‘Do you, Leah, take Thaddeus for your lawful wedded husband?’

‘I—’ Her throat clogged. ‘I do,’ Leah choked out.

Reverend Pollock cleared his throat. ‘I now pronounce you husband and wife.’ In finishing, he raised his voice to cover the whispers from the congregation behind them. ‘May God bless you both and keep you safe in the shelter of His love. You may kiss the bride,’ he added in a lower tone.

Leah waited in an agony of nerves for Thad to touch her. She blinked hard and then Thad’s mouth settled gently over hers, his lips warm and firm. It lasted but an instant, but Leah’s breath knotted beneath her breastbone.

It was over. Thad’s hand held hers just tight enough to keep her feet anchored to the earth. If she skipped down the aisle, as she felt like doing, she would float away.

Together they started toward the church door, and only then did Leah become aware of the heavy, disapproving silence that greeted them. She kept her head up and tried to smile at the sea of stony faces. Not one person would meet her eyes…

AUTHOR NOTE

The inspiration for this book came from a photograph of a young Chinese girl taken by Arnold Genthe, which I found in the book San Francisco’s Old Chinatown. The struggles of the Chinese in the nineteenth century touched me, and I felt drawn to the difficulties a young woman of a totally foreign culture might have experienced in a small Western American town. As a nation, we have not always shown tolerance towards those who are ‘different’ from us; I pray we are becoming more enlightened.

About the Author

LYNNA BANNING has combined a lifelong love of history and literature into a satisfying career as a writer. Born in Oregon, she has lived in Northern California most of her life. After graduating from Scripps College she embarked on a career as an editor and technical writer, and later as a high school English teacher.

An amateur pianist and harpsichordist, Lynna performs on psaltery and harp in a medieval music ensemble and coaches in her spare time. She enjoys hearing from her readers. You may write to her directly at PO Box 324, Felton, CA 95018, USA, or at carolynw@cruzio.com. Visit Lynna’s website at www.lynnabanning.net

Novels by the same author:

HARK THE HARRIED ANGELS

(part of One Starry Christmas anthology)

THE SCOUT

HIGH COUNTRY HERO

Smoke River
Bride

Lynna Banning

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For Suzanne Barrett

Chapter One

The day Leah arrived in Smoke River it was snowing. She stepped off the train from Portland and peered into a cloud of swirling white flakes, unable to see a foot ahead. Her feet were freezing inside her black leather slippers and she could think of nothing but reaching the squat whitewashed station house and folding her blue fingers around a cup of hot tea. She stumbled blindly forward, lugging her small valise.

A white mountain loomed in her path, and before she could stop, her face smacked into something furry at nose level. It turned out to be the beaver trim on the front of a man’s jacket. A large man, taller than her father by at least six inches.

“Sorry, lass,” he rumbled.

She clutched her floppy silk hat and looked up. Through the mist of falling snow she saw a man’s square jaw and a trim mustache that reminded her of Father’s. He was tall and broad-shouldered and towered over her like a sturdy tree. Instantly she lowered her eyes as she had been taught.

“Might watch where you’re goin’,” he grumbled.

“And the same to you, sir,” she said before she could stop herself. She should not have spoken out like that. Her mother would have scolded her.

She moved to step around him, but a large, long-fingered hand encased in a leather glove gripped her arm. “You just come in on the train from Portland?”

“Yes, I did.” She pulled out of his grasp and resumed her path toward the station house and the prospect of hot tea.

“Did you see a woman, maybe with red hair and a Scots burr, on the train?”

She turned to face him, and this time she did meet his eyes. He was good-looking in a craggy sort of way, with steady, sky-blue eyes that seemed to look right through her. “I was the only woman on that train, sir. And I do not have red hair.”

“Ye’re not Scots, then?”

“I am half Scottish. Of what interest is that to you?” She could almost see her mother’s scowl for being so forward.

“None, I guess. I’m waitin’ for my new bride. She’s supposed to be comin’ from San Francisco, but I’ve never laid eyes on her before, and I wouldn’t recognize her.”

Leah’s heart dropped into her ice-crusted shoes. Oh, no. She was the woman he was waiting for. He thought she would be a Scottish woman because of her name, Cameron. She swallowed twice. Such a mistake was a very unlucky sign.

Ten days ago she had replied to a notice in the San Francisco newspaper. “Rancher with young son needs wife. Educated, honest, hardworking.”

Mr. Thaddeus MacAllister had answered immediately and enclosed the train fare. He had never seen her, and she had never seen him.

And we are to be married in twenty-four hours!

She couldn’t do it. She’d thought she could marry a man she had never seen, but she just couldn’t. What had she been thinking?

She had not been thinking, of course. She’d just had to escape the ugly situation she’d found herself in. Now she thought she would be sick all over this man’s beaver jacket, and that would be even more unlucky.

The tall man bent toward her. “Her name is Leah Cameron. Do you know her?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, her voice resigned. “I do know her.” She drew in a big gulp of air and let it out slowly. “I am Leah Cameron.”

His eyes widened. “What? You don’t look Scottish to me!” He brushed back her silk bonnet and scanned her face. “Don’t look Scottish at all!”

Leah raised her chin but kept her eyes lowered. “I am half Scottish, as I said. My father’s name was Franklin Cameron. He died of cholera a month ago.”

The man grabbed her by both arms and pulled her forward until her nose grazed a jacket button.

“And the other half?”

“The other half is…” She reached up and pulled her floppy hat completely off so he could see her face.

His eyes went even wider. “Good God, you…you’re a Celestial!”

“I am half Chinese. My mother’s name was Ming Sa. She is now dead, as well.”

He kept staring at her, his mouth hanging open. Finally his jaw clicked shut. “Look, miss, I placed my notice because I need a…well, a wife. I never figured you’d be a…a foreigner.”

“According to the Immigration Authority, I am not a foreigner. My father was an American citizen, a missionary living in China, so I am American, too.”

“Well.” The man cleared his throat. “I never expected this. I mean, you.”

Not a good sign. “You mean you expected me to be a white woman. Caucasian.” It wasn’t a question. She knew how the Chinese were regarded in the West. The tales she had heard of the treatment of “Celestial” railroad crews made her cringe.

Leah watched his expelled breath puff into a foggy white cloud. “Yeah,” he muttered at last. “I guess I did expect you to be…well…” His voice trailed off.

Heavenly Father, he would send her back! She could never return to San Francisco. Not now.

“Wait,” she said. “I can cook and clean and care for a child. I have had experience at the Christian mission orphanage in Canton. And I can sew and embroider… .”

