Elizabeth Grayson (15 page)

Chase didn’t mince words telling them. He began with the extraordinary proposal James Rossiter had made, and explained about Ann’s child needing a father. He talked about the advantages that owning and captaining the
Andromeda
would give him.

He told them things Ann hadn’t given him a chance to explain: the way he’d responded to the
Andromeda
when he’d first come aboard, why he’d changed his mind about the commodore’s offer. She hadn’t understood what it was that made him think having the
Andromeda
as his own was worth marrying her for. Ann felt better somehow, knowing how important the steamer was to him.

“But why is Ann here with you now?” Lydia asked when he was done. “Surely you aren’t taking her all the way to the Montana Territory in her condition.”

“Ann wants to go,” Chase explained as if they hadn’t been arguing about it for three weeks. “And since the baby isn’t due until August—”

“August?” Lydia turned her clear, assessing gaze on Ann, evaluating the fullness of her breasts and the roundness of her belly. “August, you say?”

Ann lowered her eyes. “Yes.”

“You’re certain?”

Ann nodded, pleating the skirt of her gown between her fingers.

“Is there no place for you to stay in St. Louis while Chase is gone?” Lydia pressed her.

“At first I wanted her to stay on with her father,” Chase put in, “but since then I’ve reconsidered.”

“Ann?” Lydia inquired.

Ann raised her head and looked directly into Lydia Hardesty’s eyes. She wanted the older woman to understand how determined she was to stay on the
Andromeda.
“I’m hoping that by August we’ll have found a place of our own,” she explained. “I want my baby born under my own roof, in my own bed.”

The older woman studied her with grave intensity, as if she could see the fears that beset her and the secrets Ann would never reveal to anyone.

Lydia turned to her son. “But what if that baby’s early? What if that child should come when you’re miles from a doctor, miles from help? Miles from any other women, for goodness sake!”

She shifted her gaze to Enoch before she continued. “Perhaps it would be wiser for Ann to stay on here with us until—”

“No!” Chase and Ann spoke as if on the same breath.

“First babies don’t always come on schedule,” Lydia maintained stubbornly. “Wouldn’t it be easier for Ann if—”

“Lydia,” Enoch spoke quietly, but with undeniable authority. “They’ve decided what they mean to do.”

Ann saw the glance Lydia directed at her husband. She wasn’t pleased by his intervention, but she was bound by it. “Yes, all right,” the older woman conceded. “If you’re sure—”

With some reluctance Ann reached out to touch Lydia’s hand. “We thank you for your concern, but I think this is the wisest choice.”

Lydia looked up at her son for confirmation, and Chase wagged his head reluctantly. “Ann’s convinced me this is best.”

“Very well, then,” Enoch agreed and set his pipe aside. “Before he went off to school, Quinn made us some excellent elderberry wine. Perhaps we should have a glass to toast your future before you show us all around that steamer.”

When they reached the kitchen only the adults and a few of the older children lingered on at the supper table.

Once Will had passed out small, elegant stemmed glasses and poured Quinn’s elderberry wine for each of them, Enoch rose and lifted his glass to Chase and Ann. “May you have at least as many years of happiness together as your mother and I have had.”

“May you have big, strong babies,” Etta Mae put in, cuddling her daughter close.

“Or even twins,” Bartholomew said, toasting with milk instead of wine. His twin, Benjamin, poked him.

“May your new steamer ever find the deepest channel,” Silas Jenkins offered.

“And may you settle in a big, fine house in St. Louis so we can all come visit,” Evangeline wished.

Once everyone had spoken, they all drank.

Ann lowered her lashes as she sipped the thick, sweet wine so no one would see the sheen of tears in her eyes.

How different this meal with the Hardestys was from the tense, combative dinners Ann had had with the commodore and her stepbrother. Never had Ann been claimed and welcomed the way this family had claimed and welcomed her. Never in her life had she wanted so much to be the woman these people thought she was.

In these few hours she’d come to yearn for the very thing the Hardestys seemed perfectly willing to give her—a family where she belonged.

