A Bride in Store (13 page)

Laughter rolled out from the bottom of her gut. She couldn’t help it.

He loosed three more petite sneezes in a row, and a tear trickled from one of his eyes. His scowl only made the dam holding back her merriment break wider. He ruffled his hair to extricate the feathers, but his nose wrinkled again, and he let out another pitiful sneeze.

She pressed hard on her abdomen, hoping to stop laughing enough to take a deep breath, lest she faint for lack of air. Her tightly laced corset helped not one bit.

Though a pillow making a grown man cry was mighty funny, she knew she shouldn’t laugh. She gulped in some air to stop herself. “I wish I sneezed like you—” She accidentally snorted in an attempt to stay her laugh. “My father would have had one less thing to criticize me for.”

“They might not sound like much, but they hurt my diaphragm like the dickens.” His voice was clogged with stuffiness. He rubbed at his nose, wiped at his watery eyes, and sneezed again.

She gulped some air and swiped at the feathers on his shirt. “Surely you’ve got something in your medical box of tricks to take care of the sniffles?”

“I don’t normally get attacked by feathers.” He glanced down at her hand as she pushed his shoulder to turn him around. “Avoiding them is the best treatment.”

She beat the fluffy white bits off his back and then reached up for the ones on the top of his head. Her fingers ruffled through his hair, dislodging the feathers the way she used to remove freshly cut hair from her father’s thick mane.

Except Will’s hair was much thicker than Pa’s. And amazingly fine.

Will’s neck tensed, so she dropped her hand to his other shoulder and went back to swiping. She circled around to his front. Her hand brushed along the dark blue of his vest, his chest hard and solid beneath her fingers. Not that she should be noticing such a thing.

Eyes downcast, she kept defeathering him until every last piece of fluff was evicted. “There.” Her voice was ragged. Too ragged. She shouldn’t have tried to speak. Maybe she could blame her clogged throat on the feathers.

Silence drew her gaze upward. His eyes blinked, but nothing else moved.

She swallowed and reached out for one last feather clinging to the stubble near his cheekbone. “Now, go back to work. I’ll clean this up.”

William dragged in a rough breath and shooed away a feather floating toward him.

Should she brush off the feather she’d missed on his shirt sleeve?

William put a hand against her face, and she froze. His thumb wiped across her brow and a flicker of white floated away in her peripheral vision. He ran his hand across her hair. Not like she had his—his touch was more a caress than anything else.

His fingers grazed the side of her face, and heaven help her, her whole body shivered. He pulled a large feather away and let it drop, but didn’t watch it fall. His eyes flitted to hers for a second—bloodshot . . . and haunted.

Then his gaze slid down to her lips and stilled.

He took a step back, looked at the ground where feathers lay at their feet, and rubbed the back of his neck.

Her chest suddenly filled with air now that he’d moved away. “Are you all right?”

He shook his head but didn’t say anything. Didn’t look at her. Didn’t move.

Was something other than feathers bothering him? Why was he withdrawing from her again? “Will, I—”

“No.” He held out his palm before stomping away, muttering something under his breath about casting down imaginations.

Nearly running into the counter, he leaned over it to grab something. “This came for you this morning.” He turned half toward her and held out a letter.

The envelope was addressed to her, the handwriting Axel’s.

Was this what was bothering Will? She studied his profile as she tore the envelope’s flap.

His jaw twitched. Was he as discombobulated as she was after she’d run her hands all over his chest?

She pulled the letter closer to her waist to read.

Eliza,

I hope you aren’t too disappointed I wasn’t there to meet you at the station and that I’m not yet back. I trust you got the letter I sent Will, but I wanted to write that my injured leg has kept me here longer than I’d hoped. It seemed doomed to infection but has taken a turn for the better. The doctor wants to keep me, but I’m not going to stay much longer—besides, Will can look after me. I’ve been off my feet for a while, with both the leg and the dizziness, but as soon as I can sit a horse, I’m leaving. I’m glad Will’s been there to help you while I’m gone—you won’t find a more decent chap in Salt Flatts.

Watch for me,
Axel

She rubbed her temple. “Axel should be here soon.” Did he include himself when he wrote that no other man in Salt Flatts was as decent as Will?

“I suspected as much.” He swiped at the feathers still clinging to his trousers. “Excuse me.” He disappeared into the back room, returning with a slicker that he buttoned as he passed. “Can you watch the store? I’m going for a walk.”

“In the rain?”

“It’s letting up.” He stalked out the door and into the drizzle.

She didn’t stop him.

Perfect. Simply perfect. She still had no idea why he was mad at her, and now she couldn’t get the feel of his hair between her fingers out of her mind.

Chapter 10

Will sank into the long-stemmed grasses beside the muddy riverbank, careful to keep the slicker beneath him. He selected a small, flat rock and whipped it across the river at a hackberry tree, chipping the bark.

What an awful soldier he’d be in a real battle.

He’d wrestled with his wayward thoughts for a week. Every time he thought of Eliza in any manner beyond a business partner, he’d started dismantling guns in his mind. Trying not to talk to or look at her had also helped.

But when she’d sent word that she was ill, he’d nearly rushed to her side, so he’d summoned every ounce of willpower to stay at the store. Mrs. Lightfoot would’ve sought help if necessary.

Will blew out a breath as he ran his hands through his hair. His jealousy over Axel finding a woman with such . . . such magnetism was something fierce if he had to ignore a sick person to keep his thoughts pure.

As Everett had said, he was in a war . . . and war was ugly.

Yet a handful of feathers had laid him low.

