Marry Me Read online

  “How’d you guess?” He shook his handful of type and the pieces clattered like the beads of a child’s rattle. “No, I’ve never had much of a leanin’ toward it.”

  “I liked your article, though,” she said. “The one on flax cultivation.”

  His hand froze in mid-shake. “You read it?”

  “Of course I read it.”

  “But…why would you need to know about flax?”

  “I have no interest at all in flax. At least I didn’t before I read it.” She scooped up a few squares and poked through them. Two c’s, a b, and a spacer. “But you wrote it, so I read it.”

  When he made no further comment, she looked up to find him staring at her, his brow furrowed. Had it been so long for him then, that he’d had someone in his life who’d be interested in something he’d done just because it was his? So long since he’d had, well, a friend?

  “Why do you do it, then? The newspaper, I mean. If you’ve no interest in it.”

  “Five bucks a proof.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Five bucks a proof times hundreds of claims is more than reason enough.”

  That was hard to argue with. She dropped her type into the case and rummaged a half dozen from beneath the table. “What, then?”

  “What’ll I do after I have the money?”

  “No. You were in college, you said. What did you intend to be?”

  He laid out his forms with more concentration than the task required.

  “Well.” She shook a couple of pieces of type like dice while she pondered. “If you don’t want to tell me, I’ll guess.”

  He swiveled on his stool, leaned back with his legs stretched in front of him, and crossed his arms. “This ought to be good.”

  “Let me see.” She pursed her lips, tapped them with her forefinger. “Not a chef.”

  “No, I tried that one. They paid me not to go near the kitchen again.”

  “Really?” she asked before she caught the glint of humor in his eyes, and for once didn’t mind her own gullibility if that was the result. “A hat designer, perhaps. You have such flair.”

  “Don’t I?” He batted his eyelashes at her like the most practiced coquette, and her heart fluttered just as wildly. “Perhaps all is not lost in that regard. Do you suppose Kate would hire me?”

  “She’d be a fool not to.”

  “Good to keep my options open.” Was this who he’d been, before life had stripped the joy from him? His eyes alight, his smile ready? No wonder Julia had defied her father to be with him. “Try again.”

  “You did say Mr. Bates wished you to clerk for him. Considering your fondness for money…an accountant, perhaps?”

  “Good God, no.” He uncrossed his legs and sat up in protest. “I’d go stir mad, poring over the books and searching for lost pennies.”

  “Well?”

  “No more guesses?”

  They’d retrieved more than half the spilled type, she noticed when she bent for another handful. Then she’d have no more excuse to stay there with him. And so she made sure she had a terrible time finding the compartment for the t’s. “Teaching, maybe?”

  “Worse and worse.”

  “I didn’t say I thought you’d be good at it.”

  “No, I know my limitations, and I don’t fancy ending up in an asylum after three days of work.” He took pity on her. “I’d planned to read for the law.”

  “A lawyer?”

  “Yeah.” This time his laugh carried a bitter edge. “A guy I grew up with got arrested when we were seventeen. Theft, they said, and I suppose he might’ve done a fair amount in his time. But he said he didn’t do it, and I believed him—no reason for him to lie to me, y’know? But they put him in prison. Mostly, I figured, ’cause he didn’t have money to hire somebody decent to defend him.”

  “Is he still there?”

  “Far as I know.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “If there’s justice to be had in this world, Em, it’s gotta be found in the courts, too. I hate that it’s reserved for those who can buy it.”

  In his agitation his elbow bumped his mock-up table, and they both dove for it, splaying their arms across to rescue the type they’d spent the last half hour sorting. They ended up tangled together, arms entwined, she half lying across his back.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly and sprang away, her face flaming.

  Once he was sure the type was staying put, he peeled himself up slowly. “Don’t be,” he said. “Especially when you look so cute with your cheeks that shade of pink.”

