Smoke River Bride Read online

  Well, hell, nothing came for free. If he wanted all these things for Teddy, he should be prepared to pay the price. And the price was marriage.

  “Gettin’ colder outside, Miss Cameron. Might make better sense to go on home where it’s warm and discuss this further.” He stood with the wool coat draped over one arm, looking at her expectantly.

  “No.” She said it quietly, but she meant it. It would not be best at all. She remembered the few days she had spent at Madam Tang’s in San Francisco. No male servant had been allowed near her. If a man touch you before, your price will be less. You are virgin. Virgins must be careful.

  Leah clasped her hands in her lap. She was a stranger in a land she did not know, among people she did not yet trust. She must be extra careful or she would end up a concubine, not a wife.

  “I cannot go to your home tonight. Not until we are married.”

  “Huh?” His expressive brown eyebrows shot up. “You mean—”

  “Yes, I do mean. I am sorry, but I cannot come before we are married. It would not be proper.”

  His blue eyes snapped with impatience. “Proper! Hell, Miss Cameron, I’m just offering you shelter.”

  Leah shook her head. “If I go with you now, there will be harm. Not of your making, perhaps, but…” She kept her voice calm, but her nerves had begun to scream. Would he change his mind about marrying her if she refused to do what he asked?

  “Explain,” he ordered.

  She sucked in a shaky breath. “I am an outsider in your country. I cannot afford to be compromised.”

  “Compromised!” He snorted. “I don’t aim to do anything but feed you some supper and—”

  “Please, Mr. MacAllister. I will eat supper at the hotel. You may come for me tomorrow and then—” she straightened her spine “—then I will become your wife.”

  “I, uh, I didn’t exactly expect…I mean, it isn’t that I don’t want you to stay—I do. But, well, I wasn’t expecting to marry this soon. And I guess you did. Do.”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice quiet. “I do.”

  His face changed. Desperation faded into resignation, and then he nodded decisively.

  “Okay, we’ll get married right away. Save your reputation and help me raise my son. More than I bargained for, but…like it or not, there it is. There’s an old saying out here—in for a penny, in for a pound. Guess I’m in for the pound.”

  “Do you wish not to marry me because I am half Chinese?”

  “No,” he said shortly. “There’s other reasons, but makes no matter now.”

  She slid off the stool, lifted her coat off his arm and shrugged into it. “I will go now to the hotel.”

  “What? Oh, sure, the hotel.” He looked as if he’d been hit over the head with a coal shovel. He rebuttoned his overcoat and started to pull on his gloves but stopped suddenly and peered down at her hands.

  “You got any gloves?”

  “No. I read a book about the West. About California. It said the sun shines every day.”

  Again, he peered into her face, and this time his eyes softened into a blue like the sea. “I reckon you didn’t read about Oregon.”

  “No. I never expected to come to Oregon.”

  His face changed. The soft blue eyes grew distant, and the lines around his mouth deepened. His jaw sagged for a moment until he snapped it shut and thrust his brown leather gloves into her hands. “Life’s like that. Always what you don’t expect.”

  A dart of sympathy pricked her. She had lost her parents, but he had lost much more—his wife, his partner in life. The mother of his son. Poor man. He was big and strong and probably fearless about things that would terrify a weaker person, but she saw how he ached inside in his grief. Inside, this formidable man was just like any other human being.

  Leah pulled on the offered gloves. They were so large the fingers drooped at the ends and she had to curl her hands into fists to keep them from falling off.

  They entered the hotel lobby together. It smelled of cigar smoke and coffee, and instantly all conversation ceased. In the unsettling silence Leah made her way to the portly desk clerk and laid her gloved hands on the counter. The clerk’s squinty eyes widened.

  “I would like to engage a room,” she said.

  “Sure thing, ma’am.” He did not look up, but kept his gaze on her oversize hands.

  She began to tug off the gloves. “Only for tonight,” she added.

  The shiny-faced clerk picked up a pen and absentmindedly turned the hotel register toward her. “If you’ll just sign here, ma’am, I’ll—”

  He looked into her face and stopped short. “Just a minute, there. I’m afraid this hotel is full.”

