The Homesteader's Sweetheart (2 page)

Why must he push so?

“Oh!” She glimpsed a flash of fuchsia skirt passing the doorway. “I’ve just seen a friend I absolutely
must
speak to. Will you excuse me?” She inclined her head and scooted away before he could respond.

Emerging in the hallway, Penny spied her sixteen-year-old brother Sam sneaking into the kitchen and changed her course to follow him. She slipped through the door, one hand against her midsection as she tried to catch her breath. That had been entirely too close for comfort—she had no wish to spend any more time with Mr. Herman Abbott.

Sam’s head jerked up from his station behind the fancy chocolate cake that Ethel, the family’s combined cook and maid, had spent all morning baking.

“Sam, you’d better not be thinking of disturbing the food for our guests. You know Papa is still angry about the nasty words you painted on the side of the schoolhouse.”

At her admonishment, her brother’s expression changed from guilt to something colder. “I told you that was Billy, not me.”

She didn’t know whether to believe him or not. He’d been in plenty of trouble all on his own, including the horse he’d tried to steal right off Main Street, and as of late she had difficulty identifying if he was lying or not.

“Just don’t do anything to cause trouble tonight,” she chided him.

“We just want a taste of cake, that’s all.”

Her eyebrows went up. “We?”

“Me ‘n Louie.” Sam tipped his head to the side and Penny’s gaze followed to the window, where the shadow of a head and shoulders could be seen.

“Papa wouldn’t let him come to the party—” And no wonder. She’d never seen Sam’s friend wear anything but torn, stained clothing. He probably didn’t own a Sunday suit and wouldn’t have fit with her father’s associates.

The comparison made her think of the farmer, who hadn’t fit in at all, but there had been something about him that had drawn her…

“—and we just want a taste, anyway.”

“Sam…” she warned. She had a bad feeling that this would lead to trouble for her brother.

“Aw, why don’t you go back to your beau and leave me alone?”

Penny hoped he wasn’t talking about Mr. Abbott. The stubborn tilt of her brother’s chin told her he wasn’t going to listen, so she turned to leave. She spared him one more glance as she returned to the gathering. Sam motioned his friend to come in the back door.

* * *

“I can’t believe you embarrassed me like that. Herman said you just ran off and left him.”

“I saw someone I needed to talk to—” Penny tried to explain, but her father spoke over her words.

“While your impulsiveness might be charming to your friends, I’m not certain it is a trait Herman is looking for in a wife.”

Penny opened her mouth to tell her father that was just fine with her as she had no desire to have Mr. Abbott for a suitor, when her father continued.

“Herman has asked for my permission to pay court. It is his intention to marry soon. We’ve talked and decided you’d make an excellent match.”

Her mother’s eyes came up from the afghan bunched in her lap, but she remained still and silent on the parlor sofa.

Penny couldn’t contain a gasp. “Am I to be settled like a business deal, then?” Agitated, she rose and paced to the front window. “I don’t
like
Mr. Abbott. I have no wish to be courted by him
or
to consider marriage to him.”

She didn’t have to look in the reflection of the glass panes to know her father’s face was going red. “Herman is one of my closest associates—”

“And that has nothing to do with whether he would be an acceptable husband.” Penny whirled to face her father. “He is arrogant, speaks only of his own interests all the time. Why, I doubt he even knows I like to paint!”

“Those things will come as he gets to know you. You will allow him to come courting—”

“I won’t—”

“You
will,
or you’ll see your clothing allowance severely curtailed. I have given Herman my word.”

Penny shook all over, her anger was so great.

“Darling, why don’t you go up to bed?” her mother suggested, ever the peacemaker. “Perhaps we can discuss things further in the morning.”

“There is nothing further to discuss—”

“Papa, can’t I go to bed?” Sam interrupted from his slouched position on the other settee.

“No! I’m not through with you, boy. I can’t believe you ruined a whole cake—there was no dessert to serve to my guests—”

Penny turned and stomped away, knowing she’d get no further with her father while he was in the midst of one of his tirades. Thankfully, his attention had turned to Sam, but what was she going to do?

Her mother followed her out of the parlor. “I’ll come up and help you unpin your hair.”

Upstairs in her room, Penny fumed as she nudged aside the romantic dime novel she’d been reading earlier and settled on the chair in front of her looking glass.

How could her father do this to her?

Her mother appeared behind her in the reflection and began removing the pins holding the intricate style in place. Her fingers in Penny’s hair were a comfort—as they’d been throughout Penny’s youth, whenever her father had lost his temper over something insignificant. Like a grass stain on the knees of her dress—the reason she was careful to look perfect at all times.

“I can’t believe Papa would do this…”

“Your father and I want what’s best for you, darling,” came her mother’s voice, muffled by pins pressed between her lips.

