A Love Most Worthy Page 5

  Rance snapped the cover on the watch, closing it, and stuffed the timepiece back in his waistcoat pocket. “Robbie fell in the river, so we came home.”

  “Robbie?” She glanced toward the door. “Is he all right?”

  He would find her concern touching if his blood weren’t boiling. But he had promised himself he wouldn’t lose his temper and chide her publicly as he’d done that day at the store, so he turned his back and entered the house. The clatter of her footsteps followed on his heels.

  He turned to face her and counted to ten before saying, “Robbie is fine. Where have you been?”

  “With the Zellers. I’m afraid the time got away from me.” Hallie removed her hat and dropped it on the seat of the rocking chair. Without looking at him, she asked, “Were you worried?”

  Worried? Try a stomach tied in knots for the past hour—knots as tight as when he’d heard the splash and Robbie’s wail.

  He grabbed a cup from the kitchen counter, giving his voice time to strike a note of disinterest. “When you go out in the future, Hallie, please pay attention to the time.”

  “You were worried.” The trepidation on her face turned to something else he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Relief? Happiness?

  Rance poured water from the pitcher into the cup. He wouldn’t lie and, under the circumstances, wouldn’t confess to the concern.

  When he ignored her comment, she asked, “Where are the boys?”

  “Napping. Our trip was cut short, but not before we caught our supper.”

  She walked to the sink and glanced at the pan full of fish. “They look good.” Her fingers drummed against the counter as if she were debating something. Then her shoulders rose and fell as she faced him. “I was on my way back when I met Mr. Digby. There was a fight on Front Street, and he offered to see me safely home.”

  The veins in his head threatened to explode. “Front Street? What were you doing there?”

  She opened the little box dangling from a chain on the chatelaine at her waist, pulled out something from inside, and dropped it on her palm. “Look.”

  He picked up the stone not much bigger than the head of the smallest screw he sold in the store. His chest tightened. “Where did you get this?”

  Hallie grinned. “Mr. Zeller gave it to me. He insisted, because I visited his wife.”

  Believing he knew the answer, he forced himself to calmly ask, “You visited his wife where?”

  With her hesitation, his suspicion rose to such heights it made him dizzy. Then she raised her chin and said, “The beach.”

  Rance congratulated himself on setting the cup down without shattering it. “Where exactly does this man mine the beach?”

  Uncertainty—and a flash of guilt—marred her features. “A mile or so west of the landing, but—”

  “You walked there by yourself?”

  “I met Mr. Tucker at the river, and he escorted me.”

  Tucker. Zeller. Digby. How many men had she associated with today?

  She plucked the gold from his fingers, placed the nugget inside the box, and snapped it shut. She washed up and poured a measure of cornmeal onto a plate. “Mr. Tucker helped me find my new friend and her husband.”

  “And this husband gave you his gold?”

  “I operated the rocker. Actually, I never would have noticed the gold if Mr. Zeller hadn’t found it in the tailings.”

  Rocker? Tailings? “It sounds as though he taught you a lot about the subject in one afternoon.” Or was today not the first time she’d met with him? How was Rance to know there even was a wife? The woman at the store could have been married to someone else.

  “I knew quite a bit about the subject before I came ashore. Today, I found out firsthand that it’s not easy work.” She rubbed her shoulder as she turned around. “Will you take me panning one day? I’m sure the boys will enjoy the experience too. We could make it an educational outing.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Rance worked to control his revulsion. The last thing he needed was a wife who had surrendered her good sense to gold fever. Hadn’t he suffered enough through one relationship with a money-grubbing woman? “Mining gold is no work for a female, Hallie. You might as well get it through your head that it brings only misery. It’s only good for people with more greed than brains.”

  Hallie’s back pressed into the counter as if she couldn’t put enough space between them. “More greed than brains? What harm is there in seeking a better life? And Sybil Zeller labors as hard as her husband for their future. As for your concern over my sense of greed, please be sure to look in the mirror. No man travels to a gold rush town unless he hopes to strike it rich.”

