The complete oregon seri.., p.84
The Complete Oregon Series, page 84
They stared at each other. Then Rika’s eyes widened. “Your ribs!” She scrambled back.
Amy sucked in a cooling breath—and almost choked on it when Rika’s hands flew over her body.
“Did I hurt you?” Uncoordinated, Rika searched for any sign of injury. “Lord, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think about your ribs.”
“It’s all right. It’s fine.” Amy gasped when Rika accidentally brushed the outer edge of her breast. Panic warred with the hunger low in her belly and finally won. She crawled backward, trying to escape.
“Amy!” Rika lunged forward, threw her arms around Amy, and prevented her from tumbling through the hay door. “What are you doing? You almost fell!”
What am I doing? What am I doing? Amy had no answer. Her heart thumped so loudly that she was sure Rika could hear it.
“Are you all right?” Rika touched her cheek.
Amy nodded shakily even though she felt anything but all right. “You?”
“I’m fine,” Rika said. Her face was flushed from their roughhousing and uncontrolled laughter.
Amy slipped out of her arms, careful not to come too close to the hay door again. “We should finish stowing away the hay before Hank comes back with the next load.”
A shower of hay rained down from Rika when she got to her feet and shook herself. She looked around at the scattered piles, her full lips crooking into a half smile. “Oh, we really made a mess of things.”
Yeah. That was exactly how Amy’s formerly well-ordered life felt. A complete and utter mess. Sighing, she shook bits of hay from her shirt and picked up her pitchfork.
The Dalles, Oregon
June 9, 1868
“Boy, I’ve never been so damn glad to see a town in my life,” Charlie said as they rounded the last bend in the river and the houses of The Dalles appeared before them.
Luke halted Dancer next to Charlie’s gelding and gave the young man a pat on the shoulder. The last two weeks had been hard on him. His boot and the stirrup leather rubbed against his injured leg with every step his horse took. Every morning, Luke wrapped a new bandage and thick padding around his calf, but the wound still hadn’t closed. It would heal once Charlie stayed out of the saddle for a while, and as soon as they got home, she would make sure he did.
“We’ll stay overnight,” she said. It would give Charlie a chance to rest his leg and her an opportunity for a bath. While taking care of Charlie and making sure Phin was all right, she hadn’t been able to slip away for a quick dip in the creek. “Phin, take one of the double eagles. Go to the bank and get silver dollars for it. Board your horses, then buy yourself and Charlie a juicy steak and a drink. Book rooms in the hotel for tonight.”
The prospect of a good meal and a soft bed put a smile on Phin’s face for the first time in days. By the time they dismounted on the main street with its false fronts, he was joking around with Charlie.
Exhaustion overcame Luke when she led Dancer and Bill Walters’s two geldings to the livery stable. Even the trail dust on her clothes seemed to weigh her down. You’re not a young man anymore, she told herself with a wry grin, then chuckled when she noticed she had used “man,” not “woman.” After living in close quarters with two of her ranch hands for every minute of the last six weeks, the differences between who she was and who she pretended to be began to blur.
She longed to go home and rediscover the closely guarded parts of herself in Nora’s gentle embrace. Soon. Two more weeks and she would be home. If they hurried, they might make it in ten or eleven days. On the lonely mountain roads, she knew she would count the hours.
She put Dancer up in a stall at the livery stable and took her time brushing his coat until it gleamed. For a few cents extra, the stable owner would do it for her, but Luke preferred to do it herself. It gave her time to bond with Dancer and to check him over for little injuries that might have happened on the trail.
When she left the livery stable, two men were in the corral, looking at a horse.
“Twenty dollars?” One of them laughed. “I won’t pay you a dime for that misbehaving devil! Show me another horse.”
The harsh words caught Luke’s attention. After living with horses for all her life, she knew most misbehaving horses were the owner’s fault. She looked at the horse in the corral. Ah. A Percheron mare. She was on the lookout for a horse just like that one. With railroads being built in the West, there was money to be made in breeding draft horses, and she liked the gentle giants.
