Chapter Four
Chapter Four
“What do you think?” Gen asked Rabbit. “Wash every item in my extensive wardrobe for the trip? That is two of my three pairs of jeans and all three of my other shirts? Five pairs of socks.” She turned to the little dog in front of the stove. “Should I take off my long underwear and wash those too?”
The Beagle lifted her head and panted.
Gen nodded. “You’re right. They wouldn’t be dry before your master comes back, and seeing my unmentionables might be more than he can handle.”
She laughed at her silliness and grabbed the copper tub to scoop up snow to melt. It was the easiest way to get water to wash her laundry. She belted out Jingle Bell Rock while she gathered her dirty clothes and shaved curls off the lump of homemade lye soap she kept in a box.
Twenty-four hours ago, she had worried about how low her food supplies had gotten, and how few household items she had, like wood for the fire and soap for washing. She had dreaded having to go to Broken Bow to barter for more supplies. One, she didn’t have much to barter with, and two, she would probably run into Mike Lundgren. Magically, those worries had evaporated in the last hour. Roused by Gen’s enthusiastic if off-key caroling, The Beagle got up and wobbled over to the door. Gen let her and Rabbit out and stood by the door to keep an eye on them. She had no concerns about Rabbit, but The Beagle might try to run away and find Laura. After making a small yellow stain in the snow, The Beagle followed Rabbit back in. Gen praised the little dog lavishly and stirred a teaspoon of beef broth into a cup of warm water and poured it into the dog dish. The small dog lapped up half of it before returning to her nest.
“You are a tough little survivor, aren’t you?” she said, scratching behind one floppy ear. “What a good girl. In a couple of days, we will be going south, and I will see people who will know where I am from. When I am from!” She giggled giddily and burst into I’ll be Home For Christmas.
The soap flakes dissolved in the simmering wash water, and she was just about to put her clothes into the tub when Rabbit exploded in a frenzy of barking. Was Laura back so soon? But would Rabbit bark like that for Laura? Gen dropped the clothes on the floor and reached for the rifle.
A surreptitious look out of the front window sent her stomach plummeting to her feet. Mike Lundgren swaggered through the snow, flanked by two other men, and he was wearing those damned courting jeans. She slid the barrel of the rifle out the peep and sighted on the stupid red flannel heart below Mike’s belt buckle. Such a tempting target! Gen sighed and withdrew the rifle before raising the window an inch. She made a sign to Rabbit, and her dog subsided into low growls.
A quick glance at The Beagle showed she was on her feet, panting. Poor little dog was scared, probably wondering where Laura was. Well, she wasn’t the only one.
“Good morning, Mr. Lundgren,” Gen called through the window. “What can I do for you this morning?”
He didn’t stop walking, coming right up to the door. His henchmen hung a couple of yards back. Mike angled his head so he could look at her through the glass.
“Good morning, Mrs. Oliver. It’s a beautiful day for mid-December.”
The sky had cleared a bit, but the sun was weak, half hidden under lead gray clouds. The temperature was probably around freezing, so not as cold as it could be, but it was cold enough. That made Gen wonder how cold it would be when she and Laura walked to Kearney. The thought that she would soon be leaving Broken Bow eased the tenseness in her shoulders. Mike Lundgren wouldn’t be her problem much longer.
“Yes,” she responded, careful to be politely impersonal. “It’s very nice.”
Mike Lundgren was silent for a minute, just smiling at her. He was a good-looking man around forty years old. He stood an inch or two above Gen’s own height of five nine. His brown hair was thick and wavy, touched with gray at the temples. His shoulders were straight, his middle was a little thick, but with muscle, not fat. Gen had never seen him shirtless, but she thought he had a good build. She mentally compared him to Laura and found no comparison.
Laura was built exactly the way she liked a man to be built: broad in the shoulder, narrow in the waist, and with legs that went on forever. Add those thick-lashed dark eyes and that sinfully plump mouth … She sighed now. A girl could do a lot worse in the looks department. And even better, Laura was nice. Kind of shy and hesitant, so different from what his harsh, brutal appearance would lead one to expect. The total opposite, also, of Mike Lundgren’s brash, demanding attitude. Gen sighed again, waiting for Mike to come to the point of his visit.
He did, widening his smile while hooking his thumbs in his belt loops and spreading his fingers as if he was pointing at his groin. Which made her remember that same red heart shifting over the zipper when Laura wore them. She jerked her gaze back to Mike’s face, struggling to keep a polite smile on her lips.
“I worry about you out here all by yourself,” Mike said. “How long has it been since your husband died?”
And so it begins, thought Gen. I thought I’d have a few more weeks. “Not even four months yet.”
“Four months,” Mike agreed genially. “A long time for a lady to be alone. Are you low on food?”
Yes, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. “I have enough.”