  The old Rance would have agreed. The new Rance said nothing.

  “I suppose this means I’m not allowed to visit my friends in the future.”

  When he didn’t answer right away, she spun toward the counter and slammed a headless and gutted grayling onto the plate holding the cornmeal. The coating shot into the air in a pale-yellow cloud. “Mr. Tucker and the Zellers are fine people and customers at your store.”

  “Many of the men around here buy from me. It doesn’t mean I know them well enough to escort my wife to the beach or teach her to search for gold. And I certainly don’t trust Mr. Digby!”

  Her back stiffened before she rotated on the balls of her feet to face him. Her skin was as crimson as the ribbon he’d bought her, and her chin trembled. She pressed her lips into a flat line before saying, “I do not appreciate your insinuation, Mr. Preston. At least Mr. Digby and Mr. Tucker cared enough to see to my safety. The man who vowed to cherish me until he died couldn’t be bothered.” She whipped around again, and a second grayling splashed into the cornmeal.

  With everything she’d said, only one word resonated. Cherish. He had vowed before God to cherish her. And he’d lied.

  He liked Hallie’s ability to relate to the boys, and her cheerful outlook brightened their lives. But love her? How could God expect him to keep his promise when one woman had destroyed his trust in all women?

  She had a point though. He shouldn’t have let her go off without some type of security, even if he hadn’t been aware she would wander through crowds of rough miners and brawling men or allow herself to be escorted home by a gambler.

  Hallie’s shoulders sank. “I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you, Rance.” She pivoted on her toes. “I suspected you wouldn’t approve of me going to the beach on my own, so I decided not to tell you where the Zellers lived. I didn’t want Mr. Digby to walk me home, but the story of Three Eyes Elliott scared me.”

  Hearing of poor Mr. Elliott’s death had cost Rance several hours of sleep reliving his own story.

  “Then there was the fight, and I found out I’m a coward when it comes to living the adventures my father always talked about. Maybe I am as worthless as he believed.”

  Rance drew back at those final, mumbled words. He knew his wife well enough to realize she possessed an ample supply of courage. Although the bulk of his anger dissolved when faced with her regret, his mistrust would be harder to cast aside.

  “I don’t know why your father treated you that way, Hallie, but you traveled hundreds of miles to a place you’d never seen to marry a stranger and care for children you’d never met. You may be more impulsive than makes me comfortable, but you’re not worthless, and your father had no right to put a thought like that into your head.”

  When her eyes softened with an expression of gratitude, the marrow in his bones heated, and he struggled against the urge to wrap her in his arms and convince her of her worth.

  To combat the burn, he grabbed the cup and gulped the tepid water he’d poured, then said, “You have value in God’s sight, and He loves you beyond measure. You’re His child. Never forget that.”

  As those words tumbled through his mind, they spoke to his soul. He had value, too. Despite his past, he was God’s child now.

  “Thank you, Rance.”

  He cleared his throat. “If you
plan another day away from home, you’ll carry a weapon.” His gaze held hers. “And you’ll know how to use it.”

  Chapter Seven

  Hallie followed Rance through the grass to the location he’d chosen for their shooting practice, a spot well away from innocent bystanders.

  She placed the picnic basket she’d carried on top of a folded quilt and waited for Rance to finish setting up a row of tin cans. In minutes, he stood behind her with one hand on the rifle and the other on her arm. “Press the butt of the rifle here.”

  Firing a gun was the last thing on her mind when he guided her to settle the weapon against the crook of her shoulder. The spicy scent of his hair tonic perfumed the air around her. The muscles of his upper arm pressed against hers, and the warmth of his palm seeped through the material of her shirtwaist. At the explosion of senses, her imagination spiraled to other activities...hand-holding and romantic walks, snug embraces and fire-stoking kisses.

  “Hallie?”