“Well, it isn’t
Herman Abbott,
no matter what Father thinks.”

“How can you know?” her mother asked, again with her unending patience. “You should get to know him, allow him to court.”

I don’t want to know him.
Penny didn’t voice the thought. It seemed as if her mother already agreed with her father’s decision.

“But several weeks ago, I overheard him telling Papa he didn’t think our church should support the needy.” At the time, his words had shocked her in their callousness.

“Perhaps you misunderstood,” came her mother’s unruffled response.

“But—”

“Your father and I want to see you settled. You had a chance to make a match of your own when you were away at finishing school. And when you came back from Philadelphia without a husband three years ago, we didn’t push…”

The reminder of Penny’s failure to land a wealthy Eastern husband rankled. She’d known her father had been disappointed, but none of the men she’d met had caught her interest. She was only twenty-three, not an old maid yet.

“Give Mr. Abbott a chance.”

“But—” Penny grasped onto the first thing she could think of. “What about love?” She tapped the romance novel with her index finger.

Her mother’s expression flickered in the looking glass. “Love comes later.”

“Like it did for you?” Penny asked. She immediately regretted the impertinent question. Why couldn’t she control her impulsive tongue better?

“I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean that.”

Her mother was silent.

“But…what about—don’t you remember what it was like between Grandfather and Grandmother?”

As a child, Penny had been allowed to spend summers with her maternal grandparents, who lived on a homestead a day’s ride away. Even in the reduced circumstances they’d lived in, Penny had been awed by the love her grandparents had shared. They never seemed to argue, always put each other’s needs first.

It had been a stark contrast to the relationship her parents shared, where her father made constant demands and her mother never stood up for herself.

Her mother finished removing the pins and shook out Penny’s long, curly tresses. She reached for the silver-plated hairbrush on Penny’s dressing table.

“Your father has not always been the easiest man to live with,” she finally said.

Penny thought of the tirades, her father’s unmercifully high expectations. She knew the Good Book said to
honor thy father and mother,
but didn’t it also say
fathers, provoke not your children?

“But neither was your grandfather.”

Her mother’s surprising statement brought Penny’s eyes back up to meet hers in the looking glass. She couldn’t imagine her gentle, quiet grandfather in a temper.

“Never having enough money for new dresses, or boots…” Her voice trailed off, obviously she was lost in the past.

Penny gazed at the skirt of the beautiful peach gown her father had allowed her to have for tonight’s event. She fingered the soft lace at her wrist. It was an exquisite gown. And she had several more, just as fine…

“You must give Mr. Abbott a chance,” said her mother at last, putting the brush back on the table.

Penny didn’t argue with her, but her mind was made up. She would never accept Herman Abbott as a suitor. She just needed to discover a way to escape his attentions.

Chapter Two

P
enny joined her mother at the dining table the next morning after a sleepless night. She considered herself an intelligent woman, but she still couldn’t figure a way to evade Mr. Abbott’s attentions.

“You don’t look very rested, my dear,” her mother commented before taking a sip of tea from a delicate china cup. “I suppose you’re still determined not to bow to your father’s wishes?”

“Missus Castlerock, I forgot to give this to your husband.” Ethel bustled into the room with a plate for Penny and plunked a letter down next to her mother. “Gentleman delivered it last night.”

“Which gentleman?” Penny asked curiously, pouring her own cup of tea and thankful for the interruption. Perhaps her mother would forget her earlier question about Penny’s intentions.

“Didn’t catch his name, but he didn’t look like one of the boss’s usual acquaintances.”

The farmer. It had to be. Penny had spoken to most of the other people at her father’s party and he was the only one who might match Ethel’s description.

“What does it say?” she asked her mother, who’d opened the missive.

“It’s from your grandfather, sent with a neighbor.” Her mother’s eyes scanned the letter and in a moment, her face crumpled. “Your grandfather has been ill. He asked if we could send someone out to help him for a few days.”

Penny considered the request. “He’s never asked for help before.”

Her mother sniffled and pulled a lace handkerchief from her sleeve. “You’re right. It sounds as if…something might be wrong.”

Penny knew her mother was within moments of going into a fit of hysterics. “May I see the letter?”

She scanned her grandfather’s spidery writing. “It doesn’t sound so bad. Maybe he just needs help catching up with some of the chores since he’s been down with a fever and a cough.”

Returning the letter to her mother, an idea began to form. “What if I traveled up to Bear Creek to help Grandfather for a little while?” If she left town for a few days or a week, perhaps her father would reconsider allowing Mr. Abbott to court.

Her mother’s brow wrinkled. “But you haven’t been to the homestead since you were a girl. And you don’t know anything about farming.”