Her gaze slid up and down the horse, trying to figure out what was wrong with her. Strong muscles played beneath the shining black coat. At seventeen hands, the mare dwarfed Luke’s Appaloosas. She took in the deep, wide chest, the broad forehead, and the gracefully arched neck. Luke knew the breed to be willing workers, ideal for logging and hard farm work.
This one didn’t seem very obedient, though.
The owner directed the mare around the corral with a rope in an attempt to show her off. But it wasn’t working. Instead of following every tug on the rope and presenting smooth gaits, the mare pranced around the corral and tried to circle to the right even though her owner wanted her to go in the other direction.
On first glance, not a horse worth buying. But Luke had learned to look beneath the surface. She stepped to the corral. “I’ll give you ten dollars for her.”
The owner’s head snapped around. His eyes lit up. “She’s worth more. She’s young, strong, and has many good years left.”
“Don’t let him talk you into it. That horse isn’t worth it,” the other man said. “You’d have to break her first. When he tried to put a saddle on her earlier, she bucked like crazy.”
The mare’s owner shot him a glare.
Luke ducked beneath the corral rails and walked up to the mare. Murmuring reassurances, she checked her teeth and slid a hand over the muscular neck, back, and hip. The horse shied away with a violent swish of her tail. “Easy, easy.” She waited until the mare calmed, then turned to the owner. “Ten dollars.”
“Fool.” With a snort, the second man walked away.
Luke didn’t look at him. She had learned decades ago not to react to stupid provocations.
“All right. You won’t regret it.” The owner tried with little success to hide his grin.
“I know.”
The young mare wasn’t a misbehaving devil that needed to be broken. Luke was fairly sure she had a sore back, probably caused by tack that didn’t fit and rubbed against her day in and day out. But instead of looking for the cause of her sudden disobedience, her owner had concluded that she was misbehaving and needed to be sold.
What the mare needed was enough rest and an owner with some horse sense.
Luke vowed that she would get both. She flipped a golden eagle coin into the air and watched as the stable’s owner clasped his greedy hand around it. “I’ll pick her up before I leave tomorrow. When you bring her in tonight, make sure you put the feeding trough to her right.”
“To her right?”
“Yeah. She’s got a sore back, and it’s uncomfortable for her to bend her neck to the left.” Luke walked away without looking back.
Willamette Valley, Oregon
June 21, 1868
“Mmm, nice.” Rika leaned back on the wagon seat and enjoyed the sunshine and Amy’s warmth against her side. Sunlight danced over the path in front of them and made Old Jack’s coat gleam. A light breeze carried the scent of wild roses and freshly mowed grass. At the clip-clop of Old Jack’s hooves, a robin fluttered from one tree to the other.
Her gaze wandered over the valley. By now, the hills and the flatland along the river didn’t feel foreign anymore. On days like this, she felt stirrings of the love for the land that she saw shining in Amy’s eyes.
Reins held loosely in one hand, Amy stretched like a contented cat and reached up to remove her bonnet. Her red locks shone like polished copper in the sun.
After a second’s hesitation, Rika took off her own bonnet.
Amy turned her head, and they shared a conspiratorial grin.
It was the first time in the two weeks since that strange moment in the hayloft that they had fully relaxed around each other. How was it that Amy’s presence put her at ease yet made her nervous at the same time? What she felt for Amy was different from her friendship with Jo, but she hadn’t quite figured out how and why.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to sit in church on a beautiful day like this?” Amy tugged at her bodice. “We could admire the Lord’s creations much better out here than in a stuffy building.”
What a daring thought. If Rika had uttered such a thing at home, her father would have beaten her for her insolence. But she was an adult now, and she was learning not to care what her father would have done. “It would be nice, but your mother and Nattie would worry if we didn’t show up for church.” The two other Hamilton women had ridden ahead to meet the Garfields before church.