CHASE TURNED FROM WHERE THE ROUSTERS WERE loading the last of the wood aboard the
Andromeda
and glanced up toward the captain’s cabin. Was Ann up yet? Was she going to come down to bid everyone good-bye?

He’d been so proud of her yesterday. Facing his huge, unruly family had probably scared her half to death. Hell, it had scared him, bringing home a bride no one had ever heard of! But Ann had stood up to all the questions and scrutiny like the gracious lady she was. Ann hadn’t even let the pearlash in the bread she’d baked fluster her. She had owned up to the problem and been able to laugh about it afterwards.

Lydia had liked that, and it was very important to Chase that his mother like his new wife. His father had even given their marriage his blessing.

Chase glanced up to Ann’s cabin again, fidgety and impatient. Cal was limbering up the paddle wheel. It was nearly time for them to get underway. Where was she?

He looked toward the house and saw his father shambling down the steps toward the landing. The mist rising from the river was thick and cool, making it the kind of morning that stiffened Enoch’s joints. Still, Chase had known he’d come. His father was here for a reckoning.

Chase narrowed his mouth to a scowl, then went to meet him. “Morning, Pa,” he greeted him.

“Morning, boy.”

Chase would be thirty-one this fall. He hadn’t lived under his father’s roof for more than a month or two at a time since he was thirteen. He’d won his pilot’s license, and now he was captaining his own steamer. Just what did he have to do before his father stopped thinking of him as a boy and called him his son?

“Should be a good day on the river,” Enoch observed, “soon as this fog burns off.”

Chase nodded and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I expect we’ll make a good distance today.”

Both of them turned and looked toward the steamer. A few of the rousters were lounging at the end of the gangway. Some of the passengers were out on deck with their trousers pulled on over their long johns, waiting for the steamer to pull out.

“Is Rue doing all right with his piloting?” Enoch asked, breaking the silence between them.

Chase sliced his father a sidelong glance. “I taught him, didn’t I?”

“Indeed you did,” the older man allowed, rocking a little on his heels. “And I don’t doubt your instruction was good. But were you able to teach Rue caution, boy? Were you able to teach him good judgment?”

Every conversation Chase had with his father was like this, gruff and prickly and filled with half-formed rebukes. He could talk to his mother about anything. She might chide him, argue with him, and tell him he was a horse’s ass, but he knew Lydia Hardesty loved him. That she would always love him. It had been the single constant in his life.

Chase had never been sure of that with Enoch. He hadn’t been sure if his father brought him home to Lydia because he wanted another son, or because he hadn’t known what else to do with him.

He had never understood what Enoch expected. Chase only knew that whatever it was, he kept falling short. Which was why he could never let go of anything Enoch said to him.

“Are you saying my judgment’s flawed, Pa?” Chase challenged him. “Are you saying I wasn’t able to teach Rue caution because my own judgment isn’t good enough?”

“I wasn’t saying that.” His father’s voice was tight. “Rue has to learn his own lessons, the same as you.”

Chase steeled himself. This was what his father had come to say to him.

“Damn it, Chase! Just look at the mess you’ve gotten yourself into now.”

Chase bristled. “Taking Ann as my wife, you mean?” Enoch’s face was set with disapproval. “Was it smart to jump into marriage with a woman you’d barely met? To take on her problems as well as—”

Chase swung around, addressing his father nose to nose. “I can handle this, Pa. Don’t you worry.”

“I’m not saying what you did is wrong,” Enoch corrected himself. “God knows, I’ve done my best to look after women and children when they were in need—”

Chase was only alive today because Enoch Hardesty lived by that creed, because he’d scooped a skinny toddler out of a burned-out cabin and brought him here.

“And just in case you’re wondering,” Enoch went on, “it doesn’t matter a lick to your mother or me whether you’re that baby’s father.”

The anger and confusion built up inside Chase like steam behind one of Cal’s pressure valves. “Damn it, Pa! If I’m supposed to look after women and children, and it doesn’t matter to you and Ma if Ann’s carrying someone else’s child—just what the hell did I do wrong?”