Her fingers combing through his hair inflamed his bullet-riddled heart. With every swipe of her fingers, he’d frantically searched for
a reason to toss his white flag in surrender. But instead of walking away and mentally dismantling that cannon, he’d foolishly touched her. The soft velvet of her brow, the silkiness of her hair, and the smoothness of her cheek had overpowered the battle alarm blaring inside him.

He had been so close to taking her in his arms and kissing her until she forgot to breathe—

No, no, no! What was he thinking? Even here on the riverbank, a half mile from town, he couldn’t keep his thoughts in line. They were growing boldly worse. The storm clouds needed to return and drench him; cold water trickling down his collar might cool off his rebellious mind.

A good thing he’d run like Joseph from Potiphar’s wife. If not for Axel’s letter taunting him from behind the counter, he would’ve made a very, very bad decision.

He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, then stared at the moist earth between his feet. The smell of wet moss and mud glistening under the sudden-appearing sun should have been calming. But nothing could soothe him at the present.

“Will?”

The familiar feminine voice behind him ran shivers across his exposed neck. What more could go wrong with this day? He turned with a sigh.

The strawberry-blond curls around her face blew gently in the breeze as she collapsed her umbrella. Her smile was tentative. “Surprised to see me?”

Surprised? He’d expected Nancy would visit her parents occasionally, but to seek him out . . . in a muddy meadow? He glanced at the young girl holding her hand. The child, six or seven, couldn’t weigh much more than a four-year-old if he wrung the muddy water from her hem. “I thought I’d hear about your return before I saw you.”

Nancy nodded solemnly. “I asked Mother to refrain from announcing my arrival until I found you. Though I figured I shouldn’t
wait more than a day or two in case she couldn’t keep from spreading the news.” She took one step forward. “Mind if we join you?”

Of course he minded, but he couldn’t say that. He stood, shrugged off his slicker, and laid it atop a thick mound of grass.

She lowered herself onto his coat and tucked the little girl into her lap. “When I saw you walking this way, I figured you might have come looking for plants.”

“Not in this rain.” He yanked out a nearby yarrow plant, root and all, then wedged himself into the damp, V-shaped trunk of a cottonwood tree. This meadow always held plenty of chamomile, coneflower, plantain, and other plants. He stopped rolling the wet leaves in his hand lest the pungent aroma seep into his skin and stay there.

He looked at the little girl again. Nancy had fallen in love with a widower’s children and given up waiting on him to get his life in order. So where was her husband and the rest of his brood? “Who’s this?”

“Millicent.” She tucked an arm tighter around the pale-faced girl. “Ma says you haven’t gone to school yet, but you’ll help if someone’s desperate enough. Seems you haven’t changed.” She gave him a flicker of a smile, though at the moment, he didn’t feel like smiling with her. “I could use some advice.”

He tore off the yarrow’s feathery leaf and massacred the smelly thing between his fingers. “You should talk to Forsythe.”

“The doctor in Wichita couldn’t help, and he was much like Dr. Forsythe.”

“You know perfectly well why I shouldn’t help anyone until I get proper training.” Killing a sister and dooming the other to a life of suffering should make anyone distrust his advice. “I haven’t saved enough to get to school yet. I’m trying, but it takes
time
.” Something she hadn’t been willing to give him.

She ducked her head and picked at some imaginary thing on her sleeve, the wan little girl trembling on her lap.

He sighed. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll do my best.”

“A reoccurring fever still gets the best of Millie every now and then.” She rested her chin on top of her daughter’s head. “She’s fine at present, but every few weeks she’s in bed with aches and fevers, and each time I think I’m going to lose her all over again.”

He wedged himself tighter into the tree and waited.

“My husband and his three boys died from the same fever last year—a month after we wed. Millicent survived, though. My in-laws encouraged me to try every doctor. I’ve used everything you taught me about wild flowers and such, but . . .”

She turned slightly dewy eyes toward him. “I know now how crippling the pain of losing someone under your care feels. Especially after you lose one after the other . . . after the other . . .” Nancy turned her face away and sniffed.

The little girl’s haunted eyes blinked at him.

So desperation had driven them into the rain after him. “I’m truly sorry.”

The way Nancy held the girl indicated she’d found some solace . . . and even more hardship.

“I understand you better now, wish I hadn’t been so hard on you.” Though her head still lay atop her daughter’s, her green eyes lifted and fixed on his.

“I’ve forgiven you, Nancy. Months ago.”

She took in a big breath. “Everything I’d rejected you for is something I now admire. This last year I’ve pondered why you hesitated to doctor and why you wouldn’t marry me before you went to school, and well . . .” She shrugged. “Without a husband and my savings depleted trying to cure Millie, I’ve run out of options. So I’m here permanently.”

She licked her lips and swallowed. “Maybe we could become friends again?” Her darting eyes indicated she was embarrassed to say more.

Unlike Eliza, who spoke her mind.

He knew what Nancy was thinking. How could he not after growing up with her and courting her for five years?

A destitute widow with residual feelings for him and a sick child who needed more care than a doting mother could give. They needed one thing more than any other—a protector and provider.

But he couldn’t promise anything—not yet. . . .

He stood and brushed the crushed leaves off his pants. “Let me walk you home.” He held out his hand to his former fiancée to help her up. “You can tell me about Millie’s problems on the way, and I’ll think about things you can try.” He looked Nancy in the eye. “As to anything else, give me some time.”

“Thank you.” She let her gaze drop from his. “Your thinking about it is more than I deserve.”

Eliza sat in the back of the store, not feeling like rearranging merchandise or analyzing inventory for the first time in her life. She’d just sit here as long as the gray weather kept customers away.

She picked up some gun part Will had left on the counter and rolled it between her fingers. Why had his hand grazing her cheek to swipe off a feather—and his silence—bothered her so much?