Carolyn Davidson - Colorado Courtship

But Lyle was gone and buried, she thought, gritting her teeth. Still, she supposed she should feel some small bit of remorse, perhaps even grief at his passing. Yet, when all was said and done, she could only be relieved that he was no longer here to berate her and make her life miserable. Her sigh was audible as she faced her own lack of caring for the man she’d married.

“What is it, Jessica?” Finn rose from the ground and moved toward her, then crouched, one knee on the ground, his big frame dwarfing her. “You look like a shadow just passed over and left you in the shade.”

“I suspect I’m feeling guilty,” she murmured, unable to look up at him. “Lyle’s been dead less than a full day, and I can’t find it in me to regret his death.” Her voice caught on the words and she felt the warmth of a tear as it slid the length of her cheek to fall against her breast.

“Jessica.” Finn spoke her name, almost as a sigh, and she lifted a hand, as if she rejected his comfort. “Surely you don’t have regrets,” he said quietly. “The man was not worthy of you. Everyone in the wagon train recognized that as the truth. He didn’t have a friend among the family men, only a handful of lowlifes who liked to gamble as much as he did. And the whole bunch of them aren’t worth the powder it would take to blow them away.”

Jessica nodded, aware that his assessment of Lyle and his cronies was on target. “He used to get angry with me,” she began quietly, “when he’d been playing poker late at night and then was too tired to get up in the morning. He said I should take my turn and walk by the ox team and let him sleep in the wagon.” She looked up as she spoke, as if she sought comfort in the gentle smile Finn offered. His features were blurred by her tears, and she brushed them away with her palms.

Finn’s mouth tightened as he watched her futile gesture, for the tears would not be halted now that they had begun. “Don’t cry for him,” he said harshly. “He wasn’t worth your tears, Jess.”

“I suppose that’s why it saddens me so,” she said haltingly. “I loved him once—or at least I thought I did. When he came courting, he was a gentleman, mannerly and polite. It wasn’t until we were married for a few months that he began drinking more. I suppose he’d hidden his vices well, early on.”

“Why on earth did he marry you?” Finn asked bluntly. “He didn’t seem cut out to be a family man to my way of thinking. Surely he didn’t have an overwhelming love for you. At least it didn’t seem so.”

She shrugged. “He thought he would be well-fixed. My parents have a bit of money. We always lived nicely, and my father had his own business. I think Lyle had visions of coming into an inheritance one day. My parents had me very late in life, and I was their only child. He thought they’d support all of his schemes. And if that didn’t work, he figured he’d inherit a nice amount when they passed on.”

“And then it didn’t work out the way he thought it would, I expect.”

She shook her head. “No, it didn’t. My father gave him a job, and Lyle stole from the company.” She felt the blush of shame sweep over her countenance. “He was let go, and then no one else would hire him when it became known that he wasn’t trustworthy. My folks wanted me to leave him and come back home.”

“But you didn’t.” Finn’s words were touched with anger, and she watched as his hands formed fists and his eyes narrowed with the force of his emotion.

“No, I couldn’t.” She looked up at him, remembering the day she’d made that foolish choice. “I couldn’t admit I’d been wrong to marry him. But I changed my mind later, after I found I was carrying a child. Then, one day—”

Her words came to a halt as she remembered the day when Lyle had struck her down and she’d fallen the full flight of stairs in the boardinghouse where they lived.

“What happened?” Finn asked, rising to stand before her.

She looked up at him. “There was an accident and I lost my child. She was born too early and didn’t live.”

“And Lyle? Did he feel any remorse?” His jaw taut, Finn looked away, as if unwilling to allow Jessica to see the depths of his disgust with the man.

“No. He refused to pay the midwife who came. He said it was her fault the baby died and he didn’t owe her one red cent. Then we moved away from there and I began to work for our keep in a boardinghouse. It gave us a roof over our heads, and so long as I could cook and clean, we had a place to live.”

“How long were you married to him?” Finn asked.

“Four years. Four long, miserable years.” She bit her lips, remembering the past months. “I thought when he brought home the deed that night, things would be different. He said we’d go to Colorado, farm the land, and he’d look for gold. The papers that came with the deed said there was a rich vein there. It was probably the first time he’d ever won such an amount in a poker game.”

“So you joined a wagon train and headed out from Saint Louis.” Finn’s voice took on a lower, gruffer note, and Jessica looked up at him.

“It didn’t take Lyle long to make that decision,” she said. “We must have been leaving the day you said you saw me, that first time. That was two months ago.” Her mind searched out the memory of that day. “I don’t remember you being there, but then, things were hectic, and Lyle was late getting our things packed up.”

“Yeah, he was busy.” Finn’s voice imbued the word with a harshness she hadn’t expected. “He tossed you on top of the wagon seat like you were a sack of oats.”

Jessica’s gaze searched his face, bewildered by the anger that tightened his jaw as he spoke. Surely he had no reason to hold such a grudge against Lyle, no matter how poorly he’d behaved. He hadn’t even known the man.

“It’s all in the past, anyway,” she said, rising and brushing down her skirts. “I survived, Mr. Carson. I’m tougher than you think.” She looked to where Jonas was walking inside the circle of wagons. “It looks like Mr. McMasters is getting ready to roll. I’ll have to go and sort out my team.”

“No, Jessica. You’ll do no such thing,” Finn told her. “Just put your dishes away and scrub out your skillet. I’ll have your team here and hitched to your wagon in fifteen minutes.” He stalked away, and Jessica was left to watch his long legs cover the ground to where the animals were staked within an enclosure.

As she watched, Gage approached the herded beasts from another direction, and he and Finn came face-to-face, obviously having words in the midst of the docile oxen. Finley Carson was not a man to cross swords with this morning, she thought as Gage cast a look in her direction, tipped his hat in a gesture of greeting and walked back to the wagon where his partners waited. The other men were already hitching up their team and Gage turned aside, tossing odds and ends of their gear inside the wagon.

Finn led Jessica’s animals toward her, his eyes seeking her out. Time was fleeting while she stood gawking, she thought, and with practiced movements, she washed out her skillet and scrubbed off her baking stone. Within ten minutes she was ready for the day, and at Finn’s bidding she climbed into the back of the wagon, reaching to take the wooden box inside for storage until they halted once more.

“You forgot your hairbrush,” he said from behind her, and she turned to see him in the rear opening, handing in the bone-handled utensil. “I’ll have to speak my mind, I think,” he said with a smile. “I like your hair that way, hanging loose down your back. It makes you look about sixteen years old.”

“I’m not sixteen,” she told him tartly. “I feel like an old woman already at twenty-four, and this morning every single year is weighing me down.” As if to refute his remark, she gathered her hair across her shoulder and separated it into three thick strands, her fingers industrious as she formed the accustomed plait she wore.