Smoke River Bride

‘Do you, Leah, take Thaddeus for your lawful wedded husband?’

‘I—’ Her throat clogged. ‘I do,’ Leah choked out.

Reverend Pollock cleared his throat. ‘I now pronounce you husband and wife.’ In finishing, he raised his voice to cover the whispers from the congregation behind them. ‘May God bless you both and keep you safe in the shelter of His love. You may kiss the bride,’ he added in a lower tone.

Leah waited in an agony of nerves for Thad to touch her. She blinked hard and then Thad’s mouth settled gently over hers, his lips warm and firm. It lasted but an instant, but Leah’s breath knotted beneath her breastbone.

It was over. Thad’s hand held hers just tight enough to keep her feet anchored to the earth. If she skipped down the aisle, as she felt like doing, she would float away.

Together they started toward the church door, and only then did Leah become aware of the heavy, disapproving silence that greeted them. She kept her head up and tried to smile at the sea of stony faces. Not one person would meet her eyes…

AUTHOR NOTE

The inspiration for this book came from a photograph of a young Chinese girl taken by Arnold Genthe, which I found in the book San Francisco’s Old Chinatown. The struggles of the Chinese in the nineteenth century touched me, and I felt drawn to the difficulties a young woman of a totally foreign culture might have experienced in a small Western American town. As a nation, we have not always shown tolerance towards those who are ‘different’ from us; I pray we are becoming more enlightened.

About the Author

LYNNA BANNING has combined a lifelong love of history and literature into a satisfying career as a writer. Born in Oregon, she has lived in Northern California most of her life. After graduating from Scripps College she embarked on a career as an editor and technical writer, and later as a high school English teacher.

An amateur pianist and harpsichordist, Lynna performs on psaltery and harp in a medieval music ensemble and coaches in her spare time. She enjoys hearing from her readers. You may write to her directly at PO Box 324, Felton, CA 95018, USA, or at carolynw@cruzio.com. Visit Lynna’s website at www.lynnabanning.net

Novels by the same author:

HARK THE HARRIED ANGELS

(part of One Starry Christmas anthology)

THE SCOUT

HIGH COUNTRY HERO

Smoke River
Bride

Lynna Banning

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For Suzanne Barrett

Chapter One

The day Leah arrived in Smoke River it was snowing. She stepped off the train from Portland and peered into a cloud of swirling white flakes, unable to see a foot ahead. Her feet were freezing inside her black leather slippers and she could think of nothing but reaching the squat whitewashed station house and folding her blue fingers around a cup of hot tea. She stumbled blindly forward, lugging her small valise.

A white mountain loomed in her path, and before she could stop, her face smacked into something furry at nose level. It turned out to be the beaver trim on the front of a man’s jacket. A large man, taller than her father by at least six inches.

“Sorry, lass,” he rumbled.

She clutched her floppy silk hat and looked up. Through the mist of falling snow she saw a man’s square jaw and a trim mustache that reminded her of Father’s. He was tall and broad-shouldered and towered over her like a sturdy tree. Instantly she lowered her eyes as she had been taught.

“Might watch where you’re goin’,” he grumbled.

“And the same to you, sir,” she said before she could stop herself. She should not have spoken out like that. Her mother would have scolded her.

She moved to step around him, but a large, long-fingered hand encased in a leather glove gripped her arm. “You just come in on the train from Portland?”

“Yes, I did.” She pulled out of his grasp and resumed her path toward the station house and the prospect of hot tea.

“Did you see a woman, maybe with red hair and a Scots burr, on the train?”

She turned to face him, and this time she did meet his eyes. He was good-looking in a craggy sort of way, with steady, sky-blue eyes that seemed to look right through her. “I was the only woman on that train, sir. And I do not have red hair.”

“Ye’re not Scots, then?”

“I am half Scottish. Of what interest is that to you?” She could almost see her mother’s scowl for being so forward.

“None, I guess. I’m waitin’ for my new bride. She’s supposed to be comin’ from San Francisco, but I’ve never laid eyes on her before, and I wouldn’t recognize her.”

