The Complete Oregon Series, page 27
Emeline stared at the man kneeling next to her like a deer poised to flee.
He murmured soothingly and wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulder.
Suddenly, there was no doubt in Nora’s mind about the whereabouts of her husband. She sensed that it was Luke kneeling in the mud.
For a moment, Emeline’s half-naked body froze under his touch, then she fell into his arms and started to sob uncontrollably.
Luke shrugged out of his jacket and hung it around Emeline’s shoulders.
Nora could only stare. Her eyes, now used to the darkness, made out the small circles that Luke’s hands traced on Emeline’s back. He stroked her hair and whispered in her ear until the sobs subsided to an occasional hiccup.
When Nora had to gasp for air, she realized she had held her breath while she watched Luke. Never, not even once in her life, had she seen a man comfort a woman in this way. Emeline seemed to sense that he was different from other men too, because the battered woman relaxed in his embrace. Emmy surely would have run away from any other male. Nora was proud of the way he was consoling Emmy, but at the same time, a spark of jealousy glowed in her belly as she watched Luke hold the half-naked woman close.
When Luke helped Emmy up and led her up the bank, Nora turned around and hurried back to camp, keeping ahead of them so they wouldn’t discover her. She slipped into the tent, undressed, and crawled back under her blankets.
Ten minutes later, the tent’s flap opened.
Nora tried to feign the quiet breathing of a sleeping person.
Luke stopped at the tent’s entrance. He checked on Amy; then his head turned in her direction.
Nora squeezed her eyes shut. She heard him tiptoe through the tent and settle down on his bedroll. Curiosity burned in her chest. She wanted to ask him what had happened to Emmy tonight, why he’d been down by the river, and why he had taken on the role of Emmy’s comforter. Just a few months ago, she wouldn’t have dared to ask—a wife was accountable to her husband, but not the other way around. That’s what she’d learned and believed in her whole life. But Luke didn’t seem to believe in those traditional rules of marriage. He’d encouraged her every day to form her own opinion and voice it.
Nora cleared her throat. “Luke?”
Luke’s blanket rustled. “You’re awake?”
Isn’t it obvious? I’ve never been prone to talking in my sleep. Nora realized that he was stalling. He didn’t want her to ask where he’d been. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Luke lifted up on his elbow. She felt his gaze rest on her in the almost darkness. “Is it the baby? Is she kicking again?”
Nora’s lips curled into a smile. Without realizing it, he always referred to the baby as a “she.” “No, it’s not that. The baby is quiet for once. I’m just lying awake, thinking.”
“Worrying,” Luke said.
Nora bit her lip. “Yeah. And then you were gone from the tent for so long.”
“Just a quick stroll through the camp to check on Measles,” Luke said.
That was an obvious lie. Should I let him get away with it? “No,” she said.
“No?”
“I checked on Measles when you didn’t return to the tent. You weren’t with her.”
Luke sat up. “Are you accusing me of anything?” His tone of voice wasn’t angry, but cautious.
Am I? Other women might have accused him of having an affair with Emeline Larson, but Nora knew that was not it. Luke’s embrace had been tender, but without any passion. “No. I just want to know where you’ve been. This wasn’t the first time you slipped away from camp in the middle of the night.” Nora remembered the night he had been shot by the guard. She suspected that he hadn’t just visited the latrine then, either.
“Where I do or do not go is none of your business,” Luke said.
Nora blinked and closed her mouth. So much for being allowed to voice my opinion. She rolled away from Luke. She’d thought she was used to being degraded and humiliated, but this harsh rebuke from Luke hurt more than she had expected.
A touch to her shoulder made her flinch.
“Nora, I’m sorry.” Luke gently pulled her around. “I’m sorry.”
Nora stared up into his eyes. She could read the regret in them. “It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not. It’s just…” Luke sighed. “I’m just not used to someone caring about where I am or what I do. I was down by the river. Emeline Larson was there. That damned husband of hers hit her again, and she was in the middle of the river, trying to cool her face and wash the traces of him off her body.”
