Prairie Rose Page 3

  “I will,” the preacher said. “And I’ll see if I can manage a visit.” Lifting his hat, he gave the group a broad smile and spurred his horse past the wagon. Rosie took note that with his bright yellow hair and well-cut suit, the preacher could almost be called handsome. Not in the same way Seth Hunter was handsome, of course, but the preacher was tolerable looking all the same.

  As the wagon neared Indianola, Rosie pondered the unfolding panorama of the prairie and the hope it inspired. Toward evening, she came to a momentous conclusion regarding the six months she would spend on the Hunter homestead. She might actually find someone who would be amenable to the notion of marriage with a woman lacking pedigree, money, or a fancy education! In fact, she already had taken note of several prospects. A lonely widower. A traveling preacher. Even a Texas cowboy. The land was filling quickly with men in need of good, strong wives. The possibilities were endless.

  Rosie glanced at Seth Hunter on the wagon seat beside Jimmy. Her new employer was in want of a wife, though he wouldn’t admit it. He had made it clear that he would never allow another woman into his life. She suspected his first marriage had been one of true love—at least on Seth’s part. He had devoted himself to a young woman whose family despised his northern heritage and abolitionist sympathies. In defiance of her parents and brother, he had married Mary Cornwall, written countless letters to her while he was away in the war, and laid claim to their young son so he could keep a part of her with him always.

  Though she was dead to the world, it appeared that his wife was very much alive in Seth Hunter’s mind. Rosie sensed it would take a special woman to win his heart—a woman who had much more to offer than the ability to bake apple pies and black a stove from top to bottom.

  Though the travelers were just across the river from Topeka, Rosie spent her second night of independence sleeping under the open sky, an ebony umbrella sprinkled with stars. Seth had expressed concern that Jack Cornwall—assuming he had been released from custody and was recovered from the knock on his head—might be able to track the party down if they stopped in Topeka. Besides, Sheena wouldn’t hear of allowing her brablins to spend a night in such a wild city.

  The next day they began the long journey toward Manhattan. As the wagon rolled west, the land began to flatten, the trees gave way to tall golden grass, the streams slowed down and straightened into long silver ribbons. The sun beat on the travelers like a merciless golden hammer.

  Throughout the day, the mules plodded wearily down the baked, dusty trail. Every twelve miles, they passed a station on the Butterfield stagecoach route—a refreshing, timely stopping place to trade and water the mule teams. Seth, in a hurry to elude his possible pursuer, paused as briefly as possible.

  The sunburned O’Toole children grew restless during the long journey, the young ones whimpering and the older ones fussing at each other. Not even passing through the Potawatomi Indian reservation could perk them up. Seated between his father and Jimmy O’Toole, Chipper slumped over on the front bench, shoulders hunched. Sheena fanned herself as she mourned the lack of a canvas wagon cover, and Jimmy mopped his forehead.

  “Why then, Seth, do you think that sherral Jack Cornwall is coming after us even now?” Sheena asked as the sun rose to its apex. Like a mother hen, she had settled her five children around her. The two youngest drowsed on her lap. “Sure, I won’t have harm done to any of my wee ones.”

  “I doubt he’ll be able to track me down right away,” Seth said over his shoulder. “The sheriff had him in custody, and a couple of townspeople gave the story of what happened between us in the street. I hope Cornwall will stay locked up for a while, anyway.”

  “Aye, but then what? Does he know where you homestead?”

  “All he’d have to do is ask around.”

  “Will he come for you?”

  “It’s the boy he wants.”

  “Chipper, you’re a good lad, aren’t you?” Sheena asked softly. “You don’t want your papa to come to harm. Why then, let’s have the preacher in Manhattan write a letter to your grandparents and tell them how happy you are.”

  The little boy turned and scowled at her. “I don’t wanna live with no Yankee papa,” he said, speaking aloud for the first time that day. “I want to go home to Gram an’ Gramps. I want my mama.”

  “Enough about her,” Seth snapped. “You have a papa, and I don’t want to hear any more talk about your mama.”