  “Cute?” Cute wasn’t really what she had in mind. Years ago, when flocks of smitten young men had descended on their house to preen for Kate, they’d tried to win Kate’s favor by patting Emily on the head and pronouncing her “cute.”

  “Oh, don’t look so put out,” he said. “It’s not an insult.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  “Yes, that’s what I think.” He tapped her lightly on the nose, and she had the most unaccountable urge to nip the offending finger. “Em, you can’t keep jumping every time we accidentally bump into each other.”

  “I don’t do that,” she lied. She hated that it seemed to be so easy for him, and so completely unsettling for her.

  “Must be me, then.”

  “I’m sure it must be.”

  He studied her thoughtfully until she could no longer hold his gaze, which she realized too late was every bit as telling as her skittishness.

  “How’d you like a job?”

  “I thought I had one.”

  “No, a real one. Five bucks a week as my printer.”

  “But I’ve got no more idea how to run that machine than I do how to break a colt.”

  “I know. Which is why you’re only getting five. Going rate’s eight.”

  Jake could’ve whacked himself over the head for being so thick that he hadn’t thought of this before. It’d swell Emily’s nest egg a bit. Even better, she’d have a skill that would be in demand. There’d be hundreds of proof sheets popping up—if things worked out the way he planned, a fair number of them might even be his—and so maybe this time, after she left, he wouldn’t go near crazy worrying about her. Hell, maybe he’d even keep her himself.

  And now there was a slip of the brain that threatened to keep him up nights.

  “I hate writing,” she objected. “Kate used to have to bribe me with gingersnaps to get me to write to Anthea.”

  “I can write,” he told her. “It’s those dinky pieces of metal that make me crazy.”

  But she eyed the hulking, rusty press with open suspicion. “I don’t know,” she said doubtfully.

  “Heck, Em, if you can deliver a baby, you surly can do this. A lot fewer hidden parts, I promise.” He tried his most winning smile, surprised to find that he remembered how. “And it’ll keep me from taking a mallet to this thing one day.”

  “What makes you think my temperament is more inclined to patience than yours?”

  “You put up with me.” He meant it as a joke. But his voice softened at the end, set up a warm humming in his chest. “Here,” he said hastily, and yanked off his printer’s apron. He dropped it over her head before she could protest, wrapped the ties around her narrow waist—three times, before the ends didn’t trail on the floor—and knotted it tight. “There. Let me see.”

  Ink mottled the stiff canvas, which puffed out from the belt and held its own shape instead of hers. It flipped up in front where it hit the floor like a bent strip of tin.

  “Kate would have a fit.” Laughing, Emily lifted her hands and spun for his benefit. “What do you think?”

  He opened his mouth but she beat him to it.

  “If you say ‘cute,’” she said warningly, “you’re going to be picking up type till spring.”

  “I’m surprised Godey’s hasn’t picked up on it yet.”

  “You must promise,” she told him, “that, if I’m terrible at it, you will fire me without
a second thought.”

  “I will be a terrible ogre of a boss,” he promised her solemnly. “You will curse me with every letter you set.”

  “Oh, I’ve no doubt about that.”

  Because he wanted to kiss her, he took her by the arms, plopped her on the stool, and spun her around to face the setup table so those dancing eyes wouldn’t tempt him. But then he ruined the noble gesture by standing right behind her, bracing his arms on the table on either side, and peering over her shoulder. And even he couldn’t convince himself he did so because that was the easiest way to demonstrate what to do.

  She caught on quick. Too quick, to his way of thinking, because he loved reaching over her shoulder to show her how to throw the lines of type into the form while the scent of her drifted up from her hair. Enjoyed how she’d turn around to ask him a question and her face would be only inches from his, and she’d startle to realize how close he was, her eyes going wide, but she wouldn’t move away. Was fascinated by the lilting tune she hummed when he showed her how to whittle bits of matchsticks into the right size to wedge into the form when the lines of type weren’t quite tight enough.

