Seasons of Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #4) (2 page)

For Tierney, it was enough, at the moment, to rest in the arms of Robbie Dunbar, to hear the broken words he was whispering into her hair. Her face was pressed to his chest, broad and strong, as she had known it would be, had known all her growing up years but had never experienced before. To think that here—in the rampant bush of the parkland strip of Saskatchewan, far from croft and brae and bracken, far from sea and shore, far from home and hearth—she would have come, as straight as a bird to its nest, to the arms of Robbie Dunbar.

“Aye, lassie, it’s me,” Robbie was saying huskily, adding, “an’ is it ye, Tierney Caulder, yersel’ so far from Binkiebrae and home? How can it be? Is’t a dream?”

Her renewed clutch, his tightened embrace, were answer enough.

It was the threatened straying of Robbie’s team that broke the spell.

“Whoa!” Robbie turned swiftly and reached for the fallen reins.

Loosed from his embrace, Tierney half-staggered for a moment, her head awhirl as the world slowly came back into focus. Pressing greenery—bushes and trees unknown to her—took the place of her barren Scotland hillside, and there was no wide and sweeping view of the sea; indeed, sight ended where the bush began. Tierney’s feet did not press Scottish soil but trampled the rich black dirt of a homestead in Canada’s west. Her nostrils were assailed by scents she had never known before—soil turned over for the first time, sweaty horses, growth so verdant and lush as to be almost overwhelming, flowers of unknown variety nodding heads in the ground at the edge of the small plowed plot. It all added up to perfume of a rare
vintage, a fragrance she would always equate with this lovely, unexpected moment.

As Robbie got his team under control—they had been heading toward the small log buildings and the well with its hand-hewn water trough—and as Tierney’s bemused gaze focused again, she remembered the driver who had brought her here, still sitting in his buggy.

Herbert Bloom’s face was a study. His fading eyes blinked, his mouth had fallen slackly open, and his lips were puckered as if in a soundless whistle.

And no wonder! What a sight! This young woman, Tierney Caulder by name—recently employed on a chicken farm on the prairie, just off the train and committed to helping him and Lydia on their homestead in the bush—was
sparking
with a strange young man. One didn’t expect, when merely stopping by to drop off the mail, that the person delivering it would be swept up into the arms of the one to whom the mail was addressed—Robert Dunbar, in this instance.

Herbert Bloom knew his neighbor slightly as a newcomer to the area of Bliss and recalled now that he had a decided Scots accent. Could they—the girl and the man—be old acquaintances? It was the only explanation that made sense. Herbert Bloom scratched his head, dumbfounded.

Tierney—her amber eyes and head of abundant auburn hair being her distinguishing features and chief claim to beauty—had seemed, to her prospective employer, a self-controlled, well-mannered, perfectly normal young woman when she had alighted from the train in Prince Albert, eminently suited to meet the needs of the Bloom household.

Now, here she was—having started out sedately enough across the fresh-turned sod to give a letter to a stranger—dazedly picking up the hat that had flown from her head when that man had turned toward her and she had run to meet him. No wonder Herbert Bloom was transfixed by the strangeness of it all.

While she scrabbled in the earth for her hat, the man was getting his team under control. He turned, took the girl
Tierney’s hand in his own, and together they made their way over the furrows toward the buggy waiting at the edge of the field.

It was all too much for a staid Englishman like Mr. Bloom. He sat in his rig holding the reins numbly, his aging face sagging with the perplexity of his thoughts. If this didn’t beat all! What a story to tell Lydia! The very idea brought him up short—Lydia! That proper lady would be shocked at the
im
proper goings-on he had just observed.

Ahem!
Herbert Bloom straightened himself, cleared his throat, swallowed, and attempted to look stern. But his kindly heart melted at the joy he saw pouring from the countenances of the young people approaching the buggy. Rather than an expression of disapproval, it was a face full of curiosity that Herbert raised toward Tierney Caulder and Robbie Dunbar as they stepped from the last furrow and walked—
floated
—to the side of the buggy.

“Mr. Bloom.” Robbie Dunbar held out an earth-stained hand, grasping one that was equally work-worn, if cleaner at the moment, and shook it heartily.

“Good day to you, Mr. Dunbar,” Herbert Bloom answered automatically.

For a second or two, under the midday sun, a silence fell. The young people were starry-eyed but tongue-tied, and Herbert was merely at a loss for words. The birds of the bush filled the moment with outpourings of song, the horse’s harness creaked as he shifted his feet, the buggy jiggled as the older man shifted his weight.

“Ah,” Herbert began, “it would seem . . .”

Robbie and Tierney were looking at each other again, and though there was now no physical touch, there was an intimacy apparent in their very absorption with one another.

“Ahem.” Herbert cleared his throat again and, with a start, the young man and woman turned back toward him.

“Mr. Bloom?” Robbie asked quickly.

“It seems to me,” Herbert Bloom said to their lifted faces, “that you two may know each other. Either that or you’ve gotten
acquainted very quickly! You must be old . . . friends, or,” he added, and who could blame him if he spoke dryly, “perhaps . . . more.”

Merry laughter from Tierney, along with a pretty flush to her cheeks. As for the young man, Mr. Bloom’s words seemed to bring a startled look to his face.

“Miss Caulder and I,” Robbie Dunbar said slowly, “are from the same place in Sco’lan’—”

“Binkiebrae,” the girl interjected rather breathlessly, as though the place were heaven’s gate.

