Chapter Six
“I can’t believe you two went behind my back and conspired all this,” Lars groused as Gunder drove the three of them in a wagonette borrowed from Silas Evans toward Baker City.
“We didn’t conspire, Papa. It was more like planning a surprise,” Risa said, trying to convince herself of that as well as her father. She stood and held on to the back of the front seat for balance. “Aren’t you pleased Mrs. Franklin agreed to meet us for lunch?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know!” Her father looked over his shoulder at her with a scowl. “Why is it you two felt a need to meddle?”
Aware of Gunder giving her a sideways glance, Risa sighed.
“We aren’t meddling, Papa. It’s just …” She paused, uncertain what to say to help her father understand she had good intentions, even if he didn’t see it that way.
“I wanted to meet the woman who clearly is important to you. When you speak of her, Papa, your whole face fills with joy. Please don’t be angry.
Gunder thought meeting for a picnic would be the easiest way for me to become acquainted with Mrs. Franklin.
She seemed pleased by the invitation, didn’t she, Gunder? ”
Gunder glared at her as though he didn’t want to be dragged into the mess she’d made with her father, but since it had been his idea, and he was driving them, he was elbow-deep whether he liked it or not.
“She did seem quite happy with Risa’s letter, sir.
Mrs. Franklin was immediately agreeable to meeting.
She mentioned riding with a friend so she wouldn’t be traveling alone.
” Gunder looked at Risa with a light in his eyes that made warmth spread through her before he glanced at her father again.
“We thought gathering at one o’clock would give us time to attend church and then meet. ”
“Humph!” Lars crossed his arms over his chest, his brow furrowed in anger.
Much to Risa’s surprise, Gunder looked back at her with a teasing grin. “Perhaps you should feed your father a cookie so he isn’t quite so grumpy.”
Lars shook a fist at Gunder in feigned fury, then a laugh burst out of him. “I ought to teach you two upstarts a lesson, but I am grateful for this opportunity for Risa to meet Gloria.”
Risa regained her seat and brushed her hand over the smooth crimson leather. The wagonette had a seat in the front for the driver and a passenger, then two bench seats facing each other in the back. It would be perfect for their picnic today when Mrs. Franklin joined them.
“It was very kind of you to arrange for the wagonette, Gunder,” she said, admiring the black trim and polished wood of their conveyance. “We can travel so much faster this way, and in comfort.”
“Silas was happy to help, especially when I promised I’d lend him a hand when I get back from my next run to Baker City with a project that requires four hands.” Gunder tipped his head toward the horses. “Your team is a fine one.”
“King and Prince are good lads,” Lars said, looking fondly at the two geldings. They refused to be apart, so Gunder had simply harnessed both of them to the wagonette. It made the trip go fast with two big horses pulling them.
Risa had risen early to prepare food for the picnic and hoped Mrs. Franklin would enjoy her cooking. The lunch she’d made wasn’t fancy, but it would be plentiful and tasty.
Worried about meeting the woman her father obviously held in high regard, Risa had dressed with extra care, choosing to don her best outfit, which happened to be the skirt and matching jacket with the white shirtwaist she’d made from Mrs. Baldwin’s old curtains.
She’d worn her one pair of gloves, which were black, and her only hat, also black, but she’d formed a flower out of leftover fabric from the curtain and fastened it to the hat, along with a ribbon she’d carefully pressed the fold marks from before she’d looped it into a bow surrounding the flower.
As though he sensed the worries churning in her thoughts, Gunder glanced back at her with a reassuring smile.
Risa wondered when she’d fallen so completely and helplessly in love with the man. It might have been that first day she’d seen him on his way to the church service, or it could have been any number of times she’d spent around him since then.
Gunder was not who she’d envisioned for her future. She had no intention of marrying someone who worked for the mine. If the mine unexpectedly played out, or a new strike caught their interest, miners would be off to the next opportunity, never setting down roots.
Risa had been around enough mining towns to know the town could be booming one day and gone the next. Which was why she wanted to marry a man with a job that kept him at home in a place where they could set down roots and build a life together. Not live like gypsies, without a place of their own.
Even if Risa didn’t particularly want to stay in the ugly town of Lovely, she liked living in Eastern Oregon and hoped to make it her permanent home.