  Rosie bristled at the man’s harsh tone. Surely he could understand the boy missing his mother. Seth Hunter wanted a son, but he clearly had no idea how to be a father. If he intended to weld the two of them into a family, he would have to do better than chastise the little boy and forbid him to mention the mother he was so obviously mourning.

  Rosie couldn’t deny she knew little about the business of being a family. But after nineteen years at the Christian Home for Orphans and Foundlings, she did know a great deal about children. Above their basic needs of food, clothes, and shelter, they wanted kindness. Discipline. A good Christian example to follow. And fun. All children deserved fun.

  “Let’s play Cupid’s Coming,” she said, elbowing Erinn, the oldest of the O’Toole children. At eight, Erinn was well versed in the responsibilities of child care. “You and I will start, and we’ll go around the wagon, ending with your mother. How’s that?”

  “Cupid’s Coming?” Erinn asked, her green eyes bright. “But we don’t know that game.”

  “It’s easy. I’ll start. We’ll use the letter T for the first round.” Rosie frowned for a moment, pretending to study the situation. “Cupid’s coming,” she told Erinn. “Now you ask, how?”

  “How?”

  “Tiptoeing.”

  “Cupid’s coming,” Erinn told her brother, six-year-old Will.

  “How?”

  “Talking,” Erinn said.

  Will turned to Colleen. “Cupid’s coming.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “Terrifying!” Will shouted, forming his hands into claws. Everyone laughed. Even Chipper managed a half grin.

  Colleen nudged her father on the wagon seat. “Cupid’s coming.”

  “How?” he asked.

  “Ticktocking.”

  “Cupid’s coming,” Jimmy told Chipper.

  “How?”

  “Tapping.”

  Chipper looked at his father. Then he glanced back at Rosie. She gave him an encouraging wink.

  “Cupid’s coming,” the boy said.

  Seth gave the reins a bored flick. “How?”

  “Tripping.”

  “Cupid’s tripping?” Seth exclaimed. “Well, I guess that’s the end of the game then.”

  “No!” the children shouted. “Come on, Seth! Play with us.”

  “Excuse me,” Rosie cut in. “I’m afraid Mr. Hunter didn’t take his turn quickly enough. He’ll have to pay a forfeit.”

  Seth turned slowly, his blue eyes locking on Rosie’s face. “A forfeit?”

  She lifted her chin and stuck out her hand. “That’s right. Pay up, sir.”

  Seth frowned and patted his empty shirt pocket. “I’m afraid I’m fresh out of—” He stopped, leaned out of the wagon, reached into the tall grass growing by the trail, and snapped the prickly head off a dry stem. He tossed Rosie the small black ball. “Purple coneflower.”

  She held the gift in the palm of her hands. “This is a flower?”

  “Seeds. You’ll have to plant them if you want flowers.” Seth turned to Sheena. “I choose the letter A. Cupid’s coming.”

  “A? Why, Seth, that’s impossible!” Sheena squawked.

  “Cupid’s coming,” he repeated.

  “How?”

  “Annoying,” Seth said, giving Rosie a look.

  The game faltered after that. The letter A only managed to make its way to Will, who came up with “apples” and was disqualified. He paid his forfeit with a peppermint-sticky kiss on Rosie’s cheek.

  She was tucking her purple coneflower seedpod into the pouc
h she wore around her neck when Seth pulled the wagon up to a small frame building, unpainted and sagging. “Holloway’s Stagecoach Station,” he called. “I’ve had enough of Miss Mills’s songs and games for one morning. We’ll stop here for lunch.”

  “Hurrah! Come on, Chipper!” Will grabbed the younger boy by the hand. “This station has a creek out back—with tadpoles!”

  “Don’t get muddy!” Sheena called. She woke the littlest ones and began handing them down to Seth and Jimmy one by one. “I pray Mrs. Holloway has some of those delicious pickles. I want to buy a few. I’d love the recipe, but Mrs. Holloway won’t give it out. Selfish, if you ask me.”

  “Come on then, my treasure,” Jimmy said. “You know you’ll copy the taste of Mrs. Holloway’s pickles in your own kitchen, as fine a cook as you are.”

  “Blather, blather, blather,” Sheena said with a chuckle.