“Maybe we could stop on the way back and pick a few strawberries.” A grin chased away Amy’s frown. “I know a hidden meadow where the best ones grow.”
Strawberries. Rika could almost sense the ripe, sun-warmed taste on her tongue. Her mouth watered. Only once in her life had she gotten to try strawberries. The thought of sharing the juicy treats with Amy sent a shiver of delight up and down her spine. “I’d love that.”
On the path ahead of them, a horse neighed.
Amy slowed the wagon, making their approach as silent and cautious as possible. She reached for her rifle. As she had promised Rika, she was more careful not to charge into potentially dangerous situations without being prepared.
Their wagon crested the hill, and Amy pulled on the reins to stop Old Jack before whoever was ahead of them could see them.
Rika craned her neck.
“Mouse,” Amy said. “It’s just Tess and Frankie.” She let go of her rifle.
In the valley below them, the gray mare munched on a tuft of grass. Frankie had gotten out of the saddle while Tess waited, still mounted on her own horse.
“Seems they had the same idea.” Amy grinned. “Frankie’s picking strawberries.”
Tess’s laughter drifted over when Frankie returned with a handful of the little red fruits and offered them up. But instead of reaching out, Tess bent and plucked the fruit right off Frankie’s hand with her lips.
Rika had opened her mouth to shout a greeting. Now her mouth snapped closed. A sudden image of Amy feeding her strawberries formed before her mind’s eye, but she chased it away with a shake of her head.
Before Tess could straighten in the saddle, Frankie reached up and pressed their lips together. It was not a friendly peck between cousins.
Heat swirled through Rika’s belly, up her chest, and then crawled up her face. It took her a while to form words. “W-what are they doing? They’re cousins! And they...they’re both women!”
When no answer came, she turned to see Amy’s reaction.
Her friend was staring ahead with a pale face. Her left hand clutched the reins in a white-knuckled grip while her right hand was clamped around her knee.
“Amy?”
Amy flinched and turned toward her. It was hard to figure out what she was feeling and thinking, maybe because she felt so many things at once, as Rika did. “Maybe it was just a kiss between cousins.” Her trembling voice made it sound like a question, not a statement.
But Rika knew what she had seen. She had lived her whole life facing reality, no matter how unpleasant it might be. That had not been a gesture of affection between relatives. “You don’t kiss your sister like that, do you?”
“No!” Amy’s face went from white to deep red. “I’d never—”
Rika touched her arm. “I know.”
When Amy’s gaze flickered down to the hand on her arm, Rika withdrew. They sat in silence until Old Jack let out a snort.
Frankie and Tess looked up from sharing more strawberries.
“Hello, you two,” Tess called when Amy directed the wagon down the hill. “Are you off to church?”
Speechless, Rika nodded.
“We’re not coming this time.” Tess smiled at them as if nothing had happened. “We decided to enjoy the Lord’s creation out here instead.”
“Yeah. We’re gonna have a picnic with strawberries.” Frankie presented her hand that cradled a few more of the berries. “Want some?”
Still pale, Amy shook her head. “No. No, thanks. We better get going, or we’ll be late for church.”
The wagon jerked forward as if Old Jack felt his owner’s agitation.
Rika spent the rest of the ride to town in a daze.
“I’m sorry,” Amy said after a long silence.
“You don’t need to apologize. You’re not the one who goes around kissing other women.”
But the look of guilt and confusion didn’t leave Amy’s face. They drove along in silence the rest of the way.
Back in Boston, Rika had liked going to church since it was the only interruption to long, monotonous workweeks. But now she couldn’t wait to leave Baker Prairie’s little church. She squirmed on the hard pew while Reverend Rhodes delivered his sermon about sin.
Surely it’s a sin to kiss your cousin that way. To kiss another woman.
