The Wedding Kiss Read online

  “Gloria and I talked about marriage before Cash was born,” Keara said. “We weren’t talking about me. We were talking about you.”

  Elam grew still, and his attention focused on her with uncanny intensity. She hesitated, entranced by the air of expectancy in those dark eyes as he awaited a new word from his wife, still loving her past the veil of death.

  “She told me that if anything happened to her during childbirth she didn’t want you and the children to hide out here alone on the farm. I’ve come to you because of Britte and Rolfe and Cash.” It was true. Keara wouldn’t have the courage to be here if it weren’t for the sake of the children. “Helping you raise them is something I could do to honor Gloria’s memory.”

  Elam’s gaze traveled over her face, as if considering her proposal—or wondering if she had lost her mind. “You were always so good to Gloria.” His voice was gentle, almost indulgent. “You’re Auntie Keara to the children.”

  “I can help you as you can help me. I may be small, but I’m a strong hand…and I don’t get sick. It would be a good partnership.”

  He grimaced and turned away. “That isn’t what a marriage should be.”

  “Oh, don’t get all particular on me. Marriage can be all kinds of things, but it surely is a partnership. Lots of folk marry without all the hearts and flowers and romantic trappings. I could sleep in Cash’s room while he’s little, or sleep with Britte. Whatever animals I don’t sell I can bring with me. Buster is strong, and you know he’s broken to wagon and saddle.” She’d never sell her beloved chestnut gelding.

  It wasn’t until Elam reached out, took her by the shoulders, and gently nudged her backward that she realized she’d been advancing on him like one of those sirens in town. Heat traveled from her face to her toes.

  He released her. “Don’t throw away the chance for love because you can’t see any other way out right this minute.”

  “And where do you figure I’ll live while I wait? A tree in the woods? Who knows when Sean and Morris will return from California? I heard tell there’s good work to be found out there for strong men. Right now, I feel like I do when Buster startles at a snake and nearly jumps out from under me when I’m riding him.”

  Elam took a heavy breath. The lines of sadness that had haunted him over the winter appeared to deepen. He gave her a look of total understanding. “You’ve just had your life yanked out from under you, and that’s no time for quick decisions.”

  “My decisions have to be quick, Elam, don’t you see?”

  “You’ve got a lot of friends here. We’ll parcel out your things and animals and hold them, and you, until you find a place to settle.”

  His words burned into her heart. All she felt was the rejection. What should she have expected?

  “I guess my idea was as crazy as I feared,” she said. “Of course you wouldn’t marry a jailbird’s daughter.”

  “That isn’t what I mean, Keara.”

  “The Jensens and Pettits might not even want Brute McBride’s daughter near them for fear Pa might kick up a ruckus if he ever did get released from jail.”

  “You know better. They all remember the kind of man Brute was when your mother was alive.”

  “Your children will need a mother,” Keara said. “I can’t come out this far from Eureka Springs every day, even if I do manage to scrounge a job there, serving at one of the bathhouses or cooking food under a tent.”

  “You won’t have to—”

  “I may not even be able to find a job there.” She avoided him as he reached for her. “And you will need someone to keep house and help you on the farm. Don’t try to take it all on yourself, and don’t dump it all onto Britte’s little shoulders.” She stepped around him and gathered her boots and shawl. She had tried and failed.

  Elam reached for her again. “Please, Keara, I’ll help you settle—”

  She drew away. “I’ve done for myself all these years and I suppose I’ll keep it up.” She would not be handed along to the neighbors like an unwanted orphan. Parceled, he’d called it. What a horrible word. Like a hot potato nobody wanted to handle. Well, she could camp out in the woods if need be. She had a wagon and plenty of food. She could sell the animals to neighbors and—

  “Keara, I won’t let you leave like this. We can work it out.” He put an arm in front of her. She stepped around him, refusing to listen, ignoring him as she moved through the room.

  It wasn’t until she’d stepped out into the sunlight that she felt the first tears trickling down her face. Really, what was she going to do?

