Short-Straw Bride Page 25

  She hung like a rag doll from Travis’s arms, her feet dragging the floor, her face plastered against his neck. No wedding dress. Only mud-smeared calico and a soggy wool cloak.

  “I need your help.” This time she heard the fear in his voice. “Please.”

  The hovering darkness promised escape, but she resisted its pull. Travis needed her.

  Meredith reached her hands up to her husband’s shoulders and drew her feet more firmly beneath her. Bracing her weight on her good leg, she gazed into his eyes as she forced herself to stand. His eyes held hers, infusing her with strength.

  Keeping one hand at her waist to aid her balance, Travis used the other to undo the cloak’s fastenings. Once he had it undone, he helped her slip each arm through the sleeves and tossed the sopping garment into a heap near the wall. He had just reached for the buttons that ran the length of her bodice when a masculine voice intruded.

  “How is she, Travis?”

  Meredith twisted her head away from Crockett, feeling exposed and vulnerable.

  “She’s frozen, half delirious, and weak as a newborn kitten, but I think if we can get her warm, she’ll be all right.”

  “I’ve got water heating for some tea and a pair of bricks heating in the hearth. I brought some toweling, too.” Crockett raised his arms to indicate the small bundle, then walked into the room and set it on the bed. “Need any help?’

  Meredith gasped. She thought the man wanted to be a preacher. How could he make such an improper suggestion?

  “Yeah. Come hold her up for a minute while I get out of this slicker.”

  “Travis, no,” she moaned.

  His eyes widened slightly, then crinkled at the corners. “Don’t worry,” he whispered close to her ear. “I’ll send him away before we undo any more buttons.”

  What on earth had possessed him to say such a thing? Travis stripped off his hat, slicker, and coat, tossing them to the floor. The woman was soaked to the skin, her teeth chattering faster than the rattle on a snake’s tail. The last thing she needed was a flirtatious husband. Yet it had brought a touch of color back to her cheeks.

  Travis took a minute to rummage through the bureau drawers and find one of Meri’s nightdresses before he relieved Crockett. His brother stepped aside, then winked at Travis, careful to keep the gesture hidden from Meredith.

  “A little different from last time, huh?”

  Images of the two of them bumbling over Meredith’s corset after her encounter with Samson scurried through Travis’s mind. “Very,” he ground out.

  Thank the Lord Meredith was conscious enough to cooperate this time, for there was no way he’d let Crockett assist in her undressing. That duty belonged to her husband. And only her husband.

  Crockett slapped him on the back and strode to the door. “I’ll knock when the tea and bricks are ready,” he said, all teasing gone from his voice as he grabbed the knob to pull the door shut. “Feel better, Meredith.”

  “Th-th-th-hank y-y-you,” she stammered in reply.

  Travis gently tugged her head toward him until it lay against his chest, and then he ran his hands briskly up and down her arms, trying to ward off her convulsive shivers. His own legs were cold inside his rain-soaked trousers, but his comfort could wait. Meri’s couldn’t.

  Together, they managed to get her dress, petticoats, and corset off. But when Travis started to toss the pink, lacy undergarment on top of the pile of wet clothes, Meredith shrieked and grabbed his arm with more strength than he would have given her credit for.

  “Drape it over the b-b-back of the ch-chair.”

  He figured it was safer not to argue with her, so he did as she instructed and hurried back to her side, grabbing the toweling off the bed as he went. He wrapped her in the dry cloth as if it were a shawl and urged her to lean on him as he rubbed her back and arms. So focused was he on getting her warm that it wasn’t until he was kneeling before her, running a second towel up and down her calves, that he realized how well her damp chemise and drawers clung to her curves.

  Travis immediately turned his attention to her feet.

  After a moment of carefully regulated breathing and a stern internal lecture, Travis stood and faced his bride. “Do you think you can handle the nightdress on your own?”