But still, she knew Frankie and Tess were good people. Nora thought highly of them, and they had saved Amy’s life. And there was so much love in the way Frankie had fed the strawberries to Tess. Was this really wrong in the eyes of the Lord while her father’s cold, sometimes cruel treatment of her stepmother was considered normal?
She didn’t know what to think anymore.
Amy wasn’t faring any better. Whenever Rika sneaked glances at her during the sermon, she found Amy staring at her hands as if she didn’t want to meet anyone’s gaze. Sometimes, she flinched when the pastor promised eternal hell to sinners who didn’t repent.
As soon as the pastor gave his blessing and church was over, Rika rushed down the aisle toward the church’s exit. With a shy nod, she ducked past the pastor, who stood next to the portal to say good-bye to his parishioners.
Behind her, Amy mumbled a quick greeting and followed her down the church steps.
“Miss Bruggeman,” the pastor called.
Rika froze. She felt as if the Lord’s lightning had struck her. Slowly, she turned around, shoulders lifted as if to protect her vulnerable neck. “Yes?”
The pastor descended the steps, his gaze never leaving her.
Does he know what Tess and Frankie did? What kind of thoughts I’ve been having about Amy? She shook off her panic. He’s a pastor, not a mind reader. She tried to put on the mask that had protected her so well in the past but found it hard to erect the familiar walls.
“You’ve been part of the congregation for a while now, but I haven’t found the time to talk to you,” Reverend Rhodes said when he stopped next to her. “How do you like it here in Baker Prairie?”
The knot in her stomach loosened. “I like it just fine. The people here are wonderful.” She looked at Amy, who was waiting a few steps away.
When the pastor followed her gaze, he lifted an eyebrow but said nothing.
Words weren’t necessary. Rika had read the silent disapproval on people’s faces often enough when they’d looked at her, knowing she was the daughter of a drunkard and the wife of a ne’er-do-well husband. He doesn’t approve of Amy, because she’s not like the other girls in town. Her lips pressed together until they felt numb. He doesn’t know Amy’s kindness, has never seen her care for the animals, yet he judges her for the way she dresses.
She waited for him to nod and move on to other parishioners, but the pastor kept looking at her. “Phineas is expected back soon,” he said. “It’s time to discuss your wedding ceremony.”
Oh, no. Rika couldn’t deal with that. Not today. “Oh, Reverend, I can’t possibly make decisions about wedding plans without Mr. Sharpe and without even having met him. Maybe we can talk some other time, when he’s back. Now, would you excuse me, please? The Hamiltons are waiting for me.” She pointed at Nattie and Nora, who had joined Amy next to the wagon.
“Come see me as soon as Phineas is back.” The pastor’s stern gaze drilled into her. “You can’t live under the same roof with Phineas and not be married to him.”
“I won’t,” Rika said.
One of the women who sat in the first pew every Sunday waved to get the pastor’s attention.
“Until next Sunday, then.” With one last glance, he walked away.
“What did he want?” Amy asked when Rika climbed onto the wagon. She fidgeted with the reins as if she, too, wondered whether the pastor somehow knew about Frankie and Tess’s improper behavior.
Rika settled the folds of her skirt around her and made sure her ankles were covered. “He wanted to discuss the wedding ceremony.”
For the long way home, Nora and Nattie, who rode next to the wagon, talked about what Rika would wear, how they would decorate the church, and what passages the pastor would read from the Bible.
Wedding preparations didn’t hold Rika’s attention. Five years ago, those things had more meaning for her. She had altered one of her mother’s old dresses to fit her slim frame, walked miles to pick a few sprigs of cherry blooms, and obsessed about the way her hair looked. Now she knew those things held no importance. Her marriage hadn’t turned out any better because of them.
Over and over, her thoughts slid back to seeing Frankie and Tess kiss. They passed the little bend in the path where the strawberry picnic had taken place. It was deserted now, and Rika wondered if she had imagined it all.
But then she saw Amy’s gaze flit to the spot.
