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“You don’t have to tell me, you know. I am quite aware that this is what is called a marriage of convenience. And I’m quite willing to take the sofa.” She forced a timid smile to her lips, obviously striving to pretend that the little quaver in her voice wasn’t there.
“It’s not just that.” He flopped onto that sofa, squeezed his eyes closed and desperately searched for the right words. They weren’t there. “I’m not a family man, Clarissa. I’m too selfish, I guess. I spent a lot of time watching my parents’ marriage fail, and while it did I was responsible for my sister. I didn’t want her to see the ugliness when they were fighting, to hear the awful words.”
Clarissa nodded as she listened. “That’s perfectly natural,” she murmured, her head tilted to one side. “As a big brother, you must have been a wonderful friend.”
He shook his head. “Not really. I made her play the games I wanted to. She had to fall in with my wishes, because I was in charge. But that’s not it.” He chewed his lip in frustration. Why was this so hard to say? Wade thought for a moment, then started again.
“I hated the responsibility of it, you see. I wanted them to look after her, to make sure she was okay. There were so many things I wanted to do and she got in the way.” He shook his head. “I messed up so many times. Once I made her eat some berries and she was sick for a week.” One hand raked through his hair as he remembered her thin body shaking with the fever. “Anyway, my dad left. Uncle Carston probably told you that?”
She nodded.
“It was pretty rough then. I was the man of the house, but I did a lousy job of looking after my mom and Kendra. I couldn’t wait to dump them onto somebody else so I could go after my own dreams.” He stopped abruptly when he realized where this was going. No way was he digging into that now. He straightened his shoulders, drew in another breath and continued.
“Let’s just say it wasn’t any paradise. After Kendra got married, I finally felt free. I made up my mind then and there that I would never be tied down to anyone again. I never wanted the responsibility of someone else’s happiness.” He tried to read her. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes, of course.” Clarissa nodded, her eyes clear and calm. “You don’t want to be accountable for my problems. You took the children on because you promised your sister, and you’ve done the best you could with them because you figured it was your duty. But it’s not the life you would have chosen for yourself. Close enough?”
She didn’t get it, not all of it anyway. But she was pretty close. Wade nodded slowly, rephrasing his thoughts. “Well, yes, but…”
She held up a hand. “Oh, I’m not finished yet. I’m not stupid, you know. I understand exactly what you’re saying, Wade Featherhawk. You think I’ll add to your responsibilities, that I’ll be even more of a burden on you. And you’re scared stiff. Is that about right?”
Wade gulped. Meek and mild little Clarissa Cartwright, no Featherhawk, had a lot more on the ball than he’d given her credit for. Now she’d made him feel like a jerk, which he probably was, for wanting to live his life without thinking about anyone else.
“Not scared, no.” He couldn’t let that go. “It’s just an awful lot for me to handle at one time, Clarissa. Four kids! Nobody has four kids in this two-point-five-family world. If they do, they get them one at a time!” He groaned at the selfish words that poured out of his own mouth.
I sound like a wimp. Wade shoved his head into his hands and dragged at the roots, trying to realign his topsy-turvy world.
“I love them, Clarissa. I do! But it’s hard to go from being independent to being a father of four, and then a husband. It’s gonna take me some time to adjust, that’s all I’m saying.” That sounded better, didn’t it? As if he just had a few issues to work through and then life would be rosy.
If it wasn’t the way he felt, she didn’t need to know that. After all, Clarissa was taking them all on and she wasn’t even related! She was going to have to adjust far more than he.
“What I’m trying to say is, don’t get too upset if I’m not very good at this. I’ll probably need a lot of practice before I come anywhere near being the kind of husband you deserve.”
She laughed at him! Wade could hardly believe that light, tinkling sound that shattered the tension in the room like a high note splintering a crystal goblet. He stared, frowning at the smile curling her lips.