Luke had been honest. Well, at least partially honest. He still didn’t explain why he was out there in the middle of the night. Nora decided to let it go. She wanted to believe that he would tell her when he was ready. “I know,” she said, deciding to return his honesty.
“You know? What? How?”
“When you didn’t come back, I was worried, so I searched for you. I saw you with Emmy down by the river.” Nora waited with bated breath for Luke’s reaction.
Luke frowned. “Why didn’t you show yourself? I could have used your help, you know?”
“I guess I didn’t want to interrupt. There was something so… From what I could see, you didn’t need any help at all.” She looked into his face. “You were really good with her. I never thought that she would let herself be comforted by a man, not after what she just went through with Bill.”
Luke shrugged. “Anyone with a compassionate bone in his body could have done it.”
Yeah, yeah, just try to convince yourself of that. I know you’re special, Luke Hamilton.
“Let’s go to sleep now. Tomorrow’s gonna be a hard day.” With a soft squeeze to her shoulder, he retreated to his side of the tent.
Sheep Rock,
July 25th, 1851
“Sit down before you fall down, Nora.” Luke took the frying pan from Nora and pointed to a fallen log. “You too, Mrs. Larson. I’ll take care of this.”
She gave Emeline Larson an encouraging nod, but the woman still hesitated, not used to sitting by the fire while a man attended to her. Finally, Nora had to pull her down to sit next to her.
“Beans.” Amy’s groan said what most of the adults were thinking.
“Well, if you insist, I could shoot one of the ‘cute sheep’ that we saw earlier.” Luke pointed to the rugged mountain called Sheep Rock. Mountain sheep wandered around its base. “Then you wouldn’t have to eat the beans.”
“Noooo.” Amy hastily shoveled down her beans.
Nora giggled, and even Emeline had to smile.
Satisfied, Luke handed out plates of beans and bread to the two pregnant women.
“Thank you,” Emeline said in a whisper, not meeting her eyes. “And thank you for last night.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Bill Larson’s roar made everyone stop eating. He had appeared behind his wife. “Do you think you can cuckold me? You, you joke of a man?”
“Billy, please, he’s not—”
Larson pointed a threatening finger at his wife. “Shut up. I’ll deal with you later.” He whirled around and glared at Luke.
Luke clenched her jaw. She wanted to rip off the finger that he had threatened Emeline with—or even the whole arm. “There’s nothing between your wife and me,” she said as calmly as possible.
“And just to make sure it stays that way, I’m gonna clean your plow.” Larson raised both fists and took a fighting stance. “Come on, Hamilton. Come on, you coward.”
Luke knew that she had a good chance of beating him—she’d learned how to fight growing up in seedy neighborhoods and in the barracks of half a dozen forts. But Larson was taller and heavier than she was. If she got injured fighting him, her secret might be discovered. “I’m not the one who likes to discuss things with his fists,” she said with a glance at the bruises in Emeline’s face.
“What are you implying?” Larson took a step closer, crowding Luke.
Luke held his gaze. “You know exactly what I mean.”
“What’s going on here?” the captain’s voice boomed behind them. “We’re moving on, people.”
Larson didn’t look away from Luke. He pointed a thick finger at her. “I’m not through with you.” He stormed off, dragging Emeline with him.
Luke exchanged a quick glance with Nora, who looked worried. Wonderful. Luke pressed her lips together. Now I’ve got two enemies in the train. Slipping away from the camp to bathe or tend to other female needs was getting more and more difficult. With a sigh, she turned to reyoke the oxen.
Fort Hall,
July 29th, 1851
“A letter.” Nora waved a battered envelope. “I’ve got a letter from Tess.”
