Harlequin Historical November 2015, Box Set 2 of 2 (8 page)

“Yan Li,” he said proudly. He spoke words to the girl and Winifred caught her own name, which she carefully pronounced aloud.

Yan Li lifted her gaze to Winifred's and smiled. My heavens, she was a beauty! “You have done well, Sam. Your bride is lovely.”

Sam beamed and translated her words.

“She must be starving,” Winifred said. The girl was probably too terrified to get off the train and purchase food at the stops along the way. What a brave thing to do, board a ship and travel thousands of miles from her home to a new country, and a new life with a man she had never seen before.

“Sam, tell her I am glad she has come.”

Sam chattered to Yan Li in his own language.

“Now tell her she is safe here.” Sam translated and was met by a spate of Chinese from the girl's lips.

“She say happy to be here. Not want to marry old merchant in village.”

Winifred laughed softly. “Tell her she is most fortunate to come here and marry a fine man.”

Zane burst into the hallway. “And for God's sake, Sam, feed her!”

Sam bustled Yan Li into the kitchen and seated her at the small table while he poured a cup of tea and began ladling the thick potato soup into a bowl. The white kitten pounced on the tassels dangling from his black slippers.

“We marry tomorrow,” he said to Zane. “In church. Both Christian. But tonight, not proper to be together.”

“We have another guest room, Sam. Yan Li can sleep there. I'll take her travel bag up now.” He lifted the girl's small sack and headed upstairs.

Winifred sought Sam's eyes. “Is that all she brought with her?”

He spoke a few words to Yan Li. “She say that all she own. Mother's wedding dress inside and sleeping robe. Family very poor in China.”

Winifred made a note to herself to visit the dressmaker and arrange for more clothes for the girl. Surely Verena Forester could sew Chinese garments? They were a thousand times more simply cut than the ruffles and bows American women were wearing these days.

As the girl spooned up her soup and Sam danced about the kitchen waiting on her it began to grow dark outside. Night came early in winter, and Winifred's apprehension began to gnaw at her.

Tonight she and Zane would drive out to the Jensens' farm for a Christmas dance. Zane thought Sam and his bride should get to know each other with no one else around, and besides, Zane said he'd been asked to attend.

But a dance? Surely she had no place at a gathering of Zane's friends and neighbors. She knew no one except for Rooney Cloudman, the man who had left those yellow roses on Cissy's grave, and Rita at the restaurant next to the Smoke River Hotel. And the only formal dress she'd brought was the green velvet hanging in the hall closet. It had a bodice that buttoned up to her neck and long sleeves with no lace at the cuffs. She wondered what women out West wore to a dance.

* * *

The Jensens' barn was lit up like a palace, with candles in tin cans illuminating the path to the wide barn door and kerosene lamps suspended on ropes from the rafters inside. The place glowed with soft light and a potbellied woodstove in one corner made the cavernous space toasty warm.

Children raced around the perimeter of the sanded and waxed plank floor playing tag, and the men were lined up at the refreshment table, two sawhorses with cloth-covered two-by-sixes spanning them.

What women wore, Winifred soon learned, was everything under the sun. Silk with ruffles and bouncy bustles, satin with floppy bows around the hem, even wool challis cut so low in front Winifred blanched. If the wearer took one deep breath, she'd pop right out!

“What's funny?” Zane asked at her elbow.

“Nothing. Just...things are certainly different out here.”

“Not so different. People talk and drink and dance and gossip just like they do back East.” He opened his mouth to say more, but a manicured hand grabbed his forearm.

“Why, Zane! I didn't know you would be here tonight.”

The young woman ignored Winifred and hung onto Zane's arm. “I'm free for the first reel,” she said. Her voice was high-pitched, almost shrill. Whether it was that unmusical sound or the woman's proprietary attitude, Winifred's skin prickled.

Zane detached his arm from the woman's grasp. “Darla, this is Winifred Von Dannen, Celeste's sister. Winifred, Mrs. Darla Bledsoe.”

Darla turned narrowed eyes on her and again grasped Zane's arm. “Oh, yes, the old maid sister. I heard about her last summer.”