The set of his father’s chin was like a ledge of stone. “You sold yourself out, boy. A man doesn’t buy a boat with his good name. A man doesn’t trade his honor for a paddle wheel, some boilers, and a few yards of fancy gingerbread.”

“I didn’t sell my honor to get the
Andromeda
!”

“What you did, boy, is prove you can be bought. And what’s worse, you proved it to a man who’ll take advantage.”

After working aboard the Gold Star boats as long as he had, Chase knew exactly how ruthless a man James Rossiter was. It was true that some of the things in the contract Chase had signed still rubbed at him, but he wasn’t sorry he’d scrawled his name across the bottom. It had given him command of the
Andromeda.
It had pried Ann out of the clutches of the man he’d since discovered was mistreating her.

“If Rossiter’s already bought your loyalty and your pride, boy, what’s he going to want you to sell to him next time?” Enoch went on. “And how are you going to refuse to be part of his schemes if you’re married to his daughter?”

Chase was still fumbling for an answer when the high, sharp blast of a whistle echoed off the bluffs. The Gold Star Packets’ second newest packet, the
Cassiopeia,
came steaming around the bend.

“Who’s making all that racket so early in the morning?” Enoch wanted to know.

Chase crossed his arms against his chest. “Ann’s stepbrother Boothe was supposed to get command of the
Andromeda.
When I accepted the commodore’s offer, young Rossiter lost out. He got the captaincy of the
Cassiopeia
to make up for it.”

James Rossiter had had to fire Jeb Bartell, one of the Gold Star Packets’ finest captains, in the bargain.

“You didn’t much like being partnered with Boothe Rossiter, did you?” Enoch asked.

“I like being family to him even less. And I don’t much like the way he’s been dogging us all the way up the river—like he wants to beat us to Fort Benton.”

They watched the
Cassiopeia
steam past Hardesty’s Landing.

“You stay on here too long?” his father asked.

Chase shook his head. “I needed to bring Ann to meet you and Ma. But I don’t want Rossiter getting too far ahead of me.”

Chase could tell by the smoke streaming from the chimneys that Cal Watkins had the engines humming. They were ready to leave, with nothing to do but say their good-byes.

He hailed Rue in the pilothouse. “Sound the departure whistle.”

Having heard that long, single blast, Lydia Hardesty came bustling down the stone steps with Evangeline at her heels.

It brought Ann out of the cabin, still pinning up her hair. She waved at them from the Texas deck, and a few moments later joined everyone at the foot of the gangway.

Lydia immediately turned to her. “Etta Mae, Suzanne, and I got together a few things we thought might fit you. You’ll be needing some new clothes soon, and we figured you wouldn’t find many modistes out where you’re going.”

Trust his ma to put a practical gloss on something so generous. Clothes were turned and re-turned here at the Landing, cut down for the children, then made into quilts when they were all but threadbare. Chase hoped Ann understood what a sacrifice the three women were making for her, but he needn’t have worried.

Ann’s pale eyes were ashimmer with tears. She reached for Lydia’s hand and clasped it to the center of her chest. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your thoughtfulness.”

“Well, it’s nothing much,” Lydia answered, though Chase could tell his ma was pleased by Ann’s gratitude. “Those dresses may need altering here and there—”

“I’m a fair hand with a needle,” Ann put in.

“But they’re clean and should be serviceable.”

“Thank you,” Ann whispered and gave Lydia’s hand a final squeeze.

Evangeline handed the two big bundles she’d been carrying to one of the rousters, then gave both Chase and Ann hard, quick hugs. “You’ll be stopping on the way back, won’t you?”

Chase grinned and ruffled his sister’s soft curls. “I expect.”

Lydia hugged first Ann and then him.

“You take care of that girl,” she whispered in his ear. “She and that baby need lots of looking after.”

“I will, Ma,” he whispered back.

“See that you do,” she admonished him, then let him go.

Enoch said his good-byes. The quick squeeze he gave Chase’s shoulder was about as close as his father ever came to expressing affection.