Leah’s heart dropped into her ice-crusted shoes. Oh, no. She was the woman he was waiting for. He thought she would be a Scottish woman because of her name, Cameron. She swallowed twice. Such a mistake was a very unlucky sign.

Ten days ago she had replied to a notice in the San Francisco newspaper. “Rancher with young son needs wife. Educated, honest, hardworking.”

Mr. Thaddeus MacAllister had answered immediately and enclosed the train fare. He had never seen her, and she had never seen him.

And we are to be married in twenty-four hours!

She couldn’t do it. She’d thought she could marry a man she had never seen, but she just couldn’t. What had she been thinking?

She had not been thinking, of course. She’d just had to escape the ugly situation she’d found herself in. Now she thought she would be sick all over this man’s beaver jacket, and that would be even more unlucky.

The tall man bent toward her. “Her name is Leah Cameron. Do you know her?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, her voice resigned. “I do know her.” She drew in a big gulp of air and let it out slowly. “I am Leah Cameron.”

His eyes widened. “What? You don’t look Scottish to me!” He brushed back her silk bonnet and scanned her face. “Don’t look Scottish at all!”

Leah raised her chin but kept her eyes lowered. “I am half Scottish, as I said. My father’s name was Franklin Cameron. He died of cholera a month ago.”

The man grabbed her by both arms and pulled her forward until her nose grazed a jacket button.

“And the other half?”

“The other half is…” She reached up and pulled her floppy hat completely off so he could see her face.

His eyes went even wider. “Good God, you…you’re a Celestial!”

“I am half Chinese. My mother’s name was Ming Sa. She is now dead, as well.”

He kept staring at her, his mouth hanging open. Finally his jaw clicked shut. “Look, miss, I placed my notice because I need a…well, a wife. I never figured you’d be a…a foreigner.”

“According to the Immigration Authority, I am not a foreigner. My father was an American citizen, a missionary living in China, so I am American, too.”

“Well.” The man cleared his throat. “I never expected this. I mean, you.”

Not a good sign. “You mean you expected me to be a white woman. Caucasian.” It wasn’t a question. She knew how the Chinese were regarded in the West. The tales she had heard of the treatment of “Celestial” railroad crews made her cringe.

Leah watched his expelled breath puff into a foggy white cloud. “Yeah,” he muttered at last. “I guess I did expect you to be…well…” His voice trailed off.

Heavenly Father, he would send her back! She could never return to San Francisco. Not now.

“Wait,” she said. “I can cook and clean and care for a child. I have had experience at the Christian mission orphanage in Canton. And I can sew and embroider… .”

But she could not return to China. Never. Third Uncle would lose face, and besides, there was no longer any place for her there. In China, she was not half Chinese, she was half White Devil. She no longer knew where she belonged.

She watched him look away, then back to her. “It’s not that I think you’re not qualified, miss. But—”

“You need not explain, Mr. MacAllister. It is clear that you no longer want me.” She had half expected such a reaction, but now what was she to do?

She hefted her valise and started moving slowly toward the station house entrance.

He caught up with her in two strides. “It’s not that you’re a Celestial, not exactly.” He lifted the suitcase out of her hand and fell into step beside her.

“Then what is it, exactly?” She sneaked a look at him.

His mouth tightened. “Aw, hell, I don’t know. The folks here in town might not—”

“Would you protect me?”

“Well, sure, but—”

“Mr. MacAllister, I cannot go back to San Francisco. It took me eight days to escape from my host lady. She was a very bad woman. I will not go back.”

He pulled open the door of the station house just as the train gave a high, throaty toot and chuffed on down the track. “Come inside, miss. You look like you could use some—”

“Tea,” she supplied without thinking. “Yes, please.”

He frowned down at her, then stamped the snow off his boots. “You might let me finish a sentence now and then, Miss Cameron.”

“Oh! I beg your pardon, Mr. MacAllister. Father and my teachers always said I was impulsive and outspoken. They were right.”

His rust-brown eyebrows waggled. “You’ve been to school, then?”

