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Anger thudded in his chest and he almost turned away. But he’d promised Emma. The remembered hope in her blue eyes kept him from running out of the hotel. He lifted his fist and knocked.
“Who is it?” asked a quiet voice through the wood door. Elizabeth’s voice.
“It’s Jacob.”
The door swung open to reveal her thin, pale face. Kind blue eyes met his and he felt the impact straight to his gut. He caught a whiff of rose water, sweet and light, saw the careful coronet of tightly plaited braids crowning her head, heard the gasp of her breath telling him he’d surprised her.
Hell, he surprised himself.
“Can I come in? I want to talk with you.”
“Yes.” Slim, graceful fingers gripped the edge of the door, pulling it open, allowing him room.
He wanted to hate her for her duplicity. It would be easier if he could. Jacob slipped past her and stood in the middle of the room, the bed between them.
Elizabeth carefully pushed the door to, but not shut. Silence settled between them. He fingered the hat he gripped in both hands.
“Jacob,” she began. She looked breakable. “I’m sorry about this. I need you to believe that.”
Sincerity burned in her eyes. He looked away. “I gave you a surprise, too. I’m sorry about that. I should have told you, I should have prepared you. You came all this way with expectations about a marriage and a family I can’t meet.”
She blinked, embarrassment pinkening her pleasant face. “I’m the one who is wrong.”
He couldn’t answer her. It took all his will to hold back the burning edge of rage—rage at her for being less than he had hoped, less than the mother Emma needed.
“I received over fifty letters.” Hell, he shouldn’t have told her that.
Surprise flickered in her eyes. “Fifty women wrote you?”
“Emma and I read through every letter.”
“I never imagined so many women would write you.”
“Neither did I.” His breath caught. “Yours was the one she liked the most. So I wrote you.”
She smiled, a softness crept across her plain oval face, changing her from pretty to beautiful.
“I can’t tell you what your letters meant to me,” she said. “I was so alone, and suddenly I had someone to talk to, even if it was in writing.”
His throat constricted. “Your letters meant a lot to Emma, too.”
“I’m so glad.”
Their gazes met. He saw sadness large enough to touch him.
“Yours was the only advertisement I have ever answered,” she confessed. “Or that I ever wanted to.”
She seemed so innocent, a touch shy. Beneath it all, she had to be a good woman. Jacob’s anger and disappointment tangled inside his chest, twisting painfully. He wanted to vent the rending confusion of his emotions. Hell if he knew what to say, and how to say it without hurting her. He’d never felt so helpless in his life.
Maybe he should call this whole thing off. He could walk out the door and never look back.
But he didn’t want to start looking for another woman. Elizabeth met every one of his requirements. She was kind, honest and gentle. And Emma wanted her. It was too late to go back, too soon to go forward.
She ambled away from him with a swishing of her simple skirts. She wore a blue calico, he noticed now, nothing fancy or pretty, just a serviceable dress. This was the woman he’d imagined during those long months of correspondence.
“I’ve brought a gift for Emma. May I give it to you? I want her to have it.”
Jacob said nothing.
Libby took that as an agreement as she crossed to the small bureau near the door. “I didn’t want to show up empty-handed. Now that things between us have changed...” Her throat closed. “I know I won’t be seeing her again, but this still belongs to her.”
“You shouldn’t have gone to any trouble.”
“Oh, it was no trouble, only pleasure.” She tugged out the drawer, risking a glance at him.
He stood with hat in hand, his black hair neatly combed. He wore a crisp red flannel shirt and dark trousers and his boots shone, despite the thin light in the room.
If only. Libby held back her heart as she extracted a wrapped bundle from the top bureau drawer and folded back the paper. She wanted Jacob’s friendship and his respect. How could she earn it now?
Her hands trembled as she laid the doll on the dresser.
“That is a lovely gift,” Jacob said, stepping forward to join her.
Libby glanced up into the mirror’s reflection. With his head bent, she could see the cowlick at the back of his scalp. He seemed vulnerable somehow, despite his obvious strength and height and breadth. He lifted one thick-knuckled hand and brushed a finger across the doll’s happy cloth face and brown yarn braids.
“You wrote me and said Emma had brown hair.”
“Yes, I did.” He towered above her with emotion shining in his eyes. “This is an expensive doll.”
“I purchased the fabric, but I made the doll,” Libby explained, pleased with her work. “I wanted something special to give Emma, something a mother might make for her daughter.”
Jacob’s throat worked, and he turned away.
She’d said the wrong thing. “I know I can’t expect anything from you, anything we agreed to months ago, but I made this doll for Emma, from my heart. It would mean everything to me if she could have it, no strings attached.”
“Why?”
Because losing dreams hurt. Libby carefully covered the doll with the brown paper. “I put my heart into making this for Emma. It belongs to her.”
His jaw firmed, and he looked away without speaking. He wouldn’t accept the gift. Libby stared hard at her hands. She was alone now. Without Jacob, without a home. Perhaps she’d been foolish to tell him the truth when she wasn’t even certain. But in her heart Libby knew, she could never hurt Jacob.
“I have dinner waiting for us at home,” he said quietly.
Did he mean...? Hope beat in her heart. Home. It had been a lifetime since that word meant anything to her. She had been a small girl. Libby remembered the little trundle bed tucked in the corner of the shanty where she slept at night, safe from the rain and the wind and the harshness of the world. Now she caressed the word over and over in her mind, as if home could mean that again.