But she could not return to China. Never. Third Uncle would lose face, and besides, there was no longer any place for her there. In China, she was not half Chinese, she was half White Devil. She no longer knew where she belonged.

She watched him look away, then back to her. “It’s not that I think you’re not qualified, miss. But—”

“You need not explain, Mr. MacAllister. It is clear that you no longer want me.” She had half expected such a reaction, but now what was she to do?

She hefted her valise and started moving slowly toward the station house entrance.

He caught up with her in two strides. “It’s not that you’re a Celestial, not exactly.” He lifted the suitcase out of her hand and fell into step beside her.

“Then what is it, exactly?” She sneaked a look at him.

His mouth tightened. “Aw, hell, I don’t know. The folks here in town might not—”

“Would you protect me?”

“Well, sure, but—”

“Mr. MacAllister, I cannot go back to San Francisco. It took me eight days to escape from my host lady. She was a very bad woman. I will not go back.”

He pulled open the door of the station house just as the train gave a high, throaty toot and chuffed on down the track. “Come inside, miss. You look like you could use some—”

“Tea,” she supplied without thinking. “Yes, please.”

He frowned down at her, then stamped the snow off his boots. “You might let me finish a sentence now and then, Miss Cameron.”

“Oh! I beg your pardon, Mr. MacAllister. Father and my teachers always said I was impulsive and outspoken. They were right.”

His rust-brown eyebrows waggled. “You’ve been to school, then?”

“Of course. I can read and write in two languages. My father headed a mission school in China. I was educated there until…” She bent her head.

He waited. “Until?”

Leah clenched her jaw until the urge to cry passed. “Until Mother and then my father died of cholera. Papa saw to it that I was well educated.”

“Aye, I can see that. You talk right proper.”

“Thank you.”

“Me, I know farming—cattle, and this year I’m trying some wheat. Nobody in these parts grows wheat, but…Let’s see, where was I? I know how to build a barn and a house and I can read and write. That’s what I want for my boy, and more.”

He guided her to a stool at the counter. “Tea for the lady,” he said. “Coffee for me, with a shot of—Aw, skip it, Charlie. Just coffee.” Charlie was the manager, the telegraph operator and the ticket seller for the small Smoke River station.

The short balding man leaned over the counter. “This yer, uh, new bride?”

Thad purposefully cleared his throat. “Mind your own business, Charlie.”

“Hell, ever’body in town knows you sent away for…” He focused on Leah’s face and his voice trailed off. “Oh, I see.”

“Oh, you do?” Thad challenged.

“Yeah, I do,” Charlie said quietly. “Won’t be easy, Thad. Good luck to ya.” He clomped over to the black potbellied stove in the center of the small reception room and tossed a small log into the fire.

Within minutes the room was toasty warm. Leah sent the stationmaster a grateful smile, stood up and shrugged out of her ankle-length wool coat. Thad stood, as well, grasped the coat and strode off to hang it on the coatrack by the door. When he turned back to Miss Cameron, the floor tilted under his boots.

Jehosephat, she was a looker! She wore some kind of silky blue-green trousers and a matching long-sleeved tunic with frog loops down the front. But what he noticed most was how the smooth fabric curved over her breasts and hinted at her hips. She was small and slim, built like a China doll, but she sure looked womanly.

And she’d come to Smoke River to be a bride and run a home? Hell, she looked too delicate to hang out the laundry, let alone boil sheets and dungarees in a tin washtub.

“Listen, Miss Cameron, you sure you want to live out on a ranch? To be honest, it’s a hardscrabble life out here in the West, and some years it’s harder than others. Summers can be scorching, winters are—”

“Snowy,” she interrupted. “I understand. It snows in China, too, Mr. MacAllister.”

He walked a slow circle around her. Huh. She’d blow over in a stiff wind. And he sure couldn’t see her down on her hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. Or anything else, come to think on it.

“Miss Cameron, you don’t know how hard ranch life can be.”

She spun toward him. “I am not afraid of hard work. I fear only being alone and unprotected in a big city where I know no one.”

“Like San Francisco?” He was fishing, but he had to know something about her. “What scared you in San Francisco that wouldn’t scare you here in Smoke River?”

She was quiet for a long minute. “It was not safe in that city,” she said softly. “Especially for a Chinese girl. I…I had to get away.”

Thad frowned. Something didn’t add up. “How come?”

She twisted away from him so he couldn’t see her face. “When I left the ship, two men laid their hands on me. They wanted me to come with them. I showed them my papers, but they laughed and tore them up.”

“Good grief,” Thad muttered. “I never thought about…Sit down, Miss Cameron. Have some more tea.”

She sank back onto the stool at the counter and wrapped her slim fingers around her teacup. “Those men dragged me into a carriage, but I escaped through the other door and ran down an alley and kept running, but they caught me.”

“Did you get away?”

“No,” she said shortly. “Nothing happened to me before I got free, but I cannot go back, do you understand? Hard work does not frighten me.” She gave an involuntary shiver. “But bondage does.”

Thad took a long look at her thin shoulders, her creamy neck and the delicate-looking hands. She appeared small And kind of lost, like a kitten. The least he could do was give her a home. She could teach Teddy. And she could keep house and cook and…

“Charlie? Look after Miss Cameron for five minutes, will ya?”

Charlie poked his head out of the ticket window across the room. “Where ya’ goin’?”

“Up the street to the mercantile. Gotta get her some ranch duds.”

For the third time, Carl Ness dusted off the display of kerosene lamps, watching out the corner of his eye while Thad MacAllister pawed through boy-size flannel shirts and jeans. Too big for his seven-year-old son, Teddy; too small for any adult he’d ever seen in town.

“Find what yer lookin’ for, Thad?”

“Nope,” the tall Scotsman snapped.

“What are you lookin’ for, anyway?”

“Work clothes.”

“You hire somebody to help out at the ranch?”

Thad paused and gave the diminutive mercantile proprietor a hard look. “Yeah, you might say that.” He held up a blue plaid shirt with buttons down the front, then snagged two more—one red and one green—and piled them on top of the three pairs of dark denim jeans he’d laid over his forearm.

“Kinda small for a ranch hand,” Carl observed. He patted the pile of garments Thad laid on the counter.

“Yup.”

Carl just shook his head. “You know, gettin’ more than three words out of you since your wife…Well, you know. It’s like squeezing a hen’s egg. You press too hard and you end up with egg yolk all over your hand.”

“Yeah.”

Carl started to wrap up the shirts in brown paper. “Anything else, Thad?”

