trish for the overnight delivery.
My biggest thank-you goes to my readers who gave the Oregon series a chance—some of them despite not being huge fans of historical romances—and then fell in love with the Hamiltons and eagerly kept reading. I hope you’ll enjoy this addition to the series.
Oregon City, Oregon
October 14, 1851
The sun peeked over the bluff bordering Oregon City to the east. Its first rays danced over the masts of a schooner anchored on the Willamette to the west.
Nora shivered in the early-morning mist hanging over the river as she made sure their supplies and tools were all tied down while Luke yoked their four remaining oxen.
After five and a half months of traveling together, they barely had to talk to get their wagon ready to roll. They worked like a unit, each knowing exactly what to do. Even Amy completed her task—feeding their surviving hen, the two new chickens, and the rooster they had bought yesterday—without having to be told.
Their routine was as soothing as the clanking of the chains and the stomping of heavy hoofs—not just for Nora, but apparently, for the baby too. Little Nattie slept in the sling angled across Nora’s chest without waking even once.
Nora almost couldn’t believe that they wouldn’t have to do this all over again tomorrow. If all went well, they would wake up on their own land, wherever that might be. Excitement bubbled up inside her chest, but threads of anxiety crept up too.
It wasn’t the dangers that might lurk in this new land that scared her, nor the hard work needed to cultivate it. She had gotten used to both on the two-thousand-mile journey from Missouri. But while traveling the Oregon Trail, there had always been others to help if they ran into any trouble. Now they would be on their own.
“Ready?” Luke helped her down from the wagon, then kept hold of Nora’s hand for a few moments longer, as if sensing her worries. Finally, after a soft squeeze, Luke let go and bent to peer into the sling. She lightly trailed a single fingertip over the baby’s wispy dark hair in a gesture so tender that Nora melted inside.
Nora straightened her spine and raised her chin. They would be fine because they would still have each other. “Ready.”
Together, they headed toward the Garfields, who were waiting on the boardwalk, away from the muddy main street.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay?” Bernice gave them a hopeful look.
Luke glanced at Nora, leaving it up to her to answer—and maybe to decide.
Nora didn’t have to think about it. She knew what kind of life Luke envisioned for herself, and it was a vision she shared. She firmly shook her head. “Like I said before, town life isn’t for us.”
“Not forever. Just until spring, like most of us,” Bernice said. “We could all head south with the Buchanans and Emmy and stake claims near each other.”
That sounded wonderful, especially since it meant Amy wouldn’t lose her best friend, Hannah Garfield.
The two girls stood off to the side, engrossed in something Amy was showing her friend—likely the wooden foal Luke had whittled for her at the hotel last night.
Mud squished as Luke shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “There are more emigrants arriving nearly every day. If we wait, the best land will be taken.”
Of course, Nora knew that was only part of the reason. While the Garfields were wintering with friends who had arrived in Oregon two years ago, Luke and Nora didn’t know anyone in the territory. If they stayed to wait out the winter, they would have to join one of the tent camps springing up at the edge of town.
There would be no privacy, and that was more than an inconvenience for Luke.
Besides, a cold, damp campsite wasn’t a good place for a week-old baby in winter, and after nearly half a year of living out of a cramped wagon, Nora was ready to have a place of her own too.
She stepped onto the boardwalk to hug her friend goodbye.
But Bernice apparently wasn’t ready to give up yet. “Have you thought about staying back with the girls while Luke heads out to stake a claim?”
Luke had made her the same offer, but Nora’s answer had been the same she gave Bernice now. “No.”
“No, you haven’t thought about it, or—?”
“Leave her alone, woman.” Jacob nudged his spouse’s arm. “A wife goes where her husband goes. Don’t you remember what the Good Book says? I think it goes something like this: ‘Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for wherever you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge.’”
Nora struggled to keep her face straight and not allow the corners of her mouth to curl up into a grin. Lord, if only he knew what that passage of the Bible really referred to. “Indeed,” she said with a grave nod. “My journey’s end is wherever Luke will go.”
Luke gave her a questioning look, apparently seeing through her impassionate mask.
“Later,” Nora whispered.
Bernice bit her lip but said nothing. Instead, she sighed and engulfed Nora in a warm embrace, careful not to jostle the baby sleeping between them. “Take good care of yourself and the little ones.”
“I will,” Nora said. In a whisper, she added, “Luke will take good care of us too; you know that, don’t you?”
Bernice sighed again. “I know.”
Luke shook Jacob’s hand and tipped her hat at Bernice. “I guess this is goodbye, then.”