If her father and Mrs. Franklin decided to wed, she wasn’t sure what that would mean for her future.
Would they leave the land they’d worked so hard to take out of sagebrush and turn into something beyond a dust-blown spot on the road?
Risa wasn’t in a hurry to leave what they’d started.
She’d planted four apricot trees from the seeds she’d taken out of the fruit Gunder had brought them in July, along with six cherry trees.
If the trees took off and grew, one day she and her father would have all the fruit they wanted in the summer, with extra to sell.
She supposed she could dig up the sapling trees that were growing, and the bushes she’d planted that were starting to thrive, along with her strawberry and raspberry plants, but she didn’t want to.
“There she is,” Gunder said, pulling Risa from her thoughts as a buggy coming from Baker City approached them.
Gunder drew the team to a stop in a wide spot of the road and lifted a hand in greeting. Risa knew she was coated in a layer of dust, but there wasn’t any help for it. Anxious and nervous, she ignored the urge to shrink back in the seat and act as though this meeting weren’t her doing.
Instead, she forced herself to draw in a calming breath, then another, before smiling as a small buggy driven by a beautiful woman came to a stop beside them.
“Hello!” Mrs. Franklin called as she set the brake and wrapped the lines out of the way.
Gunder stepped out of the wagonette and across the dirt-packed road to her, holding out a hand to help her down.
She gifted him with a brilliant smile that revealed even teeth, and took his hand. “So nice to see you, Gunder. Thank you for making the arrangements for today.”
“I only ferried messages back and forth. Risa gets the credit for planning the meeting.”
“You were knee-deep in this, son. Don’t deny it,” Lars said as he hurried around the wagonette and took the woman’s other hand in his, then boldly kissed her cheek.
Risa watched a becoming blush color Mrs. Franklin’s cheeks, but then she turned and smiled at Risa before looking at Lars. “Oh, she’s even prettier than you described, Lars.”
One moment, Risa had been stepping down from the wagonette, and the next she was engulfed in a soft lilac-scented hug that made a lump lodge in her throat and reminded her how much she missed her mother.
“Risa! It’s absolutely divine to meet you. Let me get a good look at you, dear girl.” Mrs. Franklin pulled back to study her, giving Risa the same opportunity to size up the woman who had captured her father’s heart.
Despite the dust and heat of the day, Mrs. Franklin looked as fresh as a daisy in a green gown that accentuated her green eyes as well as her rich chestnut hair artfully styled beneath a matching green hat set at a saucy angle.
The woman was of medium height, with plenty of curves, and lines around her eyes that made Risa think she laughed often and enjoyed life.
From prior conversations about the woman with her father, as well as Gunder, Risa knew Gloria Franklin had been a widow for eight years, had turned the place she and her husband had built just before his passing into a boardinghouse, and was a good cook who kept an immaculately clean home.
After only a moment, Risa felt a connection to Mrs. Franklin she couldn’t begin to explain or understand, other than to think God had brought her into their lives for a reason. If that reason were to bring Lars Hoffman joy, then Risa certainly wouldn’t get in the way of it.
Risa glanced at her father as he looked at Mrs. Franklin with love in his expression. The woman was attractive, kind, fashionable, and friendly. It seemed to Risa there was much to love about Mrs. Franklin.
Impulsively, Risa gave her another hug, this one out of the joy of meeting her, and smiled when she heard Mrs. Franklin laugh softly.
“You are splendid, Risa,” the woman whispered in her ear before she drew back, then looked at their surroundings.
“My friend had a sniffle this morning, so she stayed home from church and declined my offer to join us. It’s just as well.
She’d likely pass dead away if she saw that rattler over there soaking up the autumn sun. ”
Risa’s gaze followed where Mrs. Franklin pointed and noticed a rattlesnake stretched out on a boulder to capture the afternoon warmth.
Gunder’s eyebrows raised, impressed neither Risa nor Mrs. Franklin began screaming or fainting.
“It will leave us alone if we do the same,” Lars said, cupping Mrs. Franklin’s elbow and helping her into the back of the wagonette. “We thought it might be best to eat in the wagon, that way there’s no chance of anything crawling into our laps.”
“Not to mention trying to find a flat place to spread a blanket without rocks or sagebrush poking at us,” Gunder said, offering Risa a hand once Mrs. Franklin was settled on one of the two benches.