Page 34 of Short-Straw Bride

Meredith felt a blush warm her cheeks, but oddly enough, she felt no need for his apology. If anything, the look he’d given offered hope that, in time, there might be more than a relationship of duty between them.

“You’re looking . . . better this morning,” he said, breaking the silence at last. “How’s your head?”

Meredith suddenly found it hard to hold his gaze. Her attention slid to the floor as she fidgeted with the edge of her sleeve. What was wrong with her? She’d been staring at the man just fine while he gawked at her, but now that he offered polite conversation, she turned into a mess of jumbled nerves. Really. It was too ridiculous.

She coughed softly and forced her chin up. “The dizziness is gone, so long as I don’t move too quickly, and except for a dull ache behind my ear, my head is much improved.” Darting a glance into his brownish-green eyes, she added, “Thank you for asking.”

He smiled, then looked at the wall behind her. “I’m glad to hear it.”

Now he was the one fidgeting. Meredith nearly giggled as the sole of his boot scraped back and forth over the floorboards. And what were those red marks along his jaw? The poor man looked like he’d been in a tussle with an angry chicken. She thought of one of her mother’s laying hens that always used to peck at Meredith’s hand. She’d been terrified of that bird until the day Mama finally tired of its antics and served it up for supper. Meri had never taken more delight in stabbing a knife into a chicken thigh than she had that night. Perhaps she ought to add roasted chicken to the Archers’ menu this week.

“Did you . . . ah . . . arrive at any conclusions during the night?” Travis asked, lifting a hand to cover the red spot on his neck.

The chickens roosting in Meredith’s mind vanished.

“I did.” She fortified herself to look at him and waited until his eyes touched hers to continue. “If your offer still stands, Travis . . . I accept.”

She sensed him sigh, even though no sound or movement evidenced such an event. And while she wouldn’t necessarily describe his demeanor as overjoyed, the way his mouth curved up at one corner combined with the slight crinkling around his eyes communicated a positive reaction to her response that stretched beyond mere politeness.

“Good.” He nodded once and gestured for her to continue on to the kitchen. “Jim held back some eggs for you in the skillet, and if Neill didn’t get to it first, you might be able to scrounge up a scrap of ham, too. I’m gonna round up some clean clothes while you eat.” Travis pointed to her room and headed that direction.

Well, technically it was his room. Although after spending so much time there the last few days, it felt like hers. Meredith crossed into the kitchen and picked up the empty plate that sat waiting for her on the table. When her hand closed over the spoon handle to ladle up what was left of the scrambled eggs, however, a new thought froze her where she stood.

Would it be their room tonight?

Meredith blinked and reminded herself to breathe as she scraped the last of the eggs and a tiny square of ham onto her plate. Somehow coffee ended up in her cup and her rear ended up in a chair, despite the fact that she had no recollection of accomplishing those tasks herself. As she bent her head to pray, thankfulness for her breakfast didn’t even cross her mind.

Lord, I’m not sure I’m ready to be a wife. It seems a lot more daunting now that it’s staring me in the face. I thought I was prepared, that my affection for Travis would make things easier, but all those lovely daydreams seem so juvenile in light of what is truly to come. Please don’t let me embarrass myself. Give me the courage to be the wife he needs.

As she chewed the lukewarm, overdone eggs, Meredith vowed to be like the biblical woman Rebekah. If she could enter Isaac’s tent on the first day they met and become his wife, surely Meredith could manage the same feat after knowing Travis three times as long.

Although . . . Rebekah had ended up with twins.

The square of ham she’d just swallowed lodged itself sideways in her throat. Meredith grabbed her coffee cup and gulped down a swig of the strong, bitter brew in an effort to keep from choking.

Good heavens. Contemplating the realities of life with a husband was frightening enough. Motherhood could wait a bit.

At least she didn’t have to worry about facing Travis’s brothers yet. Meredith eyed the mound of dishes waiting for her in the washtub with a wry quirk of her lips. It seemed they’d already abandoned the house to her care. Either that or it was their custom to save the dish washing till the end of the day.

Maybe they drew straws for that duty, too.

Travis yanked on the too-short sleeves of his father’s old suit coat and scrunched his shoulders for fear of tearing out the back seam. His dad had always been such a large figure in his mind, Travis never imagined that his coat wouldn’t fit. The thing was as old as the hills and musty as month-old bread, but it was the only decent suit coat in the house. Travis and his brothers certainly had no need for fancy duds, living the way they did. Or they hadn’t until today.

So much for dressing for the occasion. Travis shrugged out of the coat and returned it to the bottom drawer of his bureau, where it would probably sit unused for another couple of decades. At least he had a clean shirt to wear. Of course, it was the scratchy white cotton one that always made his neck itch, but it was probably more appropriate wedding attire than the dark brown flannel he usually wore. And he could dress it up with his dad’s black string tie—the one part of the suit guaranteed to fit.

Travis took out his mother’s keepsake box and ran his hand over the rose pattern carved into the top of the mahogany lid. After seventeen years without her, his memories had faded. He remembered her smile, the way her arms felt around him when she hugged him in the morning before sending him off to school, the way she fussed at him for tracking mud into the house. But he couldn’t recall the particular sound of her voice, or the precise color of her eyes. He thought they might have been green, but perhaps they’d been more brown, like his.

What would she think of his marriage? Would she approve? He didn’t doubt that she’d like Meredith. Mama had always been a fighter, even at the end when the childbed fever finally claimed her life. Meredith possessed the same quality, in spades.

Travis opened the mahogany box and fingered the hodgepodge within. His father’s watch, a packet of old letters, the three-legged dog he’d whittled for her one Christmas. Then his hand closed over the slender band he’d sought. Plain and not as shiny as he would have liked, yet the ring warmed his palm as if the love his parents shared still radiated from within its circle.

He didn’t have a proper suit of clothes or a white clapboard church to offer, but his bride would have a ring—a ring representing all he hoped their relationship would one day become.

Before closing the box, he snatched the black ribbon that wove in and out of the treasures and strung it through the center of the ring. After knotting the ends of the tie securely around the gold band, he shoved both objects deep into his trouser pocket. With his father’s tie and his mother’s ring on hand, he’d be ready whenever Mr. Hayes showed up with the parson. In the meantime, he had work to do.

Travis slid his brown wool vest over the scratchy cotton shirt, wincing as the stiff material pressed against his back. He did up the buttons and grabbed his hat, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he turned for the door.

Meredith wasn’t getting much of a prize in their arrangement. Travis frowned at his razor-nicked face and saddle-bum clothes and thought about how pretty she’d looked stepping out of his room with her hair done up and her eyes glowing shyly at him. Seeing her only in a shapeless sleeping gown the last couple of days, he’d nearly forgotten what nice curves she had. The faded dress she wore with its snug bodice and trim waist brought all those memories rushing back.