“Of course. I can read and write in two languages. My father headed a mission school in China. I was educated there until…” She bent her head.

He waited. “Until?”

Leah clenched her jaw until the urge to cry passed. “Until Mother and then my father died of cholera. Papa saw to it that I was well educated.”

“Aye, I can see that. You talk right proper.”

“Thank you.”

“Me, I know farming—cattle, and this year I’m trying some wheat. Nobody in these parts grows wheat, but…Let’s see, where was I? I know how to build a barn and a house and I can read and write. That’s what I want for my boy, and more.”

He guided her to a stool at the counter. “Tea for the lady,” he said. “Coffee for me, with a shot of—Aw, skip it, Charlie. Just coffee.” Charlie was the manager, the telegraph operator and the ticket seller for the small Smoke River station.

The short balding man leaned over the counter. “This yer, uh, new bride?”

Thad purposefully cleared his throat. “Mind your own business, Charlie.”

“Hell, ever’body in town knows you sent away for…” He focused on Leah’s face and his voice trailed off. “Oh, I see.”

“Oh, you do?” Thad challenged.

“Yeah, I do,” Charlie said quietly. “Won’t be easy, Thad. Good luck to ya.” He clomped over to the black potbellied stove in the center of the small reception room and tossed a small log into the fire.

Within minutes the room was toasty warm. Leah sent the stationmaster a grateful smile, stood up and shrugged out of her ankle-length wool coat. Thad stood, as well, grasped the coat and strode off to hang it on the coatrack by the door. When he turned back to Miss Cameron, the floor tilted under his boots.

Jehosephat, she was a looker! She wore some kind of silky blue-green trousers and a matching long-sleeved tunic with frog loops down the front. But what he noticed most was how the smooth fabric curved over her breasts and hinted at her hips. She was small and slim, built like a China doll, but she sure looked womanly.

And she’d come to Smoke River to be a bride and run a home? Hell, she looked too delicate to hang out the laundry, let alone boil sheets and dungarees in a tin washtub.

“Listen, Miss Cameron, you sure you want to live out on a ranch? To be honest, it’s a hardscrabble life out here in the West, and some years it’s harder than others. Summers can be scorching, winters are—”

“Snowy,” she interrupted. “I understand. It snows in China, too, Mr. MacAllister.”

He walked a slow circle around her. Huh. She’d blow over in a stiff wind. And he sure couldn’t see her down on her hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. Or anything else, come to think on it.

“Miss Cameron, you don’t know how hard ranch life can be.”

She spun toward him. “I am not afraid of hard work. I fear only being alone and unprotected in a big city where I know no one.”

“Like San Francisco?” He was fishing, but he had to know something about her. “What scared you in San Francisco that wouldn’t scare you here in Smoke River?”

She was quiet for a long minute. “It was not safe in that city,” she said softly. “Especially for a Chinese girl. I…I had to get away.”

Thad frowned. Something didn’t add up. “How come?”

She twisted away from him so he couldn’t see her face. “When I left the ship, two men laid their hands on me. They wanted me to come with them. I showed them my papers, but they laughed and tore them up.”

“Good grief,” Thad muttered. “I never thought about…Sit down, Miss Cameron. Have some more tea.”

She sank back onto the stool at the counter and wrapped her slim fingers around her teacup. “Those men dragged me into a carriage, but I escaped through the other door and ran down an alley and kept running, but they caught me.”

“Did you get away?”

“No,” she said shortly. “Nothing happened to me before I got free, but I cannot go back, do you understand? Hard work does not frighten me.” She gave an involuntary shiver. “But bondage does.”

Thad took a long look at her thin shoulders, her creamy neck and the delicate-looking hands. She appeared small And kind of lost, like a kitten. The least he could do was give her a home. She could teach Teddy. And she could keep house and cook and…

“Charlie? Look after Miss Cameron for five minutes, will ya?”

Charlie poked his head out of the ticket window across the room. “Where ya’ goin’?”

“Up the street to the mercantile. Gotta get her some ranch duds.”

