Her Dearly Unintended (6 page)

This play-acting marriage business was wearing Josiah slick. It'd been hard enough to sit next to her all night, but when morning light came and she woke up more fetching than ever, he'd about lost his mind. He filled his lungs with the crisp morning air. He'd held back for so long. Now he was free to move ahead, but if he wasn't careful he'd scare her away.

Careful didn't come easy for him.

“I could use your help on the garden.” Katie Ellen lowered her empty plate into the basin. “We might need to put down more straw.”

Silas stroked his beard, stretching it out straight before catching it just beneath his chin again. “You'uns go ahead. After availing myself of your food, I'm ready to kick up my soles and catch some shut-eye. I think I can trust you two to stay out of trouble.” He grinned at them like he'd made some clever statement. “And while I'm thinking on it, do you smoke?”

“No.” Josiah pushed away from the table. At least he'd had some bread and preserves to sustain him.

Silas frowned. “You don't? Then that's the missus's tobacco pipe on the hearth?”

Katie Ellen's eyes widened.

“Oh, a pipe? Sure, that's my pipe. I thought you were asking if I smoked grapevine.” A weak excuse, but it seemed to pass.

“You don't mind if I take a pull on it, do ya?”

“Help yourself.”

Katie Ellen made a squeak of protest. Well, if her pa didn't kill him for staying in the house with his daughter, he sure wouldn't raise a ruckus over his pipe.

“Come on, Katie Ellen,” Josiah said. “Let's tend the garden, then I want to look about getting that bridge fixed.”

“Anxious to be rid of me?” Silas stood and slid his hands beneath his arms. “I guess I'm ready to move on, too, although I still haven't figured out what you'uns are up to.”

Well, maybe the man wasn't that dangerous, but he sure was irritating. And Josiah was at the end of his endurance. “Let's go,” he said to Katie Ellen.

Silently, they left the house, waiting until they were far enough away from their nuisance to be honest with each other.

“Pa ain't going to like it that you loaned his pipe.” Katie Ellen straightened the brim of her hat and flipped up the collar on her coat against the drops that were beginning again in earnest.

“What exactly are we going to tell our folks?”

“The truth,” she said.

“The whole truth?”

She could look clear through a fellow when she was of a mind. “Everything—so ruminate on that before you do something shameful.”

“I'm not ashamed of anything I've done,” he said. “But what if your pa doesn't believe us? You don't think he'd want us to
get hitched, do you?” He leaned forward, looking for any sign of interest, but Katie Ellen had suddenly gotten very busy looking for something in her coat pocket. Reaching into his own pocket, he pulled out a key. “Well, lookee here.”

She seized it straight from his hand and unlocked the double doors of the barn. With Josiah's help, the handcart was full of straw in a heartbeat. They spent more time fussing over who would push the cumbersome contraption than loading it, in fact.

Sure enough, the straw she'd put down earlier had all but washed away. Her delicate sprouts lay tipped over, their hair-like roots exposed and dripping with rain.

“You ready to get muddy?” he asked.

“I'm sufficiently covered.” And to prove it, she lifted an armload of straw and mucked through the rows, scattering straw as she went.

Mud held no terrors for him, either, and to keep her fancy little leather gloves clean, he'd do the dirty work himself. Taking the spade, he burrowed into the soaked earth and dragged out a canal to direct the water away from the tender plants. Then, starting with those most drenched, he righted the sprouts and covered their exposed roots before arranging more straw over each hill.

Without any concern for her gloves, Katie Ellen knelt at a row across from him once the handcart had been emptied. The rain pattered against the saturated ground. The leaves on the snap beans trembled with each strike. He looked at his hands and wondered how dirt could smell so clean. Given his choice, he'd stay outside until
the river went down. Much more comfortable than inside with Silas. With a guilty look toward the house, he cleared his throat.

“As soon as we're done here and know the plants will hold, we're going down the mountain.”

She lifted the brim of her hat. “I'm not leaving. He doesn't trust us, and we don't trust him. I can't leave him to riffle through Ma and Pa's things at will.”

“If we don't trust him, then maybe we should hightail it out of here. I know you've always imagined me as some sort of hero”—Josiah held up a hand to stop her protest—“don't deny it. But I don't know what his game is, so we'd be better served vacating for the time being.”

She was taking his measure with more interest than a tailor. “May I speak now?”

“Have at it.”

She rested her muddy gloves on her equally muddy knees. “I'm sorry you feel obligated to protect me, but I'm obliged to look after our farm. This is my responsibility. I'm not saying that I'm strong enough or brave enough to do this without you, Josiah. I know my limits. But I really have no choice.”

Even in the drenching rain, he felt warm and toasty. “You need me?”

Her brown eyes mirrored back his sincerity. “Yes. I need you.”

Well, wasn't that something? Josiah stretched up nice and straight. “I ain't gonna leave you, but we've got to watch out for each other better. My mind would be more at ease if I knew for certain what he was toting around beneath his coat.”

“Why don't you ask him?”

“I can't do that.
‘Hey, mister, is that a gun you
've got there? Thought you might want to pull it out and shoot me with it.'
Naw, you never give a man an excuse to draw on you.”

“Then I'll ask him.” She stood and scrubbed the mud off her raincoat. “He wouldn't shoot me cold-blooded. Not after I made him eggs.”

“Those eggs weren't nothing special.”

She thrust her arms straight down at her side. “Well, maybe I'm tired of tiptoeing around, wondering what he's going to do. Let's get it over with.”

Josiah was on his feet in a heartbeat. He grabbed her wrist. “That's a dangerous attitude, Katherine Eleanor. You got to think this through.”