Luke grinned, relieved to see Nora smile again. Just an hour ago, Nora hadn’t been able to hide her disappointment at reaching Fort Hall and finding out that it was nothing more than a few shabby buildings enclosed in a log wall.
But Amy still trudged over the parade ground with a constant frown. Even the promise of eating fresh vegetables and fruit tonight, something they hadn’t had for some time, didn’t cheer her up.
“She’s just grumpy,” Nora said. “We should return to camp so that she can take a nap.”
“You mean so that you can read your letter, huh?” Luke smiled at the way Nora clutched the envelope with both hands.
A blush colored Nora’s cheeks. “It’s just… It’s such a surprise. I didn’t expect to hear from Tess until we reached Oregon. I don’t know how she managed to get a letter to Fort Hall before we got here.”
Luke shrugged. “She probably sent letters with every gold digger and officer leaving Independence, hoping one of them would reach you. Men on horses make much better time than our slow-moving oxen with the heavy wagons. A lot of men visit Tess just before they head west.” She stopped when she became aware of whom she was talking to. Nora knew better than anyone else how many men visited Tess’s brothel. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to remind you of—”
“No. It’s all right. I’m not ashamed of what I did while I…” Nora took a sidelong glance at her daughter. “While I lived in Independence. Not anymore.”
Luke didn’t know what to say, so she just nodded, and they walked back to their tent in companionable silence.
Once they had Amy settled down for the night and all the chores were done, Nora sat down to read her letter. A smile was firmly etched on her face as the opened the envelope.
Luke was glad to hear from her old friend Tess too, but her joy wasn’t as unblemished as Nora’s. To tell the truth, she was a little worried about the letter’s content. Had Tess remembered to refer to her only with male pronouns? Or had she assumed that, after many weeks of traveling together, Luke had long since revealed her secret to Nora?
Not wanting to make her feel as if she was watching her, trying to decipher the words in the letter, Luke forced her gaze away and reached for her newest project. Yesterday, she had started to work on hollowing out half of a yard-long log.
“This is not a new wooden yoke for the oxen, is it?” Nora asked, looking up from her letter.
“No, it’s not.” Luke scratched her nose, hesitant to admit it. “It’s a cradle.”
The letter fluttered into Nora’s lap. “A cradle? For my baby?” She touched her belly.
Luke shifted the knife from hand to hand. She knew she was sending Nora mixed messages. She had told her to search for another husband as soon as they reached Oregon, and yet she was building a cradle as if she expected a succession of Hamilton offspring to grow up in it. “Well…” She shrugged, trying to play it down. “I figured the little one’s going to need it. How’s Tess?”
Nora looked back and forth between the cradle and Luke’s face for a few seconds more before she picked up the letter again. “She’s fine, but she complains that business has been dragging since…for the last few months.”
Since Nora left. Luke knew enough about life in a brothel to realize that the beautiful, red-haired Nora had probably obtained the highest prices. Luke clenched her teeth and forced her thoughts in another direction. She always avoided thinking about the talents that Nora had possessed in her former profession. “But otherwise Tess is fine?”
“Yes.” Nora slid her thumb over a paragraph in the letter. She glanced at Luke, then quickly back down. “She asked…”
Luke let go of the knife. She wanted to avoid cutting herself if Tess had somehow managed to get her in trouble with a question. I just hope she didn’t give my secret away. “What?” she asked after several seconds of hesitation.
“She asked how our marriage is going.” Slowly, Nora looked up from the letter.
Luke’s mouth grew dry. She desperately wanted to know the answer to that question. What did Nora think about their marriage? Did she regard it as the farce it was? “What will you write her?”
“What do you want me to write?”
That was not the way Luke wanted things to be between them. She didn’t want to be anything like Bill Larson, who tried to control everything his wife did, said, and even thought. “The truth,” she said.
Nora kept eye contact. “Then I’ll write that you’re hardworking, gentle, a good father to Amy…and even more afraid to trust someone than I am.” Finally, Nora lowered her gaze, as if afraid that she’d said too much.
