Authors: Jae
* * *
Phin slung the reins around the brake and walked around the
wagon to lift Rika up on the seat.
"You going into town again?" Luke asked.
"No," Phin answered. "Just driving around,
looking for some flowers Hendrika can wear to the wedding tomorrow."
Luke nodded from her place on the veranda.
Her.
Rika still found it hard to believe that Amy's
father was a woman. During breakfast, her gaze had returned to Luke again and
again, searching for any hint of female curves beneath the shirt and vest.
She found none. Luke's disguise was perfect. Rika wondered
how it might feel to live her life constantly hiding and pretending.
You're about to find out.
Phin stepped up to her and put his hands on her hips to lift
her onto the wagon.
The calluses on his palms snagged on the linsey-woolsey
dress just as Amy's did, but his touch felt different. It didn't cause the mix
of heat and tenderness.
So what? That feeling isn't necessary to survive and live
a content life,
Rika told herself.
But that old, familiar way of thinking could no longer
convince her. Something had changed inside of her. She realized that survival
wasn't enough.
I don't want to be just content. I want to be happy.
After
working hard for months, her whole life, really, she had earned it.
"Wait." Rika turned in Phin's arms.
"What?" He smiled at her. "You changed your
mind and don't want flowers for the wedding?"
Behind her, Old Jack snorted and stamped his hoof, waiting
to get going.
Rika gulped a mouthful of air. She opened her mouth, not
sure what she would say until she heard the words. "I can't marry
you."
His hands jerked against her hips. "What?" He
stared at her.
Rika stared back. She had hesitated and argued with herself
for days or maybe weeks, but her sudden words surprised her as much as they
surprised him. She straightened and said again, "I can't marry you."
"Why? I know people expected us to marry the minute I
got back, and I admit I dragged my heels, but —"
"It has nothing to do with you."
Blond brows drew together. "What's the matter, then?
Why the sudden change of mind?"
"When you learn the truth, you'll be the one who won't
want to marry me."
"Let me be the judge of that." He supported his
elbow on one crossed arm and tapped a finger against his chin. "What's
going on?"
Blood rushed through her ears. Her lungs couldn't get enough
air, no matter how fast she breathed. A thousand thoughts and doubts raced
through her mind. Should she tell Phin?
She thought of Amy, of the pain in her eyes last night. Did
she really want her children to look at her like that one day?
Rika drew in a breath, inflating her cheeks, then let it
escape. She turned her head to see if Luke could overhear them but realized
Luke was no longer on the veranda. "I'm not Jo," she said, voice low
even though they were alone now.
"You go by Hendrika."
"I am Hendrika. Hendrika Aaldenberg."
Phin's hands dropped to his sides. "Hendrika
Aaldenberg." He repeated the syllables. "You didn't just send a
tintype of a friend. That was a picture of Johanna. You're not Johanna."
Rika dug the tip of her boot into the dust. "No, I'm
not."
"Then where is she?" Phin asked. "If she
didn't want to marry me, she could have —"
"She's dead." Rika peeked up through half-lowered
lashes, every muscle in her body like stone.
Phin's face flushed. A vein pulsed in his right temple.
"What in tarnation...? Dead?"
"I didn't kill her," Rika said, in case his
thoughts were running in that direction. Her heart pounded in time with the
vein in Phin's temple. "She was my friend. I think she had brown lung disease."
He folded muscular arms across his chest, a solid barrier
between them. "And you stole my letters and the train ticket off her cold
body?"
"I-I... It wasn't like that." Her legs trembled,
and Rika shrank back against Old Jack's warm flank. She curled her lip inward
and bit down on it. "I did it because I had no other choice. I lost my job
and my place in the boarding house, and I spent most of my money paying for
Jo's funeral. I had nowhere to go but the poorhouse. I didn't have the time to
start my own correspondence with a bachelor out west. I'd have starved in the
meantime."
"If that's really true, why didn't you just tell me?
Why lie?"
"Because you'd have sent me back," Rika said.
"You don't know that." He unfolded his arms and
tapped his chest. "I'm not heartless, you know?"