“It goes both ways, Wade. I’ve never been a mother or a wife and now I’ve got to get used to all of you at once. At least you had months to train.” She got up and walked over to sit beside him. Her hand patted his. “I promise I won’t expect too much of you,” she said quietly. “We’ll learn as we go along. But please, don’t feel you have to be responsible for me. I’m an adult. I can look after myself. I can look after you and the kids too, if you’ll let me.”
Relief, pure, unadulterated relief washed over him. He didn’t have to be some kind of Superman or Romeo for her. She knew and understood. God had worked a miracle in this woman.
Wade leaned down and brushed his lips across her cheek. “Thank you,” he whispered with heartfelt emotion. “Thanks for understanding.”
She nodded, then got up and moved toward the other rooms. “Let’s have a look around, shall we? Then I wouldn’t mind going for a walk. I need to breathe fresh air.”
Wade managed to maintain her light-hearted approach to life for the rest of the evening. He made fishing jokes, teased her about leeches in the lake, insisted she take the bedroom and he the couch.
But late that night as he lay staring through the patio doors at the big moon outside, he wondered if he should have told her all of it. Maybe he should have made sure she knew that he would never love her.
Maybe Clarissa should know he couldn’t afford to love anyone. Not anymore. Everyone he loved died because he was too selfish to care for them when they needed him. Their pain was always his fault. It was also his secret.
Chapter Five
On her very first morning of being Mrs. Clarissa Featherhawk, the bride decided to set the tone of her marriage as she meant to carry it on.
She wanted to know Wade better, certainly. She craved the personal details that all couples learned after months of courtship. But she didn’t have that basis of information to rely on because Wade seemed to think he had to protect himself. Or perhaps he wanted to protect her. She wasn’t sure. Her only hope lay in calming his fears, showing him that she intended to be an equal partner, that she had no intention of dragging him down.
Which was why, tired as she was from the busy day before, she managed to drag herself out of bed as the first threads of sunlight drifted across the sky. By the time she noticed Wade stirring from his uncomfortable position on the sofa, Clarissa had cinnamon buns ready to emerge from the oven and coffee, freshly brewed in a big mug on the table beside his makeshift bed.
“It can’t be morning yet,” he grumbled, his tousled head emerging just above the back of the sofa. “I’ve only had my eyes closed for ten minutes.”
“Rough night?” she murmured, turning away to hide a smile when she saw him force his eyes apart. “There’s a cup of coffee by your elbow. Maybe that will help.”
“Maybe,” Wade muttered doubtfully, but he downed a mouthful just the same. “What are you doing?”
She turned to find him frowning at her, one eyebrow quirked upward in a question. Her cheeks grew warm under his steady regard.
“I was just making some buns, before the day got too warm. This year has been a strange one, hasn’t it? You never know if you’re going to fry or freeze.” He was still staring at her. “Anyway, I thought it would be a good idea to do this before the cabin heated up too much. I’ve got our dinner started in that Crock-Pot.”
“Dinner?” He blinked twice, took a gulp of coffee, then winced as it burned down his throat. “I didn’t realize you were so industrious.”
Clarissa wanted to pinch herself. How stupid of her! Of course. He wanted to sleep in and she’d disturbed him.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, transferring one of the buns to a small plate. She kept her eyes averted. “I’ll just pour myself some coffee and go outside. I didn’t mean to disturb your rest. Go back to sleep if you want. I’ll sit in the sun and read.”
He muttered something in that low husky rumble of his, but Clarissa didn’t hang around and listen to what it was. She scurried out the door like a frightened mouse and carried her breakfast to the edge of the lake where earlier that morning she’d set out two of the chairs from the veranda.
“So much for romantic dreams,” she scolded herself. “Just get on with your life and quit expecting it to change. It’s a marriage of convenience, girl. Not a love match.”
She’d known that, of course. But still the foolish dreams had filled her mind last night. Those teasing “maybe” dreams. Maybe one day, maybe if they got to know each other, maybe somehow she could be a real wife, a real mother.