“Nooo!” Amy started to cry. She clung to Hannah with one arm and to Bernice with the other.
Luke froze. She had looked less alarmed when facing a rattlesnake or a raging river. Tears from the girls were the one thing she didn’t know how to handle. “Uh, just for now, right?” She sent first Nora, then Jacob and Bernice an imploring gaze.
“Yes, just for now.” Bernice rubbed Amy’s small back. “We’ll look for you when we head out in spring.”
“We’ll let you know where we ended up when we come back to town to file the location of our claim with the land office,” Luke said. “That way, you don’t have to search for us all over the valley.”
Amy apparently still wasn’t convinced. She kept clutching Bernice and Hannah.
“See? We might even bring you some candy if you promise to be a good girl,” Bernice added.
Finally, Amy lifted her face from where she had buried it against Bernice’s apron. “L’mon drops?” she mumbled.
Bernice chuckled. “Yes, lemon drops.”
Amy wiped her cheeks. “All right.” She finally loosened her death grip on Bernice and Hannah and instead slipped her small hand into Luke’s. With one last glance back, she let Luke guide her toward Measles, who stood tied to the wagon.
As Nora followed them, she couldn’t help looking back too.
Bernice stared after them, her face reflecting her concern, with one arm tightly wrapped around Hannah, as if she was worried her daughter would run after them.
Nora’s gaze landed on an object clutched in Hannah’s small hand—the wooden foal Amy must have given her.
A lump lodged in her throat, but Nora swallowed it down and turned to face Luke and their future.
As she joined them at the wagon, Luke searched her face. “You all right? If you want to take them up on their offer to stay—”
“Wherever you go, I will go.” Nora took the whip from Luke to end the discussion.
A tiny, almost inaudible exhale escaped Luke. “All right. Then let’s go.” She untied the horse
Nora laughed. “It seems Jacob isn’t very well-versed in the scripture.”
“And you are?” Luke asked.
“Oh yes. According to my father, it’s the only book a woman should be allowed to read.”
Luke’s jaw muscles bunched. “Amy and Nattie will be allowed to read any book they want to.”
Nora appreciated that, but she had a feeling the only books Amy would want to read would be about horses. “Anyway, if Jacob had studied the Good Book a little more closely, he would have known that the passage he quoted wasn’t about a wife going wherever her husband goes.”
“It wasn’t?”
Grinning, Nora shook her head. “It was a promise spoken by a woman to another.”
Measles stomped one hoof, and her saddle creaked in the sudden silence.
“Well…” Luke cleared her throat and lowered her voice so only Nora could hear. “I suppose it’s fitting, then. Kind of.”
Nora knew Luke still struggled with how to refer to herself, now that Nora was aware she wasn’t a man. Neither term seemed to fit her. Not that Nora cared. Man, woman, both, or something entirely else, Luke was the person she loved. She had admitted it to herself—and to Luke—only yesterday, but even before that, she had known she would follow her anywhere. She squeezed Luke’s arm and cracked the whip to get the oxen going. “Let’s go home.”
* * *
Their journey southwest was slow, and as much as Nora was eager to reach their destination, she was thankful for the leisurely pace because she was still sore from giving birth the week before. Good thing the oxen weren’t steered with reins while sitting on the wagon seat, but instead, she could direct them while walking alongside the wagon.
Their oxen plodded along as if fighting for every step on the muddy road. The arduous trip across the plains had worn them out, and now they no longer had a spare yoke, so the animals couldn’t be rotated and rested.
Luke had sold Sleeping Beauty in Oregon City and used the money she had gotten for him to stock up on supplies. Since they had arrived late in the year, they would have to wait until spring to plant vegetables and would have to live off their provisions until then.
The wagon creaked and groaned under the extra weight added by bags of flour, sacks of potatoes, and gallons of molasses, further slowing them down.
At least the sluggish pace gave Nora ample opportunity to look around.
Forest grew on both sides of the road, so dense that Nora barely got a glimpse of the hazy sky for the first few miles. Then the woodland opened up every now and then, revealing stubbly fields of harvested wheat. Some of them were cleared, while others were covered with tree stumps and fern.
Nora sent Luke a questioning gaze and pointed at those fields with the end of her whip. “I wonder what happened.”
Luke rose up in her stirrups to take a closer look. “I’m not sure. I heard many men abandoned their farms last year when gold was found on the Rogue River. Maybe some didn’t return.”