  She and Jimmy walked toward the station as Seth lifted a hand to help Rosie down. She slipped her fingers onto his palm, aware of the hard calluses that bore testament to his labors. Lifting the hem of her skirt, she stepped onto the wagon wheel. Before she could jump down, Seth wrapped both hands around her waist and swung her to the ground.

  “Cupid’s coming,” he said in a low voice. “Afflicting.”

  “Appalling,” she shot back, meeting his steady blue gaze.

  “Agitating.”

  “Alarming.”

  She pulled away from him and hurried toward the station door, aware that her cheeks must be as hot and red as a pair of sun-ripened tomatoes. Why was he tormenting her this way? Did he despise her?

  “Agonizing,” he said, following her with long strides.

  She sucked in a breath and stopped. “Abusing.”

  He smiled. “Amusing.”

  “A … a … admitting.”

  “Admiring.”

  She stepped through the door into the cool shadows. “I can’t … can’t think … oh, alligator.”

  “Ha! Too slow. You lose.” He stood over her, seeming twice as tall as he had in the Kansas City mercantile. “I’m afraid Miss Mills wasn’t able to give an answer quickly enough. She’ll have to pay a forfeit.”

  Rosie swallowed. “What do you want? You know I don’t have anything.”

  “Agreeing.”

  “To what?”

  “No more games. No more songs. No more silliness. Leave my son to me. Take care of him—feed him, see that his clothes are patched, make him go to bed at night—but that’s all. Come fall, Miss Mills, I’m taking you back to Kansas City. I don’t want Chipper sad to see you leave. He’s my son. Got that?” He turned into the station.

  “Cupid’s coming,” Rosie said softly behind him.

  Seth swung around, a frown drawing down the corners of his mouth.

  “Accepting,” she finished. Spotting Sheena admiring a bolt of calico, she set off toward the counter.

  As Seth chewed on a slab of salt pork as tough as old leather, he studied Rosie Mills from under the brim of his hat. He didn’t like her. Didn’t trust her. She was too cheerful, too perky. Worse, she was defiant. In opposition to his direct orders, she had continued her charming, winsome ways with the children. With her songs and games, she had easily won them over. Look at them.

  Under the shade of a big black willow tree, Rosie had arranged everybody in a circle and was marching around tapping them one by one as she chanted:

  “Heater, beater, Peter mine,

  Hey Betty Martin, tiptoe fine.

  Higgledy-piggledy, up the spout,

  Tip him, turn him ’round about.

  One, two, three,

  Out goes he!”

  In a moment, the whole pack of children was racing around like a bunch of prairie dogs with rabies. Rosie ran among them, her bonnet ribbons flying and her skirts dancing at her ankles. How could anyone who had nothing—no home, no family, not even a blanket or a spare petticoat—be as happy as that?

  No, Seth thought, it just didn’t make sense. In fact, it was downright suspicious. What was she after, this Rosie Mills? What was she planning to get out of this little adventure of hers? What scheme did she have up her sleeve?

  Even worse than her unsettling cheeriness was the way Chipper responded to Rosie. Ever since Seth had reclaimed the boy, Chipper had spoken barely six words to him—and not one of them was charitable. Seth could hardly blame him. After all, until three days ago, they were complete strangers, and with little explanation he had scooped up the boy, toted him to his wagon, and driven off with him.

  Sure, Chipper understood that Seth was his father. Thanks to his grandparents, the boy had been well versed in the story of the Yankee “scalawag” who had sired him. Chipper didn’t like his father, didn’t trust him, wanted nothing to do with him. But the child clearly adored Rosie Mills.

  “Oh, Chipper!” she exclaimed as he tackled her, and she tumbled to the ground in a heap. “You caught me, you little rascal!”

  “You’re it, you’re it!” Barefooted, he danced around her. “Rosie’s it!”

  “I can’t!” She threw back her head, stretched out her long legs, and gave a breathless laugh. “You’ve worn me out, all of you.”

  “Let’s go down to the stream again before Papa calls us to the wagon,” Will suggested. “We’ll catch a frog and take it to Bluestem Creek. Come on, Rosie! Come with us!”

  “You go ahead. I need to catch my breath.”