The sun rose slowly, its warmth spreading like fingers across the tree strewn landscape, rippling over the lake on butterfly wings. Birds drenched the air with their song. The put-put of a motorboat echoed the presence of a fisherman out early to cast a line.
Clarissa closed her eyes, tipping her head up to let the sunshine chase away the doubts. “Lord, I thank You for this wonderful creation. And for Wade. I know Your hand was in this marriage. ‘All things work together for good.’” She stopped a moment to wonder what life would be like in another five years. The murmuring sounds of other campers drew her back to the present, and she hurried on with her prayer.
“I want to do my part, to be all that You want me to be. But I don’t know what to expect, what Wade expects. Please give me patience and strength to wait on You.” She opened her eyes, her attention riveted on the man who’d just stepped outside their cabin door. She’d have to hurry.
“And God, if You could make him care about me, just a little bit, it would make this marriage so much easier.” She breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, God. Amen.”
Wade flopped down in the chair beside hers, his bare arm brushing against her hand where it held her coffee mug out of harm’s way. “This place is like an isolated piece of solitude in a messed-up world,” he told her, his eyes on the trees sparkling in the bright sunlight, their reflection shimmering in the smooth lake water. “In a way, I guess it reminds me of the reservation, though there wasn’t much solitude there. In fact, when I lived there, I felt as if nobody else knew I existed.”
Clarissa saw through the undertones to the pain he tried to mask. “Abandoned, you mean?” she murmured softly, keeping her gaze on the water. “I know what that’s like. When my parents died and I went to Gran’s, it was as if the life I’d known died. Gran was wonderful, of course,” she rushed to assure him. “But she was older, and she’d just lost her only child. I didn’t want to impose.”
She could feel Wade’s eyes on her. “It must have been tough.”
Clarissa nodded. “It was. Maybe that’s why I can empathize with your kids. In one split second, everything you’ve ever known is changed and you can’t ever go back.” She took a deep breath, crossed her fingers, then plunged in to something she had no business questioning. If she was going to learn more about Wade, this was the time.
“You must have felt that way when Kendra died and you had to take over for her. Your plans, dreams, hopes for the future. They all had to be put on hold, didn’t they?” She hoped he’d tell her what those hopes and dreams were. She hadn’t expected his mocking chuckle.
“Snooping, Clarissa?” He caught her chin and forced her to meet his glinting stare.
Clarissa knew he could see the round spots of embarrassed color that burned in her cheeks but she didn’t back down.
“Yes, maybe just a little. I’m hoping I can learn to understand you and the kids a little better, get to know what your lives were like then.” She refused to look away. “Is that wrong?”
He stared at her for a long time before his hand fell away from her jaw and he sighed, a deep huff that told her he would give just so far and no further.
“No, it isn’t wrong. It’s normal, I suppose. What do you want to know?”
Clarissa groaned inwardly. This wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted him to open up of his own accord, to share a piece of himself because he could trust her. Maybe it was too early for that.
Please help me, Lord.
“I want to know anything you want to tell me,” she murmured, wishing she could smooth away the lines of tension around his eyes. “What were you like as a little boy?”
Clarissa settled back in the chair and drew her knees up to her chest, smoothing her skirt over her legs to hide from the prickles the sun was already making against her skin. Thank goodness she’d thought to tug on the old straw hat she’d found. That along with her long-sleeved shirt should give some protection. She didn’t want to go home looking like a boiled lobster!
She turned to nod at Wade. “I’m listening.”
He shook his head wryly. “Don’t give up easily, do you?” His eyes darkened, then glassed over as if he’d gone far away, to a place where she couldn’t go. “What was I like? I was a brat, Clarissa. Disobedient, willful, argumentative. All the things you were probably instructed not to do—” he raised one eyebrow, then continued when she nodded her understanding “—I did them. All of them. There wasn’t a younger kid I didn’t terrorize, a teacher I didn’t sass back, a rule I didn’t break.”
“Problem child,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. But he heard it and nodded, his face drawn.
“Worse.” He summed it up succinctly. “I’m sure you can’t possibly understand.”