  “But it was not full two minutes ago,” she protested.

  Thad strode over to the desk and positioned himself behind her. “No, it isn’t full, Sam,” he said in a flat voice.

  “Sorry, Mr. MacAllister,” he mumbled. “We don’t cater to…to Celestials.”

  Thad’s bare fist came down hard on the polished oak counter. He leaned over it and spoke in a tone as clear and hard as ice. “This lady is as American as you or me, and tomorrow she’s gonna be my—” he took a breath “—my wife. You’ll cater to her now, understand?”

  The clerk goggled at him. “I h-heard ya, Mr. MacAllister, but—”

  “How much is the room?”

  “Dollar and a half,” Sam choked out. “But—”

  Thad slapped four coins onto the counter. The clerk flinched, reached to one side and dropped a room key into Thad’s deliberately extended palm. “Third d-door on the right.”

  Thad bent to retrieve Leah’s battered leather valise, grasped her elbow and ushered her up the stairs.

  Instantly conversation buzzed in the smokefilled lobby. “My Gawd, didja see that?”

  “Never thought a Celestial…”

  “Hell, Thad’s bit off more’n he can chew this time.”

  “Celestial or not, didja see her face? She’s downright pretty!”

  Leah followed Mr. MacAllister down the musty-smelling hallway and waited while he unlocked the door to her room. He stood aside, and she edged past him.

  The room was small, with one lace-curtained window overlooking the main street, a coverlet-swathed bed, a tall oak armoire and a washstand with a blue-patterned china basin and water pitcher. The place smelled oddly of both dust and furniture polish.

  Mr. MacAllister shifted from one foot to the other and finally spoke from the open doorway. “I’ll be back in the morning, Miss Cameron.”

  Leah turned toward him. “I will be ready, Mr. MacAllister.”

  For a long minute he didn’t move. “One last thing I’ve got to say,” he grumbled.

  She braced herself. She knew it! He didn’t want her. In the morning he would send her away.

  “You do not want me because I am—”

  “Nah, not a bit of it, Miss Cameron. Don’t you mind what people say. I—I’m glad you came.”

  She studied the tall man in the beaver coat. His gaze seemed direct; laugh lines wrinkled the corners of his eyes and his mouth could change from a grim line into a smile in a single heartbeat.

  She liked him. She couldn’t say why, exactly. He was gruff, his manners untutored, but she sensed a steadiness about him. He was like Father but not so disapproving. Father had always worried about her Chinese half, even though he had braved Third Uncle, Ming Sa’s guardian, to marry her mother. The Chinese did not respect the White Devils, but she knew Father had loved Ming Sa.

  “I am glad I came, as well,” she said softly. And God knew she needed to belong somewhere safe, even if it was a farm on the rough, uncivilized Oregon frontier.

  Thad tipped his hat, backed into the hallway and turned to leave. “Whatever happens, it should be interesting.” He tossed the remark over his shoulder.

  Leah jerked as if bitten by a horsefly. “Wait!” she called. “Your gloves.” She pressed them into his large hand. To her surprise she found his fingers we
re trembling.

  In that moment she guessed what lay beneath his gruff exterior. Underneath, he was as frightened as she was. But, being a man, he would never, never admit it. Never show fear, Father had said.

  When the door closed behind Mr. MacAllister, she let her heavy wool coat slide off her shoulders onto the scuffed hardwood floor. She undressed by the light seeping through the lacy curtain, poured water into the basin and rapidly sponged off the travel dust and soot from every inch of her body. Then she shook out her silk tunic and trousers and hung them in the armoire along with her coat.

  Ravenously hungry, she unwrapped her last dried bean cake, pulled on her pink silk sleeping robe and crawled into the welcoming bed.

  She had been fortunate in America thus far—except for those terrifying days imprisoned at Madam Tang’s. Leah had finally escaped in the horse-drawn laundry cart that came each morning and found her way to a church. Now, after a day and a night on the train from San Francisco to Portland, and another half day to Smoke River, here she was. Tired to the bone, but safe in the biggest, softest bed she had ever slept on. God was surely looking out for her.