Winifred blinked at her rudeness. “I am pleased to meet—”

“Come on, Zane. The reel is starting.” Darla pulled him away across the floor and pushed him into place just as the fiddles started up.

“Don't waste much time, does she?” said a deep voice at her elbow. Winifred turned to face the gray-haired man with the yellow roses.

“Rooney Cloudman,” he reminded with a smile.

“Yes, I remember. How are you, Mr. Cloudman?”

“Make it just Rooney, why don'tcha? ‘Mister' makes me nervous, like someone's gonna arrest me for somethin'.”

Winifred couldn't help laughing.

“Come on over and meet my Sarah, Miss Winifred. We're gettin' married come summer.” Rooney guided her to the sideline benches where a handsome older woman sat talking to a young boy.

“Sarah, this here's Winifred Von Dannen, Celeste Dougherty's sister.”

Sarah smiled. “Why, my stars, you're the spitting image of her, 'cept you're dark-haired and a mite more of a real beauty.”

Winifred gulped. More of a beauty? More than Cissy?

Surely the woman peering up at her had very poor eyesight.

“This here's my grandson, Mark.” Sarah poked the adolescent boy in the ribs and he bolted to his feet.

“Ma'am.”

Rooney touched her elbow. “Care for some cider?”

“Why, yes, I would, thank you.”

“Hard or soft?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“He means distilled or just apple juice,” Mark volunteered.

“Either,” Winifred replied. She had no idea what the difference was.

The boy bent toward his grandmother. “Gran, can I go see if Manette will dance with me?”

“Sure ya can. Be on your best behavior, now,” she said to his retreating back. Then Sarah patted the now empty space beside her.

“Set a spell with me, Winifred. I've got somethin' to say.”

Winifred settled herself beside Sarah, but before she could ask what was on the older woman's mind, she caught sight of Darla Bledsoe and Zane across the room. Darla hung on him as if she had wobbly shoes and extremely poor balance. A dart of something hot and sharp stung next to her heart.

“Ah,” Sarah said. “You're seein' what I see.”

“It's really none of my business,” Winifred said quickly.

“Or mine, either,” Sarah huffed. “But I ask you, doesn't that look like a fishhook bein' dangled before that man?”

Winifred stifled a laugh just as Rooney returned and folded her hand around a cup of something. “It's hard,” he said. “All outta soft.”

Winifred took a sip and gasped.

“Drink it slow-like,” he advised. “Now, Sarah, you promised to teach me the two-step, so come on.” He helped the older woman to her feet and guided her onto the dance floor.

Winifred gingerly sipped her cider and watched Zane. He caught her gaze from across the floor and rolled his eyes when Darla wasn't looking. At that, she lifted her cup and downed a large swallow without choking.

Then she saw something she didn't expect. Zane said something to Darla, and she hesitated, then twined her arms about his neck.

Well! And in public, too. What bad manners they had out here in the West.

But Zane lifted the clinging arms away, grasped Darla's elbow and propelled her to a seat on the sidelines. With a curt nod, he left her and strode across the floor to Winifred.

Without a word he lifted the cup of cider from her hand and downed it in one gulp. He didn't even blink.

“It's hard,” she warned.

“Good.”

“Would you like—?”

“Yes,” he said. He marched off and in a few moments brought back her cup, filled to the brim, and another for himself.

“It's hard,” he said.

“Are you referring to the cider?”

“I am not.” And then they both laughed.

Zane gulped from his cup. “It's hard being a widower in a town with so many hungry young women,” he explained. “Darla is a widow, so I guess she's extra-hungry. Husband was killed in a logging accident.”

Winifred sipped her cider in silence. For a winter night, and sitting so far from the woodstove in the corner, it was surprising how warm she felt.

Zane plunked his empty cup onto the bench beside him, plucked hers out of her hand and pulled her to her feet.

“Dance with me.”

She opened her mouth to protest but he snaked one arm around her waist and swung her onto the plank floor. “Watch out for knotholes,” he said.

The music—two fiddles and a guitar, an accordion and a washtub bass—had slowed down after the lively opening reels.

Zane held her at arm's length, his hand warm at the small of her back, his soft humming barely audible. The song was “Lorena,” a tune that always made her cry.