“Yeah. Bottle of brandy. Make it a big bottle.” Thad dropped some coins on the counter and gathered up his paper-wrapped parcels. He could hardly wait to see Miss Cameron’s reaction to his purchases. Maybe the sight of the rough work clothes would convince her ranch life could be a killer. It had killed Hattie, his wife. It could kill a delicate woman all too easily.

Leah sat huddled over her tea, watching the stationmaster behind the ticket cage. He could sell her a train ticket to…well, to anywhere. But where could she go? Not back to the city. Not to Portland, either, which was just another big city where she would know no one. One small town was probably as good as another, and here there was a man who noticed her heritage but acted as if he did not care much.

“Mr. Charlie?” she called across the room.

“Yes, miss? What can I do for you?”

“Is…” She could scarcely get the words out. “Is Mr. MacAllister a good man?”

“He’s the best kind there is, miss. Leastways he used to be.”

“What happened to him?”

“Lost his wife a year ago in a train wreck. Ain’t been the same since.”

“Is he…cruel or violent?”

The stationmaster laughed. “Thad? Nah. He’s gone kinda crazy over this wheat-growing idea, and once he gets his mind made up, he’s hard to move. Sure, he gets hot under the collar sometimes, but I’ve never seen him do anything mean.”

Leah turned back to her tea. Everything would work out. It had to work out; she had no place else to go.

The front door banged open and there stood Mr. MacAllister, snow frosting the shoulders of his jacket and dusting the wide brim of his gray hat.

“Come on, Miss Cameron. Time to take you home.”

Chapter Two

Mr. MacAllister snagged Leah’s gray wool coat off the stand and held it out to her. “Ready to head to my ranch, Miss Cameron?”

Leah stared at the tall, muscular man. She had not thought this would be so hard to do. To be honest, she had not thought at all; she was so grateful for a way to escape Madam Tang in San Francisco, she had seized the money Mr. MacAllister had sent and boarded the first train north. Now, facing the prospect of actually living with this man, becoming his wife, she was frightened.

“Are we not to be married first?” she asked.

“Uh, sure.” But now that he was facing it he had to admit he wasn’t over Hattie yet. Yeah, he needed someone to keep house and mind Teddy, but maybe he wasn’t ready for another marriage.

Still, she needed someplace safe, and she was educated. She probably knew some about the history of the world, and about books. Most of the Smoke River folks hadn’t been schooled past sixth grade, and he wanted Teddy to know about literature, about poetry. Maybe even Scottish writers, like Robbie Burns and Sir Walter Scott.

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 were 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.

“Teddy, here’s the surprise I promised.”

Teddy just stared at Leah. Finally he cleared his throat. “I thought it was gonna be a horse, Pa.”

“Well, it isn’t a horse. It’s a woman. Her name is Leah Cameron and we’re going to the church to get married.”

“You’re already married,” Teddy shouted. “You’re married to Momma!”

Thad lifted the reins and clicked his tongue at the mare. “Your mother is dead,” he said in a gruff voice. “Now you’re gonna have a new—”

“Friend,” Leah quickly interjected. She turned to Thad’s son. “No one can ever replace your mother.”

“How would you know?” Teddy muttered.

Leah settled herself carefully on the bench and folded her hands in her lap. “I know because my own mother died just a month ago. No one can ever take her place in my heart.”

The boy glared at her slantwise, but said nothing. When they pulled up in front of the Smoke River Community Church, he bolted off the bench, stumbled over Leah’s legs and dropped to the ground.

“I ain’t goin’ into the church,” he announced.

Thad wound the reins around the iron brake handle with short, jerky motions. “Nothing you say or do is gonna stop what I’m set on doing, son. We need help on the farm and you need a…well, a mother.”

The boy’s face went stony. “I don’t neither.”

Leah laid her hand on Thad’s arm. “Don’t force him,” she said quietly. “It will only make it worse.”

“Yeah, guess you’re right.” He helped her down from the wagon, folded her hand over his forearm and started up the steps of the small whitewashed church.

“You comin’?” he called to Teddy.

“No. I’m not gonna ever speak to her. She’ll never be my momma. Never!”

Thad stopped in front of his son. “Nevertheless, Teddy, this lady is going to be my wife.”

“I hate her!” the boy screamed.

“But,” Thad said quietly, “I don’t. I like her. I think she will be good for both of us.”

Leah looked up sharply at the big man at her side. He liked her? A thousand doubts vanished at his words. But his son…

She tightened her fingers on Thad’s forearm. First things first. First she must be a good wife to this man. Later, perhaps, she would learn how to be a mother to his son.

The congregation had not yet arrived for the Sunday service, but Reverend Pollock took one look at them and frowned. “There won’t be enough time for a wedding before my flock arrives for church this morning.”

Thad’s return stare could scorch. “There’s plenty of time. Unless you want us living in sin, Reverend, I suggest you marry us right quick.” His voice was like cold steel.

“Ah.” A shaky smile lit the minister’s shiny face. “I believe you might be correct, Thad.”

He led them to the altar and lifted his Bible. But he did not open it. Instead, he gave Leah a long, penetrating look.

“Are you a Christian?”

“I am. My father was a minister, like you, only it was in China and he was a Presbyterian.”

Reverend Pollock blinked and studied her face. “China,” he echoed. “Of course.” He frowned again. “Well, then, shall we begin?”

Chapter Four

Leah had never seen a prettier church. The Protestant mission churches in China were drab structures of weathered gray wood or stone, and she gazed in admiration at the lovely interior before her. Four tall windows punctuated the white-painted walls, two on each side. Sunshine poured through the glass into the sanctuary, spilling warm golden light over the wood floor. She smelled furniture polish and something lightly lemon-scented.

Two large bouquets of red camellias banked the altar. Flowers? In November? Mother would say that was a lucky omen.

The minister disappeared through a small doorway, then returned a moment later draped in his black clerical robe. A smiling young woman followed him to the altar.

“This is Mrs. Halliday,” Reverend Pollock announced. “Mrs. Halliday grows lavender on her farm. She will serve as your witness.”

Leah stole a glance at the slim, dark-haired woman, relieved to find her smiling. She moved forward and lifted Leah’s hands into hers.

“Welcome. You must be Thad’s bride. From San Francisco, n’est ce pas?”

“I come from China, Mrs. Hal—”

“Oh, please call me Jeanne.”

“My name is Leah Cam—”

“Leah MacAllister,” Thad interjected firmly.

Jeanne laughed. “Mrs. MacAllister, then. Your wedding garments are very beautiful,” she whispered.

“They were my mother’s,” Leah murmured. “I brought them from China.”