Her lips smiled, but inside her heart ached. “Can’t I?” She remembered the times she’d cried herself to sleep, begging God to bring her parents back so they could be a family again, promising anything if He’d just stop punishing her.
Wade frowned as he watched her, his eyes inquisitive. “You couldn’t. You’ve had the perfect life.”
“Have I?” She pleated the fabric between her fingers, noting the glossy pink polish that Bri had applied just yesterday morning was now chipped. Sort of like her dream of blissful married life. Clarissa decided it was too ironic to dwell on. “Don’t get sidetracked so easily by what you see, Wade. Truth is sometimes hard to find.”
He inclined his head. “I guess. Anyway, it got worse when the fighting got worse. My parents couldn’t agree on what side to butter the bread. They sure couldn’t compromise on raising Kendra and me. Dad got fed up and pretty soon I figured out that if you were out of sight, you were out of mind. I made it a point to be out of his sight as much as possible.”
The wealth of understatement in those words drew tears to Clarissa’s eyes. She wanted to say so many things, to comfort Wade, tell him she understood. But more than anything, she wanted him to continue talking. She made herself be satisfied with touching his arm as she whispered, “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t turn her way, but his head jerked in acknowledgment.
“My mother, bless her, never gave up on me even though I disappointed her so many times. She wanted me to have all the things she’d missed and to her, that meant living on the reservation, learning about my heritage.” He grimaced. “All I could see was that being an Indian and loving a white man had made her life a misery. She didn’t fit into his world, and he sure didn’t fit into hers. I fit into neither. I was determined to get as far away from there as I could, to find something better.”
“So that’s when you ran away?” Clarissa laid her head on the back of her chair, her fingers light on the bunch of muscles that clenched and unclenched as he spoke.
“Yes, I ran away, but I thought I was running to something. I just couldn’t figure out how to find it. When I was seventeen, I finally ran far enough that I ran into someone who showed me there was more to life, if I was willing to take it. His name was Ralph Peterson and he was an artist, a good one. He picked me up when I was hitchhiking, took me in and kind of adopted me for the two weeks I was gone. He showed me the places he’d sketched, real and dreams, places he could draw on a piece of paper. Places so wonderful they took your mind off your problems. He had a house full of pictures—buildings and places around the world. I was hooked on those cathedrals, castles, temples.”
“So you decided to become an artist?”
“Not really. I just got more and more curious about the process of how you got a building from a picture. When the police brought me home, I spent every spare moment I could find at the library. I read about Frank Lloyd Wright, I studied the styles and I started to sketch.” He made a face. “You can imagine how that went over—a macho male sitting around drawing! I got into a few fights over it.”
“I’d like to see your drawings sometime,” she whispered, aching for the almost-man who’d searched so hard to find himself. “You have a real talent with building things, so I’m sure that’s where it came from.”
“Thank you.” He paused a moment as if reflecting, then his face hardened. “I was awful to Kendra. I was so focused on what I wanted, what I had to have, that I couldn’t see that she was upset by the parents, too. She needed someone to talk to, but I wasn’t there for her.”
“Wade, your parents had that responsibility. Not you. You were a child. You should have had the freedom to dream.”
He shook his head, his mouth tightening into a bitter line. “She was my sister and I was so selfish I wouldn’t even let her use my stuff.” He puffed out a scornful half laugh. “I’d decided, you see, that I was going to make myself into somebody the world had to notice, that people were going to sit up and pay attention to Wade Featherhawk. I was too good for the reservation, too smart for my mother’s plans and too old to bother with Kendra. As soon as I could, I took off and got a job, construction. I learned as I went how to do a good job. Kendra and Mom seemed okay then and I’d work away summers. Then Mom died.”
Clarissa nodded. She knew this part. “And you had Kendra.”
“Yeah, I had Kendra. There wasn’t anybody else. My dad had disappeared and the folks who wanted her were bad news. It was up to me, and I hated being the one dumped on.” He swallowed, his voice choked but insistent. “You had to know Kendra to understand how loving she was. It tears at me even now when the kids look at me in a special way and I see her. She didn’t care if I was rich or famous or not. She loved me. All the time. No matter what.”