Chase and Ann went aboard and the rousters took in the landing stage. As Chase made his way to the captain’s post on the hurricane deck, he heard Rue shout his own good-byes from the wheelhouse.

“Stay off the sandbars, son,” Enoch gave the classic Hardesty admonition.

By the time they were free of the bank and backing down, a goodly number of people had gathered to wave them safely away. Ann lingered on deck until they’d pulled out of sight.

For himself, Chase was suddenly very glad they were headed for Montana.

chapter seven

ANN DIDN’T NOTICE THAT THE CASSIOPEIA WAS TIED up at the bank in Sioux City until it was too late. She’d climbed midway up the levee on her way to the dry goods store, when a deep, drawling voice froze her in her tracks.

“Well, well, what have we here? The little mother toddling into town all by herself?”

Ann jerked around and saw that her stepbrother had paused in the lee of a head-high pile of crates to light a cigar. For a moment she was rooted where she stood, prey mesmerized by a stalking predator.

The acrid bite of sulphur singed her nostrils as Boothe struck a match and held it to the end of his cheroot. Then, trailing a streamer of smoke, he sauntered toward her. “Well, now, Ann,” he said letting his gaze slide over her, “just look how you’ve filled out. Why, you’re big as a house!”

Though she’d stiffened in outrage at his words, Ann couldn’t seem to help inching backwards. She tried not to let her stepbrother see how afraid of him she was. But he knew.

He’d always known.

That made Ann angry, both with him and with herself.

“I think it’s just as well you left St. Louis when you did,” he continued, moving in on her, “especially considering how much you’ve ‘grown’ of late. Of course, Father was nearly beside himself when you ran off, with nothing but that note to explain yourself.”

“Was he
very
angry?” Ann ventured. Even with Boothe to remind her why she’d been so eager to put St. Louis behind her, Ann felt the sting of her stepfather’s reproach.

“You know how he is—pleasant as can be until someone crosses him. But when they do ...” Boothe circled closer.

“ ‘Good riddance’ is what I said. ‘Let Hardesty look after her; you paid him to do it.’ But Father was disappointed. He intended for you to stay on at the house. He wanted to keep an eye on you and that baby. Doubtless he’s already making his plans for that poor bastard’s future.”

Ann felt the color come up her face.

“He’ll have his ambitions for it,” he went on, “just like he’s always had his ambitions for you and me.”

Ann did her best to hold her ground. “You know very well that the commodore’s plans aren’t why I left St. Louis.”

Boothe gave a snort of laughter. “I’d have given a full month’s wages to have seen Hardesty’s face when you showed up at the
Andromeda.”

Ann refused to admit that Chase hadn’t wanted her aboard, or that he’d done his best to send her back. “Captain Hardesty has been quite accommodating.”

“Has he now?” Boothe’s booming laughter made her shudder. “Well, Hardesty damn well
ought
to be accommodating, considering that the commodore bought him off with
my
first command.”

He leaned in close again. The smell of his tobacco-tinged breath made bile back up in her throat.

“Tell me, Ann,” he murmured, “has your husband asked any of the questions that must be plaguing him? Does he want to know how you ended up in such disgrace? Was he curious why no one stepped up to marry you?
Has he asked you who your baby’s father is?”

Ann cupped her hand around her belly, doing her best to shield her child from her stepbrother’s malice.

“Chase hasn’t asked about its father, has he?” Boothe nettled her. “But he’s curious. How long will it be before he questions you? And when he does, what exactly are you going to tell him?”

Heat blossomed in her chest, soared up her throat and jaw. Boothe had no right to ask her that, no right to torment her. She longed to consign him to the devil, but she’d been schooled since childhood to give in to him.

The night before their steamer arrived in St. Louis the spring Ann was five, her mother had settled on the edge of her berth and taken her hand. “Our whole future depends on meeting your new father’s expectations,” she’d said, “and on doing everything in our power to make him happy.”