Nora couldn’t imagine leaving her home on a gamble like that. But then again, hadn’t she done exactly that? She had married a perfect stranger and joined a wagon train, all in the hope of a better future.
They traveled in silence for a while. The road seemed to become more uneven and winding the farther they went.
On a downhill stretch, the team of oxen let out an enthusiastic chorus of moos and fell into a trot.
“Whoa! Slow down, Cinderella!” Nora tried to steer them around a pothole but wasn’t fast enough.
One wheel hit the hole, making the chickens on the back of the wagon squawk in protest as they bumped over it.
Then the road took another turn, and the river appeared in front of them.
Ah. Nora should have known that only the promise of water and maybe some rest would get the oxen to speed up.
They had veered away from the river as soon as they had left Oregon City a few hours ago, staying on the high ground to avoid the swamp and the many streams south of town. Now their livestock had to be thirsty.
The commotion had woken up the baby, who immediately started to cry.
Nora chuckled and caressed Nattie’s tiny head. “The oxen aren’t the only ones who are thirsty, are they?”
“Let’s rest here for a while.” Luke slid from the saddle and lifted Amy down. “I’ll get our boys some water. You just sit and rest.”
Nora didn’t have to be told twice. She gingerly sank onto a big rock at the side of the road and unbuttoned her bodice to nurse the baby.
A flush streaked across Luke’s cheeks. She grabbed two buckets from the wagon and rushed off toward the river with Amy following behind.
What was that? Nora stared at Luke’s retreating back, then glanced down at her bared bosom. Oh. She couldn’t help smiling. They had made love before Nattie had been born, and Luke had kissed every inch of her breasts, but now the mere sight of them had made her blush.
“Lord,” she whispered to the baby, “your papa is impossibly sweet.”
Of course, Nattie didn’t reply. Instead, she hungrily latched on to one nipple.
Nora let out a startled squeak. “Ouch. I guess you didn’t inherit that sweet and gentle disposition, little one.” Then she froze with one hand on Nattie’s back. Had she really just said that?
“Are you all right?” Luke called up from the riverbank.
“I’m fine,” Nora called back. “Nattie was a little too eager to get her food, that’s all.”
Luke didn’t reply, probably too busy fighting down her renewed blush.
Smiling, Nora stroked the baby’s back. Was it any wonder she wished Luke had fathered her children? She really was too sweet.
Near Willow Island, Oregon
October 14, 1851
They had traveled along the river for about an hour, heading south, while the Willamette flowed north.
The succession of hills seemed to never end—uphill, downhill, uphill again until Luke thought it would continue forever. She kept a close eye on Nora, who marched onward without struggling or complaining.
Fierce admiration filled Luke. She had seen it before: women giving birth on the trail, then continuing their journey as if they hadn’t just spent half a day in agony to squeeze a tiny human being—
A shudder went through Luke, and she cut the thought short.
Her fingers tightened around the reins. She would work hard to make sure Nora wouldn’t have to suffer such hardships again and would have all the comforts she deserved.
With one arm wrapped around Amy, who had nodded off in the saddle in front of her, she let her gaze roam over the countryside and kept a lookout for a piece of land that appeared promising.
But the low ground along the Willamette would be prone to flooding and was too densely wooded. Only firs, maple, and oak trees as far as Luke’s eye could see. The only thing to break the monotony were the islands in the river to their right.
Then a sharp, familiar whistle pierced the air.
Amy jerked awake and clapped her hands. “A spring! Can we go watch?”
Was there really a spring nearby, like the geyser they had seen along the Oregon Trail, shooting out of a crevice in the rock and emitting a whistling sound? Maybe there would also be a hot spring in the vicinity.
If they found one, Nora could sink into a pool of warm water and soak for a while.
An image from the last time she had watched Nora bathe flashed through Luke’s mind. Her cheeks and ears burned, and she bit her lip hard. Now wasn’t the time to daydream about Nora’s lush curves and soft skin.
Another shrill whistle sounded. It seemed to come from the Willamette, along with a churning sound that quickly grew louder.
Luke craned her neck to see through a gap between trees and squinted through the haze that still hung over the river.
Amy turned around in the saddle and sent a hopeful look up at her. “Is it a lemonade spring, Papa?”
The churning sound was now so loud that Luke had to shout her answer over the din. “I don’t think it’s a geyser.”
Nora stopped the oxen and pointed at another opening in the trees. “It’s a steamboat!”
She was right. A white steamer made its way downstream toward Oregon City. Its large paddlewheels, one on each side of the boat, churned the water into froth, and its twin stacks belched two columns of dark smoke skyward.
