Perfecting Amanda, page 6
The trip to Kansas City had worn her out.
He tapped the reins against her back. “Gee up there, Esther.”
“So this is Esther? Poor old thing. She seems tired.” Travis glanced at Amanda, who was smiling sympathetically at the horse.
“Old Esther’s used to standing in the pasture most of the day and only going into Reederville about once a week,” he explained. “Trip’s good for her though. Lets her know she still has a purpose in the world. She’ll be fine.”
They both fell silent again while another quarter mile rolled past. He tried to think of something interesting to tell her about his hometown or the farm, but her silence made him tongue-tied. When she spoke again, it made him jump.
“It’s so flat and wide open. The way the grass waves in the wind makes it look like water. It’s really rather like Lake Michigan.” He looked across the land, trying to see it through her eyes. To him it was mile after mile of sod that could be put to plow and made into useful farmland if someone had a mind. It looked different when he viewed it purely as a landscape. She was right. The green-blue hue of the grass did give the impression of undulating waves as the wind swept across it.
Meadowlarks and swallows occasionally burst up from the grass and swooped erratically across the sky, catching insects. Several hawks circled high overhead, waiting for a careless rabbit to show itself. The sky was a brilliant blue without a cloud to be seen from one rim of the horizon to the other.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“Yep, I guess it is at that.” Travis slapped the reins on Esther’s rump as the horse slowed again. “I almost forgot to ask, how was your trip?”
“Interesting. The station in Chicago was astounding. I’ve never seen such a huge place.”
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“That’s what I’ve heard. I’d like to see that some day.” Travis cast around for another polite question to draw her out. “Were you able to get any sleep on the train?”
“The berth was a little small, but the swaying of the train rocked me right to sleep.”
“Good.” He cleared his throat. “I imagine the bed in the hotel was a sight more comfortable.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Although you probably didn’t sleep much.”
“What?” Her startled tone drew his attention. She looked paler than ever, her features tight and pinched. He hoped she wasn’t feeling ill.
“I mean, wondering if I was coming or not. I apologize again for putting you through that.”
“It wasn’t your fault. And everything turned out all right in the end.” She smoothed the folds of her skirt. “Please, tell me more about Reederville. I’d like to hear about the community I’m going to be living in.”
“Well, you’ll meet Reverend Thomas Jamison and his wife, Hattie, today at the ceremony. I guess you could say they’re the social leaders in Reederville. The sheriff is Bob Dunkle. Leo and Olive Kirkpatrick own the mercantile. Ted and Marilyn Landers are my nearest neighbors. Their house is only a couple miles away. They’re a young couple just starting out and have two little ones, Rose and Tommy.” He looked over at her. “I don’t expect you’ll be able to keep all the names straight at first. There’s a passel of ’em. All told there’s almost two hundred people in Reederville—that’s including both town and the homesteaders.”
“Will it be just the minister and his wife at the wedding?” Wedding. The gravity of what they were undertaking struck him and the flutter in the pit of his stomach returned even stronger. By tonight he’d be married to this woman. By tonight they would share a bed. “Yes.
Some members of the congregation wanted to be present, but I thought…
It seemed overwhelming enough, you and me getting married, I didn’t
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think we needed more witnesses. Having Mrs. Jamison there is enough to make it legal.”
Amanda didn’t answer and Travis glanced over to see her nodding.
“Is this too much all at once?” He used the voice he would to gentle a nervous horse. “I know we agreed on getting hitched, but maybe you’d like some more time to get used to the idea. I’m sure the Jamisons would put you up at their place if you wanted me to come courting for a while first.”
She bit her lip then shook her head. “No. Mr. Baxter…Travis, I don’t want you to think I have any reservations about this. I came out here to marry you and that’s what I intend to do. I came to feel I know you through your letters and to care for you.” She turned to face him, looking him dead in the eye. “I want to marry you and start our new life right away.”
Travis hesitated. Her tone sounded more grim and resolute than eager and happy. Was that any way to start a marriage? But he was tired of being alone, tired of having no one to share his life. He’d prepared for her arrival and dreamed of it for so long he couldn’t imagine what he’d do if something went wrong and they never married. If he gave her too much time to think about it, she might decide she was making a mistake and even though he’d offered her a ticket home earlier, he didn’t really want her to take him up on the offer. Finally he nodded. “All right then. If you’re sure, we’ll marry today.”
“I am.” She smiled at him and two pretty dimples danced in her cheeks. “I plan to make a good farm wife if it kills me. You must show me how to care for the chickens and milk a cow. I’ve already helped care for a backyard garden at home, but I’m sure there’s more gardening knowledge you can teach me, too.”
Her enthusiasm to pitch in and get started was adorable. It was that energetic, strong-willed attitude in her letters that had attracted him.
She seemed different from any girl he knew. She expressed interesting opinions and was well-read, qualities a man didn’t generally look for in a
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wife, but which seemed they would make life much more interesting and fulfilling in the long run.