I can’t trust you fully, Luke thought. Not with the truth about myself. You wouldn’t have anything complimentary to say about me any longer if you knew.
When Luke didn’t answer, Nora was the one to break the silence. “Tess also wanted to know how you reacted to the fact that I’m with child again.”
Luke stiffened. Tess would immediately know that she hadn’t fathered the child, so she might have asked Nora who the baby’s father was. She hoped it wouldn’t make Nora suspicious.
“Maybe you want to answer that question for Tess?” Nora said.
“My writing is not good enough yet.” Luke’s emotions regarding the baby were much too conflicted to give a clear answer. Sometimes, when she lay awake at night, she dreamed of settling down with Nora, Amy, and the baby, building a happy little family, but then, in the light of day, she reminded herself that it could never be.
Nora accepted that answer with a sigh. She became engrossed in the letter again.
Relieved, Luke reached for the knife and started to carve out the cradle.
“Lucinda,” Nora said.
The knife slipped. It sliced across Luke’s palm, but she hardly felt the pain as she stared at Nora. What…? How does she know?
“You’re bleeding,” Nora said.
Luke still stared at her. She didn’t even blink, too shocked at the name that she hadn’t heard in many years. “What?”
Nora pointed at her palm. “You cut yourself.”
Why is she talking about my palm? Why is she so calm? She was almost too breathless to speak, but she managed a “What did you just say?”
Nora’s gentle fingers lifted her hand and pressed a cloth against the cut. “You cut yourself.” She dabbed at the wound.
“No, not that. I mean that…that name that you…”
“Lucinda?”
Hearing that name again was more painful than the cut on her palm. Lucinda had been the name of a helpless girl with no prospects in life while, at least to the world, Luke was a man who could do whatever he set out to do. “Yeah.”
“Tess asked me if I’d already thought of a name for the baby,” Nora said, still cradling Luke’s hand. “You seem to assume that it’s gonna be a girl, so I thought maybe we could name her Lucinda—or Lucas junior if it’s a boy. What do you think?”
Nora’s fingers trembled against Luke’s equally unsteady hand. She relaxed as she realized that Nora had no idea that Lucinda had once been her own name. The question still possessed its own dangers, though. Naming the baby after her would mean agreeing to raise it as her own son or daughter—and not just being a temporary second parent. Luke bit her lip as she considered the dilemma. She didn’t want to disappoint Nora now that she had just started to trust her, but she also didn’t want to give her any false hopes. She didn’t know how long she would stay with Nora and her children, but one thing she knew for sure: She didn’t want to hear the name Lucinda shouted through the house. Not only would it remind her of a time in her life that she would rather forget, but she also didn’t want to risk reacting to the name that had once been her own. But, of course, she couldn’t very well tell Nora that. “Is there no one in your family that you’d want to name the baby after? Your father or your mother?”
The pressure that Nora applied on the wound increased. “No.”
“No one? No brother, sister, cousin…?”
Nora shook her head. “I’ve never been close to anyone in my family.”
It was hard to believe for Luke that someone could have a family and still not be close to anyone. Growing up as a neglected only child, she had often dreamed of having loving parents and siblings.
“You don’t want the baby to be named after you, do you?” Nora’s voice held a defeated tone.
Luke took the piece of cloth from Nora and stalled by inspecting the cut. “It’s not that.”
“But?” Nora asked.
“I’m not that fond of my name. There are other, much nicer names.”
Now Nora seemed to relax a bit. “Do you have a favorite?”
Oh, no. I’m not naming this baby when I’m not sure if I’ll be around to see it grow up. “No, not really.”
“What about Nathaniel, Nathan, or Natalie?” Nora asked.
Luke’s fingers tightened around the cloth. It was the one name in the world that held a personal meaning for her. Was it just luck, a simple coincidence, that Nora had suggested those of all names? “Why that name? Does it mean anything to you?”
