Smoke River Bride. Lynna Banning

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СКАЧАТЬ man in the beaver coat. His gaze seemed direct; laugh lines wrinkled the corners of his eyes and his mouth could change from a grim line into a smile in a single heartbeat.

      She liked him. She couldn’t say why, exactly. He was gruff, his manners untutored, but she sensed a steadiness about him. He was like Father but not so disapproving. Father had always worried about her Chinese half, even though he had braved Third Uncle, Ming Sa’s guardian, to marry her mother. The Chinese did not respect the White Devils, but she knew Father had loved Ming Sa.

      “I am glad I came, as well,” she said softly. And God knew she needed to belong somewhere safe, even if it was a farm on the rough, uncivilized Oregon frontier.

      Thad tipped his hat, backed into the hallway and turned to leave. “Whatever happens, it should be interesting.” He tossed the remark over his shoulder.

      Leah jerked as if bitten by a horsefly. “Wait!” she called. “Your gloves.” She pressed them into his large hand. To her surprise she found his fingers were trembling.

      In that moment she guessed what lay beneath his gruff exterior. Underneath, he was as frightened as she was. But, being a man, he would never, never admit it. Never show fear, Father had said.

      When the door closed behind Mr. MacAllister, she let her heavy wool coat slide off her shoulders onto the scuffed hardwood floor. She undressed by the light seeping through the lacy curtain, poured water into the basin and rapidly sponged off the travel dust and soot from every inch of her body. Then she shook out her silk tunic and trousers and hung them in the armoire along with her coat.

      Ravenously hungry, she unwrapped her last dried bean cake, pulled on her pink silk sleeping robe and crawled into the welcoming bed.

      She had been fortunate in America thus far—except for those terrifying days imprisoned at Madam Tang’s. Leah had finally escaped in the horse-drawn laundry cart that came each morning and found her way to a church. Now, after a day and a night on the train from San Francisco to Portland, and another half day to Smoke River, here she was. Tired to the bone, but safe in the biggest, softest bed she had ever slept on. God was surely looking out for her.

      She stretched luxuriously, nibbled the edge of the hard bean cake and listened to the street noises below her window. Horses clipclopped down the main road, harnesses jingling. Dishes clattered in the restaurant across from the hotel. Men’s raucous voices drifted from the saloon next door. Oh, it all sounded so…American! What a strange and wonderful land this was!

      Thank you, Lord, for this place of safety and for this man. She would be a good wife to him.

      Nodding over the uneaten bean cake, she curled into a ball and fell asleep listening to the sound of a woman’s voice from the saloon below, singing a song about a train and a round mountain.

       Chapter Three

      Seven-year-old Teddy MacAllister looked up at his father accusingly. “Where ya been, Pa? I had to shoo the chickens inside the henhouse all by myself, and keep the fire goin’, and…” His voice trailed off. His father was not listening, as usual.

      “What? Oh, I’ve been in town, laddie. Tomorrow I’ll have a surprise for you.”

      Teddy’s blue eyes lit up. “A horse, Pa? Is it a horse of my own?”

      Thad regarded his son with eyes that saw only a small part of the boy’s eagerness. “Nope, not a horse. Something better.”

      “Ain’t nuthin’ better than a horse,” the boy grumbled.

      But Thad did not hear. He busied himself at the woodstove in the kitchen, heating the kettle of beans he’d set to soak before he’d left to meet the train. His gut felt as if it were tearing in two directions. On the one hand, he wanted to give Teddy someone who could fill the gap left by his mother’s death. Someone to keep house and bake cookies and knit socks for the boy.

      On the other hand, he did not want Miss Cameron, no matter how capable or understanding she might be, to replace Hattie. Thad and she had grown up together in Scotland, and later, when he had settled on the Oregon frontier, she’d come out from New England to marry him. Her upbringing hadn’t prepared her for the hardships on a ranch; in fact, she had disliked living so far away from the life she had grown used to. But Hattie had said she loved him, and she had given him a son.

      Teddy dawdled near the dry sink, still stacked full of plates and cups from last night’s supper. “Kin we have biscuits?”

      “What? Biscuits take mixin’ up.”

      “Then kin I mix ’em? I learned real good from Matt, uh, Marshal Johnson,” he amended. “I even know how to bake them on a flat rock!”

      “Got a good oven right here.” Thad thumped one leg of the nickel-trimmed stove with his boot. “Build up the fire some, Teddy. Need these beans to cook.”

      “Yes, Pa.” He moved to the wood box near the back door, stacked an armload of small oak logs along one arm and staggered to the stove.

      “Guess what?” he said as he chunked one piece into the fire box.

      Thad didn’t answer.

      “Pa?”

      Thad spooned some bacon grease into his bowl of flour and stirred it up, paying scant attention to the boy. Usually, he thought about his dead wife, or worried about his new wheat field—was some insect nibbling the shoots? Would the snow stunt the sprouts? But this evening, he couldn’t get his mind off tomorrow morning.

      Miss Cameron wasn’t at all what he’d expected. The fact that she was part Chinese had come as a shock, but what had really knocked him off his pins was how young and how damned pretty she was. She had shiny black hair, like a waterfall of satin, and large gray-green eyes that shone when she was pleased. For some reason, she made him nervous.

      She hadn’t been pleased when he’d suggested she come home with him tonight. He’d meant no disrespect, just wanted to be practical. Hell, he’d never accost a woman, especially one under his care. In the morning he’d make it all proper at the church, and then she’d be here permanently. He’d show her the ranch and the wheat, the experimental crop he was trying to grow on the back three acres, and the springhouse he was building, and…

      Teddy turned away with a sigh and tramped to the pocked wooden table in the far corner of the kitchen. “You want me to set out the plates, Pa?”

      Again lost in his thoughts, Thad did not answer. With a shrug his son lifted two china plates from the painted wood shelf along the wall and plopped them down on the table.

      Thad spoke abruptly from the stove. “You go to school today?”

      “Nah. It’s Saturday, remember?”

      No, he didn’t remember. How could he forget what day of the week it was? Especially Saturday. Hattie had died on a Saturday. He gazed out the window over the sink, suddenly unable to see. She’d wanted that window so she could look at her pink roses sprawling along the back fence. Two summers had come and gone since then; the roses looked awful straggly.

      He blinked away the stinging in his eyes and focused on his reflection in the glass. Who was he now that Hattie was gone?

      “Pa? СКАЧАТЬ