  Two

  Late on Monday afternoon, Keara McBride’s voice continued to haunt Elam Jensen as he brushed the haunches of his two-year-old gray filly, Freda Mae. She was coming along, took to the saddle like a catfish to the river bottom. A few more weeks and he wouldn’t be afraid to allow Britte to ride her.

  The only problem was that the filly’s hooves grew too fast. He had to trim them twice as often as he did the others, but she could run like the wind itself. She was worth the extra time it took to care for her, if only he had that time to spare.

  Time was in short supply, and it promised to become shorter without Keara. “Lord, how am I going to keep up?”

  The only thing that stopped the worried circle of his thoughts was the rattle of wagon sideboards.

  He waved toward the Pettits when the wagon pulled up to the front of the house. Britte and Rolfe jumped off the back, sun-touched and laughing, the way he loved to see them. His sister and brother-in-law waved and continued on with their brood of six healthy, rambunctious saplings. David and Penelope would want to be home long before nightfall to get their chores done.

  Britte dropped her picnic basket in the grass and ran to the enclosure Elam had built so he could watch Cash while working the horses. Britte doted on her baby brother. She was so like her mother, headstrong and sure of what she wanted, with eyes that had begun, once again, to shine with life just short of mischief, and long hair a tangled mess from her day at the river.

  “Papa!”

  Elam turned to find Rolfe running toward him with arms open wide for a hug. Elam swung him up and held him close. Rolfe had not recovered from his mother’s death as quickly as his sister had, and Elam worried about him, especially now, if they were going to lose Keara’s comforting presence.

  Had Elam ever wondered why God intended for children to have both a mother and a father, he’d have discovered that answer this past winter. He would never forget the kindness the Cherokee family had shown by camping and hunting nearby throughout the autumn and winter so Ayanna could be Cash’s wet nurse. The horses he’d given them in exchange had been far too small a payment, and he’d had to insist to get them to accept even that.

  As for Keara’s help…all the horses he owned would not be enough pay for the loving care she’d given his family. And him. He had to admit that, because of her, he’d had time to grieve deeply.

  A heavy spirit had vexed him since her visit today. He’d let her down. After all she’d done to help him and the children, he had refused her request when she was in cruel need.

  But what could he do? Marriage less than a year after Gloria’s death would be a travesty to her memory. Making vows to a woman he did not love would mock all he knew marriage to be, and it would rob her of finding the kind of love he’d known.

  He would be swift to invite Keara to stay with them and continue to care for the children, but one of the more troublemaking younger women in town had already accused Keara behind her back of impropriety for the hours she’d been spending with Elam and the children.

  He knew the gossip would hurt her if it reached her ears, especially the murmurings in the church about some wanting to speak to the pastor. If that happened, he wondered if Keara could bear it. She would be devastated if the church expelled her for a sin she’d never committed.

  Elam was disappointed in Raylene Harper. He’d known her since she was a friendly little girl with a big heart for stray ani
mals. She’d grown into a sneering young woman with a bite in every word. What was it about some females when they grew up?

  “Look, Papa!” Britte walked behind Cash as he crawled through the uneven grass. “He’s racing me!”

  Cash squealed with laughter when Britte caught up with him and tickled his belly.

  The evening sun made their black hair glow. They both resembled their mother, and a tug of familiar pain made Elam wince. At eight, Britte needed time to grow and time to play. Without Keara to care for the children, much of the housework, gardening, and cooking would fall on Britte. She was too young to take the whole load.

  Rolfe pushed against his arm. “Papa, you’re squeezing me.”

  With a soft apology, Elam set his son on the ground. Rolfe was the child most like him, who had his papa’s nature of feeling too deeply. Rolfe, too, would be forced to grow up too soon without Keara here to help tend to things.

  “I’m hungry,” Britte said. “We swam a lot! What did Auntie Keara leave for us today?”

  “We have cracklin’ cornbread and head cheese.” Elam led his family toward the house. Brute McBride had butchered a hog only three days before he was jailed for a crime Elam was convinced he had not committed. Keara had seen to it that the Jensen family would not want for tasty food. Elam and his children ate well.