  She gave a jerky little nod, and he exhaled in relief. Her shivers had calmed somewhat, but she still looked unsteady on her feet.

  “I’m going to turn around to give you some privacy, but I’ll be right here if you need me. All right?”

  Another nod.

  Travis turned his back and immediately started naming the books of the Bible in his head. Then the twelve apostles, thirteen if one counted Matthias, which he did because he needed all the distraction he could get to keep himself from imagining what was transpiring behind him. He added Paul in for good measure, too, and then started on the twelve tribes. Although, really, there were thirteen there, too. What with Joseph’s descendants split into two tribes and named after his sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. But then again, the Levites didn’t inherit any land, so—

  A muffled cry banished the Israelites from his brain. Travis spun around to find Meredith bent sideways clasping her calf through the white cotton of her nightdress. He was at her side in an instant.

  “What is it?”

  “Cramps,” she whimpered. “In my w-weak leg.”

  He picked her up and carried her to the bed.

  “I sh-shouldn’t have put any weight on it. I know b-b-better.”

  Travis pulled the covers back and laid her on the sheets. “What can I do?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and rolled toward him, curling up into a ball. “It’ll p-pass eventually.”

  That wasn’t good enough. Travis tucked the blankets up to her chin, knelt on the rug that ran alongside the bed, and reached for her leg—the leg his trap had weakened all those years ago, the leg that had brought this incredible woman into his life.

  Meredith groaned and tried to ease the limb away from him, but he wouldn’t allow her to retreat. Using a light touch at first, he worked his way up her calf to just above her knee, then back down to the arch of her foot and even her toes. Gradually he increased the pressure of his massage, working the knots out of her muscles until she finally began to uncurl from her protective posture.

  When Crockett’s knock came, Meri’s eyelids had relaxed, and though she continued to shiver slightly, her breathing had evened enough that Travis suspected she might have drifted off to sleep. Slowly, he drew his hand down her calf, over her ankle, and across her foot, enjoying the feel of her skin one last time just for the pure pleasure of it before rising to answer the door.

  “How is she?” Crockett asked, lowering his voice to a whisper when he noticed her lying in bed.

  “Better, but she’s still shivering. I’m worried she might have caught a chill.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m worried you’re going to catch a chill unless you get some dry clothes on yourself. Go change while I try to get some of this tea into her. Neill’s gathering the bricks now. We’ll have her warm in no time.”

  Travis glanced back at Meri, reluctant to leave. But Crockett was right. He’d be no good to her if he was ill.

  “I left a mug of hot coffee for you on Neill’s dresser.”

  “Thanks.” Travis strode down the hall, determined to change in record time.

  His wet trousers made the going slower than he would have liked, clinging to him like woolen leeches. He eventually succeeded in peeling them off, along with his drawers and socks. The dry clothes went on much easier, and within minutes, Travis had gulped down his coffee and was helping Neill arrange the cloth-wrapped hot bricks under the sheets at the bottom of Meredith’s bed.

  Crockett got about a cupful of tea into Meri before she waved him away. Her haggard expression elicited Travis’s protective nature, and he immediately shooed his brothers out of the room. Meredith inched her way back down in the bed, no doubt drawn to the heat of the bricks, but once
there, she still curled herself into a ball, as if the added warmth failed to penetrate her.

  “Are you still cold?”

  “Mm-hmm,” she mumbled against the pillow.

  Travis could think of only one other way to help her get warm. He walked around to the opposite side of the bed and lifted the covers. His heart throbbed against his ribs. After more than a month, he was finally going to share a bed with his wife.

  The mattress took his weight, and Travis tentatively shifted closer to Meri. As if someone had shot off a starting gun, she rolled over and burrowed into him with such haste that he barely moved his knees in time to avoid a collision. Her legs tangled with his while her arms folded up between them. Frigid toes rubbed against his calf where his trouser leg had bunched up, shocking him with the sheer cold that continued to cling to her despite the blankets and heated bricks. He sandwiched his legs around her feet, hoping to speed their thaw. Her hands eventually wiggled their way beneath his untucked shirt, and when her icy fingers found his bare chest, she let out a tiny sigh that made his heart flip.