He murmured soothingly and wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulder.
Suddenly, there was no doubt in Nora’s mind about the whereabouts of her husband. She sensed that it was Luke kneeling in the mud.
For a moment, Emeline’s half-naked body froze under his touch, then she fell into his arms and started to sob uncontrollably.
Luke shrugged out of his jacket and hung it around Emeline’s shoulders.
Nora could only stare. Her eyes, now used to the darkness, made out the small circles that Luke’s hands traced on Emeline’s back. He stroked her hair and whispered in her ear until the sobs subsided to an occasional hiccup.
When Nora had to gasp for air, she realized she had held her breath while she watched Luke. Never, not even once in her life, had she seen a man comfort a woman in this way. Emeline seemed to sense that he was different from other men too, because the battered woman relaxed in his embrace. Emmy surely would have run away from any other male. Nora was proud of the way he was consoling Emmy, but at the same time, a spark of jealousy glowed in her belly as she watched Luke hold the half-naked woman close.
When Luke helped Emmy up and led her up the bank, Nora turned around and hurried back to camp, keeping ahead of them so they wouldn’t discover her. She slipped into the tent, undressed, and crawled back under her blankets.
Ten minutes later, the tent’s flap opened.
Nora tried to feign the quiet breathing of a sleeping person.
Luke stopped at the tent’s entrance. He checked on Amy; then his head turned in her direction.
Nora squeezed her eyes shut. She heard him tiptoe through the tent and settle down on his bedroll. Curiosity burned in her chest. She wanted to ask him what had happened to Emmy tonight, why he’d been down by the river, and why he had taken on the role of Emmy’s comforter. Just a few months ago, she wouldn’t have dared to ask—a wife was accountable to her husband, but not the other way around. That’s what she’d learned and believed in her whole life. But Luke didn’t seem to believe in those traditional rules of marriage. He’d encouraged her every day to form her own opinion and voice it.
Nora cleared her throat. “Luke?”
Luke’s blanket rustled. “You’re awake?”
Isn’t it obvious? I’ve never been prone to talking in my sleep. Nora realized that he was stalling. He didn’t want her to ask where he’d been. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Luke lifted up on his elbow. She felt his gaze rest on her in the almost darkness. “Is it the baby? Is she kicking again?”
Nora’s lips curled into a smile. Without realizing it, he always referred to the baby as a “she.” “No, it’s not that. The baby is quiet for once. I’m just lying awake, thinking.”
“Worrying,” Luke said.
Nora bit her lip. “Yeah. And then you were gone from the tent for so long.”
“Just a quick stroll through the camp to check on Measles,” Luke said.
That was an obvious lie. Should I let him get away with it? “No,” she said.
“No?”
“I checked on Measles when you didn’t return to the tent. You weren’t with her.”
Luke sat up. “Are you accusing me of anything?” His tone of voice wasn’t angry, but cautious.
Am I? Other women might have accused him of having an affair with Emeline Larson, but Nora knew that was not it. Luke’s embrace had been tender, but without any passion. “No. I just want to know where you’ve been. This wasn’t the first time you slipped away from camp in the middle of the night.” Nora remembered the night he had been shot by the guard. She suspected that he hadn’t just visited the latrine then, either.
“Where I do or do not go is none of your business,” Luke said.
Nora blinked and closed her mouth. So much for being allowed to voice my opinion. She rolled away from Luke. She’d thought she was used to being degraded and humiliated, but this harsh rebuke from Luke hurt more than she had expected.
A touch to her shoulder made her flinch.
“Nora, I’m sorry.” Luke gently pulled her around. “I’m sorry.”
Nora stared up into his eyes. She could read the regret in them. “It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not. It’s just…” Luke sighed. “I’m just not used to someone caring about where I am or what I do. I was down by the river. Emeline Larson was there. That damned husband of hers hit her again, and she was in the middle of the river, trying to cool her face and wash the traces of him off her body.”
