dropped and her lips trembled.
The tension was rising like the river when it had crested its banks last winter. The water had crept up and up until it had sloshed over his toes while he’d rushed to get all his goods off the floor of the store. He’d carried a thousand loads up the stairs, not knowing when the floodwaters would stop rising.
If it wasn’t the children, she must be scared of the act of procreation, and here he could think of nothing else. He didn’t know what to say to calm her except to offer to give her time, but he didn’t want to do that. He wanted his wedding night to be a wedding night. He’d waited too long for her to make the journey to him.
He carefully cut a piece of chicken from the bone, so she’d know he was civilized. The orphanage’s patroness had insisted they learn proper manners. “Now eat.” He almost said because she’d need her strength later, but given how frightened she looked, that would likely scare her worse. “You said you were hungry.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t think I can eat. I’m a little nervous.”
“Don’t be. I’m not going to force you... We don’t have to do anything before you’re ready.”
She met his eyes, hers softening. “Thank you.”
Damn it, he’d said it, and now he had to live by it.
My store is on Center Street, near the wharves. I stock dry goods and supplies for those seeking gold in Northern California. It is time I started a family and that is why I am looking for a wife.
I apologize for this letter being short.
The San Joaquin River flooded and I spent days clearing out the mud from my store. Fortunately, I didn’t lose any of my goods, but it was a near thing. Other shopkeepers weren’t so lucky. In the valleys many of the ranchers lost several head of cattle, the floodwaters rose so fast.
Selina blew out all but one lamp for when John returned from the storage room below. Her heart pounded in her throat.
Dinner at the hotel hadn’t gone exactly as she’d hoped. The hotel was beautiful and the food wonderful, but what he’d said about his mother haunted her.
The dinner had started well enough. She hadn’t expected such a modern and lavish structure after passing through hundreds of miles of empty lands to get to California. Certainly, it was a far cry from the way stations all through the West. She hadn’t seen a hotel as nice since Kansas City, and she’d only ever seen a hotel like that from the outside. She had been too poor to venture inside such a place. It made her wonder if her friend Olivia had found anything so nice in Colorado.
Somehow she doubted it. Olivia was by far the most refined and privileged of the three of them who had set out across the country to become mail-order brides, yet she had chosen to marry a fur trader who lived in a cabin in the Rocky Mountains. It seemed an odd choice for her. But by now Olivia would have been with her husband a couple months. Selina wondered if her friend had settled in. She worried about fiery Anna, too.
At least Anna wasn’t far away. The rancher she’d picked to marry lived outside Stockton in the river valley. Was she facing her wedding night, too?
Where was John?
After returning from the hotel, he had sent her ahead to get ready for bed. She was grateful for his consideration, but he had been gone so long she was worried she’d driven him away. She hadn’t meant for him to think she wasn’t willing to fulfill her duties as his wife, but his offer to give her time had sent a warm current running through the chill of his condemnation. But if he learned what she’d done...
She’d thought they would be able to find a bond in his circumstances and hers, but he’d extinguished that hope. She couldn’t let him know she’d left a child in Connecticut. She couldn’t give him any reason to be rid of her. He’d already given her so much that she hadn’t had before—stability, a roof over her head and a future to look forward to instead of dread. But could it all be gone in an instant? With his disparagement of a mother he called a whore, she couldn’t let him know about the posing she’d done, either. He would never understand. His words No good woman would ever abandon her baby kept slicing through her.
But Selina hadn’t exactly abandoned her baby. Her son was with good people who would love him and raise him as their own. She’d done the best she could in finding a family for him.
Now she had to get on with her life. It wasn’t as if she could keep harboring hopes of reuniting with him. While she might dream of taking him back, the harsh truth was it would likely disrupt her child’s life and create irreparable harm to him. He had a mother and, more importantly, a father who wanted him. Now Selina needed to be a good wife—in all ways. John wanted children, so she would do her best to provide him with them. The sooner, the better.
The only thing for it was to go fetch him. She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and opened the door. The wood was cool under her bare feet and the air eddied under her nightgown, caressing her legs as she padded down the narrow staircase into the storeroom behind the shop.
Still, her palms grew damp and, in spite of the coolness, moisture shimmered along her spine. Would a virginal bride go after her husband? It didn’t matter. Selina had to lure him to bed, so he couldn’t toss her out. She would do whatever it took to please him. The months she’d spent not knowing if she could afford her next meal—and sometimes couldn’t—were heavy on her mind. She needed him to take care of her.
Halfway down, the lamp bathed the steps in a golden glow. She hesitated just outside of the light. John sat at a desk, a ledger under his elbows, his head dropped into his hands.
He’d been down here a very long time. Longer than necessary to count the money and update his ledgers, as he’d muttered he needed to do before bed. Clearly he wasn’t doing either. Had he already guessed her secret? Her mouth went dry. No, he couldn’t know, and she couldn’t let him know.
The stairs creaked and John looked up. His eyes widened.
“Are you still working?” she asked. She tightened the shawl in front of her, her lack of clothing making her want to turn tail and run back up the stairs. She swallowed hard and forced her feet down another step.
She’d left her hair unbound instead of braiding it as she normally would before bed. She’d scrubbed her skin pink and pulled the cotton nightgown on without her corset or shift.
This was the course she’d set, to marry and be a wife to this man. The Fates were cruel to put her with the one man who would never understand and never forgive her if he knew what she’d done. She just couldn’t let him know about her baby.
He closed the ledger and stood, his body unfurling to a height that forced her gaze up and made her breath catch. “I was just waiting for the ink to dry.”
That wasn’t true. He was avoiding her or he’d never have risked smudging the ink by putting his elbows on the book. His store was neat and orderly, his clothes were free of stains that carelessness with ink would have wrought, and his movements as he filled customers’ orders were precise and economical. He was a man who noticed details and carefully managed them. Or at least that was what she thought so far. Not a man given to flamboyance or grand passion—after all, he’d ordered up a bride with probably the same painstaking care that he ordered a sack of flour. But his very steadiness