  One thing was for sure. Crockett needn’t worry about him catching a chill tonight. With Meredith touching him like she was, he’d be lucky not to go up in flames.

  32

  Travis woke before the sun, pangs in his stomach prodding him to rise and make restitution for skipping supper the night before. But he resisted. Contentment lay over him like an extra blanket, so foreign yet utterly captivating that he didn’t want to move for fear it would dissipate. Then it shifted, blowing a warm puff of air against his neck. Travis’s mind sharpened in an instant.

  Meri.

  Travis opened his eyes and turned his head, ever so slowly, so as not to disturb the woman whose face lay in the crook of his shoulder. She was so beautiful. Her long lashes resting peacefully against the creamy skin of her cheeks, her hair cascading behind her, finally freed from the confines of its pins. As he watched her sleep, he couldn’t resist the urge to stroke the deep blond tresses, their softness quickly becoming an addiction to his fingers.

  He wanted nothing more than to gently kiss her awake and finally claim her in the way God intended. But as he leaned forward to touch his lips to her sleepy eyelids, he noted the faint smudges of exhaustion still evident beneath her eyes and pulled away. She needed rest.

  Turning his gaze to the ceiling, Travis exhaled. He might as well get up. Sleep was well beyond his grasp now, and Meredith would rest better without him tossing and turning beside her. But, oh, how he hated to leave. One thing was for certain, though, if she would have him, he’d be spending all future nights in this bed with her. Their courting had gone on long enough. It was time to begin their marriage.

  Careful to disturb her as little as possible, Travis cupped the back of Meredith’s head as he slid his arm out from under her cheek and eased away. Her mouth puckered into an adorable little pout as she grumbled her displeasure in her sleep before resettling. Tenderness welled inside him as he smiled down on her. What a precious gift he’d been given.

  A gift he’d nearly lost yesterday.

  His smile faded as he padded on bare feet over to the window and looked out over the predawn landscape.

  How am I supposed to protect my family, Lord?

  Twice now the measures he’d taken had come back to haunt him, and both times Meredith had been the one to pay the price. She could have lost her leg the first time, and yesterday she could have frozen to death waiting for him to find her.

  All my life I’ve striven to protect those you’ve entrusted to my care. Yet no matter how hard I try, my efforts are never enough. What do you want from me?

  As the first hint of light softened the sky, a verse from Proverbs illuminated his heart. “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

  Conviction speared through him, and Travis had to place a hand against the wall to steady himself. He’d been shouldering the burden of guarding his family since his father charged him with the duty fourteen years ago. And all that time he’d trusted only himself to take care of them. Rarely had he sought the Lord’s guidance. His father had always said that God gave man a mind and expected him to use it, but perhaps he had taken that admonition too far.

  Travis glanced back at Meredith. Show me how best to take care of her. How to be a good husband, provider, and protector.

  Hungering for direction, he crossed the room on silent feet and eased open the dresser drawer where he kept his Bible. Then he crept out to the kitchen, lit a lamp, and settled into a chair at the table. His brothers would be up soon, but right now the morning was quiet—a good time to listen for the Lord.

  Not sure where to start, Travis thumbed the pages open to Proverbs. For much of his life, he’d clung to the wisdom of a particular verse in chapter 27. He ran his finger down the page until he found verse 12: “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself.” That’s what he had been doing the past fourteen years, trying to predict what evil might threaten his family and taking steps to hide away from it. But the disquiet in his soul made him wonder if perhaps the season for that tactic had passed. He and his brothers were no longer vulnerable boys who needed to hide. They were grown men who could fight for what was right.

  His gaze drifted over the page, not truly focusing, until the word brother caught his attention, just two verses up from where he’d been reading.