Luke had been honest. Well, at least partially honest. He still didn’t explain why he was out there in the middle of the night. Nora decided to let it go. She wanted to believe that he would tell her when he was ready. “I know,” she said, deciding to return his honesty.
“You know? What? How?”
“When you didn’t come back, I was worried, so I searched for you. I saw you with Emmy down by the river.” Nora waited with bated breath for Luke’s reaction.
Luke frowned. “Why didn’t you show yourself? I could have used your help, you know?”
“I guess I didn’t want to interrupt. There was something so… From what I could see, you didn’t need any help at all.” She looked into his face. “You were really good with her. I never thought that she would let herself be comforted by a man, not after what she just went through with Bill.”
Luke shrugged. “Anyone with a compassionate bone in his body could have done it.”
Yeah, yeah, just try to convince yourself of that. I know you’re special, Luke Hamilton.
“Let’s go to sleep now. Tomorrow’s gonna be a hard day.” With a soft squeeze to her shoulder, he retreated to his side of the tent.
Sheep Rock,
July 25th, 1851
“Sit down before you fall down, Nora.” Luke took the frying pan from Nora and pointed to a fallen log. “You too, Mrs. Larson. I’ll take care of this.”
She gave Emeline Larson an encouraging nod, but the woman still hesitated, not used to sitting by the fire while a man attended to her. Finally, Nora had to pull her down to sit next to her.
“Beans.” Amy’s groan said what most of the adults were thinking.
“Well, if you insist, I could shoot one of the ‘cute sheep’ that we saw earlier.” Luke pointed to the rugged mountain called Sheep Rock. Mountain sheep wandered around its base. “Then you wouldn’t have to eat the beans.”
“Noooo.” Amy hastily shoveled down her beans.
Nora giggled, and even Emeline had to smile.
Satisfied, Luke handed out plates of beans and bread to the two pregnant women.
“Thank you,” Emeline said in a whisper, not meeting her eyes. “And thank you for last night.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Bill Larson’s roar made everyone stop eating. He had appeared behind his wife. “Do you think you can cuckold me? You, you joke of a man?”
“Billy, please, he’s not—”
Larson pointed a threatening finger at his wife. “Shut up. I’ll deal with you later.” He whirled around and glared at Luke.
Luke clenched her jaw. She wanted to rip off the finger that he had threatened Emeline with—or even the whole arm. “There’s nothing between your wife and me,” she said as calmly as possible.
“And just to make sure it stays that way, I’m gonna clean your plow.” Larson raised both fists and took a fighting stance. “Come on, Hamilton. Come on, you coward.”
Luke knew that she had a good chance of beating him—she’d learned how to fight growing up in seedy neighborhoods and in the barracks of half a dozen forts. But Larson was taller and heavier than she was. If she got injured fighting him, her secret might be discovered. “I’m not the one who likes to discuss things with his fists,” she said with a glance at the bruises in Emeline’s face.
“What are you implying?” Larson took a step closer, crowding Luke.
Luke held his gaze. “You know exactly what I mean.”
“What’s going on here?” the captain’s voice boomed behind them. “We’re moving on, people.”
Larson didn’t look away from Luke. He pointed a thick finger at her. “I’m not through with you.” He stormed off, dragging Emeline with him.
Luke exchanged a quick glance with Nora, who looked worried. Wonderful. Luke pressed her lips together. Now I’ve got two enemies in the train. Slipping away from the camp to bathe or tend to other female needs was getting more and more difficult. With a sigh, she turned to reyoke the oxen.
Fort Hall,
July 29th, 1851
“A letter.” Nora waved a battered envelope. “I’ve got a letter from Tess.”
Luke grinned, relieved to see Nora smile again. Just an hour ago, Nora hadn’t been able to hide her disappointment at reaching Fort Hall and finding out that it was nothing more than a few shabby buildings enclosed in a log wall.