The minister cleared his throat. “We’d better get on with it, folks. The church is beginning to fill up for the morning service.” He waited a half second, cleared his throat once more and opened his Bible.

“Dearly beloved…”

Leah sensed people entering the sanctuary and seating themselves on the pews behind them. She also heard their gasps of surprise and the sudden silence that followed.

The ceremony passed in a blur. “Do you, Thaddeus MacAllister, take this woman…?”

Thad’s low “I do” rumbled close to her ear, and she realized he had bent his head down to her level to speak his vows.

“And do you, Leah Cameron, take this man…?”

While the minister waited for Leah’s response, a woman’s shrill voice cut through the quiet. “God save us, she’s a Celestial!”

Jeanne Halliday reached out and quietly touched Leah’s arm. Reverend Pollock looked up from his Bible with a frown and repeated the question. “Do you, Leah, take Thaddeus for your lawful wedded husband?”

“I—” Her throat clogged. “I do,” Leah choked out.

Reverend Pollock cleared his own throat. “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” In finishing, he raised his voice to cover the whispers from the congregation behind them. “May God bless you both and keep you safe in the shelter of His love. You may kiss the bride,” he added in a lower tone.

Leah waited in an agony of nerves for Thad to touch her. Instead, he suddenly dug in his vest pocket and produced a wide gold band. “Forgot the ring,” he murmured. He slid it onto her finger. “This was my grandmother MacAllister’s.”

Then he placed his hands on Leah’s shoulders and turned her to face him. She could feel his fingers tremble.

He drew her toward him, and for some reason tears flooded into her eyes. She wasn’t frightened. Or unhappy. She was moved by something deep inside that she could not explain. She blinked hard and then Thad’s mouth settled gently over hers, his lips warm and firm. It lasted but an instant, but Leah’s breath knotted beneath her breastbone. She opened her eyes and smiled into his face.

He looked surprised, but she was too giddy to wonder at it. Jeanne Halliday hugged her, and Reverend Pollock shook Thad’s hand, then Leah’s, then Thad’s again, and turned them around to face the swelling congregation.

It was over. Thad’s still-shaking hand held hers just tight enough to keep her feet anchored to the earth. If she skipped down the aisle, as she felt like doing, she would float away.

Together they started toward the church door, and only then did Leah become aware of the heavy, disapproving silence that greeted them. She kept her head up and tried to smile at the sea of stony faces. Not one person would meet her eyes.

A shard of disquiet knifed into her belly. They disliked her, but why? Because she was Chinese? Because Thad’s son, Teddy, sat outside on the church steps, sulking in obvious displeasure? Because some other woman had wanted to be Thad MacAllister’s wife?

She began to count the steps to the last pew. The women glared at her with animosity, and some of the men ogled her with undisguised interest. Only when she was safely outside the church could she regain her equilibrium. At least she would try.

They emerged into the crisp midmorning sunshine to find Teddy still slumped on the bottom step, a sullen scowl on his face. A dark, cold shadow spread over Leah’s entire being, carrying with it an odd sense of foreboding. She had never expected to feel such disapproval on her wedding day.

Thad kept her hand in his, and with the other he ruffled Teddy’s hair and grasped his shoulder. “Come on, son. Let’s go home.”

Teddy shrugged off his father’s hand and trailed behind them, dragging his feet until they reached the wagon. Thad lifted Leah onto the bench. Teddy clambered up, but scooted his small body as far away from her as he could get without toppling off.

Thad cracked the whip over the mare’s head, then had to wonder at his action. He’d never used the whip before, but he’d explode if he didn’t do something to dispel the tension gripping his belly.

“Why’d you do that, Pa?” Teddy accused.

“Dunno, son.” He glanced at the boy. “Just felt like it.”

“Is it ’cuz you got married?”

“Well, kinda. I guess I’m feeling a little nervous.”

“How come?”

Thad chuckled. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

“No, I won’t,” Teddy yelled. “I won’t ever, ever understand.”

Leah said nothing. To Thad’s dismay she uttered not one single word the six miles out to the ranch, just studied every tree, every grassy meadow and cultivated field, even the shallow spot in Swine Creek where they forded. Was she homesick for China?

Or maybe she was wondering what she’d gotten herself into? Given the frosty reception of the townspeople at the church, maybe she regretted marrying him.

Thad was surprised in a way that he did not regret it. He knew it was the right thing. He had given her his name and his protection, and by God, he would give her a home and all the comforts he could afford in this lean year, starting with the boy’s trousers and shirts and work boots he’d purchased yesterday at the mercantile. She sure couldn’t do housework in that silky red outfit.

Ah, hell, maybe it would work out just fine. He was respected in Smoke River, known as a steady and resourceful man, and she seemed to be good-natured. And—he felt his face grow hot—she sure was pretty.

What could go wrong?

He drew rein at the front porch and watched Leah study the small house he’d built, the barn, and the barely sprouted three-acre field of winter wheat he’d gambled his savings to plant. He’d put his whole life into this farm; he hoped to goodness she liked what she saw.

The minute she walked into the cabin and gazed at what was to be her home, his heart shriveled.

Leah stared at the plank floor, sticky with something that had spilled but never been mopped up. A tower of pots and skillets and egg-encrusted plates teetered in the dry sink. The bare log walls were chinked with brown mud and a grimy, uncurtained window over the sink looked out on the withered remains of what had apparently been a kitchen garden. Another bare window beside the front door suddenly resembled a yawning face, laughing at her.

Were all the houses in Oregon like this, so carelessly kept? Or was it only this house?

The room smelled of dust, wood smoke, stale coffee and rotting food, the latter odor drifting from a slop jar that she fervently hoped was intended for a pig. She closed her eyes and tried not to breathe in.

“Guess it could use some cleaning up,” Thad said with a catch in his voice. “Hattie always said…” He left the thought unfinished.

“I am sure she was right,” Leah said evenly. She could not imagine how difficult living here must have been for Thad’s wife. She could also not imagine how she herself could manage to live in this filth and clutter.

Thad lifted her valise. “I’ll just put this in the bedroom.”

Bedroom! Heaven help her, she had avoided thinking about what marriage would mean at night. “Is…is there—How many bedrooms are there?”

“Just the one,” Thad muttered.

“Where does Teddy sleep?”

“In the loft up there, over the front room. Says it’s warmer at night. I planned to sleep up there, too.”

Thad lifted his head. “Oh, I almost forgot. Yesterday I bought you some work clothes. Should make do until you can get to the dressmaker’s in town.”

“The dressmaker’s?”

“Sure. Don’t you want some dresses like the other women wear?”