At that moment, Sam shuffled into the room, scowling. Obviously, he was still upset about whatever punishment their father had meted out last night.

“Sam could come, too!” Penny nearly bounced in her chair in excitement. It was the perfect solution to get her away from Calvin for a bit and away from Mr. Abbott. “Sam can help with the physical chores. And it would give Papa some time to forget his anger about the ruined cake.”

“But how will you get there? Your father won’t agree to take you—”

Penny already had an answer for that as well. “If the farmer—Grandfather’s neighbor—is still in town, perhaps he could be persuaded to allow Sam and me to ride back to Bear Creek.” It had to work.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked, joining them at the table.

Her mother shook her head. “Your sister—”

“Has come up with the perfect idea to help Grandfather.” And get some distance from Mr. Abbott, Penny added silently.

“But what about this farmer—”

“Surely if Grandfather entrusted a personal letter to him, he can be trusted to give us a ride out to the homestead,” Penny argued. “And Sam could act as chaperone, so it couldn’t be considered inappropriate.”

Penny suddenly wilted into her chair. “I’d forgotten. I’m supposed to help out at the bank for a bit this morning.” If her father didn’t see her behind the teller window, he’d be even angrier about her fib to Mr. Abbott. “Do you think Ethel might go down to the hotel or boardinghouse to find the farmer and convince him to come by?”

Her mother’s eyes scrutinized Penny more closely than she would’ve liked. Could she see behind her words to the real reason Penny wanted to visit Grandfather so badly? “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”

Spirits restored, Penny bounced up out of her seat. “I’ll go ask Ethel for help.”

She heard Sam’s question as she left the room. “Will someone please tell
me
what is happening?”

* * *

Jonas stood awkwardly in the opulent bank lobby, wearing his same Sunday suit, hat in hand, waiting to talk to Mr. Castlerock, who sat at a wide desk behind a waist-high partition. Jonas prayed he hadn’t ruined his chances of securing a loan with his outburst at the banker’s party last night.

He’d known better than to go into that lavish home.

But he was desperate to get the loan. His daughter’s doctor in Cheyenne, the only one Jonas had found who had a treatment for her epilepsy, demanded payment in full before he would procure the medicine. This bank loan was Jonas’s last option.

Even with his money troubles weighing on his mind, he couldn’t stop thinking about Penny Castlerock, who hadn’t recognized him last night. He hadn’t expected her to be friendly, as they didn’t and never would move in the same social circles, but he’d thought she would at least remember him.

He’d worked for weeks on the stately home next to the girls’ school she’d attended in Philadelphia. As a bricklayer’s apprentice, his was dirty, outdoor work. Mostly, he’d seen her through the large windows overlooking the small yard where he’d repaired an exterior wall and part of a stairwell. He’d never gotten the courage to address her any of the few times she’d passed him as she left the girls’ school for an errand or shopping excursion.

But he’d never be able to forget her face. Her features were indelibly imprinted on his mind. And he’d caught her gaze on him several times, though they’d never actually spoken…

How many times had he thought of Miss Castlerock on his and Breanna’s journey west from Philadelphia? Especially in the dark part of night, when he’d fumbled his way through feeding and diapering a crying baby over five years ago.

He remembered everything about her. Those clear blue eyes, a hint of mischief always lurking in their depths. Her copper curls, held back in a fashionable style.

Her laugh. He hadn’t heard it last night, but it was the thing he remembered most clearly about her. A joyful, exuberant noise that he’d heard once in Philadelphia as she’d walked down the street. More than five years ago now, but the sound had had the power to set a boulder in his gut then and Jonas imagined it still would.

Especially for someone like him—someone without much to laugh about in his lifetime.

She hadn’t remembered him at all.

And now Miss Castlerock was behind the teller counter—another surprise—and kept sending curious glances at him over the heads of the patrons in line.

A gruff “ahem” brought his attention to the older man, who was gesturing Jonas past the partition. His expression was closed, and Jonas suspected the loan would be denied.

But he had to try. For his daughter, he could grovel. Breanna was everything to him.

Less than a quarter hour later, Jonas strode away from the bank, disappointment bitter in his throat, cold all over despite the warm summer sun blazing down on him.

Denied. Again.

He’d been to every bank between here and Cheyenne, and no one would make him a loan. How could he raise funds to pay for Breanna’s treatment on his own?

“Papa!” A projectile launched itself at him, brown curls and faded blue dress flying behind her.

With practiced movements, he caught the little girl and swung her in a circle, her excited shrieks making him forget about the weight pressing on his shoulders. Breanna and the boys, his adopted sons, were his life. He couldn’t let his daughter down. He had to find a way to get the money he needed.

“Breanna! You must be feeling better.”

She nodded, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him.