No, he wasn't. But before she had come to Oregon, Rika had
found little reason to trust in the goodness of people. "Are you saying
you'd have married me anyway?"
"I didn't know Johanna, and I don't know you, so what
difference would it have made?"
Thoughts flitted through Rika's head like shuttles hissing
back and forth in a loom. "Why are you so intent on marrying a
stranger?" She had wondered about it for weeks, but only now did she dare
ask. "Why not marry one of the young women here in Baker Prairie? Why
didn't you try to court Nattie?"
Or Amy,
she almost added but
didn't want to say it out loud. The thought of Amy with Phin made her vision
dim to a hazy red.
Phin stumbled back. "No, that... she..." He rubbed
the stubbles on his upper lip. "She'd never have the likes of me."
Rika's thoughts cleared; the mental shuttles stopped
flitting as if the end-of-day bell had rung.
Ah.
"Did she say
that?"
"She doesn't need to. A blind man could see that she
deserves better than a ranch hand without a penny to his name."
That comment stung. Rika took a step back. "I don't
have a penny to my name either."
"That's different. A man needs to take care of his
wife. If I courted the boss's daughter, everyone would think I'm just doing it
to get the ranch one day. I don't want Nattie to think the land is worth more
than she is."
"But why advertise for a wife even though you care for
Nattie?"
Phin's lips formed a thin line. "Pining away for her
has no future. I need to move on."
When Rika opened her mouth, he cut her off with a wave of
his hand. "Enough of that nonsense. What happens now?"
"I'll try to find work." It wouldn't be easy to
find employment as an unwed woman, but once she found work, she'd send Phin
money. "I swear I'll pay you back what you paid for the train and the
stagecoach tickets."
"Not necessary," Phin said.
"But you need the money." For a rancher just
starting out, every cent counted.
"I need a wife. And you need a husband." His gaze
drilled into her, then softened. "Maybe if I took the time to get to know
you — the real you — I'd like you. We could try."
Rika's mouth fell open. When Old Jack swung his tail and she
almost tasted horsehair, she snapped her mouth shut and continued to stare at
Phin. She had expected shouting and cursing, maybe even a slap to her face, not
this calm offer to take her anyway. "You... you still want to marry
me?"
"If you promise there'll be no more lies between
us." He held out his hand as if he had sold her a horse and wanted to
close the deal.
Rika hesitated.
What are you doing?
she shouted at
herself. This was what she had wanted all along, wasn't it? To be married and
safe for the rest of her life. Now she could get it without having to spend her
life as Jo.
She thought of Amy, then shook her head. Those feelings had
no future.
For goodness' sake, say yes!
Phin tilted his hand. "So?"
* * *
Amy dipped the pen into the ink well and paused with the nib
above the paper. "Dear Rika," she murmured and wrote it, trying for
her smoothest penmanship. She paused again. Tomorrow Rika would marry Phin, and
Amy didn't know what to say to her.
Don't marry him, she wanted to write. But of course she
didn't. She had nothing to offer Rika.
"Just wish them all the best for the future,"
Nattie had said. But if it was that easy, why had Nattie been in her own room
for the last two hours, trying to compose a letter of congratulations?
Her fingers trembled. A drop of ink splashed onto the paper,
and for a moment, Amy expected it to be red, as if writing a good-bye letter to
Rika had opened a vein. But the ink was as black as her mood.
"Damn, damn, damn." Amy
crumpled the paper and threw it across the room.
It hit Rika in the chest just as she entered. She caught the
paper ball and blinked at it. "What's this?" She smoothed the paper
and read the two words. "You're writing to me?"
Amy tugged on her earlobe. "For tomorrow. But I'm not
good with putting my thoughts down on paper."
A grin revealed the gap between Rika's front teeth, and Amy
wondered if it was the last time she would get to see it. "You've got a
little..." Rika pointed to her ear.
"What?" Amy rubbed her own ear.
"You smeared ink all over your ear, and now you're
making it worse." Rika took a rag and dipped it in the washbowl. She laid
the hand of her uninjured arm along Amy's jaw and tilted her head. "Hold
still."
Amy couldn't move even if she wanted to. The heat of Rika's
touch melted her bones. Her eyes fluttered shut.
