Kate Bridges - The Proposition

She’d fallen in love for the first time. He’d never actually proposed, but he’d fed her imagination, telling her how much she’d adore Oxford when she saw it and the joy he’d find in showing her London. She thought it meant he loved her, that he was assuring her of their future. In hopes of showing the depth of her feelings, she’d succumbed to his advances. They’d made love three times, but Victor had turned ashen when Jessica had informed him she was late in her cycle.

He was a man who’d simply been in love with poetry and words. A far cry from Travis’s practical nature.

Later, she’d discovered from Victor’s valet that he’d been engaged all along to another woman in England, a richer one with three London homes who was paying his traveling bills. At the news of Victor’s death, Jessica felt a deep sorrow for her child for the loss of his father, but not for herself.

Are you a close friend? Victor’s father had written in his letter. Jessica had never answered.

And her father had never received his university.

She flinched as she untied a small shovel. Her anger returned—at the way she’d been treated by Victor, and then her father. She understood the scandalous way she’d behaved and how the town would look down on her if the truth was known, but to blazes with her shame, and her father’s.

Jessica was furious at her own vulnerabilities and shortcomings, but it was pointless to look back. She’d look ahead to the promise of a future with her child. She was saving every penny she earned, for if and when she found her son, she’d make her own way. A seventeen-month-old child needed her.

If she let herself dwell for a moment on the harm that may have come to him, or the uncertainty of her claim against Dr. Finch, she wouldn’t have the strength to carry forward. So she pushed the pain out of her mind.

“Here, let me help you with those.” Mr. Merriweather removed her saddlebags.

One was filled with her clothing, the other with food supplies Travis had packed. As the elderly man lifted the weight to his side, his face strained beneath his sombrero.

“My dear old friend, you’re in discomfort. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“It’s nothing to worry about. As soon as we’ve unpacked and I’ve started dinner, I’m going to slip out that bottle of medicinal tonic, sit back and relax.”

“You need medicine?”

“A simple brew bought from Dr. Finch three years ago. I bought three bottles and there’s still an ounce or so left.”

She brushed the hair from her eyes, upset that even her dear old butler had a cure from the charlatan. “What’s the tonic for?”

Mr. Merriweather removed his sombrero and combated flies. “General pains. Gentlemen’s problems,” he said with an embarrassed laugh.

Uncomfortable with the topic, she collected the small utensils and carried them to the flat part of the site. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

Walking back and forth between the horses and the campsite, she unloaded what she could. Ill at ease, she crossed her arms against her white blouse and looked around, waiting for Travis to return with the second set of horses. She wondered what she was supposed to do to help.

Mr. Merriweather struggled on his feet to put dinner together while Travis tied the horses to the hitching rope. Jessica settled onto a log by the burning fire. It warmed her face while they ate sausages and biscuits.

“It’s not what I normally prepare for dinner,” Mr. Merriweather apologized. “This is Sunday, and on Sunday evenings we usually have roast fish and baked potatoes, my special recipe from Plymouth. The ones the pilgrims brought to America, you know.”

“This is delicious anyway,” remarked Jessica. “And seeing how you cooked and Travis took care of setting up camp, I’ll wash the dishes.”

Mr. Merriweather floundered for something in the pack beside him, a shadowy figure in blue denim. “My word,” he gasped in the semidarkness, face glued to the side of an ancient maple tree.

Travis looked up from his plate and stopped chewing.

Jessica craned her neck in alarm. “What is it?”

“A family of hummingbirds. They’re nesting inside the trunk of that tree.”

She found his wide-eyed expression humorous. “We’ve gone from seeing the largest hawk to the tiniest bird.”

The old gent peered through his binoculars. “I’ve never in my born days seen anything so magnificent. Look how they spin their wings together.”

“Marvelous,” said Travis, jumping to his feet. Jessica detected sarcasm. “The blue plumes sparkle in the moonlight and the beaks, various shades of yellow and orange, capture the shimmering glow of the stars.”

“Oh, you understand,” whispered Mr. Merriweather in glee.

“Don’t move,” murmured Travis, coming closer with the butt end of his log. He hammered it into the bare ground three feet away from Mr. Merriweather. “Prairie rattler. The only poisonous snake in Alberta. Average length, three and a half feet.”

Mr. Merriweather jumped up and shrieked as the mottled serpent slid to safety in the grass. With a yelp of her own, Jessica flew to her feet.

“He’s gone,” said Travis, peering into the brush.

“But we didn’t hear him rattle,” said Jessica.

“They don’t unless they feel threatened. He wasn’t about to bite.”

The butler clutched at his chest. “My poor beating heart.”

Jessica smiled through her trembling. “Are you all right?”

The old man nodded. “Is this what we’re to expect for the rest of the trip?”

“No.” Travis’s face was illuminated by the golden fire. He stood a head above the both of them. “They’re prairie rattlers, most likely after your hummingbirds. There aren’t any in the mountains. It’s too cold. But there are just enough here to keep life interesting. Same like the bugs, remember?”

Mr. Merriweather slapped a mosquito on his neck. “Quite right, quite right.” He shook his head and sat back on his log. “Jolly good, I’ve witnessed a live rattler.”

“And you didn’t need binoculars to see it.” Travis cleared the tin plates.

Jessica eyed her log but no longer felt like sitting down. She shooed away the flying insects.

“Are you still going down to the river to wash these plates?” Travis asked her.

She wished she hadn’t volunteered.

He grabbed a tin bucket. He was a commanding force of bulky shadows and straining muscles. Permeating the pine-scented air, his laughter was the first she’d heard in two days. “If your chaperon approves, I’ll go with you.”

Damn, the woman was distracting.

Wondering why he allowed her to bother him, Travis led them to a clear spot by the river. He scoured the area for more rattlers, found none, then slid their tin cups onto a granite boulder.

She’d been distracting him all day—her ineptness at handling the horses, her eagerness to help with chores as if the offer would erase that she’d gone above his head to order him here and even how she spent her time mostly with her butler, taking little regard of him.

Travis, on the other hand, couldn’t turn a corner without being alerted to her presence. When she stood beside him grooming Independence, he found the air stifling. When she asked a question, his normally quiet composure chafed in self-defense, and if, God forbid, their eyes met accidentally, his pulse began a rhythmic tap. His reactions annoyed him.

And made him miss his wife more.

Grumbling, he lifted his Stetson and allowed the cool breeze to curl beneath his pressed hair. It felt good. Jessica kneeled on the boulder.

In the stables this morning, the other men had been eager to replace him when they’d heard he was leaving for seven days with the mayor’s daughter.