Page 32 of My Heart Will Find You

Hank put his head back down. “No, sir,” he managed to say then climbed in the back. He didn’t dare sit on the seat beside his boss.

Max drove the wagon at a brisk pace, knowing he was tossing Hank around in the back. He already knew he’d made a mistake in all this. Alice had pushed him to get married. At that time, his anger at John Kecklin was inflaming him so much that he couldn’t think clearly. And Cornelia was always angry at him. She never came out and said it, but she’d expected Max to marry her. Then what? He’d have a lifetime of her temper? Of dealing with the greed of her father? Max got to the point where he’d doanythingto make it all stop.

Alice had agreed with her brother. “You cannot marry Cornelia. I couldn’t live with all the arguing. And Mr. Kecklin is a dreadful man.” She came up with a solution. Max was to marry another woman. She’d be someone nice. Competent. Someone who could run the house in an orderly way and spread joy and cheer to them all. If he did this, it would solve all the problems. Cornelia wouldn’t be shouting at Max, and her father would quit demanding that Max merge his acreage with Kecklin’s land.

At the time it had seemed like the perfect solution, and Max had imagined a life of peace.

Kecklin would stop pressuring him. And even better, Max wouldn’t be stuck with a woman who thought using a riding whip was the solution to every conversation she didn’t like.

Alice had done everything. She’d placed the advertisement in the Kansas City magazine where it was one of hundreds. She’d read all the replies and compared them. At one of Esmeralda’s bland meals, Alice said, “I like this one.” She tapped one of the nine photos spread across the table.

Max liked the pretty girl on the end.

Alice removed that picture from the lineup. “She’s younger than I am. She doesn’t know how to cook or run a house. We need someone with experience.”

Max looked at the picture of the woman Alice wanted. She looked too serious, well past her youth, and too weighed down by her long life. He certainly had no physical desire for her!Oh well, he thought,there are lots of women in town available for that.This woman’s purpose was to put peace and quiet in his and Alice’s lives. Max was beginning to realize that his little sister was going to be with him forever, which was fine with him.

All he needed in life was someone to look after the domestics, and he’d take care of everything else. It was a perfect plan.

Untilsheshowed up, that was. He’d expected her to be grateful. After all, he was her rescuer. He’d saved her from a life as an old spinster. Thirty-four years old! She was way past her prime. That no other man wanted her was evidence that something was wrong with her.

He’d never tell Alice, but before she was to arrive he was quite nervous. He told his sister he had to see about business, then left. He went to the old homestead and stayed there for days. He lived on beans and peaches and spent hours by the river. He thought about his parents a lot. His father had been a humorless man who denied his family any pleasures. He just wanted “more.” More land, more livestock, more money. Sometimes Max thought his mother died of neglect.

Whatever the truth, Max knew he didn’t want to be like his father. That’s why he lavished his sister with everything he could. That she tended to hide away from the world because of her foot wasn’t his fault.

As Max sat by the water, he thought about his future. He’d be nice to the woman. Kind. Courteous at all times. At her age she wouldn’t expect the intimate parts of marriage, so he’d have no obligations in that respect.

By the time she was to arrive, he felt he had it under control. He had his future planned out and he liked it. He’d have a peaceful household. He’d come home to good meals and a woman who was grateful to him. He’d smile at her gray hair and her stumbling gait. He would become fond of her.

Yes, it was all going to be good.

The problems started when he met her at the train. He had three men with him—not Hank!—who’d be witnesses at the wedding. The pastor was waiting.

Several women got off the train, most of them young, but one woman had gray hair piled into a wiry knot on top of her head. She had a waist as big as his horse’s. She didn’t look like her photo, but he wasn’t surprised by that. She’d probably sent a picture of her younger self.

He walked toward her but then one of his men called out. “She’s over here, boss.” Turning, he saw a woman surrounded by his men and he froze in place. She was pretty! And the shape of her was slim but curvy. She had a mass of dark hair that was messily piled up, not slicked back, and big blue eyes. Her mouth was exceptional.

She smiled at him. He’d never seen such white and straight teeth. Or skin as soft looking as hers.

His men seemed to understand what he was feeling as they started mocking him. They discarded the idea of Max being their boss and treated him like another cowboy.

All the way to the church, the men had at him. “Fun times tonight,” they said.

“The girls of the Red Dog will be crying in loneliness.”

“Tomorrow I’m gonna put in my order for a bride.”

“Hey boss! What happened to the old woman you told us to look for?”

Through all this, Max drove the wagon and said nothing. Nor did she. She just held on in a way that looked like she’d never been on a wagon before. But then, she was from a city so maybe she’d only ridden in fancy buggies on paved streets.

It wasn’t until the preacher asked her if she took Max for her husband that she seemed to come alive. And then she’d seemed bewildered by it all. Afterward, she didn’t even seem to know how to walk in a skirt. So what did she usually wear? Men’s trousers and boots? What a ridiculous thought.

When they left the church, he saw that she didn’t know how to get up into the wagon. He thought how useless she was, but he’d very much enjoyed putting his hands on her waist and lifting her up. From what he saw and felt, she seemed to have a good body under all those clothes.

The ride out of town had been an experience for him. He’d imagined a quiet, mousy little woman who would be full of gratitude. After all, he wasn’t poor and he wasn’t bad to look at, so she should have been shy and humble.

But she was far from it. No matter what happened, she was brave and...and funny.

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