  His voice brought her back to the reality of their marriage. “Sorry.”

  She refocused her attention on his instructions and the targets laid out like headless soldiers. At least, it was overcast, and the sun didn’t glint off the metal. For the past week, rain had drenched everything in sight, and they had slopped through mud this morning to take advantage of a break in the weather. “Like this?”

  “That’s good. Now, peer through the scope and aim for the first can on the left.” He backed away as she crimped one eye shut. “Do you see it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Take a deep breath and hold it.”

  When her chest inflated and she sucked in her lips, he laughed. “Relax, Hallie. Just put your finger on the trigger and ease it back.”

  He had warned her of the kickback and deafening explosion. Nevertheless, when the weapon fired, she screeched and almost dropped it. Her gaze never left the row of cans in the distance. “Did I hit it? I can’t tell. They all look alike.” She jabbed a finger at each one, counting out loud, then groaned and said, “I missed it. How did I miss when it was clearly in my site?”

  “Even Annie Oakley had to practice to become a crack shot. Remember what I told you and try again.”

  Five tries later, a high-pitched ping wobbled a can in the center of the row. It didn’t fall, and it wasn’t the one he had told her to aim at, but the sound sent her into a dance as she waved the rifle over her head.

  His smile gone, he eased the weapon from her hands. “Caution, Mrs. Preston, or you’ll be dressing in widow’s weeds.”

  The dancing stopped, but her joy didn’t wane. “I guess I got excited.”

  “Yeah, I guess. You should celebrate, but safety is your priority.”

  He returned the rifle, and she aimed and shot until her bruised shoulder ached, and she’d knocked cans from the rock several times. She would have continued had he not said, “Let’s rest a while.”

  When he eyed the picnic basket, Hallie asked, “Hungry?”

  Rance ambled toward the basket. “Hungry enough to eat the north end of a south bound musk ox.”

  She blinked at the statement and needed a moment to translate it, then laughed and said, “If you’ll spread the quilt on the grass, I’ll unpack our lunch.”

  Since the day she’d deceived Rance about the Zellers, something had changed in their relationship, and she wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Mostly, it involved trivial things like his growing willingness to converse with her and the tentative smiles she received from him as she played with the children or taught them their letters. Nothing, not even friendship or searching for gold, would be worth resorting to dishonesty again.

  If only he would consent to letting her join in the nightly ritual of putting Robbie and Davie to bed. She hadn’t asked, and he hadn’t offered.

  “It seems odd not having the boys with us.” It seemed odder still to be alone with her husband. She surveyed their surroundings. All alone.

  “They’re in good hands with Mrs. Taylor.”

  It was on the tip of Hallie’s tongue to ask why Rance had sent for a wife when he trusted the mother of his store manager to care for the boys. Had Mrs. Taylor ever shared in tucking them in at night? Had she prayed with them? Hallie bit down on the questions. Why spoil this rare time with her husband by bringing up touchy issues regarding their marriage?

  Once they settled on the quilt, she handed him a sandwich, thin on last night’s leftover beef. He bit into it and released a groan of satisfaction. “Your bread is as good as my mama’s.”

  For the joy the compliment gave her, Rance might as well have pinned a blue ribbon to her blouse. “Thank you. My father often ate like two men, though he never praised the food.”

  Rance frowned. “It sounds as if he never recognized the treasure he had in you.”

  If her husband kept up these praises, she might cry.

  TOO BAD RANCE HADN’T had a chance to meet the late Mr. Russell. He’d have expressed his opinion of the man’s poor treatment toward his daughter.

  Hallie closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “There’s a freedom here, isn’t there? I’ll admit, when I first landed on the beach, I was excited to be here but not impressed by the bleak landscape. Now, it makes my pulse pound with its expanse.”

  “You may change your mind come winter.”

  “Possibly. Look!” She pointed to a small herd of caribou in the distance. “They’re beautiful.”