Travis glanced at her gloved hands comparing them to the red, work-roughened hands of most of the local women. He returned her smile, vowing he’d make her transition into this harsher way of life as easy as possible so that she’d never regret the decision she’d made to come west and marry him.
Later Travis scarcely remembered his wedding. Reverend and Mrs.
Jamison welcomed them into their home, the pastor’s wife hugging each of them, while Travis explained why they were a day late. The reverend had ushered them into the front parlor.
After that, his only memory was of Amanda filling his vision. Her face was pale as milk in contrast to her flame red hair. Her eyes were wide as a deer’s and gazed at him so directly he felt she could see into his soul.
He thought of all he knew about her from what she’d shared on lilac-scented paper. She loved to walk along the shore of the lake, casting stones and trying to make them skip. She read everything she could get her hands on, but her favorite books were about other countries, especially Kipling’s tales of India or histories of long-vanished civilizations and cultures. Amanda claimed she’d brought only a few of her books, but from the weight of one of her trunks, he figured it was pretty well full of them.
He knew she liked to draw and paint, but didn’t consider herself good at either. And he knew that above all things she longed for a home of her own. Having been an orphan, even a beloved one raised by kind relatives, had made her desire a place of her very own, a place she belonged.
As he gave his vow to love, honor and cherish, he added to himself that he would make Amanda feel she had found her home. The next thing he knew, the Jamisons were toasting them with glasses of cider
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then he was helping Amanda back into the wagon to begin the last leg of the journey.
When they turned off the dirt road onto the track leading to the farm, Travis snuck a glance at her to catch her first reaction. He tried to see the house, barn and yard as she would, with fresh eyes, but all he could see when he looked around was work to be done. He needed to repair the roof on the chicken coop. The front porch of the house had a few loose boards. Before winter he’d like to put up a snow fence at the perimeter of the yard to keep the prairie winds from blowing eave-high drifts near the house. It would make the walk from the house to the barn and coop a lot easier if he had less shoveling to do.
He pulled his mind away from the ever-growing list of chores and looked at Amanda’s face again. Her eyes were bright and glistening as she gazed around. What did that mean? Was she tearing up because the farm was a big disappointment or because she was happy to be there?
Women were impossible to read.
He opened his mouth to ask if she was all right then closed it again.
She’d speak when she was ready and prompting her wouldn’t help.
Travis drove up in front of the house. Esther stopped of her own accord, making it clear from the droop of her head that she was too weary to walk a step farther.
He put on the brake, jumped down from the wagon seat then walked around to the other side to help Amanda down. When she put her small hand in his and he felt the warmth of it through her glove, desire surged through him. It was a minor touch, but Travis felt his skin burning from the contact. He wanted to feel her palm stripped of that kid glove, to touch her skin all over, trace the shape of her face with his fingers, run his hands over her shoulders and down her chest to her breasts.
Imagined touching her warm flesh, the curve of her waist, the span of her back and the moist, secret place between her thighs.
In less than a heartbeat their hands parted as she set foot firmly on the ground and he let go, but in that moment he’d fantasized their entire wedding night. He stood, uncertain what to do next. Should he sweep
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Amanda up in his arms and carry her across the threshold like a proper groom? It seemed audacious to take such liberties when things were already awkward between them.
He cleared his throat. “I’ll get your bags in a minute.”
“Yes. Show me the house first.” She looked up into his eyes and Travis felt even taller than his six foot two. She was so petite, so pretty and his wife. A warm glow spread through him. “The outside is perfect. I love it.”
He released a breath he hadn’t even been aware he was holding.
“Good. I’m glad you like it.” Taking her elbow, he led her up the porch steps, opened the screen door and stepped back so she could enter. As he showed her the kitchen, dining room, living room and parlor downstairs, he felt a surge of pride about all the updates he’d made to the house. The fresh paint and new floor rugs looked good and best of all was the running water in the kitchen sink, a marvel which still thrilled him every time he pumped the handle. It was worth all the hours it had taken to run pipe to the house and install the new pump.
On the dining room table was a large bouquet of flowers and a covered plate. Travis removed the cover to reveal an assortment of cookies and a note.
Welcome, Amanda. I’ll be real glad to have some female companionship nearby. I’ll come over soon and help you get settled in.
Your neighbor,
Marilyn Landers.
The tears, which had made Amanda’s eyes shiny throughout the tour of the house, spilled over. “That’s so sweet!” Travis clenched his hands at his sides, struck mute and helpless by her crying. Should he pat her back? Hold her close and murmur comforting things? Or should he pretend he didn’t notice and take her upstairs to see the rest of the house? He stood there a moment longer feeling big, dumb and useless while Amanda wept with one hand covering her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks.
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She wiped her eyes and gave him a trembling smile that made his heart thump hard in his chest. “I’m sorry.” She gestured at the house around them and at Marilyn’s cookies. “It’s all so much to take in and so wonderfully neighborly of Marilyn. Don’t mind me.” He nodded and smiled back. “Well, uh, if you’d like to see the upstairs…” His pulse raced faster as he ushered her before him up the stairs to the bedrooms. Very soon they would be sharing a marital bed and he would get to see and touch her naked skin. The idea of it thrilled him and left him shaken and embarrassed because he couldn’t stop the lustful thoughts insinuating their way into his mind. If Amanda could see the things he was imagining, she would be disgusted and think he only wanted her here for one thing. Travis tried to shake off his animal desires and view his new wife with the respect she deserved.