But Amy still trudged over the parade ground with a constant frown. Even the promise of eating fresh vegetables and fruit tonight, something they hadn’t had for some time, didn’t cheer her up.
“She’s just grumpy,” Nora said. “We should return to camp so that she can take a nap.”
“You mean so that you can read your letter, huh?” Luke smiled at the way Nora clutched the envelope with both hands.
A blush colored Nora’s cheeks. “It’s just… It’s such a surprise. I didn’t expect to hear from Tess until we reached Oregon. I don’t know how she managed to get a letter to Fort Hall before we got here.”
Luke shrugged. “She probably sent letters with every gold digger and officer leaving Independence, hoping one of them would reach you. Men on horses make much better time than our slow-moving oxen with the heavy wagons. A lot of men visit Tess just before they head west.” She stopped when she became aware of whom she was talking to. Nora knew better than anyone else how many men visited Tess’s brothel. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to remind you of—”
“No. It’s all right. I’m not ashamed of what I did while I…” Nora took a sidelong glance at her daughter. “While I lived in Independence. Not anymore.”
Luke didn’t know what to say, so she just nodded, and they walked back to their tent in companionable silence.
Once they had Amy settled down for the night and all the chores were done, Nora sat down to read her letter. A smile was firmly etched on her face as the opened the envelope.
Luke was glad to hear from her old friend Tess too, but her joy wasn’t as unblemished as Nora’s. To tell the truth, she was a little worried about the letter’s content. Had Tess remembered to refer to her only with male pronouns? Or had she assumed that, after many weeks of traveling together, Luke had long since revealed her secret to Nora?
Not wanting to make her feel as if she was watching her, trying to decipher the words in the letter, Luke forced her gaze away and reached for her newest project. Yesterday, she had started to work on hollowing out half of a yard-long log.
“This is not a new wooden yoke for the oxen, is it?” Nora asked, looking up from her letter.
“No, it’s not.” Luke scratched her nose, hesitant to admit it. “It’s a cradle.”
The letter fluttered into Nora’s lap. “A cradle? For my baby?” She touched her belly.
Luke shifted the knife from hand to hand. She knew she was sending Nora mixed messages. She had told her to search for another husband as soon as they reached Oregon, and yet she was building a cradle as if she expected a succession of Hamilton offspring to grow up in it. “Well…” She shrugged, trying to play it down. “I figured the little one’s going to need it. How’s Tess?”
Nora looked back and forth between the cradle and Luke’s face for a few seconds more before she picked up the letter again. “She’s fine, but she complains that business has been dragging since…for the last few months.”
Since Nora left. Luke knew enough about life in a brothel to realize that the beautiful, red-haired Nora had probably obtained the highest prices. Luke clenched her teeth and forced her thoughts in another direction. She always avoided thinking about the talents that Nora had possessed in her former profession. “But otherwise Tess is fine?”
“Yes.” Nora slid her thumb over a paragraph in the letter. She glanced at Luke, then quickly back down. “She asked…”
Luke let go of the knife. She wanted to avoid cutting herself if Tess had somehow managed to get her in trouble with a question. I just hope she didn’t give my secret away. “What?” she asked after several seconds of hesitation.
“She asked how our marriage is going.” Slowly, Nora looked up from the letter.
Luke’s mouth grew dry. She desperately wanted to know the answer to that question. What did Nora think about their marriage? Did she regard it as the farce it was? “What will you write her?”
“What do you want me to write?”
That was not the way Luke wanted things to be between them. She didn’t want to be anything like Bill Larson, who tried to control everything his wife did, said, and even thought. “The truth,” she said.
Nora kept eye contact. “Then I’ll write that you’re hardworking, gentle, a good father to Amy…and even more afraid to trust someone than I am.” Finally, Nora lowered her gaze, as if afraid that she’d said too much.