  She stretched luxuriously, nibbled the edge of the hard bean cake and listened to the street noises below her window. Horses clipclopped down the main road, harnesses jingling. Dishes clattered in the restaurant across from the hotel. Men’s raucous voices drifted from the saloon next door. Oh, it all sounded so…American! What a strange and wonderful land this was!

  Thank you, Lord, for this place of safety and for this man. She would be a good wife to him.

  Nodding over the uneaten bean cake, she curled into a ball and fell asleep listening to the sound of a woman’s voice from the saloon below, singing a song about a train and a round mountain.

  Chapter Three

  Seven-year-old Teddy MacAllister looked up at his father accusingly. “Where ya been, Pa? I had to shoo the chickens inside the henhouse all by myself, and keep the fire goin’, and…” His voice trailed off. His father was not listening, as usual.

  “What? Oh, I’ve been in town, laddie. Tomorrow I’ll have a surprise for you.”

  Teddy’s blue eyes lit up. “A horse, Pa? Is it a horse of my own?”

  Thad regarded his son with eyes that saw only a small part of the boy’s eagerness. “Nope, not a horse. Something better.”

  “Ain’t nuthin’ better than a horse,” the boy grumbled.

  But Thad did not hear. He busied himself at the woodstove in the kitchen, heating the kettle of beans he’d set to soak before he’d left to meet the train. His gut felt as if it were tearing in two directions. On the one hand, he wanted to give Teddy someone who could fill the gap left by his mother’s death. Someone to keep house and bake cookies and knit socks for the boy.

  On the other hand, he did not want Miss Cameron, no matter how capable or understanding she might be, to replace Hattie. Thad and she had grown up together in Scotland, and later, when he had settled on the Oregon frontier, she’d come out from New England to marry him. Her upbringing hadn’t prepared her for the hardships on a ranch; in fact, she had disliked living so far away from the life she had grown used to. But Hattie had said she loved him, and she had given him a son.

  Teddy dawdled near the dry sink, still stacked full of plates and cups from last night’s supper. “Kin we have biscuits?”

  “What? Biscuits take mixin’ up.”

  “Then kin I mix ’em? I learned real good from Matt, uh, Marshal Johnson,” he amended. “I even know how to bake them on a flat rock!”

  “Got a good oven right here.” Thad thumped one leg of the nickel-trimmed stove with his boot. “Build up the fire some, Teddy. Need these beans to cook.”

  “Yes, Pa.” He moved to the wood box near the back door, stacked an armload of small oak logs along one arm and staggered to the stove.

  “Guess what?” he said as he chunked one piece into the fire box.

  Thad didn’t answer.

  “Pa?”

  Thad spooned some bacon grease into his bowl of flour and stirred it up, paying scant attention to the boy. Usually, he thought about his dead wife, or worried about his new wheat field—was some insect nibbling the shoots? Would the snow stunt the sprouts? But this evening, he couldn’t get his mind off tomorrow morning.

  Miss Cameron wasn’t at all what he’d expected. The fact that she was part Chinese had come as a shock, but what had really knocked him off his pins was how young and how damned pretty she was. She had shiny black hair, like a waterfall of satin, and large gray-green eyes that shone when she was pleased. For some reason, she made him nervous.

  She hadn’t been pleased when he’d suggested she come home with him tonight. He’d meant no disrespect, just wanted to be practical. Hell, he’d never accost a woman, especially one under his care. In the morning he’d make it all proper at the church, and then she’d be here permanently. He’d show her the ranch and the wheat, the experimental crop he was trying to grow on the back three acres, and the springhouse he was building, and…

  Teddy turned away with a sigh and tramped to the pocked wooden table in the far corner of the kitchen. “You want me to set out the plates, Pa?”

  Again lost in his thoughts, Thad did not answer. With a shrug his son lifted two china plates from the painted wood shelf along the wall and plopped them down on the table.

  Thad spoke abruptly from the stove. “You go to school today?”

  “Nah. It’s Saturday, remember?”

