Daniel's Bride by Linda Lael Miller

Author:Linda Lael Miller [Miller, Linda Lael]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Historical, Western Stories, Washington Territory, General, Romance, Washington Territory - History, Western, Historical Fiction, Fiction
ISBN: 9781451611274
Google: te8hCQxoug4C
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 1992-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Jolie gave Deuter a sad smile as she got to her feet. She knew he'd been sitting nearby, practically the whole time she was sleeping, and she was touched.

She didn't bother to heat water to wash with. Instead, she got herself a cloth and soap and a towel, along with fresh underthings and her brown sateen church dress, and bathed herself out in the well house. The cool bite of the water, pumped from the depths of the earth, braced her up for the ordeal ahead.

Or perhaps it numbed her. When Jolie and Daniel arrived in town in the wagon, an hour or so after she'd awakened from that dreamless sleep in the fragrant grass, she had an odd sense of unreality. She pinched the tender skin on the inside of her forearm, on the off chance that she wasn't in town to see Joe Culley buried at all, but still slumbering underneath the poplar tree.

The churchyard was surrounded by buggies and wagons and lone horses tethered to the picket fence. Most of the mourners were dressed in their work clothes, having just left the sawmill or the harvest, the bank or the livery stable.

Daniel lifted Jolie down from the wagon. There was comfort in the solid strength of his arms and despair in the careful holding-away as he made sure their bodies didn't touch.

Gemma and Hank appeared, their dandelion gold hair bright in the last fiery sunshine of the day, their blue eyes filled with fear and questions as they looked up at Jolie. She hugged them both close for a moment, and kissed each one on top of the head.

"Have you been minding Mrs. Dailey?" she asked, her voice husky.

"Yes, ma'am," Hank said staunchly. "We surely have. But Gemma and me, well, we've got a mind to come home with you, if that's all right with you."

Daniel's big frame stiffened at the word home, but Jolie pretended not to notice.

"We'll be getting on with the harvest tomorrow, I'm sure," she told the child. "Frankly, I could use somebody to carry water and pick berries and catch trout for the men's dinner."

The two worried little faces brightened. In that remarkably subtle way he sometimes had, Daniel herded his brood toward the graveside, where Joe's other friends were gathered.

Although she would not have thought to lean on him, Jolie took blessed assurance from knowing Mr. Beckham was standing directly behind her, as solid and well-rooted as a cedar tree. She looked on, dryeyed and oddly distant from the proceedings, while the minister said Bible words over Joe's pinewood coffin.

All around her, women wept softly, and Jolie wondered if it was some lack in her spirit that let her endure the ceremony so stoically. Nan 's thin shoulders were moving with the force of silent sobs, and Verena's eyes were suspiciously bright behind her black net veil.

This was what it all came down to, Jolie thought dispassionately. A person worked and hoped and dreamed and suffered for whatever number of years the good Lord had allotted to them.

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