  He demonstrated how to snip a bit of tin can and fold it when she ran out of blank type to make spaces. Her mortification at the curse that slipped out when she couldn’t bend it just right delighted him to no end.

  And he laughed at the fierce pride she took at hammering the wedges into the frame to lock it in place, swinging the mallet like a lumberjack with an axe.

  “See? You better watch out,” she said, and flexed an arm to show off her puny muscle. “I might try it on your head if you’re late with my pay.” She spun on the stool and rapped her knuckles lightly against his forehead. “Pop like a ripe melon, I’d wager.”

  “Consider me warned.”

  Her eyes danced, only inches from his. The curve of her mouth was exceptionally kissable—he wondered that he hadn’t noticed it the first day they’d met.

  He’d loved Julia with all the fierce passion and pride his young heart owned. But they’d been often self-conscious, their times together brief and stolen, so overcome with their feelings and the risk of their meeting that they’d rarely laughed. He’d certainly never felt this wondrous ease.

  “Thanks, Em,” he said.

  “You’re welcome,” she said softly, as if she understood he thanked her for far more than just relieving him of a task he detested. Her breath hitched and the friendly simmer of passion that had warmed him pleasantly all afternoon abruptly burst to riotous life, like a small flame that had sizzled down a long wick and just hit dynamite.

  Don’t ruin it, he told himself. Don’t ruin this again, when it’s working out so well.

  “So what are you going to do now?” she asked him, and—God help him—a hundred thoughts sprang to mind, wicked and sinful and hopelessly impossible. Perhaps they showed, for she suddenly spun back to the table and poked through the remaining type, mumbling about missing p’s.

  “Em—”

  “Now that I’ve taken over all your work, I mean,” she said in a fluster. “What are you going to do with all your free time? Get fat and lazy?”

  He sighed and reluctantly moved away. It was for the best, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. “I think,” he said slowly, “I’m going to build a new house.”

  Chapter 18

  On Tuesday Jake piled the newspapers Emily had printed into the back of his wagon and headed into town to mail them. He was gone for two days, which Emily divided evenly between sleeping and trying to scrub the ink off her fingers.

  Shortly after he returned, a huge load of lumber, nails, and tools was delivered and stacked neatly upon a slight rise about two hundred yards from the claim shack.

  A day later a man with the build of a young bull arrived with a massive team of horses and a plow that towered over Emily. Within moments great curving slices of sod were being stripped from the land. Mice scattered, and the dark peels of earth studded with fat white grubs drew flocks of happily cackling blackbirds in his wake.

  Tom—just Tom, he’d told her cheerfully—and his team plowed the required thirty acres in under two days, even with regular pauses to shovel in vast quantities of food. Watching them, remembering all the effort she’d put into trying to clear a garden plot, Emily couldn’t help but laugh at her naiveté and ineptitude.

  Emily managed to curb her curiosity for three days before giving in. She cut a slice of the ribbon cake she’d just baked as an excuse and slapped her best straw hat on her head.

  Grass still clung to the sides of the small rise, the earth dark and rich on the top. Jake caught sight of her approach, stuck his shovel in the ground, rested his arms on it, and waited for her to arrive.

  “Ah, there you are,” he said. He’d rolled up his sleeves, and she admired his well-muscled forearms above his leather work gloves. The thin fabric of his white shirt was damp with sweat, and she remembered too well exactly what all that muscle felt like beneath her palms. Perhaps he’d had the right idea all along: they should spend as little time with each other as possible, avoiding temptation. “I’d wondered how long you’d hold out.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He gestured toward the cleared ground, crisscrossed with fat twine tied to stakes in a rectangular grid. “I wondered how long it’d be before you came to see what was what. You held out longer than I expected.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “I’ve no interest in what you’re building. You just didn’t eat very much lunch, and you’ve got to be hungry after all this digging.”

  “Mmm.” He peered at the plate she carried. “Cake?”

  “Yes.”

