Page 25 of Smoke River Bride

He chuckled softly. “Did you expect to learn everything in just one day?”

She turned her face toward him. “I do not know what to expect. You walked out of the house as if something was troubling you, as if you were not pleased with me.”

“You’re wrong, Leah. I am pleased with you.”

“But are we not…I mean, did you intend our marriage to be in name only? Many Chinese have such an arrangement,” she added quickly. “But I thought that here, in America, it would be different.”

Thad released a soft groan. “Is that what you expected? A real marriage?” She reached out to touch his shoulder, and he covered her hand with his warm, callused palm. “Is it?”

“I do not know,” she said. “I must be honest, Thad. I am a bit frightened of it.” She waited, not breathing, for him to say something. Outside, a hen cackled, and she could hear the wind pick up, rustling the pine and maple trees near the house.

Very slowly Thad rolled toward her. He did not touch her, but the heat of his body spread over her skin like warm oil.

“Come here,” he whispered. He laid one arm across her waist and pulled her close. “You know that I was married before. Hatt—My wife was killed in a train wreck a year ago. I guess I haven’t gotten over it yet. In a way, I still feel married to her.”

His voice dropped to a whisper. “I like you, Leah. That’s one reason why I married you. In time, I hope it will be good.”

Leah turned slightly, and her bottom brushed against his groin. She ignored his sharp intake of breath and the low sound that followed.

He pressed his lips to the back of her neck. “I like you a lot,” he muttered.

A jagged line of fire rippled down her spine. Oh, yes! This was what she wanted.

As if he’d read her mind, he tightened his arm about her waist. “Good night, Leah.”

She lay without moving, wondering at the pleasure his touch brought. Wondering why he did not want more. After a time his breathing evened out and she knew he slept.

On Friday, Thad was busy repairing the fence around his wheat field, so Leah went into town with schoolteacher Ellie Johnson to pick up her new skirt and shirtwaist at the dressmaker’s. Verena was her usual frosty, blunt-spoken self, but Leah stiffened her resolve and tried not to let the woman’s obvious disapproval and her odd, veiled hints about Thad upset her.

“Don’t look right,” she said when Leah donned her new garments. “A fine skirt and a ruffled shirtwaist on a Celestial. Thad always said he liked a woman who looked like a woman. You know, English, or maybe Scottish.”

Leah clamped her lips together and kept silent. The seamstress meant one that looked like a white woman. Leah knew Thad’s wife had been friends with Verena, but was there something else, something since Hattie’s death, that she did not know about?

It was worse at the mercantile. Inside it was warm and cozy; the air smelled pleasantly of wood smoke from the potbellied stove and coffee from the pot sitting on top. But the proprietor, skinny, sandy-haired Carl Ness, dogged her every step up and down the aisles, as if he expected her to steal something.

Finally she turned to confront him. “Mr. Ness, would you have any green tea?”

“Green tea?” He snorted. “Never heard of green tea. Only for Celestials, I s’pose. I sure wouldn’t put it on my shelves.”

Leah worked to keep her voice polite. “Do you have cinnamon, then?”

Ness peered at her with a frown across his angular brow. “Whatcha want with cinnamon, I’d like to know? Kinda fancy for a Celestial, ain’t it?”

She put her tongue between her teeth and bit down. Tears stung her eyes, but she managed to speak in a civil tone. “That, Mr. Ness,” she said evenly, “is none of your business. I will need a large tin of cinnamon. Powdered, if you please.”

An even more hurtful encounter came later, when she and Ellie stopped for tea at the hotel dining room. Ellie spotted two friends seated in the far corner. “Darla and Lucy,” she confided to Leah as they crossed the room to join them. “They were my bridesmaids when I married Matt last summer.”

The two young women stopped their chatter when Leah and Ellie approached. “Darla, Lucy, this is Leah MacAllister.”

Both women looked up but did not speak.

“Mrs. Thad MacAllister,” Ellie added. “Leah, these are my friends, Darla Weatherby and Lu—”

Before Ellie could finish the introduction, Darla and Lucy plunked down their teacups, snatched up their shawls, and brushed past them without a word.

“Darla? Lucy?” Ellie called after them.

The one in a dark green wool skirt and matching jacket spun around. “Your eyesight must be suffering, Ellie. She’s Chinese! A Celestial.”

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