Together they walked down the short hallway between the two bedrooms. He opened the door of the master bedroom to reveal the giant four-poster his grandparents had brought with them when they moved west from Maryland. It had belonged to his parents and now to him. It was the bed he and his brother had been born in and maybe someday Travis’s own child would be born there, too. The bed dominated the room, the rest of which was filled by a dresser and a closet hidden from sight by a gingham curtain. A large oval, braided rug, made by Grandma Parsons, covered the floor.
He looked at the room then at Amanda, poised in the doorway with her eyes riveted on the big bed. “You don’t have to… That is, at first I could sleep in my old room across the hall then when we’re more comfortable with one another I could, uh, join you here.” His neck and cheeks burned as he spoke. Where had the words come from? He was surprised to hear them tumble out of his mouth as he’d never intended to make such an offer, but it was so clear she needed time to adjust. He’d rather come to her at her invitation than have her frightened and tense on their wedding night. But oh, how he hoped she’d turn down his offer. He desperately wanted to sleep with her tonight.
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“Oh.” Her gaze slid from the bed to him. “Really? Would you mind?
Just for a little while?”
He forced a big smile. “No. It’s fine. We have the rest of our lives to be together. We can take more time to get acquainted.” He squelched a stab of disappointment. “Good. Then that’s settled. If you’d like to get freshened up, I’ll heat some water for washing up and bring your things in.”
“That would be wonderful. I am a little dusty from the trip.” As he led the way downstairs, he was very aware of her light step behind him. The fact of her existence kept breaking over him in waves; she was actually here to stay. It was both an exhilarating and frightening thought. His bachelor days and years of being accountable only to himself were over. He had a wife now.
A wife he knew only through letters and who would be sleeping in another room for the near future.
Amanda had never been more relieved in her life than she was on hearing Travis’s offer of separate bedrooms. Her anxiety after the discovery about her false fiancé had increased throughout the day. The idea of facing a wedding night on top of the harrowing experience she’d been through was too much. She wanted to throw her arms around Travis and kiss him for giving her the gift of time.
He led her into the kitchen. “Here’s the pump I put in this past summer so you don’t have to haul water in from the well. And there’s a gas stove for heating it. No more building a wood fire every time you want to cook.” He glanced at Amanda as he pumped the handle and water gushed from the tap into the sink.
She watched him fill the teakettle. It touched her that he’d made the improvements to the house for her. At home they’d enjoyed indoor plumbing, gaslights and a gas stove for several years. With Uncle Ned owning a hardware store, their house had been one of the first to have
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every new convenience that came along. It was going to be an adjustment to use an outhouse instead of a water closet, but she’d signed up for the prairie life and would have to get used to it. She smiled at her new husband. “This is such a convenience. Thank you for installing it.” When the kettle was heating on the stove and Travis had left the room to get her bags, Amanda collapsed with her back against the counter. She gazed around the kitchen, her kitchen and thought how little she deserved it. Despite her best efforts to put thoughts of Spencer Teague out of her mind, images and sensations from the previous night kept intruding on her consciousness. She was sure they would recede with time, but for now her memories of their lovemaking were unrelenting—and the guilt the thoughts engendered was overwhelming.
“Mrs. Travis Baxter,” she murmured to herself. “You are Mrs. Travis Baxter now.” She turned and gazed out the window over the sink at the patch of yard and the garden beyond. It was huge. When Travis mentioned that the kitchen garden would be part of her domain, Amanda had pictured a small plot such as her Aunt Millie tended. This overgrown garden sprawled over what looked like a quarter acre. With Travis out in the fields every day, he obviously had no time to tend to it. Her work was cut out for her.
But that was good. She would submerge herself in the chores required to run a household and she wouldn’t have time to think about the mistake she’d made. Soon it would be as though the encounter with Spencer Teague had never happened. She could suppress it with a conscious act of will, the same willpower that had brought her west in spite of family disapproval.
The whistle of the teakettle startled her from her thoughts. Locating a potholder, she lifted the kettle and mixed the hot water with cool water from the pump to wash her face, neck and hands. There was no mirror in the kitchen, so when she was finished drying her face she tucked in the loose strands from her chignon as best she could. After emptying the wash water down the drain, Amanda went into the dining room to find Travis.
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“That’s the last of it.” He descended the stairs and met her in the dining room. “All your bags are inside. I just have to put the horse and wagon away.”
“Let me come with you. I’d like to see the barn and the rest of the farm. I can unpack later.” It was easy for her to show enthusiasm about a tour of the farm. She didn’t want to spend the next few hours indoors trying to think of something to say to her new husband. Viewing the farm would give them a topic to discuss.