“Do you mean—” she didn’t dare hope “—you haven’t changed your mind?”
“You have come only to meet us, nothing more.” Jacob turned toward the door. His boots rang on the floorboards. “You and I may decide not to marry for many reasons. I’m willing to see what happens.”
He was such a fair man. Libby’s chest ached. Please, let it work out.
“I just don’t want Emma hurt.” His cool gaze trapped hers with the weight of his heart.
“Then we are in agreement. I don’t want her hurt, either.”
Jacob smiled. Truly smiled. Libby watched his face soften and the tension in his shoulders ease. This man, with his gentle smile warming the stark gray of his eyes, was the man she’d dreamed of.
“Emma can talk the ears off a mule, if she sets her mind to it,” he said, leading the way out into the hall. “I thought I’d better warn you.”
A lightness burst in Libby’s chest. “She’s a lively child.”
“And too much for me to raise all alone.” He waited while she closed and locked her door. “I’m outnumbered.”
“And I suspect Emma knows it.”
“Yes, she uses it to her advantage constantly.” Jacob’s smile sparkled.
Libby felt dazzled all the way to her toes. Somehow she managed to walk down the stairs and through the hotel’s busy lobby without tripping. He was willing to see what happens. She wanted him so much. She’d never met a man like him before.
The sun threw long-fingered rays across the sky and slanted into her eyes when she stepped out onto the boardwalk. She blinked against the light as Jacob halted beside a small, well-kept buckboard.
“Are you ready?” His gray eyes swept hers.
“I think so.”
He offered his hand.
Big fingers closed over hers and, palm to palm, he helped her up into the wagon. Her heart did crazy flipflops. She settled on the buckboard’s comfortable seat, waiting for Jacob to circle around the vehicle and join her.
It was going to work out. It had to. She had never wanted anything so much.
“Emma named the horses.” He hopped up and settled into the seat beside her. The buckboard swayed slightly, adjusting to his weight. “She insisted.”
“Life must be like sunshine sharing it with her.”
Jacob gripped the thick leather reins. “Yes. That little girl is everything to me.”
“I can see why.” Libby looked at the package she clutched safely in her lap. Would Emma like the doll? It was homemade, not bought at a fancy store. The sleek, perfectly matched bays drawing this handsome buckboard told her something new about Jacob: He wasn’t poor the way she was.
“The near one is Pete,” he said with an easy grin. “The other is Repeat.”
Libby laughed.
Smile lines crinkled around Jacob’s sparkling eyes.
He didn’t need to tell her which house was his. She knew without words when it came into view, tucked between the thick boughs of cedar and pine. Neat and tidy, with precisely cut logs and thick stripes of chinking, the log cabin sat in a small clearing. Two large windows watched them from either side of a solid wood door. The house looked sturdy and cozy and built to withstand an eternity of winters.
Home. The one word buzzed through her mind, rendering her incapable of speech. She felt warm down to her toes.
Jacob reined in the horses with the jangle of the harness, and Libby stared at the house, trying not to let her hopes grow.
The door flew open and Emma’s red-dressed figure hurled into view, braids flying, black-shoed feet pounding the hard-packed earth. “You’re here! I’ve been waiting forever.”
Libby laughed. Happiness welled in her heart, spilling over with joy. With the sun slanting through the thickboughed pines and the sight of the little girl bouncing to a stop before her, Libby’s throat filled with happy tears. She knew every hardship in her life had brought her here, to this shining, singular moment.
She’d come home.
Chapter Three
Nothing in Libby’s life had ever prepared her for this heart-aching hope smoldering inside her chest. Like embers, she could feel that hope burn.
“We’re having a treat for dessert.” Emma’s voice rang like a merry bell in the hot air. “I’m not supposed to tell what it is because it’s a secret.”
“A secret dessert?” Libby repeated, enchanted.
Emma nodded. Excitement pinkened her cheeks. “We worked on it this morning to pass the time. Your stage didn’t come in until noon, and I couldn’t wait.”
“Neither could I.”
Emma clasped her hands together. “Jane and me made pie...ah, the dessert and then it was time to go meet you.”
Libby’s throat felt too full to speak.
“It’s even a secret from Pa,” the little girl confessed.
“That’s enough now, Emma,” Jacob circled around the wagon, his voice gently amused. “Don’t wear out Miss Hodges’ ear before we even get her inside the house.”
“Ah, Pa. How can I wear out her ear? Ears don’t wear out.”
“Yes they do. You know Grandpa can’t hear well.”
Emma laughed wholeheartedly. “That’s because he’s old.”
“It’s because you talked too much.”
They could be a family. Libby’s chest hurt just thinking of it.
“May I help you down?” Jacob offered his hand.
She slipped her bare fingers into his broad palm. Male-hot skin scorched hers. Libby swallowed at the sensation. He overwhelmed her like a dream, a hero, a fairy-tale prince come true. Her stomach twisted with a knot of need. She hadn’t been sick all day. Maybe it was all right. Maybe she could have her own happy ending.
Libby hopped to the ground, skirts swishing. She kicked up a small puff of dust with the impact of her worn shoes against the solid earth.
“I like your doll.”
At the sight of Emma’s shy, wistful face, Libby had no doubts. She had chosen her gift to the girl well. “This isn’t my doll.”
“She isn’t?” Hope shivered in those words.