  He tugged off his gloves and tucked them in his back pocket. There was a line across his wrists, brown above, lighter below. He began to reach for the plate, then stopped, bent down, and plucked a yellow daisy that bloomed at her feet.

  “Stand still,” he said, and she held her breath while he reached up and tucked the flower into the ribbon of her hat. “There. Thanks for the cake.”

  “You like ribbon cake, I hope. I didn’t ask, but—”

  “I love it,” he said, once he’d swallowed the first bite. “And this is particularly good. Angling for a raise, are you?”

  “You’re the boss.” The strings delineated the future rooms, she decided. The parlor there, perhaps. A decent sized kitchen in the back. She preferred bigger ones, but—

  “Front door’s there.” He pointed about halfway. “There’ll be a porch, of course.”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “I know you didn’t.” He jogged over to a pile of lumber and balanced the empty plate on top. “But now that you’re here, you might as well look around.”

  He stepped over the nearest piece of twine, then turned to help her over it. She hadn’t bothered with gloves, and his hand was very warm as she lifted her skirts and stepped in. And was it her imagination that he released her hand with reluctance once she was safely on the other side?

  “I staked out the rooms because I had a hard time imagining them from the drawings,” he said. “Thought I could envision them better this way. Tell if they were big enough, or too big. It still looks like nothing more than dirt squares to me. I could figure out if you can play baseball on it, but a house is beyond me.”

  “You’ve gotten so far.” Eyes narrowing thoughtfully, she spun slowly, envisioning walls, furniture, people.

  “I had Tom loosen the first layer with his plow. Made for easy digging.”

  “It’s going to be a big house.” Far too much for just one man.

  “The stairs go up right here.”

  “Upstairs, too?”

  Silently he reached into his pocket, pulled out a piece of paper, and handed it to her.

  The creases were fuzzy, as if it had lived in his pocket a long time. She unfolded it with reverent care.

  The left side of the paper held a front view of the house. Not grand, but a big, wonderful family house, with plenty of w
indows and a columned porch that ran the entire length of the front and appeared to be made for long summer evenings and lemonade. Trees guarded the wide steps, with a child’s swing hanging from the sturdiest branch.

  To the right were floor plans, spare and precise drawings with the rooms neatly labeled: study, kitchen, parlor. Baby’s room.

  “You didn’t draw this,” she said.

  For a while she thought he wouldn’t answer. That he regretted trusting her with this. “How can you tell?”

  “The handwriting.”

  “Oh.” He frowned. “Sorry about that. I know my writing’s a mess, never did have a hand for it. I’ll rewrite the article on—”

  “Your handwriting is fine.” She would never admit to him that it had taken her two hours to decipher the first two paragraphs. She’d gotten used to his scrawl, and was proud of that. “This is just different.”

  He came to stand behind her, looking over her shoulder at the drawing. “Julia drew it.”

  Carefully she refolded the paper. “It’s a beautiful house.”

  “Yeah. It is, isn’t it?” He tucked it safely back into his pocket. She’d never noticed it there when she emptied his pockets for washing and wondered if he’d carried it with him all the time, suspecting that he did.

  She pondered her next words for a moment. He was ever so hard to read—except when he wanted her, she remembered. That she could see in his eyes, the set of his mouth, the tension in his features. But his face gave her no hints now.

  Part of her was flattered that he’d shared this with her. A bigger part worried that he still clung to a dream that was lost long ago.

  “It’s a big house,” she ventured carefully, “for one man.”

  His jaw tightened. “I—.”

  An agitated chatter and a tug on his pants leg stopped him. They looked down to find Smithie at his feet, teeth bared, clever fingers in a vise grip on faded denim.

  “Lord, Smithie, not now,” he said. He bent and tried to dislodge his grip but the animal wouldn’t budge. “Isn’t there a cow around you can bother?”

  For a moment Emily regretted the interruption. They’d been edging up on something that mattered. But if it did matter, she decided, it’d be there in a few moments, a few days, or it wasn’t worth what she thought anyway.