No, she did not. Having a Western dressmaker poke at her and criticize her comfortable silk trousers and tunics made her stomach heave. But she was starting a new life in America, and she knew she must fit in.

“Could I not make my clothes myself? Did Hatt—” At the stricken look on his face, Leah couldn’t bring herself to speak her name. “Did your wife own a sewing machine?”

Thad ducked his head and started toward the closed door of what she assumed was the bedroom. “Yeah, she did have a sewing machine,” he said over his shoulder. “Brought her mother’s fancy Singer with her from Virginia. But she never learned to sew on it.”

“Perhaps I could use it?”

The puzzled look in his eyes almost made her laugh out loud.

“Uh, well, sure, I guess so. It’s probably out in the barn somewhere. I’ll—I’ll have to find it.”

He flung open the bedroom door, plopped her valise in front of a tall chest of drawers and motioned to a square paper package on the bed. “I brought some duds from the mercantile for you.”

“But I brought clothes from—”

Thad cut her off. “That red outfit’s too fine to wash dishes in. Same for that pretty blue shirt thing you wore yesterday. Silk, wasn’t it?”

Leah nodded but did not answer. Instead, she unknotted the string securing the brown paper package on the bed and began to unwrap it. She lifted out a pair of boy’s jeans. Why, they looked just like the ones his young son wore!

She looked up, but Thad was gone. She heard the front door click shut and the thump of his footsteps across the porch. Teddy took one look at his father’s receding figure and bolted after him.

Leah straightened her spine, shook out the strange-looking American trousers and a long-sleeved red plaid shirt. Since she had stepped off the ship in San Francisco she had not seen one woman wearing clothes like these, not even here in Smoke River. She fingered the boy’s shirt. At least it was red; in China, red was a lucky color.

With shaking fingers she slipped free the frog closures down the front of her beautiful scarlet wedding gown and let it drop to the floor. Her life as Mrs. Thaddeus MacAllister had begun.

Chapter Five

“Pa?”

Thad peered into the dusty gloom of the barn, where Teddy was hunched over on a mound of fresh hay. “Yes, son?”

“I don’t like her, Pa. She wears funny clothes and she looks real diff’rent, and she doesn’t talk to me.”

Thad knelt to look into the boy’s stiff face. “More like you’re not talkin’ to her, isn’t it?”

“I don’t got anything to say to a Chinese lady.” His chin sank toward his shirtfront and Thad waited. Teddy usually took his time with more than one sentence.

Thad gazed about the musty smelling barn interior, idly searching for Hattie’s sewing machine. Was that it, there in the far corner? That burlap-draped lump next to the hay rakes?

“Pa?” Teddy raised his head, then let it droop again.

“Yeah?”

“How come you married her? Do you like her better’n me?”

The boy’s muffled words cut into Thad’s heart like a cleaver. He gathered his son into his arms and held him tight.

“Theodore Timothy MacAllister, there is no one—no one in this entire world—I like better than you. And there never will be. You’re my son, and I love you more than…” His voice choked off.

He wanted to do what was best for Teddy. At the same time he wanted to ease Leah’s way into their lives, to fill the hole left by Hattie when she’d died.

After a long silence, he heard Teddy’s voice, the words mumbled against Thad’s Sunday best shirt and fringed deerskin vest.

“Pa, d’you think maybe she’ll cook supper for us?”

Thad chuckled. “I think maybe, yes. Now, how’d you like to help me find something in our barn?”

Teddy’s voice rose an octave. “A horse?”

“Not a horse, son. A sewing machine. Your momma had one, but she never used it, so I stored it out here in the barn somewhere. You’ve got sharp eyes. Where do you think it might be?”

Teddy sat up straight and studied his surroundings, moving his eyes from the array of shovels and axes against one wall to the bridles and harnesses that hung on the opposite wall, to the two saddles draped over a sawhorse in the corner—one man-size, one slightly smaller, for a woman. That one had belonged to his mother.

Purposely he looked away, then pointed to a burlap-draped object in the opposite corner. “I bet that’s it!”

“Might be,” Thad said. He rose and pulled the covering aside. “Well, look at that—you’re right. Come on, son, think we can lift it?”

“Nope.”

“You want to give it a try?”

Teddy’s lower lip jutted out. “Nope.”

Thad shrugged and started to jockey the oblong sewing cabinet away from the wall. He remembered it, and seeing it again brought a funny pain in his chest. Before he could draw another breath, Teddy was puffing beside him. Together they hauled the machine across the hay-strewn barn floor until they reached the entrance.

Thad swung open the double doors, but when he looked back, Teddy had his head down on top of the once-shiny cabinet and was gasping for breath. Obviously the load was too heavy for the boy. Damned thing was solid oak. Must weigh at least a hundred pounds.

He strode to the back of the barn, grabbed up a large gunnysack and spread it on the floor in front of the sewing machine.

“What do we do now, Pa?”

“Now, we go to work again.”

They rocked it back and forth until all four legs sat squarely on the sturdy hemp sack.

“Think we can pull it, Teddy? Slide it over the ground to the porch?”

The boy eyed the load with a frown. “Nope.”

“Want to try at least?”

“Nope.”

But when Thad stooped to grasp one corner of the sack, Teddy was at his shoulder, reaching for the other.

“Good lad,” Thad murmured. “Let’s go, then. One, two, three, pull!”

The sewing cabinet inched forward. They had to tilt-walk it over the barn door sill, but after that it bumped over the two-hundred-yard path to the cabin with only three stops along the way to let Teddy catch his breath.

Thad had to wonder at his son’s sudden helpfulness. Had he decided Leah was not so bad after all? Or maybe Teddy just wanted to be close to his father? Thad guessed he’d been so wrapped up in mourning Hattie over the past year he’d pretty much ignored the boy.

His breath caught in a sudden rush of emotion. Had he really done the right thing? Would Teddy ever forgive him for marrying Leah, bringing a stranger, a foreigner, into his home? Turning his young son’s life upside down?

“Pa?”

Thad straightened. They had reached the bottom step.

“How’re we gonna get it up to the porch, Pa?”

Thad scratched his newly trimmed beard. “Well, let’s see. I can heft one end, and you…”

Teddy’s head drooped. “It’s too heavy for me, Pa. I can’t lift it.”

“Right. Well, let’s see if something else will work.” Thad hoisted one end of the cabinet up onto the first shallow porch step, then switched ends and lifted it again. Teddy leaned his back against the oak case to keep it from slipping.

Just as Thad reversed his position again, the cabin door banged open and a small jeanclad figure flew out. She looked so much like a boy Thad had to blink.

