Page 15 of My Heart Will Find You

“She probably did,” Etta said. “And I probably agreed. So you and I are to be friends with no benefits.”

He looked affronted. “A home, meals, comfort. No one will mistreat you.”

Or love me, she thought. She didn’t say it, but it was in her eyes.

He gave her a hard look. “What about you? What’s so good about your life that you agreed to marry a man you’d never met?”

That was much too good of a question. Suddenly, she’d had all of this dream she could bear.

She pinched herself inside her elbow where it would hurt the most. It wasn’t easy to do through the long sleeve of the dress, but she managed.

He looked at her in surprise.

“Just trying to wake up. This isn’t a dream I want to continue.”

“Dream? What do you mean?”

She stood. “All of this. You, the mud house, even the peaches, are just in my dream. And right now I don’t like it. I’m not an old, useless spinster. In my time that word isn’t used. Besides, women like to postpone marriage and kids until their career is established.”

She saw that she was making things worse. His face showed that he didn’t understand what she was saying. He seemed to be drawing into himself. Wasn’t this a time period when men could lock away wives for being “insane”? With the way her dream was going, she could imagine being put in a straitjacket.

“This is Kansas,” she said. “If it worked for Dorothy, maybe it’ll work for me.” She closed her eyes and clicked the heels of the high-topped leather shoes she had on. “There is no place like home. There is no place like home.” She opened one eye. He was looking at her like she was crazy. She closed her eyes. “There’s no place like home.” When nothing happened, she sat down. “Okay, I got it. This dream ends when it’s supposed to, and there’s nothing I can do about it.” She turned to him and thought,This is a marriage of necessity. There’s no love, no kids. Freddy and her compatriots get all the fun while old me gets the work. This is a job. Like with Lester. This man is younger and a great deal better looking than Lester, but he’s off-limits.

She held out her hand to shake his. “I guess we have a deal. I take care of your life, and you give me food and shelter.”

He looked perplexed, obviously not understanding why she didn’t seem happy with that. He took her hand, shook it once, then dropped it. “Henrietta,” he said. “I—”

“It’s Etta. And should I call you Mr. Lawton?”

She saw anger flash in his eyes. It looked like she’d pushed him too far.

“Yeah, sure. That would be good.” He stood up. “Let’s go to Alice, and I can turn you over to her.”

Etta wished she hadn’t made him angry, but at the same time he’d hurt her, and she was glad to get back at him.

He lifted her onto the wagon, but this time it was more of a toss. He drove faster, seemed to hit all the rocks and holes, but never once asked how she was doing.

As for Etta, she would have died before she asked him to slow down. She held on to the sides of the seat and repressed grunts and groans while being slammed about.

They rode, not speaking to each other. Etta kept telling herself she was actually at Henry’s beautiful house in a warm, cozy bed and none of this was happening. But right now the bruises and the muscle aches seemed very real.

A house came into view. There was a barn nearby, and men with horses stopped to stare at them. Etta would like to meet them. Maybe there were people she knew in real life.

But he pulled to the front of the house. It was a nice place: two stories with a steep roof, two chimneys and three dormers. The front had a long porch with five square columns. The yard in front of the house was messy and weedy. Although the house looked to be in good repair, it had an air of abandonment that Etta thought was rather sad.

To the left was a low addition with big windows, and she could see pretty floral curtains inside.

Was this the part that was designed by Cornelia? Alice’s prison?

He swung her down from the wagon, but he didn’t look at her. “Alice is in there,” he said, then led the horses and wagon away.

At the end of the lower part of the house was a door. Etta picked up her heavy skirt and the underlying petticoats and made her way through knee-deep weeds to the door. When it stuck, she knew it wasn’t used very often.

She pushed it open and went inside. To her right was a bedroom and inside was a very pretty bed. It was a French design with wooden carvings of swags of vines and a bow in the middle. In the corner was an easel with a very nice watercolor landscape on it.

“At least it’s a beautiful prison,” she muttered.

There were other rooms, but she wasn’t interested in them because at the end of the hall was a wide, glassed-in area. Tropical plants were along the edges: palms, orchids, bromeliads. It was like a botanical garden that a person would pay to see.

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