  No, he didn’t remember. How could he forget what day of the week it was? Especially Saturday. Hattie had died on a Saturday. He gazed out the window over the sink, suddenly unable to see. She’d wanted that window so she could look at her pink roses sprawling along the back fence. Two summers had come and gone since then; the roses looked awful straggly.

  He blinked away the stinging in his eyes and focused on his reflection in the glass. Who was he now that Hattie was gone?

  “Pa? Pa?”

  “What, Teddy?”

  “You’re gettin’ that funny look again.”

  Thad drew in a long breath. “Sorry, son. Guess I was thinkin’ about—” Hell, he didn’t really know what he’d been thinking about except that it was about Hattie. It usually was.

  “You hungry, son? Beans are ’bout ready and my biscuits must be near done.”

  Teddy nodded and settled onto one of the two ladder-back chairs drawn up at the table, then leaped up to retrieve two forks from the cutlery drawer next to the sink. His father laid a basket of hot biscuits in front of him and ladled beans onto his plate.

  “What did you say you learned in school today, son?”

  Teddy stared at his father, pinching his lips together. Ever since his mama died, Pa hardly even noticed him. Without a word, he turned sideways and pressed his face down on his folded arm.

  The wagon rattled to a stop in front of the Smoke River Hotel. Thad looped the reins around the brake handle and climbed down from the driver’s bench. Morning had dawned with clear blue skies and bright sunshine, though the air was cold enough to freeze ice cream. Kinda odd weather for November, but he didn’t fancy getting married on a rainy, gray day like the one when Hattie…

  Hell, he couldn’t think about that today.

  His son sat beside him, his face shiny from a morning bath and his red-brown hair neatly combed. “Wait here,” Thad ordered.

  The boy fidgeted but obeyed, wondering what the promised “surprise” would be. Seemed like a hotel was a funny place to buy a horse, but lately Teddy had been surprised by a lot of things his father did. Getting all spiffed up this morning, for instance. Sure, it was Sunday, but Pa never attended church. Besides, a man didn’t need to dress all fancy just to buy a horse. Didn’t need to take a bath, either.

  Inside the hotel, Thad tapped on Miss Cameron’s door. When it swung open, all his breath whooshed out. She was a sight, all right. Like something out of a dream. He knew his jaw was gaping open, but at the moment he couldn’t remember how
to close it.

  From head to foot she was enveloped in a pajamalike outfit of scarlet silk that clung to her gently curving body like a second skin. On her head she wore a shimmery gold crown made of what looked like foreign coins that tinkled softly when she moved. Hell, she looked like an exotic princess from his son’s fairy-tale book.

  “I am ready,” she announced.

  Thad snapped his jaw shut. But maybe I’m not. What was he going to do with this fragile-looking creature on his hardscrabble ranch?

  “This is my wedding-day dress. It belonged to my mother and to her mother before that. Do you like it?”

  Yeah, he liked it. All of it. He couldn’t take his eyes off her shiny, shoulder-length black hair or the flawless ivory skin or the faint pink blush of her cheeks. All at once what was happening seemed so unreal he felt dizzy.

  He had come to escort her to the church to be married, but now that he stood before this delicate creature his mouth was so dry he couldn’t utter a word. But he’d offered her marriage in exchange for her presence in his house and his son’s life, and come hell or high water, Thad MacAllister always kept his word.

  She gestured gracefully at her valise and the wool coat draped over the bedstead. Thad opened his mouth, then closed it and nodded. Carrying the coat and luggage, he followed her down the stairs.

  Leah stepped slowly down the stairs to the hotel desk and returned the room key. The lobby was jammed with people—ranchers, visitors, even a circuit judge; the jangle of voices died as suddenly as if someone had puffed out a candle. No one uttered a word.

  People stared at the slim woman in red. She held her head high, but her face had gone white. Thad took her elbow, swept her out of the hotel and over to the wagon, where Teddy waited.

  The vision in red silk looked up at his son and smiled. Teddy’s eyes popped wide open. He made a strangled sound in his throat and scooted across the bench as far away from Miss Cameron as he could get.

  Preoccupied, Thad handed her up, strode around to the driver’s side and swung himself onto the bench.