  Rance listened to her soft voice as she pointed out the magnificence around them. He saw the countryside through her eyes. Nome was no longer a hastily-built town filled with loud noises, soiled air, and frustrated expectations. The tundra wasn’t miles of empty land with streams marred by manmade holes. Through Hallie’s eyes, he saw a stunning environment of possibilities amid the unique elements of nature. The thought made him ask, “Why did you come here, Hallie? Other than for marriage, I mean.”

  She peered up at him, and the sadness in her eyes took him by surprise. Pink branched from her fair-skinned cheeks to meet at the tip of her nose. “Because, unlike my father, I will not die with regrets.”

  She opened the locket and drew out a different piece of metal than the one she’d shown him before. It was polished to a high, golden luster. “This is an example of his find in the Black Hills. He was eighteen when the gold rush began, and he joined the other miners in ’75. I grew up listening to his stories about the adventures he’d had and the fortune he’d made. They were as exciting as anything written in a novel.” Her voice took on a wistfulness, as if she were sitting at his knee, listening to those stories. “Hearing his tall tales all my life, I’d had no idea of the tragedies miners faced, the perils involved in finding the gold—and then keeping it. Being here has taught me that he exaggerated and romanticized his recollections.”

  Rance knew the costs too well.

  “My father worked his claim for a year before meeting my mother. She died when I was a year old, so he returned to Seattle to fulfill what he always called ‘his duty’—raising me.”

  “He probably meant for you to have a normal upbringing as a lady.”

  “What was normal about being reminded over and over that I’d ruined my father’s ambitions? He’d been disappointed that my mother hadn’t borne him a son, as if she’d had a choice. Instead, he was stuck with a daughter in a small, rented house, while working as a bank clerk, handling other people’s money.”

  “You said he’d made his fortune.”

  “And lost it.”

  That sounded like other miners Rance had known. What could he say to reassure her of her father’s love when he’d never met the man—his father-in-law?

  His tongue was tied, but not hers. “My father used to say that living was only worthwhile if it stirred something wild inside us. I realize that’s not true...not really, but it’s what he believed.”

  Rance cringed. There was a time when he would have agreed with Mr. Russell.

  “Last summer, he’d had his fill of watchin
g life pass him by, so...” She looked away, but not before he saw a salty tide fill her eyes. “He decided to end it.”

  The mental image soured Rance’s stomach like tainted meat, and his fist curled. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s why I don’t like the color red.”

  And he had given her a red ribbon for her hair.

  She played with a loose thread in the quilt. “Does the way my father died make a difference to you?”

  Why should it? He didn’t believe suicide was a disease passed on to the next generation. Even if that were the case, children were not in their future. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

  “I had no money and nothing to guide me but years of stories. I thought I could honor his memory by doing something he never expected from me.”

  “Then I came along with my offer of marriage—a man living in a gold rush district.” That normally strong chin dipped, evidence he’d guessed right. The bread sat like a lump of raw dough on his stomach.

  “I don’t apologize for accepting your offer any more than you would apologize for making it.”

  She was right. They had needed one another. They still did.

  Rance gripped her hand. “A man who wants something as badly as your father claimed doesn’t make excuses for not having it, Hallie. He goes after it, just as you did. Have you ever asked yourself why he chose to end his life rather than leave Seattle once you were grown?”

  She released a soft snort. “How could he? He wasn’t a young man anymore, and no one was beating down my door asking for my hand in marriage. He felt a responsibility to me.”

  He paused only a moment to consider the wisdom of speaking his mind. “Maybe raising you cost your father nothing he didn’t willingly give up. From the way you’ve described him, it’s possible he preferred to lay a heap of guilt on his loving daughter rather than admit he’d lost the nerve to live the life he claimed to want.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath, and he let her think about it. Finally, she said, “I suppose it’s possible.”

  It had taken courage to reveal her past to him. The question now was whether he could reciprocate and tell her another truth she deserved to know—the truth about himself.