For the third time, Carl Ness dusted off the display of kerosene lamps, watching out the corner of his eye while Thad MacAllister pawed through boy-size flannel shirts and jeans. Too big for his seven-year-old son, Teddy; too small for any adult he’d ever seen in town.

“Find what yer lookin’ for, Thad?”

“Nope,” the tall Scotsman snapped.

“What are you lookin’ for, anyway?”

“Work clothes.”

“You hire somebody to help out at the ranch?”

Thad paused and gave the diminutive mercantile proprietor a hard look. “Yeah, you might say that.” He held up a blue plaid shirt with buttons down the front, then snagged two more—one red and one green—and piled them on top of the three pairs of dark denim jeans he’d laid over his forearm.

“Kinda small for a ranch hand,” Carl observed. He patted the pile of garments Thad laid on the counter.

“Yup.”

Carl just shook his head. “You know, gettin’ more than three words out of you since your wife…Well, you know. It’s like squeezing a hen’s egg. You press too hard and you end up with egg yolk all over your hand.”

“Yeah.”

Carl started to wrap up the shirts in brown paper. “Anything else, Thad?”

“Yeah. Bottle of brandy. Make it a big bottle.” Thad dropped some coins on the counter and gathered up his paper-wrapped parcels. He could hardly wait to see Miss Cameron’s reaction to his purchases. Maybe the sight of the rough work clothes would convince her ranch life could be a killer. It had killed Hattie, his wife. It could kill a delicate woman all too easily.

Leah sat huddled over her tea, watching the stationmaster behind the ticket cage. He could sell her a train ticket to…well, to anywhere. But where could she go? Not back to the city. Not to Portland, either, which was just another big city where she would know no one. One small town was probably as good as another, and here there was a man who noticed her heritage but acted as if he did not care much.

“Mr. Charlie?” she called across the room.

“Yes, miss? What can I do for you?”

“Is…” She could scarcely get the words out. “Is Mr. MacAllister a good man?”

“He’s the best kind there is, miss. Leastways he used to be.”

“What happened to him?”

“Lost his wife a year ago in a train wreck. Ain’t been the same since.”

“Is he…cruel or violent?”

The stationmaster laughed. “Thad? Nah. He’s gone kinda crazy over this wheat-growing idea, and once he gets his mind made up, he’s hard to move. Sure, he gets hot under the collar sometimes, but I’ve never seen him do anything mean.”

Leah turned back to her tea. Everything would work out. It had to work out; she had no place else to go.

The front door banged open and there stood Mr. MacAllister, snow frosting the shoulders of his jacket and dusting the wide brim of his gray hat.

“Come on, Miss Cameron. Time to take you home.”

Chapter Two

Mr. MacAllister snagged Leah’s gray wool coat off the stand and held it out to her. “Ready to head to my ranch, Miss Cameron?”

Leah stared at the tall, muscular man. She had not thought this would be so hard to do. To be honest, she had not thought at all; she was so grateful for a way to escape Madam Tang in San Francisco, she had seized the money Mr. MacAllister had sent and boarded the first train north. Now, facing the prospect of actually living with this man, becoming his wife, she was frightened.

“Are we not to be married first?” she asked.

“Uh, sure.” But now that he was facing it he had to admit he wasn’t over Hattie yet. Yeah, he needed someone to keep house and mind Teddy, but maybe he wasn’t ready for another marriage.

Still, she needed someplace safe, and she was educated. She probably knew some about the history of the world, and about books. Most of the Smoke River folks hadn’t been schooled past sixth grade, and he wanted Teddy to know about literature, about poetry. Maybe even Scottish writers, like Robbie Burns and Sir Walter Scott.

Well, hell, nothing came for free. If he wanted all these things for Teddy, he should be prepared to pay the price. And the price was marriage.

“Gettin’ colder outside, Miss Cameron. Might make better sense to go on home where it’s warm and discuss this further.” He stood with the wool coat draped over one arm, looking at her expectantly.

“No.” She said it quietly, but she meant it. It would not be best at all. She remembered the few days she had spent at Madam Tang’s in San Francisco. No male servant had been allowed near her. If a man touch you before, your price will be less. You are virgin. Virgins must be careful.