“Leah?”

“Yes,” she said calmly. Without another word she positioned herself opposite Thad.

He stared at her slim figure. She’d rolled the sleeves of the red plaid shirt up to her elbows, revealing slender forearms, and the jeans hugged her rounded bottom in a way that made his mouth go dry. Her waist was nipped in with a narrow length of woven scarlet cord of some kind, and the upper part of the shirt swelled gently over her breasts.

He wondered suddenly why more farm women didn’t dress that way. The garments were sturdy and practical. And on Leah—he swallowed—they were downright attractive.

He swallowed again as his brain churned out more images. What sort of undergarments did she have on? Did a Chinese woman wear a corset? A camisole? Bloomers? What?

He shook his head to clear his mind and focus on the task before him, drew in a deep breath and heaved the load up another step. Leah put her back against the opposite end and heaved, as well.

Teddy’s mouth dropped open and Thad had to laugh. She’d just shoved a heavy cabinet up a step and she wasn’t even breathing heavily. She must have worked hard in China all her life.

He gestured for his son to join Leah at her end. “Heave,” he muttered. This time six hands gripped the heavy sewing machine and swung it up onto the next step, where it teetered for a moment, then settled with a thunk.

“One more step,” Thad urged. When the cabinet finally rested on the porch, he surveyed his work crew with admiration. Teddy looked winded. Leah didn’t appear the least bit tired. Her cheeks were flushed, but her gray-green eyes sparkled with triumph.

“Here’s your sewing machine, Leah. Where do you want it?”

“Oh!” She dashed inside the small cabin interior, propping the door open with an empty apple crate, and stood studying the room. For the first time Thad noted that her feet were bare.

“Over there.” She pointed to the far corner, where a cat-clawed brocade armchair rested.

Thad retrieved the gunnysack, and he and Teddy used it to slide the cabinet across the stained plank floor. When it stood where Leah had indicated, she stepped back and gazed at it with an assessing eye while the two males caught their breath and massaged their shoulders.

“No,” she said at last. “All wrong. The light is not good.” She pivoted in a slow circle to inspect each cabin wall in turn. “There,” she said finally. “Under the window.” She pointed to the opposite side of the room.

Thad and Teddy groaned in unison, but bent to the opposite corners of the gunnysack. “You’re sure, now?” Thad asked drily.

Leah shot him a look. “Yes, quite sure.”

Again Thad and his son traded glances. This time Thad rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and Teddy suppressed a giggle.

Leah crossed to stand opposite the two cabinet movers, and when Thad and Teddy started to slide their load across the floor, she laid her backside against the opposite end, lowered her head and shoved. The sewing machine scooted smoothly across the floor.

Leah spun around. “Yes,” she breathed. “Perfect.”

Thad’s eyebrows went up. “You sure?”

Teddy clasped both arms over his chest and scowled at her.

Leah faced them both, her hands propped on her hips. “Of course I am sure! Did you think I would change my mind again?”

“Yep,” Thad and Teddy replied in unison.

Leah looked from her new husband to his young son. Their expressions were identical—narrowed eyes, unsmiling lips and a tiny frown between their identical red-brown eyebrows. Teddy resembled his father, right down to his stance, with both hands jammed in his back pockets.

“I do not change my mind,” she said quietly. “Once I decide what to do, I do not change.”

Frowning, Teddy studied the floor. She shifted her gaze to Thad. A variety of emotions showed in his face, a combination of surprise, bemusement and apprehension. His expression puzzled her until she remembered she wore boy’s clothing, her feet were bare and Teddy was not at all pleased that his father had married her.

She was in no position to insist on being accepted. Here in Smoke River she was safe and protected; she could endure a great deal of hardship and disapproval in the bargain. Still, a hard kernel of doubt niggled its way into her mind.

Thad and his son escaped to the barn, saying they had to care for the horse and do the milking. Tomorrow, Thad said, he would show Leah the chicken house and how to milk their temperamental cow.

As soon as the front door closed, she started to make the cabin habitable. Even the poorest hut in China had been better kept than this—neater and spotlessly clean. America was strange indeed.

She washed the sinkful of dirty dishes and pots in water she pumped and heated on the woodstove, then filled a tin bucket with more water, dumped in the last of her waning supply of powdered jasmine-scented soap and scrubbed the entire cabin floor on her hands and knees. When she rose at last, the floor squeaked under her bare toes.

Next she attacked the window over the sink and the one by the front door with a rag dipped in vinegar water, swept down the cobwebs drooping from the ceiling and dusted every surface she could find, from the oak headboard in the bedroom to the shelf of Teddy’s schoolbooks, even the shiny black Singer sewing machine in its oak cabinet.

Then she climbed the built-in ladder to the loft, where she made up Teddy’s disheveled bed and was straightening his jumbled collection of rocks when she spied a children’s book lodged between the bureau and the wall. East of the Sun, West of the Moon. She had read it herself as a child. Suddenly she was glad her father had made her study so hard at his mission school. Thad wanted an educated woman to care for and perhaps set an example for his son.

She dragged the woven rag rug that covered the loft floor outside, tossed it over the clothesline and beat it with the broom until the puffs of dust made her cough.

What next? She felt compelled to keep herself busy; if she allowed herself to stand still for a moment she would think about her marriage and the bed and the coming night and Thad MacAllister, who was now her husband.

What would it be like, lying close to him in the dark, feeling his hands on her skin? Such thoughts made her shiver.

She reswept the kitchen floor, rinsed out a camisole and a pair of white silk drawers in the sink and hung them on the clothesline next to the rug from Teddy’s loft. Now she must think about supper for the three of them.

Chapter Six

The tiny pantry off the kitchen held a barrel of flour, sacks of sugar, rice, dried beans and potatoes, and a hanging slab of moldy-looking bacon. No carrots or peas or turnips or herbs. No fresh fruit, either—only a lone tin of peaches and a bushel basket half full of apples. What could she make out of such a conglomeration?

Hours later, footsteps boomed across the front porch and Thad walked in with Teddy at his heels. At the stove, Leah froze with her back to them.

“Somethin’ sure smells funny, Pa.”

“Looks different, too, son. Kinda…shiny.”

Teddy clambered up the ladder to the loft and an instant later let out a squawk like an enraged rooster. “My bed’s all diff’rent! And my rocks—somebody’s been messing with my rocks!”

His head appeared over the railing. “She did it! I hate her!”

Thad ignored his son and gazed around the cabin. Clean windows. Scrubbed floor. No dishes in the sink. Looked as if a cyclone had blown through the place. He began to frown before Teddy finished yelling. He liked what Leah had done. But for some reason deep inside he didn’t want to like it. It seemed disloyal to Hattie.