“
You
are telling
me
to think something through?” In mock shock, she slapped her hand to her forehead, leaving a muddy palm print dripping down her face.

“Mud on your face?” He shook his head. “Bet that's like to drive you batty.”

“Well, it doesn't,” she claimed, although her eyes twitched. “You think you know me up and down, don't you?” She bent to collect a handful of mud and slapped it against her cheek. “What do you think of that?”

“Impressive,” he said, “but getting dirty isn't solving anything.” He pulled his shirttail out of his pants and offered it to her. “Here. It ain't dry, but it's still clean.”

She didn't even stop to consider. “I'm just frustrated. Having him here is unsettling. I just want my life back to the way it was.”

Well, Josiah had other ideas. It was high time her life be changed . . . and that he be a part of it.

Ma and Pa needed to come home. Mr. Silas needed to leave. Josiah needed . . . well, Katie Ellen wasn't sure what she wanted to do with him. There was a time when she would've given every invention in her tree house to spend two whole days in his company, but the fear was too great. Not fear of Silas, but fear that Josiah would realize his power over her. Fear that she would lose control.

She wiped the mud off her face with the wet sleeve of her coat. She didn't intend to leave with Josiah, but what would she do if he refused to stay? Yet even as she asked herself that question, she realized that truthfully it wasn't possible that he would leave her. For all Josiah's wild tendencies, he wouldn't leave a lady in need.

He'd leave a lady embarrassed, frustrated, and angry, but not in danger. And maybe it was time for her to be impulsive. Maybe she should challenge Silas. See what he was up to.

“Josiah, this man has no reason to hurt us. He's frustrating, but besides the broken window . . .”

Josiah wrinkled his nose. His nostrils twitched like he was fixing to sneeze, but instead he looked over his shoulder toward the house. Then, without so much as a by-your-leave, he took off like a jackrabbit.

She watched him run. Water splashed with each stride through the standing puddles. There he went, dashing off right in the middle of her sentence. He had no more manners than—

She watched as Josiah reached the house and immediately threw open the front door—and then she saw the reason for his hurry. Katie Ellen rose off her knees and darted toward the house, splashing through the selfsame puddles that Josiah had parted. Until Josiah opened the door, everything had looked fine. But now she saw the thin gray smoke hugging the top of the doorframe and seeping betwixt the boards on the broken window.

She snatched the fire bucket on her way across the porch, and pain ripped up her arm. The wet sand weighed twice its usual and was topped to the brim with rainwater. Holding the handle with both hands she entered her home and nearly fainted. Smoke billowed from her solid-oak-framed sofa. Scorched
springs waved through where the crush plush upholstery had been stretched across the frame. Now it was eaten away like the meat from a half-gnawed chicken leg, leaving sinew and bones, and beneath that lay the remains of her grandmother's quilt.

And there through the smoke she saw Josiah tossing a whole bucket of water on it. No, not water. The flames sizzled and filled the room with the scent of scorched milk.

“What are you doing?” She blinked back tears from her stinging eyes.

He pulled the bucket out of her hand and shoved the empty one into her chest. “I didn't have time to pump water. Thought milk would work just as well. Now go get that thing refilled.”

Once again he'd caught her on her heels while he saved the day. He swung the fire bucket in a clumsy arch. The wet sand only fell out with a plop on the arm of the sofa. Trying not to inhale the smoke, Katie Ellen propelled herself to the kitchen and filled the buckets as he brought them to her. The hiss of steam combined with the splat of water helped her keep track of how many bucketfuls Josiah tossed on her floor. She couldn't wait to get to her mop.

“It's out!” he called.

Grabbing the mop, she ran into the living room, arriving just as Silas stepped inside.

“What do we have here?” He swayed on his bowed legs and fanned the smoke from his face.

Josiah spun around, coming nose to nose with the man. “Thought you'd burn the house down? Is that the trick? After Miss Katie Ellen's been so hospitable to you?”

Silas threw up his hands, keeping Josiah at bay. “I didn't set fire to nothing. I just walked outside to take a look at the river. See if it'd come down any.”

“Biggest flood of my life and you expect me to believe the sofa just burst into flames of its own accord?” The veins in Josiah's neck showed up blue and angry, giving Katie Ellen a new appreciation for his temper.

Even Silas was cowed. “I don't know what happened. I didn't mean to doze off, but when I woke I decided to go out . . .” His eyes roved to the smoldering heap. “The pipe,” he said. “I must've dropped it in the quilt.”

The pipe. Another casualty of this awful ordeal. Before she could take after the mess with her mop, Josiah spoke up.

“We're leaving,” he said.

Katie Ellen marched right up to him. “No, we're not. We can't leave him here by himself.”

“You're staying here,” Josiah said. “I'm taking Silas down the hill.”

“Hey, I'm sorry about your purty sofa,” Silas said. “I surely didn't intend on burning it up, but I really don't want to go down that bluff. It ain't safe.”

“It doesn't matter,” said Josiah. “Get your coat. Get your boots.”

He hung his head. “I didn't mean to hurt nothing.”

Ignoring Silas, Josiah said, “Katie Ellen, I'd like a word with you.”

The skin on her arms puckered. “You can't leave me—”

“In the bedroom.” Josiah stomped through the pool of water on the floor and flung the bedroom door open. “Wife. Now.”

It'd take a full regiment of soldiers to move her . . . or the memory of Josiah slinging her over his shoulder the night before. With an embarrassing lack of grace, she sulked past him, wondering at how he'd managed to take control of her out-of-control situation.

She winced as the door slammed shut, but his voice was surprisingly tender considering his performance. “I've got to do something, Katie
Ellen. He nearly burned the house down around us. Do you think that was an accident?”