Leah clasped her hands in her lap. She was a stranger in a land she did not know, among people she did not yet trust. She must be extra careful or she would end up a concubine, not a wife.

“I cannot go to your home tonight. Not until we are married.”

“Huh?” His expressive brown eyebrows shot up. “You mean—”

“Yes, I do mean. I am sorry, but I cannot come before we are married. It would not be proper.”

His blue eyes snapped with impatience. “Proper! Hell, Miss Cameron, I’m just offering you shelter.”

Leah shook her head. “If I go with you now, there will be harm. Not of your making, perhaps, but…” She kept her voice calm, but her nerves had begun to scream. Would he change his mind about marrying her if she refused to do what he asked?

“Explain,” he ordered.

She sucked in a shaky breath. “I am an outsider in your country. I cannot afford to be compromised.”

“Compromised!” He snorted. “I don’t aim to do anything but feed you some supper and—”

“Please, Mr. MacAllister. I will eat supper at the hotel. You may come for me tomorrow and then—” she straightened her spine “—then I will become your wife.”

“I, uh, I didn’t exactly expect…I mean, it isn’t that I don’t want you to stay—I do. But, well, I wasn’t expecting to marry this soon. And I guess you did. Do.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice quiet. “I do.”

His face changed. Desperation faded into resignation, and then he nodded decisively.

“Okay, we’ll get married right away. Save your reputation and help me raise my son. More than I bargained for, but…like it or not, there it is. There’s an old saying out here—in for a penny, in for a pound. Guess I’m in for the pound.”

“Do you wish not to marry me because I am half Chinese?”

“No,” he said shortly. “There’s other reasons, but makes no matter now.”

She slid off the stool, lifted her coat off his arm and shrugged into it. “I will go now to the hotel.”

“What? Oh, sure, the hotel.” He looked as if he’d been hit over the head with a coal shovel. He rebuttoned his overcoat and started to pull on his gloves but stopped suddenly and peered down at her hands.

“You got any gloves?”

“No. I read a book about the West. About California. It said the sun shines every day.”

Again, he peered into her face, and this time his eyes softened into a blue like the sea. “I reckon you didn’t read about Oregon.”

“No. I never expected to come to Oregon.”

His face changed. The soft blue eyes grew distant, and the lines around his mouth deepened. His jaw sagged for a moment until he snapped it shut and thrust his brown leather gloves into her hands. “Life’s like that. Always what you don’t expect.”

A dart of sympathy pricked her. She had lost her parents, but he had lost much more—his wife, his partner in life. The mother of his son. Poor man. He was big and strong and probably fearless about things that would terrify a weaker person, but she saw how he ached inside in his grief. Inside, this formidable man was just like any other human being.

Leah pulled on the offered gloves. They were so large the fingers drooped at the ends and she had to curl her hands into fists to keep them from falling off.

They entered the hotel lobby together. It smelled of cigar smoke and coffee, and instantly all conversation ceased. In the unsettling silence Leah made her way to the portly desk clerk and laid her gloved hands on the counter. The clerk’s squinty eyes widened.

“I would like to engage a room,” she said.

“Sure thing, ma’am.” He did not look up, but kept his gaze on her oversize hands.

She began to tug off the gloves. “Only for tonight,” she added.

The shiny-faced clerk picked up a pen and absentmindedly turned the hotel register toward her. “If you’ll just sign here, ma’am, I’ll—”

He looked into her face and stopped short. “Just a minute, there. I’m afraid this hotel is full.”

“But it was not full two minutes ago,” she protested.

Thad strode over to the desk and positioned himself behind her. “No, it isn’t full, Sam,” he said in a flat voice.

“Sorry, Mr. MacAllister,” he mumbled. “We don’t cater to…to Celestials.”

Thad’s bare fist came down hard on the polished oak counter. He leaned over it and spoke in a tone as clear and hard as ice. “This lady is as American as you or me, and tomorrow she’s gonna be my—” he took a breath “—my wife. You’ll cater to her now, understand?”