  “Please come,” Chipper begged, pulling on her hand in an attempt to make her stand.

  “Really, sweetheart, I can’t. Go with Will. He’ll show you how to catch a frog.”

  Seth watched as the children traipsed over the hill and down the slope toward the creek. The moment they were gone, Rosie pulled off her bonnet and crumpled it in her lap. A pained expression darkening her eyes, she gingerly touched the back of her head. Then she began to take out her hairpins one by one. She loosed the thick ropes of her brown tresses. Her hair slid to her shoulders, then tumbled down her back to the ground in a puddle of shiny silk.

  Seth stared. He’d never seen such hair. Long hair—masses of it—draped around the woman like a brown cape. Even more amazing was the great pile of it that sat in the grass around her hips. Rosie Mills had enough hair for three women. Maybe four. Unaware of Seth’s staring, she bent over her knees and probed her head.

  “Sheena,” she called softly. “Sheena?”

  Seth frowned. Sheena was inside the station buying pickles. Jimmy was with her, trading one of his famous knives for a cast-iron skillet. Rosie touched her head again and looked at her fingers.

  “Sheena!”

  “She’s inside,” Seth called. He set his plate of salt pork in the wagon bed and started toward her. “Something wrong?”

  “My head. It hurts where I hit it the other day. I’m afraid … am I bleeding again?”

  Seth didn’t like the notion of getting too near the woman. His new employee had an unsettling way of looking into his eyes as though she could read his thoughts. And she smelled good. He had noticed that when he helped her down from the wagon. She smelled clean and fresh—like starch mingled with lavender. Most of all, he didn’t want to touch that silky sheet of her hair.

  “I shouldn’t have been running,” she was saying, “but I thought if the children played hard, they might sleep in the wagon this afternoon. It would shorten the trip for them. Would you mind taking a look at my bump, Mr. Hunter? If I’m bleeding, I think I should put some ice on it. Maybe the stationmaster would spare … Mr. Hunter? Would you mind?”

  She turned those big chocolate eyes on him, and Seth walked over to her like a puppet on a string. Before he could stop himself, he was kneeling beside her and drinking in that sweet lavender scent. She sifted through her hair with long fingers.

  “It’s just there,” she whispered. “Can you see anything?”

  He touched the warm brown strands. “You’ve got a swollen lump—”

  “Ouch!”

  “Sorry. I don’t think it�
�s bleeding again. I could buy you a chunk of ice.”

  “No, I’ll be all right.” She threaded her fingers through her hair. “I would hate to spend good money on something that’s going to melt. I just don’t want to stain my bonnet, you understand. This is the only one I have, and it’s very precious to me. Priscilla gave it to me two years ago, before she left the Home.”

  “Priscilla?”

  “My best friend. When she married the vegetable seller’s oldest son, he bought her three new bonnets—not to mention a green twill skirt, a pair of new stockings, and a wool shawl. Wool. Pure, white wool. So, seeing as she didn’t need it, she gave this bonnet to me for Christmas.”

  Seth blinked. He’d never heard anyone rattle on the way Rosie Mills could. Despite the bump on her head, she jumped from one subject to the next like a rabbit in a spring garden. As much as he wanted to ignore her, Seth couldn’t quite suppress his intrigue.

  “Cilla lived at the Home three years,” Rosie went on, oblivious to her employer’s bemusement. “She came to stay with us after her parents died in a terrible fire. All her relatives lived in England, and they couldn’t afford boat passage for her even though she ached to go to them.”

  “I’m sure she did,” Seth managed, searching for an adequate response to the woeful tale. “Poor Cilla.”

  “It was very sad. But I wouldn’t feel too sorry for her, if I were you. Cilla wasn’t a foundling, you know. She came from a respected family, and she was very pretty. Blonde. Curls everywhere. Anyway, the vegetable seller’s son decided she would make a good wife. So they married, and now she has a baby girl and another on the way.”

  “Not to mention three new bonnets, a skirt, and a pair of stockings.”

  The corners of Rosie’s mouth turned up. “Don’t forget the wool shawl.”

  “Lucky girl to win the heart of the vegetable seller’s oldest son. Must have been true love.”