The Brides of Chance Collection (73 page)

“She’s a smart gal. I reckon you come to do the chore so’s she cain keep an eye on all the Chance women.” She didn’t head straight for him. Instead, she veered to one side and clipped some leaves, zagged another way and plucked a few little flowers, then approached him.

He wasn’t feeling overly talkative, but he managed another curt nod.

Lovejoy chatted as she wandered closer. “ ’Tis a fine thing to hear your daughters are on the mend. I’m on my way to see how Delilah and Alisa are farin’.”

“You’re walking?”

“That’s why God gave me feet.”

“God made horses with four feet so they could go farther faster.” As soon as he made that ridiculous comment, Dan fought the urge to make a strategic retreat. He’d already made an utter fool of himself.

She drew closer, and merriment sparkled in her eyes. “Tell you what, Dan’l Chance. If ’n you don’t tell that to the woolly worms, spiders, and centipedes, I won’t. They all got plenty more feet than the both of us combined, but we got ’em beat in a race.”

He let out a disbelieving laugh.

“Now don’t you be a-laughin’ at me, Dan’l.” She continued to smile broadly and opened her gunnysack. “Woolly worms and me are right good friends. Their stripes always holp me decide what to gather on account they tell me how bad the winter’s gonna be.”

He accepted her implied invitation and dumped the mustard flowers into her sack. “You’re friendly with worms?”

“You’re friendly with horses,” she countered with a feisty grin.

“I’ve seen you ride a horse.” He tugged the bag from her and held it as she gathered more mustard. Her moves were spare and efficient. “You ought not be walking out here. It’s not safe.”

“I got my knife.”

He resisted the urge to finger the hole in his hat that Delilah had put there with her knife. Of all the women he’d ever met, Daniel felt certain Lovejoy was probably the only other woman who could wield a knife with such speed and accuracy. Even so, that didn’t count for much—not out here. “Snakes and bears wouldn’t much care about your knife—not to mention the two-legged variety of wolves around here.”

“You back to countin’ legs again, cowboy?” She slanted him a quick look.

“Polly’s learning her numbers.”

“And her critters, too, from the way you’re going about it.”

“You’re full of sass and vinegar, but this is a wild land. It takes more than a sharp tongue and a sharp knife to be safe.” Taking her arm, he led her beside his horse. After shoving the nearly full bag back into her hands, he cinched his hands about her waist.

Lovejoy clamped her hands about his wrists. “Wait just a minute, there. What’re you up to?”

“One of us has to exercise some common sense.”

“If’n you’re so all-fired sure snakes are about, then why don’t we share your horse? I cain ride pillion. You ride a grand horse. He shouldn’t have no trouble with the extry weight.”

“Fine.” Dan turned loose of her, wondering what extra weight she meant. Lovejoy was a mere wisp of a woman. He didn’t have all day to stand in a field of flowers jawing with a woman—however feisty or clever she might be. Leather stretched and eased as he swung himself into the saddle.

Spry as could be, Lovejoy simultaneously lifted her foot onto his and slipped her hand about his wrist. One small heft, and she swung up behind him. Her full skirts swirled with the action, then settled. She continued to clutch her bag in one arm and wound the other about his waist.

“You got this horse trained.” Admiration filled her voice. “He didn’t move an inch.”

“I prize him.” It was no understatement. Of all the brothers, Bryce had a knack with the beasts—but this horse was Daniel’s. They’d taken a shine to each other from the start. “Cooper’s good with my girls. Ginny Mae has a habit of squealing, but he doesn’t mind.”

Lovejoy hadn’t stretched the truth when she claimed she could ride pillion. Perched behind him, she not only kept balance but quickly sensed the horse’s rhythm and moved naturally instead of going all stiff. It felt unsettling to have her arm about him, though. Other than his daughters’ hugs, no one touched him.

“Why’d you name this here gelding Cooper?”

“After a Cooper’s hawk.”

“That ’cuz he moves so fast you pert near fly, or on account of his coat being the exact same shade of gray?”

“His coat.”

“Don’t the sun feel glorious?”

From the way her cheek brushed against his shirt, he could tell she’d turned her face upward. How many times a day did he do the same thing? Different as they were, it struck him that they were alike in such personal ways. They prized time alone in the morning and sun on their faces, and each had five siblings to love and worry about. She liked birds, too.