One of the things that meant, her mother explained, was that Ann must make friends with her new stepbrother, James Rossiter’s son by his previous wife. But when they arrived at the elegant town house in Lucas Place, Boothe Rossiter hadn’t wanted to be friends. He resented Ann from the moment she crossed the threshold. He detested her more with every hour that passed and with every hint of affection his father showed her.

He’d retaliated by putting spiders in her bed, dropping her bisque doll down the stairwell, tattling to the commodore about money Ann had never stolen and vases she’d never broken. When she tried to fight back, her mother spanked her and locked her in the closet until she promised to apologize. The warnings and the punishment her mother meted out had turned Ann into a perfect victim for her stepbrother’s cruelty.

Though Boothe had given her ample reason to be afraid, Ann was standing silent because of the lessons she’d learned in childhood. Lessons, she realized all at once, that were no longer valid.

The notion blew through her like a stiff wind.

In marrying Chase, she’d broken the constraints that had shackled her for years. In leaving St. Louis, she’d escaped far more than her stepfather’s town house.

“If Chase asks about this baby’s father”—her voice was breathy with bravado as she faced her stepbrother—“perhaps I’ll tell him the truth.”

Boothe cursed under his breath and reached for her. But before he could close his fingers around her arm, before he could speak the threats that were surely rising in his throat, someone shouted her name.

“Ann? Annie!”

No one but Chase had ever called her “Annie.” She turned and saw her husband striding up the levee. His shoulders were set, and his mouth was pulled taut with concern.

A fizz of exuberance suffused her. She liked that Chase had come after her, liked that he seemed ready to protect her—even from her stepbrother. But what might Boothe say now to retaliate for her temerity?

Chase didn’t give Boothe a chance to say anything.

“What were you thinking, Annie,” he began, standing over her, “heading off into town all by yourself? The Sioux City levee can be a rough place, and there’s no telling”—he tipped his chin in Boothe’s direction— “what kind of riffraff you might run into along the way.”

Ann all but laughed with relief and looped her hand through Chase’s elbow. “I want to start making things for the baby, and I need to get to the mercantile for fabric and yarn.”

Chase settled his warm, broad palm over hers. “If you needed to go somewhere while we’re tied up in town,” he admonished her, “all you have to do is ask me to escort you.”

Ann’s chest tightened with an odd, sweet satisfaction.

“Good God!” Her stepbrother gave a derisive snort. “She’s got you wrapped around her little finger, hasn’t she, Hardesty?”

Chase glanced up at Boothe Rossiter, finally acknowledging him. “She’s my wife.”

It was a deceptively simple answer, one that made Ann stand a little taller, settle a bit more solidly into who she was.

For one long moment Boothe glared at the two of them, his black eyes shimmering. “The devil take you, Hardesty,” he finally said. “Go on, waste your life on her and her bastard.”

“It is my life, Rossiter. My choice,” Chase conceded. “And how are things aboard the
Cassiopeia
?”

It was a professional inquiry between captains of the same packet line, and it required Boothe to answer.

“They’re going well enough. We’ve made good time since Omaha, but then you know that.” His smile fell just short of a sneer. “We passed you dawdling at Hardesty’s Landing yesterday.”

“I suppose you did,” Chase answered mildly, then turned to Ann as if Boothe had become invisible. “I can spare half an hour to take you to the mercantile. Will your shopping take longer than that?”

Ann smiled up at him, more than ready to be accommodating. “Not if I know you need to get back.”

“Then let’s get on about those errands,” he said and led her up the levee.

They walked most of the way in silence, but when they reached Jackson and Toole’s Emporium, Ann stopped short. “I want to know why you did that?”

“Did what?”

“Why you came after me. Why you stood up to Boothe. Why you’re taking the time from your duties to bring me here.”

Chase looked at her as if her question baffled him. “You’re my wife.”

It was exactly the answer he’d given Boothe, but now a sweet, delicious warmth suffused her. Like sunshine coming to chase away the dark.

“And because you’re a Hardesty,” he added and pulled open the door to the mercantile. “As you may have noticed, we Hardestys take care of our own.”