“Aye, Binkiebrae,” Robbie Dunbar affirmed. “We thought niver to see each other again. I can hardly believe—”

The eyes of the young man turned again, this time in sheer disbelief, on the handsome girl at his side, made even more vivid because of the color suffusing her face and the light of happiness setting her eyes aglow. Ah yes, it was a happy meeting, even an amazing one, all things considered. What were the odds, Herbert wondered fleetingly, of coming half a world from all things familiar only to run straight into the arms of someone you knew? And knew very well, if appearances meant anything. The odds were against it, for sure. Unless, that is, one were a praying person. Herbert Bloom was a praying person himself and could see the possibilities, could even see the
im
possibilities that could be surmounted if one indeed prayed.

“Ah . . . Binkiebrae,” Herbert repeated for lack of anything better to say and still much in the dark about the whole thing. “Both from, er, Binkiebrae . . .”

It was as if all three of them were mesmerized by something, perhaps the rare combination of sounds that made up the name Binkiebrae, and silence fell again. The man Robbie Dunbar cleared his throat.

“This land . . . this homestead,” he began, speaking primarily to the girl, explaining to the girl, “is mine. This is what I came over to find; this is what me da had in mind for me. I filed on it all legal in Prince Albert, at the Lands Office. Allan, me brother,” he said, turning to Mr. Bloom momentarily, “filed on the quarter section next to this. Maybe y’ know him. Together,” he
said, with an exultant note to his voice, “we hae half a section. And wi’ any kind o’ luck,” his glance wavered, “we’ll be able to get the other quarters of the section.”

“Oh, Robbie,” the girl rejoiced, “tha’s wonderful. An’ is this your hoosie?” She nodded toward the small cabin at the edge of the field, not far from where they were standing.

“Thass it, Tierney,” he said, with some pride, some humility. “An’ sma’ though it is, it’s not any smaller than some o’ the crofts in Binkiebrae. Aye, an’ Allan has his hoose, too. We’ve made a good start, Tierney.”

“I’ll tell you what, Mr. Dunbar,” Herbert was bold enough to interject into what could well be a continuing conversation, “why don’t you come over to our house for supper tonight? I know Lydia will be preparing something special for this first night when Miss Caulder is with us, and you’re welcome. Then you and Miss Caulder can continue your talk and get acquainted again. I’m sure there is much you have to say to each other.”

“Aye, Robbie! Please coom. I’ve sae much to tell ye . . . all aboot how I came to make the trip—”

“Aye! And I have sae many things to ask,” Robbie said in reply.

“She’ll tell you all about it this evening,” Mr. Bloom said hastily, remembering that his wife was probably wondering where he was and why he was delayed, and supposing the conversation was about to take off again into lengthy explanations and reminiscences.

“Oh, aye,” Tierney said happily. “That’s verra nice o’ ye, Mr. Bloom. Do coom, Robbie.”

“Let’s set it for about seven o’clock,” Herbert Bloom said, pulling out his pocket watch, shaking it, checking the sky, and speaking judiciously. “That’ll give us time to do the chores first. I suppose you’d be free after that, wouldn’t you, Mr. Dunbar?”

Robbie Dunbar, brought back to earth and something so routine as farm chores, seemed to collect himself with a start. Strangely—or so it seemed to the watching Herbert Bloom—the glow had faded from the dark eyes, the eagerness slipped
from the square, good-looking face, and (it couldn’t possibly be true, could it?), the suntan was actually replaced by a definite paling of the complexion. The picture Robbie Dunbar presented, Herbert Bloom concluded, was very like that of a gunnysack that had been punctured and out of which the grain was dribbling away.

“Ah,” Robbie stammered. “Ah . . . I dinna think I can come tonight after all.”

Disappointment changed the girl’s bright face to shadow.

“Aye,” Robbie Dunbar continued, sounding more certain of his decision, “I’m quite sure of it, now that I think aboot it.”

“Robbie . . .” the girl objected, half pleading.

“Tomorrow, tomorrow for sure,” Robbie said quickly.

“Weel, then,” Tierney said uncertainly and stepped toward the buggy. Robbie took her elbow and helped her up into the rig, which rocked and righted itself and engaged her attention momentarily.

“For supper tomorrow night, then?” Mr. Bloom asked, with some relief, aware that his wife would not thank him if he surprised her with an unexpected guest. Besides, he and Lydia needed the evening to get acquainted with the girl.

“Aye. Seven o’clock.”

Robbie Dunbar stood at the side of the buggy, looking up, his face—if Herbert Bloom was any judge—suddenly haggard, his eyes almost desperate. Herbert Bloom clucked to the horse, made a wide turn, and headed the buggy toward the road. The girl Tierney kept turning her eyes, whichever way they were headed, so that she could see the face of the man standing alone beside his plowed field and watching them until they were out of sight.

As the horse and buggy reached the road, Tierney turned apprehensive eyes on her new acquaintance, her employer, and said, through stiff lips, “Somethin’s not reet . . . right, Mr. Bloom. I know Robbie Dunbar well, and somethin’ . . . something’s not right.”

A
s though in a dream, Robbie Dunbar turned back to his plowing. The letter, a communication from Prince Albert concerning the sale of a seeder, delivered by—was it indeed a dream?—Tierney Caulder herself, was stuffed into a pocket and forgotten for the time being. Who was there to write him anything personal? Certainly no one here in this new land in which he found himself, a stranger among strangers. Except for Allan, his brother, Robbie was as alone as though he had gone to the end of the earth and found it uninhabited. And mostly uninhabited it was, this isolated corner of the world.

Hard as it had been to leave Binkiebrae, home, and all things known and dear, still something in him had thrilled at the challenge opening before him—to tread on land never before stepped on by human foot, to slide a plow into soil that had never felt a blade’s bite, to build a “hoosie” of his own on land
of his own. Yes, it had been the chance of a lifetime, and, to a young, healthy man with little to look forward to, tremendously challenging.