“Well, speakin’ of hawks, looky there. That red-tailed hawk’s ridin’ a current. Powerful sight, ain’t it? And hear that? You got yourself a woodpecker!”

Dan didn’t have much to say. The trip home was short, but in that time, Lovejoy identified several birdcalls and imitated them. “That ’un’s a sparrow. Cain’t tell from the sound if ’n it’s a Lincoln’s sparrow, a house, or a fox sparrow. Surely ain’t a song sparrow.”

He didn’t know, either. Dan pulled his horse to a quick halt as a covey of quail skittered by. “California quail. The meat’s tender but gamey.”

“It’d take a mess of them to feed a strappin’ man like you. Do you set a box trap or do you net ’em?”

“Too much trouble to pluck them. We don’t bother.”

She managed to imitate several more birdcalls and viewed the landscape with unfeigned appreciation.
Not many women are content with such simplicity. It’s a fine quality. Then again, from some of the comments she makes about life back home, Salt Lick Holler doesn’t offer much
.

If any other woman told him she didn’t want to remarry, he’d bet his bottom dollar she was lying. Violet Greene had come to town the same time Alisa did, and though her brother told all the men in Reliable that she was observing a year of mourning, the only thing Dan thought she was observing were the men so she could weigh their worth. On the other hand, Lovejoy didn’t seem to have a bit of guile in her.
She’s a pleasure to have around
.

A few minutes later, just before they reached the barnyard, Lovejoy tugged on his shirt. “How ’bout you halt this horse out of sight? I aim to put my hand to work here. What say whilst I grab what b’longs to your lassies, you venture into your kid brothers’ cabin and fetch me their dirty clothes? Ain’t fittin’ for me to prowl around there, and I aim to have the wash pot boilin’ afore I give my greetings to the women. Thataway they cain’t shilly-shally when I add in their laundry.”

As plans went, it was a sound one. Selfless, too. Daniel remembered having to do the laundry before Miriam came to stay with them. It was a hot, tiresome, and thankless chore. “Okay. But I’ll set the fire and fill the pot.”

“Now there’s the spirit!”

Lovejoy Spencer didn’t believe in letting grass grow under her feet. By the time Dan had a fire set and the pot over the fresh flames, she’d exited the girls’ cabin with her arms full. She hadn’t just gathered clothes. She had towels and sheets, too. “How ’bout soap?” she whispered.

“Bryce keeps a supply in the tack room.”

“Dandy. I’ll fetch it.”

He went into Bryce and Logan’s cabin. By the time he’d plowed through the mess in his kid brothers’ cabin and emerged, Lovejoy had finished shaving lye soap into the kettle. He gave the rope at her feet a glance. “It’s an old myth that snakes won’t cross a rope.”

“ ’Course that’s a bunch of nonsense. I got me that length of rope thinkin’ as fair a day as we got, I’ll air out the blankets and quilts. I cain start at that far end of the clothesline, loop through the fork in yon tree, then—”

“I’ll do it.” As tasks went, it would take no time at all for him to rig the line; Lovejoy would have to climb the tree to wind a rope about the branches. She’d do it, too. Dan snatched the rope from the ground.

“I’d take it kindly if you’d string up the full length.” She smiled as she dropped shirts into the wash water. “Get me near a kettle and a washboard, and I’m a wild woman.”

“No one likes to do laundry.”

“No one but me, then. It’s a time to pray for the folks who wear the duds and thank God for His provision.” She looked over at the cabins and nodded. “I reckon the kinfolk of yourn could use some prayers.”

“They do plenty of praying.”

Lovejoy gave him a long, shrewd look. “They do? You’re not on speakin’ terms with the Almighty?”

“No use talking to someone you don’t trust.”

“You surprise me, Dan’l. I figured you to be a man of his word and a believer.”

He glowered at her. “I am.”

“Now that don’t make no sense a-tall. What’re you doin’, not talking to the Lord who holds your heart and soul?”

“He holds my wife.” The raw words tore out of him.

Lovejoy stirred the wash with a wooden paddle that was as long as she was tall. “Not a one of us loses a loved one that we don’t think God shoulda let us keep. Faith ain’t a fair-weather thing. Fact is, faith is all we really, truly got.”

“It wasn’t all I had. I had a happy life with a woman I loved.”

She bobbed her head in understanding. “Sad fact is, family, friends, possessions—they cain all be gone in an instant. That feller Job in the Bible found that out. If ’n you meant it when you knelt at an altar and put your soul in God’s hands, then you gotta leave it there. ’Specially when life brings hurts.”