His fingers wrapped over hers and he pulled her closer, so close his breath ruffled the escaping curls over her ear. He smelled of cider and wood smoke. She closed her eyes and let herself float in his arms until she fancied her feet had lifted off the floor.

When the music stopped they just stood there together for a moment, and then she felt Zane jerk as a hand glommed onto his forearm.

“Well, aren't you sweet to be so nice to your sister-in-law, Zane. Come on, now, it's my turn.” Darla tugged at him. “It's time for the grand march and the Virginia reel. You promised.”

“I did not promise,” he said evenly.

“Oh, but—”

“And as you can see, Darla, I am engaged at the moment.”

Without another word he swung Winifred back onto the dance floor.

“I think,” she ventured when he had danced her to the opposite side of the room, “there might be a better way to tame a tiger.”

“I don't want to tame her.”

“I meant,” Winifred said carefully, “to keep from being eaten.”

Zane laughed at that, stopped dancing and looked Winifred full in the face. “I do not want to remarry.”

“Perhaps that is not what Darla has in mind, Zane.”

He gave her a long look. “That, too, I do not want.” He said nothing more, just held her in silence and moved them about the floor.

She felt too hot, then cold, then too warm again. He was humming along with the music again, this time a tune she did not recognize. It was in waltz time, but they kept dancing a slow two-step, as before, close enough for her to feel the heat from his body, close enough to brush his chin with her lips if she turned her head. They did not talk, and then as his arm tightened across her back she could think of nothing to say.

She thought of all the young men she had known since she had come of age, men from prominent families with brilliant music careers ahead of them; men who tossed bouquets at her over the footlights and introduced themselves over supper; men who begged for her attention, who cosseted and flattered and talked romantic nonsense.

But she had never before felt like this when she was with a man, as if her body were full of stars and a fire smoldered deep inside her. With a low laugh she tipped her head back and found Zane looking at her, his gray eyes darkened almost to charcoal.

“What is it?” she whispered. “You have such an odd look on your face, what are you thinking?”

“To be honest, I don't really know. Ask me instead about the fiddle players or why Sarah Rose's grandson can waltz better than I can. Or,” he said in a lower tone, “what I am feeling at this moment.”

“I cannot ask you that, Zane. What you are feeling is none of my business.”

The musicians struck up a Virginia reel and Zane steered Winifred over to join the other dancers. The line of couples advanced toward each other, bowed and moved back. Then the lead couple joined hands and circled around each other.

Zane watched his sister-in-law's graceful form skip forward, then back, then forward again to meet him in the center and slide-step all the way to the end. Her eyes shone. Laughter lit up her face as if candles burned beneath her skin. She was gorgeous in that green dress. She was intoxicating.

She was life itself, and he knew every man in the room wanted her.

He
wanted her. He stumbled, missed a step, then two before he could recover. Goodness, he must be drunk.

He watched her join hands with Wash Halliday and spin around in the center, then spin with Thad MacAllister, and a bolt of pure male possessiveness shot through him.

He was not drunk, he realized. He was stone-cold sober and he was feeling like any normal male, fiercely, agonizingly jealous.

What an irony. At last he was coming back to life after Celeste's death, but the cruel joke God was playing on him made him grind his teeth. He couldn't desire his sister-in-law. There was something in the Bible about it, but at the moment he couldn't remember what it was.

After the set, Wash Halliday introduced Winifred to his wife, Jeanne, and then to Thad and Leah MacAllister. The five of them chatted for longer than Zane thought he could stand, but then Winifred's gaze strayed around the room, searching for him.

He started toward her but once again found himself waylaid by Darla Bledsoe.

“Zane, you promised to dance with me again,” she pleaded.

He could have refused but it would be rude, and he suspected Darla could be spiteful. He offered his arm and with a triumphant grin she swept him onto the plank dance floor.

Over Darla's shoulder he saw Winifred partnered with first Charlie Kincaid, then Seth Ruben and then the barber, Whitey Poletti. And then he lost track. Rooney Cloudman, dancing a spirited varsouvienne with Sarah Rose, accidentally bumped into him, and when Zane righted himself, he heard Rooney's voice at his back.