Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
A shley stroked Lisa’s back as she slept. Dawn would soon be coming, but for once, he wasn’t eager for its arrival. Last night had marked a change between him and Lisa. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. It’d been a long time since he let anyone close to him. And even then, he didn’t think anyone had ever gotten this close.
There was something about lovemaking that was far more intimate than anything else he’d ever done. He was tempted to put some distance between him and Lisa. After years of being alone, save for the occasional visit from a neighbor, attachment to another person brought about some fear. Did he even know how to relate to someone on a personal level anymore?
It’d been easy to focus on the physical aspects of being intimate with Lisa while aroused. At that moment, all he’d cared about was satisfying the baser part of him. Instinct had taken over. He hadn’t had to analyze anything. His body let him know what to do, and he did it.
He glanced down at Lisa. She was still wrapped in his arms. Her head was resting on his shoulder. Her body was pressed up ever so nicely against him. Her deep, even breathing calmed him. He hadn’t felt this kind of peace since…since…
He wasn’t sure how long it’d been since he last felt this level of contentment. Even before that fateful night he and Gene had attempted to betray their father, he hadn’t experienced peace. He forced that part of his life back into the recesses of his mind. This gift of peace ought to be savored. There was no point in ruining it. Besides, there was nothing he could do about the past. The dead didn’t offer second chances.
He swallowed the lump in his throat and closed his eyes. He focused, once more, on Lisa. She was soft and warm. She was quiet and careful with her words. He suspected she had things from her past she’d rather not reveal. Her friends, the Paxtons, seemed to have things they also wanted to leave behind. Perhaps everyone who came out to this Oregon coast was looking to escape something. Everyone except the preacher who was too quick to jump to conclusions because his life had been perfect.
Ashley didn’t care what Lisa’s past was. He didn’t care what had brought her out here with the Paxtons. Maybe a husband should care about his wife’s past. But Lisa didn’t pry into his past, and he preferred that. It allowed him to continue the illusion that his life had started the moment he stepped foot in this town. He was fine with thinking her life hadn’t started until the day he found her unconscious behind the bitterbrush. In some ways, it was like she had appeared out of nowhere. He would like to think she was a gift from God.
He rubbed Lisa’s back in slow, methodical motions. Regardless of where she came from, their lives were entwined now. Her future was his. He would no longer be alone in the world. And that was nice after all this time, wasn’t it? He closed his eyes and decided he would enjoy this one moment in time when he was engulfed in peace.
* * *
Lisa’s head bowed over the skirt Nona had been kind enough to give her. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the older woman’s instructions. Hemming a piece of fabric wasn’t really all that difficult. One just had to concentrate and take it slow.
She opened her eyes and shifted in the chair until the sunlight gave her a clear view of what she was doing. The summer breeze wasn’t too cool as long as the sun was out. She was looking forward to July when the air would get even warmer. It was nice to sit outside the cabin. Ashley had gone off to check his traps. Though it was wrong, she did entertain the fantasy that he ended up catching the preacher in one of them. She bit on her lower lip before she laughed at the image of the preacher flopping around in a net.
Once the urge to giggle subsided, she started to hem the skirt. Maybe she’d get to make something for a baby this time next year. For a moment, she stopped to consider how old her daughter would be by then. Her daughter had been born on April 5.
She’d been fortunate enough to come across an elderly couple at the train station in New York who took pity on her and arranged for her to stay with a minister and his family in Missouri. This particular family operated an orphanage. Lisa’s original plan had been to leave her daughter with the people at the orphanage, but the minister happened to be friends with a couple who were unable to have children. They had adopted a child years before from the orphanage, and they were looking to adopt a second one.
So the minister had paid for her to go to Omaha to meet Ben and Annabelle Martin. Ben and Annabelle had taken such good care of the boy they had adopted. Knowing Sara was with them offered her the only comfort she had while she took the train further west, which brought her to the stagecoach that delivered her to this town. This time next year, her daughter would be an older sister. Well, half-sister. A half-sister to a boy or a girl.
And, by this time next year, her second child could very well be two or three months old. She could very well be expecting right now. Then she wouldn’t have to mourn the fact that she’d never get to see or hold Sara ever again. She would always miss her precious daughter, of course. No other child could ever replace her. But she would love being able to see and hold her next child, and she’d be able to raise this one.