THE WEST BEGAN AT SIOUX CITY. ANN RECOGNIZED THE difference in the landscape almost as soon as they rounded the first bend. Standing on deck in the ripening dawn, Ann saw a fresh, new country sprawl out before her, a place that was broader, wilder, more exposed to the sky.

Ann’s chest filled with anticipation for all that lay ahead: the sheer expanse of the prairie, the scope of the unknown, and the boundless sense of freedom. She felt as if she could breathe out here, and the scent and taste of this wondrous new place was sweet with unfolding promise.

But for all the breadth and scope of the land, the river ahead was constricted and treacherous. Half-submerged islands hunched in the midst of the stream and a web of floating debris lay like a mantle of lace across the surface of the water.

As Ann watched, men at the bow of the steamer tested the depth of the channel with sounding poles and called their measurements up to the wheelhouse. Others worked to fend off everything from half-submerged branches to full-grown trees, anything that might threaten the
Andromeda
’s delicate hull or paddle wheel.

Because Chase hadn’t been waiting on deck for her at the rail this morning, Ann supposed he was in the wheelhouse either piloting the steamer or helping Rue pick his way upriver. Either way, she thought both men might like some coffee and went back into the galley to pour some.

Just as she was setting the cups on a tray, Josh Baldwin looked up from where Frenchy had him sugaring fried cakes.

“I’m mighty obliged to you, Miss Ann,” he said, “for fixing my shirt. I ain’t got but two and that was pretty near gone at the elbows.”

“I hope that checkered patch wasn’t too bright,” Ann fretted. “It was the only fabric I had just then.”

“Makes my shirt look downright festive!” Josh answered.

It had all begun innocently enough. She’d sewn some buttons on for Goose in exchange for the German lessons he was giving her, and word had spread. Now the mending arrived in drifts, piling up in the basket outside her door overnight as if fairies were bringing it. But Ann didn’t mind. It was her own small contribution to the crew’s welfare.

“Looks like you’re missing a button on that shirt, too,” Ann pointed out as she balanced the tray of cups against her belly. “Once it’s washed, just bring it up.”

She turned and left the galley, greeting passengers along the way and pausing to compliment the steward on the wildflower centerpieces he’d used on the tables at dinner. As she climbed the stairs to the wheelhouse, Ann smiled to herself. She was beginning to feel a part of life aboard the
Andromeda.

When she reached the top, she found Rue hunched over the chest-high wheel, with Chase poised at his shoulder. From here, nearly fifty feet above the water, the river looked utterly impassable.

“See the eddy off to starboard?” Chase coached in an undertone, barely acknowledging Ann when she gave him his coffee. “There’s a sawyer underneath just waiting to pop up and nab us.”

“I see it,” Rue murmured and nudged the wheel to port.

Both men sucked in their breath as the shaft of a submerged tree bobbed to the surface just off the bow. A deep, resonant howl of wood scraping wood shivered from the hold of the steamer to the wheelhouse as the sawyer raked the length of the hull.

“Damage, Mr. Steinwehr?” Chase shouted over the open breastboard the moment things went silent.

“None that we can see, Captain.”

Both Rue and Chase’s stance loosened a little. Ann eased down on the lazy bench herself, her knees gone weak.

For the best part of an hour, she clung to the edge of her seat as they skimmed past snags that could have ripped through the
Andromeda
’s hull like a paper sack, past sawyers that could pierce the steamer to its heart. As they picked their way upstream through the rafts of debris, something in the set of Chase’s shoulders, in his focus and his calm reassured Ann they were going to come through all right.

At last the islands fell behind them, and the snarl of branches thinned. “Clear water up ahead,” Rue sang out and reached for the bellpulls to signal the engine room.

“Never assume that,” Chase warned him, ever the older brother. Ever the master pilot. “Gauge the depth of the channel, then give your orders.”

Only when they heard the mark sung out from the deck below, did Chase nod in confirmation and turn to where Ann was sitting.

“Thank you for bringing us coffee,” he said, settling down beside her. “We need it this morning.”

“Will the rest of the river be as difficult to navigate as this?” she asked him.