The rag rubbed over her ear, cold against her overheated
skin.
"There," Rika said. She trailed her finger over
Amy's ear as if to prove that the ink was gone.
Tingles shot through Amy's body. The touch marked her deeper
than any ink stain could.
Then Rika dropped her hand and stepped back.
Amy cleared her throat. "Maybe I should just tell you
now."
"Tell me what?"
"What I wanted to write." Her hands trembled too
much to put pen to paper.
"Wait. That's why I came up here. I need to tell you
—"
"Let me go first," Amy said. If she didn't say it
now, she would probably never say it. "I wish you all the best for the
future, and I hope you'll be real happy with Phin." Every word hurt, but
she meant it. She wanted Rika to find happiness, and she knew she couldn't
provide it, so she had to let her go. "If you ever need anything —
anything at all — just let me know."
"Amy..."
Amy held up her hands. "I want to give you Cinnamon as
a wedding gift."
"Oh, Amy, I can't."
"I want you to have a part of the ranch to remember us
by."
Tears shone in Rika's eyes. "I don't need a horse to
remember you. And as much as I love Cin, I can't take him."
"Sure you can —"
"I'm not gonna marry Phin." Rika blurted it out.
Amy's breath exploded from her lungs. "What? Why?"
She stared into Rika's eyes, searching, asking, hoping. Did Rika have feelings
for her after all? Was that why she couldn't marry Phin?
"I have to tell you something," Rika whispered.
Amy rose on unsteady legs. She stepped closer to Rika.
"Yes?"
"I-I'm..."
Hope vibrated deep inside of Amy. "Tell me."
Rika pinched her lip between thumb and index finger.
"I'm not the woman who wrote the letters to Phin."
True,
Amy thought.
Staying on the ranch has
changed her.
Rika had learned to trust and enjoy the moment. And not just
Rika had changed. So much had happened in Amy's life since she met Rika in
front of the stage depot. The last months had been a journey of discovery about
herself and her family. "Yeah, I noticed. I happen to think it's a change
for the better."
"Change? No, you don't understand." Rika fiddled
with her skirt, rearranging it over her ankles as if she felt exposed.
"I'm not the woman who wrote the letters. Never was. My name is Hendrika
Aaldenberg, not Johanna Bruggeman."
A lie. Another lie. Was no one in her life what he or she
appeared to be? "Why?" Amy's voice trembled, barely getting out the
single word.
"I didn't know what else to do. I had lost my job, my
room, and my only friend, Jo. She died the week before she could take the train
west."
"So you thought you'd honor her by marrying her
betrothed and lying to him and to me for the rest of your life?" The words
tasted like poison on Amy's tongue.
Rika's lips thinned. "You don't understand. How could
you? Whenever you need help, your family is there for you. Your parents would
do anything for you and Nattie."
"Oh, yeah, the perfect family life." Amy spat out
the words. She shook her head until her temples pounded. "It's all just an
illusion. If you look beneath the surface —"
"I looked, and all I see is love. This is killing your
father. He's not eating or —"
"He's not my father. She. Lord."
Rika's eyes softened to the mahogany color that matched her
hair. She touched Amy's forearm. "I know this is hard on you, Amy. I don't
want to fight with you, but I hate to see you throw away your family. I'd give
anything to have a father like yours, even if he's a woman. I know he... she
will be there for you, but my own father... I couldn't go to him for
help."
"He would have said no?" Amy couldn't imagine it.
When it really counted, Luke had never told her no.
"Oh, no. He would have welcomed me with open arms — after
all, a daughter is cheap labor, and if she doesn't sell enough pastries, you
can encourage her to try harder with your fists."
Amy swallowed against a dry throat.
"I know it was wrong to lie to you, but between asking
my father to take me back or staying in the poorhouse, using Jo's train ticket
seemed like a god-sent gift."
"Then why are you telling us the truth now?"
"I don't want to marry and have children, then make
them and Phin hate me for lying to them," Rika said.
Unspoken words hung between them.
"I don't hate Papa," Amy whispered. "I'm
just..." She flailed her arms, searching for an explanation, searching for
balance.