“You’re not skimping on the eggs and bacon I gave you, I hope. There’s plenty more where they came from. I don’t like the idea of you going hungry.”
“Thank you.”
If it wasn’t for Laura, that hint of food might have swayed her. In the Times Before, as the locals called her old life, she hadn’t appreciated how easy she’d had it when it came to food. There was a grocery store only a few blocks from the clinic. She stopped on her way home from work two or three times a week. If she didn’t feel like cooking, she could hit a fast-food drive through. And cooking involved a microwave more often than not. Now, fast food was something she didn’t have to shoot, butcher and cook herself over a fire.
Shopping involved walking five miles to Broken Bow with the leather backpack Dean had made her, and hoping the little store had some food for her to barter for. Since she had to carry her goods there and her purchases back home, she could never get too much at a time. A ten-pound sack of flour, a box of powdered milk, and a couple pounds of dried meat and fruit was a lot to carry. Mrs. Mike Lundgren would have all the food she wanted, and her husband or his employees would haul her groceries home and even carry them into the kitchen or pantry for her.
She dragged her attention back to Mike, wondering why he didn’t have a wife. He could provide for a wife and children. It was true that she was literally the only female within ten miles, but Mike could go further away to find a wife. Mason City was pretty close. Or Ansley. Did they have women there? Maybe the closest bigger town would be North Platte. Or Kearney? If he showed the littlest bit of humility and genuine affection, she could have fallen for him. There must be other women who would have jumped at the chance to marry him.
As she met his gaze, she saw not a drop of affection or respect on his face. She shook her head, bracing herself to get this over with. “What can I do for you, Mr. Lundgren?”
“I think we both know that it’s what I can do for you that’s important here. I understand that a widow needs some time to mourn her husband, so I’ve kept back, aside from being neighborly, but the time has come for you to move on.”
“You know,” Gen said conversationally, “you are a good-looking man, with a successful farm and a good house. I wonder why you haven’t married.”
He preened. Gen had seen roosters cock their heads at just that angle before they strutted through the barnyard. He opened his mouth to crow, but Gen cut him off.
“I suppose it’s because there are no women around here. You should go to North Platte or somewhere and find yourself a nice woman to be your wife.”
Mike Lundgren reared back, his shocked expression turning to anger. “Here now. No need for me to look elsewhere when there is a fine woman right here. You need a husband, and I need a wife. We can be married next week. You could be my Christmas bride—”
“No, thank you,” she cut in.
It was like he didn’t even hear her. “Or maybe you’d like a fancy ceremony with flowers and all that,” he barreled on. “We could do that in the spring, before planting season.”
Gen raised her voice. “I said, no, thank you!”
“We could even send for a priest to come do the wedding. He won’t mind if your belly sticks out a bit.”
If her belly … Pregnant? Gen said through clenched teeth, “That’s all you want from me. You don’t care about me. You just want a woman to sleep with, take care of your house, and push out your babies.”
Surprise crossed his face. “Yeah, I want a wife.”
“And any woman will do.” She reined in her disgust. “My answer is no. So go find another woman somewhere else.”
“Why would I do that? You are right here.” He straightened and grabbed the doorknob to open the door. It didn’t budge. “Come on, Jenny, let me in.”
Gen glared, even though he wasn’t looking through the window now. “That’s a proposal?”
He turned his head to smile at the window. “You want a proposal? I wore my courting jeans and everything, so sure, sweetie.” He dropped to one knee. “Sweet Jenny, will you marry me?”
She ground her teeth at the nickname. She was not and never had been a Jenny. “You’re not welcome, Mr. Lundgren. I decline your very flattering offer. You just turn around and march your courting jeans back home!”
“Aw, don’t be like that.” He gave the doorknob a harder twist. Gen saw it turn on her side and breathed a sigh of relief that she had locked it after the dogs had come back in. “Let me in so we can talk a little.”
A new and very welcome voice doubled Gen’s relief.
“You heard my mate. Leave.”
The window was too small to allow her to see Laura, but she saw Mike wheel around to face the newcomer.
“Who are you?” Mike demanded.
“You should leave now, while you’re still able.”
The rough, hard voice didn’t sound like the Laura she knew. This voice went with the brutal face.
“Who are you, dammit?” Mike yelled. “And what are you doing here?”
Gen yelled, “That’s Lau— Lobo,” she corrected herself. She swallowed hard, her mind settling to a comfortable calm as her feelings and intentions clicked into place. A day ago, she hadn’t even met Laura. Just this morning he had been a stranger who offered her an escape from this very situation. But now she knew who he was to her. “My fiancé.”
Mike jerked around to stare at her through the window. “The hell you say.”
“I don’t appreciate your language!” she snapped.
“You better get used to it,” he snapped back. “Because you’re marrying me, not him.”
Someone shouted derisively, “Kinda cold out to be taking your clothes off, man.”