Daniel glowered at her. She thought having Hannah ripped from his life was simply a hurt?

“Grief ’s ugly. It bubbles up like this here lye soap. You cain swim in grief for a time and come out clean, or you cain stew until it eats at your seams and tears you to shreds.” She lifted a shirt, inspected it, and dunked it back in. “Mayhap I was wrong. I come here today to wash and pray for the womenfolk. P’rhaps ’tis you I’m supposed to be holding up to Jesus.”

“If all it took to make your grief go away were a couple of prayers, then you must not have loved your husband the way I loved my wife.”

Lovejoy didn’t say a word. She set down the paddle and walked off.

Daniel paced over and knotted the rope to the end of the clothesline stake.
Mousy hillbilly woman doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Simple things like plants and laundry are fine for her, but that’s her limit. So what if she can ride both pillion and alone?
He paced several feet, passed the rope through the fork of a tree, and wound it twice so it’d stay taut. A voice deep inside taunted,
Hannah never learned to drive a wagon, let alone ride
. He banished that frustrating memory and reminded himself that Hannah was a lady.
So what if Lovejoy can copy the whistle of every bird in the township?
He headed toward another tree.
No lady whistles
.

Anyone can go pick mustard and make a poultice
. The rope burned through his hands as he savagely yanked it around a branch.
Hannah never did—not even when Polly was
Caleb’s age and sick like this. Well, Miriam hasn’t ever made her baby son a plaster…actually, she did fix a turpentine one
.

No matter what thought registered, a contradiction followed. None of those counterpoints portrayed Hannah as a paragon. All along he’d been remembering her as the perfect wife and mother. But in the last week, he’d had memories of a woman who had both strengths and flaws. Instead of being a paragon, she’d been…well, she’d been the woman he’d married and loved.

Lovejoy’s soft, hillbilly twang haunted him.
You cain stew until it eats at your seams and tears you to shreds
. Wasn’t that the very nature of grief? It was impossible to lose a love and still be whole.

Lovejoy’s words echoed in his mind.
A man of his word and a believer…not talking to the Lord who holds your heart and soul?

He finished stringing the extensive clothesline and called himself ten kinds of fool for bringing her here. He picked up his ax and headed for trees that needed to be cleared. That odd little woman could fuss over everyone else—she’d just better keep away from him.

Chapter 13

T
here.” Lovejoy smoothed the quilt in place on Miriam and Gideon’s bed and straightened up. “Now where was I?”

“You were telling about Tempy’s wedding dress,” Delilah prompted as she tugged at the other side of the quilt. They’d gone from cabin to cabin, putting the fresh linens and aired blankets back on the beds. Miriam had helped with all the other beds, but Caleb decided he was hungry, so she sat in the rocker to nurse him while Delilah stepped up to help.

“Tempy and Eunice and Lois is all getting married,” Polly said importantly. “I know ’bout weddings ’cuz Auntie Miri-Em had a wedding and so did Auntie ’Lilah. Auntie ’Lisa got married in San Fur-isco.”

Lovejoy smiled. “Oh, that’s right. Well, that dress—it’s dreadfully beautiful. Brings tears to my eyes just thinkin’ on it.”

Alisa finished pulling a sun-baked case on a pillow. “She’ll make a lovely bride.”

“They all will. Smart, too. Did I tell you ’bout what they done for the fabric? I cain’t recollect who I tole what to.”

Alisa folded a towel and slipped it on the towel rod at the side of the washstand. “You made me take a nap. I haven’t heard a word about the weddings.”

“You needed that nap.” Delilah frowned at Alisa. “Titus said just the other day that you’re not sleeping well.”

Lovejoy folded her arms akimbo. “Alisa, I aim to tell your man he needs to hog-tie you. Them ankles of yourn are too swoll up.”

“You said it was all right for them to be puffy.”

“That was when they was turnip sized. You’re up to muskmelon, and I aim to put a stop to it. If ’n that was all, I’d be holdin’ my peace, but them hands o’ yourn are plumpin’ up.”

Alisa looked down and fiddled with her wedding band. “Miriam said her ring got tight when she was carrying Caleb.”

Miriam looked at Alisa’s hands and gasped. “Not tight like that!”

Lovejoy pursed her lips and waited a few moments. “You wantin’ me to spout off platitudes so’s you’ll stop worryin’, or you want me to speak the truth?”