“I guess that’s what sisters do.” Clarissa let the silence stretch between them as he remembered his sister’s joy.
“She was such a happy kid. Always chattering a mile a minute. I loved her so much. But I didn’t dare take her with me to the sites. We lived in bunkhouses a lot of the time. She was young and gorgeous, and the men I worked with weren’t the type for her to be around.”
Clarissa could tell from the hard chiseled lines his face had fallen into just what kind of men he’d worked with and was fiercely proud of the way he’d protected his sister.
“I tried to take care of her as best I could, but I had to leave and find work whenever we ran out of money. She’d stay with some friends.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “She’d throw her arms around me when I got back and hug so hard my ribs ached.”
“She loved you.” Clarissa felt the sting of tears for that young girl burn in her chest.
Wade looked up. “Actually, you remind me of her sometimes. She wouldn’t take no for an answer, either. She was soft but so stubborn.” His eyes glinted reproof.
Clarissa grinned. “You have to stand up for something or you’ll fall for anything,” she teased.
He nodded slowly. “She should have stood up to me,” he muttered.
Clarissa wanted to ask why but he began speaking again.
“The building industry went into a slump right after I finished high school, and I couldn’t find work. I didn’t know what to do. I only had sixty-five dollars when I came home. I was scared stiff to tell her I’d have to leave again so soon. And I was fed up with grubbing along, just barely managing.” His fingers fisted until the knuckles grew white.
As Clarissa watched, he slowly straightened each finger, his jaw hard with the discipline of stifling his frustration. “She was so young and so innocent, I couldn’t imagine her leaving the reservation, getting a job. Then I had a better idea. Why didn’t she marry Roy? He’d been chasing her for years, she’d be eighteen in a couple of weeks. Everything would be wonderful.” He smiled but there was no joy in his face. “Or that’s what I thought.”
“It wasn’t?” Clarissa couldn’t stop herself from reaching out and feathering a hand through his hair, brushing it back, her fingers soothing against his scalp. “It sounds reasonable.”
Wade shook his head, leaning back so her hand fell away. It’s as if he can’t bear to accept kindness, she decided. As if he has to lash himself over and over with his faults.
“It was grasping at straws and I latched on to that one for all I was worth, eager to get rid of my burden. That’s what I thought of her. My own sister was a burden I had to get rid of.”
The recrimination and self-loathing she saw in his eyes tugged at Clarissa’s soft heart.
“I could hardly wait to be free of my own sister. Isn’t that sick? I had all these dreams of what I was going to do if I could just be on my own. I’d begun to earn my high school credits. I knew the college I wanted. Big man on campus, that’s who I wanted to be!”
“There’s nothing wrong with that, Wade. You were just trying to plan ahead.”
“Yeah. That’s what I told myself, too. I had to dump her on the first guy she liked for her own best interests. Because I couldn’t be bothered hanging around that reservation. I had to be free to find my dreams.”
There was nothing she could say. Nothing that would obliterate the sorrow he carried inside. All she could do was help him understand that God still loved him, as He loved them all in spite of their shortcomings. She whispered a prayer for guidance, then concentrated on Wade’s next words.
“I should have checked him out more, come home more often, paid attention to her letters. When she finally got hold of me in California, her life was a mess. Her marriage was on the rocks and her husband was dumping her and the kids, just like good old Dad.” He shoved his head into his hands, his fingers tugging on the glossy strands of black.
“But did I get her out of there, even then? No! All I could see were my selfish plans going down the tubes, my life getting put on hold, my dreams unfulfilled.” He kept his head bowed, his face averted. “I hurried home to talk her into trying to make it work, just a little longer. Just until I got what I wanted. That way, I could avoid my responsibility to take care of my sister. It was the one thing my mother made me promise I’d do and I failed her. Again.”