  “Auntie Keara will come home tomorrow, won’t she?” Rolfe asked.

  Elam looked down and laid a hand on his son’s dark head. To them, this colorfully painted home—which had been Gloria’s dream since she was a child—was now Keara’s home as much as theirs, though until now she’d continued to live and work on her own family farm as well. “I…am not sure.”

  Both Britte and Rolfe looked up at him. “But why wouldn’t she?” Britte asked.

  “She has things to see to at her house.”

  “We can go help her,” Rolfe said. “She says we’re good helpers.”

  “You are good helpers, but I don’t think she needs a garden planted or her cow milked today. She has other things on her mind.” Elam swung Cash up into his arms and felt a wet bottom. The thoughts of getting dinner and caring for the children, checking on the horses and cattle, seeing to breakfast tomorrow, and keeping Britte, Rolfe, and Cash safe while he worked the farm were enough to stagger him.

  But wouldn’t it be selfish of him to marry Keara so she could become a servant in his house? She deserved better than a lifetime of labor without love.

  He stepped onto the porch as Britte and Rolfe charged through the front door ahead of him, but his steps slowed before he entered the house. “She deserves much better than she’s received all her life, but will she get it, Lord?” As she’d told him, she’d had no time for meeting beaus. “Where will she go?”

  David and Penelope were so crowded that their oldest two boys slept in the barn. Kellen and Jael weren’t much better off, and though both families had plans to add rooms, they hadn’t built them yet.

  What would a single woman do alone in the world? Some kindhearted older lady in town might take her in out of pity or loneliness. Keara might even set up a tent for selling containers of the healing spring waters to the hordes of visitors, and add to that the herbs and teas she collected in the forest. But there were hard-hearted businessmen in the swiftly built town, and Keara was not as wise to the ways of the world as she wanted to think.

  Elam reached the table, stacked with freshly washed nappies. Keara, again, had taken care of washing. What would he do without her? But how selfish could a man be?

  He reached for a napkin and laid Cash down on the much-used table Gloria had always used for changing her babies. “Children, Auntie Keara may not be able to come see us so often.”

  Even Cash grew still, his chubby, kicking legs stopping in mid-air as Britte and Rolfe turned shocked looks on Elam.

  “Papa, why?” The whisper that was forced from Britte’s lips betrayed a tremor in her voice. Her wide blue eyes filled with a renewal of the loss that had haunted her so often since Gloria’s death.

  Rolfe’s face puckered in an attempt not to cry. Already, he showed signs of the deep, abiding love he would have for his own family someday.

  They loved Keara. They had known her all their lives, and she was the closest thing to a mother they now had. They were both capable of doing their chores, and Britte could cook and help care for her brothers, but they needed Keara in a deeper way.

  He changed Cash into a dry cloth and carried him to the sofa with a cup of goat’s milk and corn mush warmed in a kettle of water over the stove. As if afraid to get too far away after the news about Keara—as if suddenly afraid they might lose their father as well—Britte and Rolfe tucked themselves closely on each side of him.

  They watched in silence as Elam spooned gruel from the cup into Cash’s mouth. Their fear touched him in a way no argument from Keara could have done.

  How much could he tell them?

  “Papa?” Britte said.

  Rolfe swallowed hard. “Papa, doesn’t Auntie Keara want to see us again?”

  “She does,” he said. “Yes, she does. Never doubt she loves you. But a mean person has caused her to lose her farm, and she may not be able to be near us when she has to move out.”

  “But she can stay here with us!” Rolfe said. “Remember when Britte was sick, and Auntie Keara stayed to take care of her? Why can’t she stay here?”

  Elam couldn’t explain to a six-year-old about the nastiness of gossip and unfair judgment that had spread like hot grease on a griddle after that prolonged visit. He nudged the spoon to Cash’s lips only to have him push it away with his tongue. He’d been warned that weaning Cash this suddenly would not be an easy task.