She smiled as she thought of all the things she could do with the next child. She would sing the child to sleep at night. She would take the child to the cliff and show him the ocean, but she would make sure not to stand too close. As Ashley had warned, it was best not to get too close in case she fell. She did want the child to see how magnificent the ocean was. She would teach the child to walk and, later, to read and write.
If the child was a boy, she was sure Ashley would teach him how to set traps, prepare the meat, and chop wood. If the child was a girl, she would teach her how to make clothes, how to do laundry, and probably even how to cook. Though, she wasn’t sure about the cooking task. Ashley had been doing that. Perhaps he would teach the child to cook. Ashley would make a good father. Of all the men she’d ever known, she couldn’t think of one who would do a better job of helping her raise the child.
She caught sight of someone approaching and turned her head in time to see Ashley coming around a tree. He headed for the workshop and dropped the belt that held his knife and rope. The look of disappointment on his face let her know he hadn’t caught anything in the traps.
“Maybe tomorrow will be better,” she called out.
He glanced her way. She thought he was going to enter the workshop, but he left his things on the ground and went over to her. She shifted so that she could face him when he sat on the large rock nearby. She hadn’t noticed it before, but he only had one chair out here.
“It’s been almost a full week since I caught anything,” he said. “I like to have enough saved for a month. That way, when things are slow like this, I know there’s still something to eat.”
His voice trailed off, and she sensed that he had stopped himself before he completed his thought. Eyebrows furrowed, she placed the skirt in her lap. She was another mouth to feed. She could see how that would put pressure on him to trap more animals.
“Is having me here causing you problems?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No. I don’t ever want you to think that. I like having you here. I was just thinking that I probably shouldn’t have given so much meat away. Since there are two of us, I’m going to make sure to save more in the future.”
“What can I do to help you?”
“You already do the chore I hate most.”
“Are you talking about the laundry?”
He nodded. “Of all things there are to do around here, that’s the one I can’t stand.”
“I’m surprised. I think cutting up an animal to get meat and fur is worse. The smell alone would make me give up eating meat altogether.” She shuddered and lifted the skirt so she could continue hemming it.
He chuckled. “One would think that, but laundry is the worst of the two. No matter how much you do it, it’s never done. When you cut up the animal, you can eat for a good month if it’s large enough, and you can use the fur for a lot of things.”
“Yes, but the animal is heavy.”
“Laundry gets heavy when it’s wet.”
“Maybe, but I can take smaller loads to the wash. You have to bring the whole animal to your workshop in one trip.”
He shrugged. “If you attach a travois to a horse, you can place the animal on it and drag it back here.”
“But you still have to carry the thing into the workshop and put it on the table.”
He looked as if he was ready to argue her point when he broke into laughter. “We must be the only two people who argue about a chore neither one of us has to do.”
She chuckled. “In that case, we’re better off with the division of labor as it is. You can rest assured I will not be trying to cut up an animal or take its fur. I’m much happier handling the laundry.”
He let out an exaggerated sigh of relief and placed a hand over his heart. “Good. I was afraid you were going to talk me into doing the laundry.”
She shook her head in amusement. “Seriously, Ashley, is there something else I can do around here to make myself useful? You took me in when I needed a place to go. I don’t take that for granted.”
“If there’s something I need help with, I’ll let you know. Though, I don’t see what more I could ask of you. You aren’t the slightest bit demanding. You seem to be happy with everything I’ve done for you.”
Noting the sincerity in his voice, she glanced up from the skirt and smiled at him. “I am happy. You’ve done far more for me than can be expected of anyone.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I don’t like seeing you cry.”
Her hand paused over the needle. She didn’t know what to say about that. He hadn’t asked her why she’d been crying at the cliff, and she prayed he wasn’t going to now.
“I learned long ago to not interfere with things that aren’t my business,” he softly said. “I just hope if there’s anything I can do to help, you’ll come to me.”
Little did he know, he already had. The fact that he hadn’t turned her away last night in bed meant she now had a chance to mother a child she didn’t have to give up. But that was something she didn’t want to tell him. The pain was still too new, too fresh.
Settling for a compromise, she said, “You have already done all you can to help me. There is nothing more I could ask of you.”
He seemed satisfied with her answer, for he nodded and rose to his feet. “I’m going to start the soup. Maybe the two chickens will even give us an egg or two today so we can have that on the side.”
She watched him as he gathered the things he had tossed to the ground and then took them into the workshop. It was a shame he hadn’t been the one she was supposed to marry in Vermont. She had a feeling if he had been, the past year would have been so very different.