A sound between a howl and a roar exploded outside. Beside her, Rabbit’s growling rose to new heights. The Beagle added her yips. Mike turned away from the window, his back ramrod straight under his heavy coat.
“What is that?” Mike’s voice was almost a scream. “Shoot it! Somebody shoot it!
Another man said, “We didn’t bring guns! We just came with you to fetch your wife. Oh, God!”
Gen couldn’t see anything. She heard Mike fling himself at the door, hammering his fists on it and screaming at her to let him in. She backed away, almost tripping over The Beagle, as male shouts turned to screams outside.
Gen wasn’t sure how long the scuffling and screaming lasted. A minute? Ten minutes? She clamped her arms around herself, fighting the urge to open the door to see what was happening. Was it a bear? No, bears hibernated in the winter. It couldn’t be Laura, could it? No, Mike wouldn’t have asked what ‘that’ was if it was Laura.
After a mini eternity, she heard Laura’s voice close outside the cabin. It was a lethally hard voice. “That’s right. You leave and don’t come back. If I see you sniffing around my mate again, I’ll kill you.” A minute passed. Two. Then Laura spoke again, more quietly, voice warm and gentle. “Gen? It’s me. Will you open the door?”
She cautiously left the warmth of the stove and opened the door. Laura stood buck-naked on the front step. She gaped at him for a split second before jerking her gaze to his face and fixing it firmly there. His entire physique was as mouthwatering as she expected. But when he turned his head, she saw a red smear over the right side of his jawline.
“Are you hurt? There’s blood…”
He looked uncomfortable. “Where?”
She pointed. “Next to your chin.”
Laura wiped a hand over his jaw and appeared self-conscious when he looked at the blood that transferred to his hand. “Not mine. I bit a couple of them. I chewed some snow afterwards to clean my mouth. Musta missed that bit.”
Bit them? She studied him, looking for signs of a wolf muzzle or fur. She opened her mouth to ask if he had transformed into a wolf but chickened out. “Where are your clothes?” she asked instead, shivering a little in the breeze.
He jerked his head behind him. “I left them out there. I suppose I should get them.”
He turned and walked away, presenting her with a clear view of the world’s best male posterior. This time she allowed herself to look. Yep, that was absolutely the world’s finest male butt, tight and round and… Wait. Why was he naked?
The Beagle darted out the door to follow her master. Gen reached for her but missed. That was all right, though. If the dog was well enough to trot along in the snow, let her. Rabbit joined The Beagle outside, and both dogs sniffed at a section of churned up snow, dotted with red.
Gen leaned against the frame of the open door and watched whileLaura walked to the edge of the creek and gathered up some slender logs that were twice his height. He dragged them to a puddle of fabric in the snow and bent to pick up what she recognized as Dean’s clothes. He didn’t put them on before strolling back to the cabin and the frontal view was very nice too. The heat of a flush in her cheeks might have been caused by the breeze. Yep, it was the breeze. Totally.
Laura handed her the clothes and lined the logs up against the cabin wall. She stepped back to let him and The Beagle in. He closed the door behind himself and stood staring at her. The flush burned hotter, and this time she kept her gaze on his face.
“Did you mean it?” His voice was low.
Gen could have played dumb, but she knew what he was asking. She’d called him her fiancé. She looked away and let out a slow breath. “Honestly? I need a little more time to decide for sure. I’ve known you for less than twenty-four hours.” She raised her eyes to meet his gaze. “But I’m willing to date you. Er, let you court me.”
That luscious mouth tilted into a small grin. “Even though I don’t have courting jeans?”
A gurgle of laughter bubbled out of her. “You don’t have any jeans right now.”
He nodded, still smiling. “I’ll get dressed.” His smile faded into seriousness. “Gen, I think we better leave for Kearney right away. Those men will come back, and this time they’ll bring guns. I don’t want to have to kill them.”
She inwardly flinched. “Would you kill them?”
“To keep you safe? Yeah.”
This was not the bashful, hesitant man she thought she knew. She remembered the hard tone he used when talking to Mike Lundgren and shivered. In her mind she saw the scattered splotches of blood in the snow outside and shivered again. She had thought he was a little goofy, a little shy, not like his brutal appearance. But that must be only with her. Was it strange that she felt safe with him?
“Are you going to bite me?”
Something like horror flicked over his face. “What? No!”
“Okay.” She nodded. “Good thing I didn’t actually start washing my clothes.” She glanced at the copper tub simmering on the stove. “You won’t mind if I get a little ripe, will you?”
“Nah. You smell good. You’ll always smell good to me.”
“Ha! We’ll see if you still think so in a few days!”
“I will.” He took Dean’s clothes from her and turned to put them on. “I’ll get started on the travois. You decide what you need to bring to Kearney.”
A shadow of her earlier excitement welled up. Wearing dirty clothes or not, she was going to leave this place and find people who could understand her!