The clerk goggled at him. “I h-heard ya, Mr. MacAllister, but—”

“How much is the room?”

“Dollar and a half,” Sam choked out. “But—”

Thad slapped four coins onto the counter. The clerk flinched, reached to one side and dropped a room key into Thad’s deliberately extended palm. “Third d-door on the right.”

Thad bent to retrieve Leah’s battered leather valise, grasped her elbow and ushered her up the stairs.

Instantly conversation buzzed in the smokefilled lobby. “My Gawd, didja see that?”

“Never thought a Celestial…”

“Hell, Thad’s bit off more’n he can chew this time.”

“Celestial or not, didja see her face? She’s downright pretty!”

Leah followed Mr. MacAllister down the musty-smelling hallway and waited while he unlocked the door to her room. He stood aside, and she edged past him.

The room was small, with one lace-curtained window overlooking the main street, a coverlet-swathed bed, a tall oak armoire and a washstand with a blue-patterned china basin and water pitcher. The place smelled oddly of both dust and furniture polish.

Mr. MacAllister shifted from one foot to the other and finally spoke from the open doorway. “I’ll be back in the morning, Miss Cameron.”

Leah turned toward him. “I will be ready, Mr. MacAllister.”

For a long minute he didn’t move. “One last thing I’ve got to say,” he grumbled.

She braced herself. She knew it! He didn’t want her. In the morning he would send her away.

“You do not want me because I am—”

“Nah, not a bit of it, Miss Cameron. Don’t you mind what people say. I—I’m glad you came.”

She studied the tall man in the beaver coat. His gaze seemed direct; laugh lines wrinkled the corners of his eyes and his mouth could change from a grim line into a smile in a single heartbeat.

She liked him. She couldn’t say why, exactly. He was gruff, his manners untutored, but she sensed a steadiness about him. He was like Father but not so disapproving. Father had always worried about her Chinese half, even though he had braved Third Uncle, Ming Sa’s guardian, to marry her mother. The Chinese did not respect the White Devils, but she knew Father had loved Ming Sa.

“I am glad I came, as well,” she said softly. And God knew she needed to belong somewhere safe, even if it was a farm on the rough, uncivilized Oregon frontier.

Thad tipped his hat, backed into the hallway and turned to leave. “Whatever happens, it should be interesting.” He tossed the remark over his shoulder.

Leah jerked as if bitten by a horsefly. “Wait!” she called. “Your gloves.” She pressed them into his large hand. To her surprise she found his fingers were trembling.

In that moment she guessed what lay beneath his gruff exterior. Underneath, he was as frightened as she was. But, being a man, he would never, never admit it. Never show fear, Father had said.

When the door closed behind Mr. MacAllister, she let her heavy wool coat slide off her shoulders onto the scuffed hardwood floor. She undressed by the light seeping through the lacy curtain, poured water into the basin and rapidly sponged off the travel dust and soot from every inch of her body. Then she shook out her silk tunic and trousers and hung them in the armoire along with her coat.

Ravenously hungry, she unwrapped her last dried bean cake, pulled on her pink silk sleeping robe and crawled into the welcoming bed.

She had been fortunate in America thus far—except for those terrifying days imprisoned at Madam Tang’s. Leah had finally escaped in the horse-drawn laundry cart that came each morning and found her way to a church. Now, after a day and a night on the train from San Francisco to Portland, and another half day to Smoke River, here she was. Tired to the bone, but safe in the biggest, softest bed she had ever slept on. God was surely looking out for her.

She stretched luxuriously, nibbled the edge of the hard bean cake and listened to the street noises below her window. Horses clipclopped down the main road, harnesses jingling. Dishes clattered in the restaurant across from the hotel. Men’s raucous voices drifted from the saloon next door. Oh, it all sounded so…American! What a strange and wonderful land this was!

Thank you, Lord, for this place of safety and for this man. She would be a good wife to him.

Nodding over the uneaten bean cake, she curled into a ball and fell asleep listening to the sound of a woman’s voice from the saloon below, singing a song about a train and a round mountain.