But Hattie is gone. And Leah was here. He could hardly believe Leah was his wife now, and he had to admit his reaction to the state of his house had nothing to do with Hattie. He couldn’t bear to think about it too closely.

The cyclone was standing at the stove. Apparently she was a fastidious housekeeper, and of course his son wouldn’t appreciate that. Thad wondered why he didn’t appreciate it.

The spit and polish this half-Chinese girl had shown in just a few hours reminded him not so much of Hattie as his Scots mother. She was long dead now, as was his father. That was one reason Thad had come to America—the Scots were starving. He had just passed his twelfth birthday and both his parents were gone.

Hattie, he recalled, had not been a particularly careful housekeeper, but she had been his lifelong companion. And because he had loved her, he had forgiven her any domestic shortcomings.

But seeing another woman in her place sent a blade through his gut. It wasn’t that he regretted marrying Leah—just that he regretted losing Hattie.

Teddy clattered down the ladder and slouched toward the kitchen table. “I spose you want me to set out the plates,” he grumbled.

Leah turned to look at him. “Yes, thank you, Teddy. That would be nice.”

“Don’t have enough chairs, Pa. Guess she’ll have to sit on that old nail keg, huh?”

Thad met Leah’s questioning eyes and to his relief saw that she was amused, not angry. She clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Teddy’s suggestion of the nail keg even brought a chuckle to his own throat.

“Well, son, you have two choices. Either you cobble up an extra chair or you eat your dinner standing up. Leah and I are sitting at the table.”

“Aw, Pa.”

“Don’t ‘Aw, Pa’ me, Teddy. Take it or leave it. I’d tan your hide good if it wasn’t our wedding day.”

Teddy said nothing, but Thad noted that he dutifully laid three plates on the table and then disappeared.

“Hunting up a chair, I’d guess,” he murmured at Leah’s back. She’d found one of Hattie’s aprons and tied it twice around her waist in an oversize, floppy bow. His heart gave an odd lurch at the sight. Dammit, he remembered that apron. Oh, God, he wished it was Hattie there at the stove.

But it wasn’t Hattie, it was Leah. His new wife. Dammit, he could hardly bring himself to say the word. He focused on her slim figure and felt a flicker of warmth. He hadn’t necessarily expected to like his mail-order bride and now the woman was his wife.

He didn’t have to like her, he told himself; all he had to do was get along with her.

The front door banged open and in stomped Teddy, dragging a dust-coated, straightbacked wooden chair. “Found it in the barn,” he muttered.

Thad squeezed his thin shoulder. “Well done, Teddy.”

“I hope it breaks when she sits on it!”

Thad bent and tipped his son’s chin up with his forefinger. “No, you don’t, Teddy. Things are plenty difficult for all of us right now, so you’ll hold your tongue. From now on, if you want to say anything about my wife, you say it directly to Leah, understand?”

“Okay.” Teddy sucked in a breath and sent a venomous look at her back. “I don’t like you, Leah.”

Thad grabbed the boy by his shirt collar, then heard Leah’s calm voice offer a retort he could not have predicted with a crystal ball.

“I do not like you either, Teddy.”

The boy’s mouth dropped open. “Huh? How come?”

“Because,” Leah said, turning to face him, “the things you say hurt my feelings.”

Thad blinked, then caught Leah’s steady gaze. He raised his eyebrows and gave his new wife as much of a smile as he could muster.

In an agony of unease, Leah watched Thad and Teddy seat themselves at the wooden kitchen table. She poured Teddy a glass of fresh milk from the pail Thad had brought in, then filled Thad’s china cup with coffee that suddenly looked too black and too thick. Thad reached his spoon to the milk glass, dipped some out and dribbled it into the cup. Now it looked like water from a mud puddle.

Teddy poked his fork at his father’s cup. “That sure looks awful.”

Leah’s face grew hot. “I have never made coffee before,” she confessed. “In China we drink tea.”

Hiding her face, she gathered up the three plates and whisked them over to the stove, where the skillet rested with her steaming dinner dish. There was no wok, so she had used the iron frying pan to cook in. She scooped a large dollop of the mixture onto each plate.

She placed Teddy’s dinner before him. The boy wrinkled his nose. “What’s that stuff?”

“That is called chow fun. It means ‘vegetables with noodles.’ In China, we make it with chicken.”

“Eww,” Teddy muttered.

Leah tried to see the dish through the eyes of a young American boy: a pile of thinly shaved potatoes covered with fried onions and topped with crumbled bacon. Of course, some ingredients were missing—not just chicken, but the noodles, crisp green peapods and a dribble of plum sauce. In China, the dish was special; here in Oregon it was obviously not.

Teddy dropped his fork and laid his forehead on the table next to his plate. “I can’t eat it, Pa.”

“Nobody’s pushing you, son.” Thad jammed his own fork into the mound on his plate and purposefully shoved a bite into his mouth. The apprehensive look on his face faded to surprise.

“Not bad,” he said. “Pretty good, in fact.” He gobbled another bite, then another. Leah ate quietly beside him, noting that he took only one tiny sip of the coffee she had made. Her throat tightened.

For dessert she had baked a traditional Chinese tart made of layered apple slices, but now she hesitated to present it. She would never understand American cooking. She feared she would never fit into American life no matter what she learned to cook. Finally she gathered up her courage, set the tart in front of Thad and handed him a knife to slice it into wedges.

The tart met with a broad grin from Thad and a glimmer of interest from Teddy. At least he tasted a bite. Then, without a word, he wolfed down his portion of the intricately assembled creation and held out his plate for another piece.

“Good!” Thad pronounced. Teddy said nothing, just sat staring at the empty tart pan. “Mama used that pan to flour the chicken before she fried it.”

“Oh? What does ‘flour the chicken’ mean?”

Teddy smirked. “You don’t know nuthin’, do ya? You take a chicken leg and roll it around till it’s all floury and then you fry it.”

“Could you show me?”

“Uh, I guess so, if I—I have to,” the boy stammered. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s Monday, son. Don’t forget school.”

Leah looked up. “I would like to walk to school with you tomorrow, Teddy.”

“What for? You need to learn somethin’?”

“Oh, yes. There is much for me to learn about life in America. But that is not what I meant.”

“Miz Johnson doesn’t teach that stuff, ’cuz we already know it,” Teddy snapped.

“Teddy,” Thad said in a warning voice.

“I wish to meet your teacher, Teddy.”

“Leah,” Thad warned, “the schoolhouse is a three-mile walk.”