  “Thine own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not; neither go into thy brother’s house in the day of thy calamity: for better is a neighbour that is near than a brother far off.”

  Don’t forsake friends. Depend on neighbors. Your brothers might not always be at hand when trouble comes. Travis rubbed his brow, bracing his elbow against the table. Friends? Until Meredith had talked him into letting Moses help rebuild the barn, he hadn’t had any. Seth Winston might count as a friend of his father, but the old man only came around four times a year.

  And neighbors? He recalled a few schoolmates who’d had farms in the area, but he had no idea if their families were still around or not. Hadn’t Christ said that except for loving God, the most important command was to love one’s neighbor? Kind of hard to do that if he didn’t even know who his neighbors were.

  Another verse floated into memory, one about not only looking out for one’s own interests, but also to the interests of others. Travis began flipping pages toward the New Testament, but before he found the verse, something stuffed between the pages in Romans caused him to halt.

  A straw. A broken, short straw.

  She’d kept it.

  He wasn’t quite sure why that fact make his heart jump around in his chest, but it did. His hand even trembled slightly as he moved to take it out of the book’s crease. The brittle piece felt thin and delicate in his rough fingers. He stroked its length with his thumb and thought of the wife it had brought him.

  Meredith deserved better than a reclusive life. Whenever she talked about teaching on Saturdays, her whole face lit up. Myra and the children brought her such joy and gave her life a sense of purpose beyond daily chores. And she’d been right about his brothers, too. No matter how badly he wanted to keep them tied to the ranch, he knew the Lord had planted ambitions in them that could one day take them away. Jim had his carpentry and his newfound attachment to Cassie. Crockett had his preaching. And Neill? Well, the kid had an entire world of possibilities to explore.

  “Travis?”

  He swiveled toward the sleepy voice. Meredith stood in the doorway, her nightdress floating about her legs as she squinted into the lamplight.

  “Is everything all right?” Her fingers clenched nervously at the shawl she’d wrapped around her shoulders.

  Travis got to his feet. “What are you doing out of bed? You should be resting.” He closed the distance between them, thinking to lead her back to the bedroom.

  “I missed you.” The hushed admission froze him in his tracks and dr
ove all other thought out of his head.

  She missed him? Beside her? In bed?

  His gaze flew to her face to gauge if perhaps he’d misunderstood, even while his heart raced with the hope that he had not. She dipped her chin away from him, a delightful shade of pink coloring her cheeks.

  “I . . . I was cold.” She still couldn’t meet his eyes, and he prayed it was because his heat wasn’t the only thing she missed.

  Travis moved his hands up her arms to her shoulders, his fingers digging through her hair. “You know,” he said, probing her gently. “Now that winter’s here, you’re apt to be cold often. I’d be willing to help you stay warm on a more regular basis. If that was something you wanted.”

  She angled her face away from him and nibbled on her bottom lip.

  “Meri?” He forced himself to breathe slowly as he waited for her to turn and look at him. When her lashes finally lifted, the longing he read in her blue eyes matched the desire pulsing in his chest. “Is that what you want?”

  “Yes.”

  Tightening his grip on her nape, he drew her to him and slanted his lips possessively over hers. He stroked her jaw with the side of his thumbs and urged her to deepen the kiss. A tiny moan escaped her, and she melted against him. He was about to sweep her into his arms and take her back to his room where they could make good on the promise passing between them, but the creak of one of the hall doors brought him back to his senses.

  Reminding himself they had years to be together, Travis gentled his kiss and then pulled away. The fact that Meredith didn’t seem to want to stop nearly derailed his good intentions, but he managed to disentangle himself from her hold on him, pleased by her reluctance to let him go.

  “The others are starting to rise, Meri,” he murmured low in her ear. “Why don’t you go back to bed? The boys and I can fend for ourselves this morning.”

  “I don’t mind seeing to things, Travis. I can—”