Mrs. Clark, the older widow who had been a neighbor and helped him keep house and take care of Breanna when he needed to be out in the fields, nodded to him from where she stood just outside the hotel where she and Breanna had spent the night. Jonas had slept out under the stars in a bedroll, unable to justify the expense of a second hotel room when he could sleep outside for free.

Breanna had had another seizure last night just after they’d arrived in town. Jonas still felt the terror that infused him every time her eyes unfocused and she stiffened like a board. At least now he’d had enough practice at recognizing the warning signs that he was able to lay her down on the floor or a bed when the seizure began.

He still remembered the first one she’d experienced, when she was three. She’d hit her head on a kitchen chair as she’d fallen to the ground. There had been blood everywhere. Oscar and Seb, the first two of his adopted brood, had both stood by in total panic, white-faced. For long moments, he’d thought he would lose her…

Jonas shook those thoughts away, focusing on the little girl in his arms, eyes sparkling with life, cheeks flushed.
His
little girl, the one God had gifted him with when he’d thought he’d never have such a wonder in his life. He didn’t care one whit that she wasn’t his by blood, she was his
daughter.

“Papa, you said we’d go to breakfast when you got back from the bank. Can we go
now?
”

Jonas loved his daughter’s exuberance. Eating at the café would be a special treat for her, one his family didn’t get to enjoy often enough. Money was tight; it was hard enough to put food on the table for a large family like his—mismatched as they were. Eating at a restaurant was a rare thing.

“Mrs. Clark, would you like to join us? After that we’ll need to pick up the wagon at the General Store and get going, Breanna.”

“Thank you for the offer, young man.” Mrs. Clark always called him that, though she wasn’t yet his mother’s age, if his mother was even still alive. “But my train leaves in a few hours and I should rest up for the journey.”

The reminder that he was losing his help strained his smile, but for Breanna’s benefit he kept it in place. Mrs. Clark had recently been widowed and was going back East to live with family.

“I hope you will be happy living with your daughter back East.” He reached out to clasp the woman’s hand. “Thank you for all your help this past year.” He didn’t want to imagine what a mess he would have made of things if she hadn’t been around.

Mrs. Clark accepted his hand, then a hug from Breanna.

“Tell those boys goodbye for me. All right, Breanna?” Mrs. Clark asked.

“Yes, I will.” Breanna sniffled.

Mrs. Clark’s words were another reminder that he’d left Oscar in charge and Jonas needed to get back to the homestead. The seventeen-year-old was older in spirit than his age suggested, but it was the first time Jonas had left the seven boys home with only his neighbor Walt Nelson nearby to watch over them. And Jonas knew how little it took for two of those boys in particular to get into mischief.

He tried to be a good father, but he felt as if waves crashed upon him from every side. Sometimes he felt he was drowning.

“Shall we go and get our breakfast?” he asked, hoping to distract his daughter from melancholy.

It seemed to work, for she accepted his hand and they set off down the boardwalk toward the café he’d passed on his way to the Calvin Bank and Trust earlier this morning.

“Papa, can we go and visit Mrs. Clark at her daughter’s house?”

“Perhaps you can go and see her when you’re older.” As for him, he had vowed never to go back east of the Mississippi River. Only bad memories waited there.

“Can I have biscuits and gravy for breakfast?”

Jonas squeezed Breanna’s hand in his. “We’ll have to see what they’re serving this morning. It might be flapjacks or something else.”

Thankfully, his daughter was a lot like him. Not a picky eater. In his childhood, he’d lived through several hard winters eating garbage back in Philadelphia. And his daughter had never known that kind of poverty. He resolved that she would
never
know it.

* * *

Penny darted out the bank door, nearly knocking into Mrs. Stoll, who ran the boardinghouse.

“Excuse me!”

Penny had had a line of customers when the farmer had been in the bank to see her father, and hadn’t been able to get away to talk to him. When Mr. Silverton had arrived a few minutes after the farmer had gone, she’d rushed to count the money in her till, fumbling and miscounting once in her haste.

And now she hurried out onto the boardwalk, trying to guess where the farmer would’ve gone. Hoping he hadn’t already left town.

There were plenty of people out on the boardwalk, wagons and horses lined the hard-packed streets. Where would the farmer have gone?

She guessed the grocery, and headed in that direction. She allowed herself to be distracted for only a moment by a lovely chestnut-colored mare with white socks on three of its feet, pausing only to admire its conformation before she hurried on.

As she passed the undertaker’s, she caught sight of Mr. Abbott speaking to another man on the boardwalk and ducked into the space between two buildings. The two men had their backs to her, so hopefully Abbott hadn’t seen her.

As she peeked out from her hiding place, Penny saw a tall man with broad shoulders in a black coat exit the café. Was it the farmer?