I can’t trust you fully, Luke thought. Not with the truth about myself. You wouldn’t have anything complimentary to say about me any longer if you knew.
When Luke didn’t answer, Nora was the one to break the silence. “Tess also wanted to know how you reacted to the fact that I’m with child again.”
Luke stiffened. Tess would immediately know that she hadn’t fathered the child, so she might have asked Nora who the baby’s father was. She hoped it wouldn’t make Nora suspicious.
“Maybe you want to answer that question for Tess?” Nora said.
“My writing is not good enough yet.” Luke’s emotions regarding the baby were much too conflicted to give a clear answer. Sometimes, when she lay awake at night, she dreamed of settling down with Nora, Amy, and the baby, building a happy little family, but then, in the light of day, she reminded herself that it could never be.
Nora accepted that answer with a sigh. She became engrossed in the letter again.
Relieved, Luke reached for the knife and started to carve out the cradle.
“Lucinda,” Nora said.
The knife slipped. It sliced across Luke’s palm, but she hardly felt the pain as she stared at Nora. What…? How does she know?
“You’re bleeding,” Nora said.
Luke still stared at her. She didn’t even blink, too shocked at the name that she hadn’t heard in many years. “What?”
Nora pointed at her palm. “You cut yourself.”
Why is she talking about my palm? Why is she so calm? She was almost too breathless to speak, but she managed a “What did you just say?”
Nora’s gentle fingers lifted her hand and pressed a cloth against the cut. “You cut yourself.” She dabbed at the wound.
“No, not that. I mean that…that name that you…”
“Lucinda?”
Hearing that name again was more painful than the cut on her palm. Lucinda had been the name of a helpless girl with no prospects in life while, at least to the world, Luke was a man who could do whatever he set out to do. “Yeah.”
“Tess asked me if I’d already thought of a name for the baby,” Nora said, still cradling Luke’s hand. “You seem to assume that it’s gonna be a girl, so I thought maybe we could name her Lucinda—or Lucas junior if it’s a boy. What do you think?”
Nora’s fingers trembled against Luke’s equally unsteady hand. She relaxed as she realized that Nora had no idea that Lucinda had once been her own name. The question still possessed its own dangers, though. Naming the baby after her would mean agreeing to raise it as her own son or daughter—and not just being a temporary second parent. Luke bit her lip as she considered the dilemma. She didn’t want to disappoint Nora now that she had just started to trust her, but she also didn’t want to give her any false hopes. She didn’t know how long she would stay with Nora and her children, but one thing she knew for sure: She didn’t want to hear the name Lucinda shouted through the house. Not only would it remind her of a time in her life that she would rather forget, but she also didn’t want to risk reacting to the name that had once been her own. But, of course, she couldn’t very well tell Nora that. “Is there no one in your family that you’d want to name the baby after? Your father or your mother?”
The pressure that Nora applied on the wound increased. “No.”
“No one? No brother, sister, cousin…?”
Nora shook her head. “I’ve never been close to anyone in my family.”
It was hard to believe for Luke that someone could have a family and still not be close to anyone. Growing up as a neglected only child, she had often dreamed of having loving parents and siblings.
“You don’t want the baby to be named after you, do you?” Nora’s voice held a defeated tone.
Luke took the piece of cloth from Nora and stalled by inspecting the cut. “It’s not that.”
“But?” Nora asked.
“I’m not that fond of my name. There are other, much nicer names.”
Now Nora seemed to relax a bit. “Do you have a favorite?”
Oh, no. I’m not naming this baby when I’m not sure if I’ll be around to see it grow up. “No, not really.”
“What about Nathaniel, Nathan, or Natalie?” Nora asked.
Luke’s fingers tightened around the cloth. It was the one name in the world that held a personal meaning for her. Was it just luck, a simple coincidence, that Nora had suggested those of all names? “Why that name? Does it mean anything to you?”