  “Papa?” Britte was more insistent than her brother.

  “If Keara were to move in with us,” Elam told them, “she would have to become your stepmother.”

  “You mean she’d become wicked, like in the fairytales she’s been reading us?” Rolfe’s eyes rounded.

  “No, Rolfie,” Britte said. “Auntie Keara isn’t wicked.”

  “But then why would she have to become a wicked stepmother?” Rolfe asked.

  “I didn’t say she’d be a wicked stepmother.” Elam sighed and looked at Britte. He’d have to speak to Keara about those stories.

  “If Auntie Keara moved in with us and took care of us, people would say nasty things about her that aren’t true,” Britte said. “She would have to become Papa’s wife so no one would say those things.”

  Rolfe glared at his sister in confusion. “You aren’t making any sense.”

  “Grownups don’t always make sense,” Elam said in an attempt to derail this train of thought. “But there are rules people must follow, and this would be one of them. I’d have to marry Auntie Keara.” He prayed silently that Rolfe would ask no more questions and that Britte wasn’t actually as wise in the ways of the world as she suddenly seemed to be. He had too many other thoughts to ponder.

  The silence stretched. God answered his prayer. The children questioned him no more, though he could see them from the corner of his eye as they exchanged long, meaningful looks. He could imagine that later Britte would tell her younger brother a few more things about the facts of life than Elam wanted his son to grasp quite yet.

  He continued to feed Cash as he reconsidered Keara’s predicament. He didn’t wish to imprison her in a loveless marriage. They both believed in the permanence of wedding vows.

  Cash took a bite of the gruel, and then another. Maybe this would work after all, though he ate much more willingly when Keara fed him.

  Keara was the only mother Cash had ever known.

  Cash took another bite then pushed the spoon away with his tongue when his mouth got too full.

  The marriage wouldn’t be loveless for Keara. The children loved her, and she them. She also loved the land and farming and working the horses. She would dry up and die like a plucked elderflower if she was forced to move into town.

  Elam leaned back
and wiped Cash’s chin, realizing at last what had been the cause of the despair in Keara’s eyes today. She knew nothing but farm life, and she had thrived on it for twenty-six years, capable as either of her younger brothers, and nearly as strong for her size.

  It was the despair that worried him. Keara wasn’t one to be hasty, but she was being given no choice. What would prevent her from marrying the first farmer she met who was looking for a household servant? There were rough men in this area, and Elam had seen evidence that some of the wives received only cruelty in their marriages.

  Cash gave a loud burp and a satisfied grin. Britte took him from Elam’s lap and Rolfe took the cup. Keara had taught them well. Even without her, he knew he would fare better than she would.

  Keara had been Gloria’s dear friend ever since Elam brought Gloria here from Pennsylvania after their fancy wedding. She’d been their beloved neighbor, Elam’s rescuer, his children’s teacher and loving auntie. She was a good woman. What did it matter that she lacked many feminine graces that came naturally for other women? He’d heard her snort like a foal when she laughed. She’d roughhoused with her brothers and his own children and nieces and nephews like one of them and had helped Elam saddle break more than one horse.

  Marrying Keara McBride would be like marrying a farmhand, but watching his children while brooding on Keara’s predicament, he realized he had no choice. There would be friendship between himself and Keara. He’d seen many marriages worse off. And besides, he had never expected to enjoy another love as fine as the one he’d shared with Gloria.

  He could live a celibate life for the remainder of his days, and in Keara he would always have a friend.

  Marrying Keara McBride was the right thing to do.

  Three

  Keara’s fingers dug deeply into the knot of ribbons that bound a small bouquet of blossoms from Elam’s fruit trees. She found herself struggling for each breath against the stiffness of her stays.

  Elam’s sisters, Penelope and Jael, married to the Pettit brothers, said they were happy about this marriage. Truly, they’d seemed so this past week as they rushed to prepare a wedding celebration after the marriage announcement. But this? In Eureka Springs? With a crowd?