“An’ if it snows, Pa takes me on his horse. I bet you can’t even ride a horse.”

“No, I cannot. But I am used to walking. My father’s school was two miles from our house, and I walked there every day, even in the snow.”

“That was dumb,” Teddy muttered.

Thad made a move toward his son, but Leah laid her hand on his arm.

“My father did not own a horse,” she said. To avoid explaining, she cleared the table, poured Thad’s coffee into the slop bucket and washed the dishes in water she’d left heating on the stove. Her anxiety mounted with every plate she dried. She knew he had not wanted to marry her; what would he expect of her? Would he want to sleep with her? And…perhaps more?

Thad seemed to be a reasonable, sensible man. And he’d had a wife before, so he knew…what to do in bed. But she most certainly did not.

A cup slipped from her shaking fingers and shattered against the floor. Before she could reach for the broom to sweep it up, Thad’s hand closed over her shoulder.

“You’re wondering about tonight,” he observed in a low voice. He turned to snag the broom. “I’m wondering, too. We’re husband and wife now.”

“Yes,” Leah murmured. “We are.”

Thad cleared his throat. “But I don’t really feel married, so maybe I should still sleep in the loft.”

Leah met his steady gaze and her stomach flipped. He had offered marriage to give her a respectable way of escaping what was inevitable in San Francisco. He could never know how desperately she needed the safe haven he offered. If she had stayed in the city, Madam Tang would have quickly auctioned off her virginity to the highest bidder.

This was Thad’s house. Thad’s bedroom. She could not usurp it.

“I think perhaps we could share your bedroom.”

He said nothing, just swept up the pieces of china and dumped them into the trash box next to the stove. Then he straightened to face her, and swallowed hard.

“You go on to bed, Leah. I’ll be along in a while, after I have a talk with my son.”

She lifted the broom out of his grasp. “Please do not. Have a talk, I mean. It will make him feel even more resentful. I will handle Teddy in my own way.”

At that, Thad propped both hands on his hips and stared at her. “I keep being surprised by you, Leah. You’re turning out to be some woman!”

“What does that mean, ‘some woman’?”

To her astonishment, Thad’s cheeks turned pink. “It means you are unusual. Not like other women.”

She hesitated. “Is it…is it because I am Chinese?”

“Oh, hell no, Leah. That doesn’t much matter to me.” He reached out and gently squeezed her narrow shoulders while she stood before him, the broom still clutched in her fingers. Moisture burned at the back of her eyes.

“It will be all right, I swear.” He lifted the broom out of her hands, turned her toward the bedroom and gave her a little nudge. “Go along to bed now.”

She moved away quickly so he would not see her tears.

For more than an hour she lay in the big double bed and, despite the flutter in her stomach, her eyelids kept drifting closed. Thad did not come. The moon rose, sending a cold silvery light through the single bedroom window, and still Thad did not come.

Had he changed his mind and climbed up into the loft to sleep with his son? Or perhaps he was sleeping in the barn? Why did he not come to his own bed? Was it because she was there?

At last she heard the front door open, then close, and suddenly there he was at the foot of the bed. Bathed in moonlight, he looked to be coated in shiny armor. Like Ivanhoe, as she had imagined him when she was growing up. It had been her favorite book.

“You still awake?”

“Yes,” Leah murmured. “I thought it polite to wait for you. I kept myself from falling asleep by thinking about…Ivanhoe.”

A laugh burst from the tall shadow by the bed. “Ivanhoe!”

Thad began to unbutton his shirt. He fumbled with the buttonholes halfway down his broad chest, stalled, swore a Gaelic curse and abruptly yanked the garment off over his head. His wool undershirt followed.

“Ivanhoe wouldn’t have to cope with buttons,” he muttered.

“Ivanhoe,” she heard herself say, “would have a squire to unbuckle his armor.”

Thad’s hands at that moment rested on the leather belt at his waist. He stopped and sent her a challenging look. “You want to be my squire?” he joked.

“Oh, no,” she cried. “I could never—”

He laughed softly. “Leah, you’re gonna wash my clothes. You’re gonna get so used to my trouser buttons you could undo them in your sleep.”

She pulled the sheet up over her head. The next thing she knew the bed sagged under his weight and a long, very cold body stretched out next to her.

“Oh! You are frozen! Where have you been?”

He chuckled aloud. “I’ve been out talking to my wheat field. Do it every night, mostly to reassure myself it’s still there.”

“Your wheat field? Why would it not be there? Is it growing?”

“Oh, aye. Little by little. But it’s like waitin’ for a kettle of water to boil.”

Leah rose up on one elbow. “Do all American farmers talk to their crops?”

“Nope.”

There was a long silence, and she wished she had not spoken out in such a bold manner.

“Dunno why I talk to the wheat, really. Well, that’s not true—I do know. That crop means a lot to me for two reasons. One, it’s a challenge. A gamble, really, but I like a challenge. Always have. And the other reason is this—when I was real young, about Teddy’s age, back in Scotland, my da had a farm. One year there was an awful storm that killed all our crops except for the red winter wheat Da had sown. We lived on that wheat, and goat’s milk, for a whole year. Nothing else survived. Neither would we have, if not for that crop of wheat. Saved our lives, it did.”

“That happens in China, too. If the rice crop fails, many people starve to death.”

Thad grunted. “Guess that wheat field makes me feel, well, like no matter what happens, my boy and I will survive.”

Leah gazed out the window. “Can you see your field from here?”

“Nope. Good thing, I guess,” he said with a chuckle. “Otherwise I’d be mooning out the window half the time instead of milking the cow and feedin’ the horses.”

Silence.

“Leah, you’re the only person I’ve told all this to. Townfolk think I’m a little crazy. Nobody grows wheat in Oregon. They’re all getting a good laugh over my experiment, I guess. I’m in debt up to my ears for what’s growing on those three acres, but I believe in a few years this whole territory will be growing wheat.”

“Mr. MacAllister…Thad…?”

“Go to sleep, Leah. It’s been a long day.”

Go to sleep? “Are you not going to—?”

“Nope,” he said. “We’re married, but we don’t hardly know each other. Let’s give it some time.”

Leah rolled onto her back and lay staring up at the ceiling. Thad MacAllister was a most unusual man.

Or perhaps he does not like me.

But then he laid his arm across her waist and gently nudged her closer. Her silk-clad shoulder and hip brushed against his skin and his warmth enveloped her like a fine wool robe.

“You sure feel warm,” he murmured. “I’ve been kinda cold for a while.”

Leah smiled into the dark. It was a good beginning.

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