Page 42 of I Do, I Do, I Do
Color rose in Zoe’s cheeks, and for a moment Juliette thought Zoe would cry. Astonished, she blinked and spread her hands. “Did I say something to upset you?”
“It’s late. I’m going to bed.”
Juliette watched her enter the tent, then turned to Clara. “What did I say?”
“I think sometimes it’s harder for Zoe than for you or me.” Clara frowned toward the tent flap. “We don’t have to struggle with how we feel about our family. Or worry that people we love think we were foolish or stupid about Jean Jacques.”
“Aunt Kibble certainly believes I was foolish and stupid.”
“But your Aunt Kibble would have disapproved no matter how lengthy an engagement you had, and no matter who you chose to marry. Isn’t that correct?” Clara asked shrewdly.
“It’s true that Aunt Kibble never approved of my suitors,” Juliette admitted slowly.
“It sounds as if your aunt didn’t want you to marry and leave her. I suspect she saw you as a companion for her old age.”
“Oh, my heavens.”
Not once had Juliette considered that Aunt Kibble might have had selfish motives for emphasizing the flaws in Juliette’s would-be beaux. Over time Juliette had accepted Aunt Kibble’s inferences that no man would be interested in her—he could only be interested in her money.
Clara stood and stamped her boots to shake the snow off her skirts. “Now I’ve upset you.”
“No,” Juliette said, drawing out the word. “But you’ve given me some things to think about.”
Aunt Kibble had used Jean Jacques as proof that a man would only be interested in Juliette’s inheritance. Unfortunately Aunt Kibble had been correct about Jean Jacques Villette. But had she been correct about Robert Wright? And Forrest Braithwaite?
Chewing her lip, Juliette stared into the falling snow and thought about her only two serious suitors. She had relied on Aunt Kibble’s judgment and had scorned Mr. Wright and Mr. Braithwaite, making it clear she did not welcome their attentions. In retrospect, she understood that she had acted on Aunt Kibble’s recommendations, not her own inclinations.
Only when she was looking spinsterhood squarely in the face had she defied Aunt Kibble and made her own decision. And Aunt Kibble had not let her forget for one moment what a disastrous decision she had made.
Here was one more reason not to return to Linda Vista. Juliette did not doubt that her aunt cared for her, maybe loved her. But Aunt Kibble’s decisions would benefit Aunt Kibble first and Juliette second.
But if she didn’t return to Linda Vista, where would she go once her marriage difficulties were resolved? With all her heart she wished she could tell Ben the truth and request his advice. Most of all she wished she could forget how good it felt when his arms had closed around her and he had pressed her to his chest.
She remembered the starchy scent of his shirt and a whiff of cigar smoke. A hint of male perspiration. These scents and his arms around her cast her memory back into childhood and raised feelings of safety and comfort. And other feelings, too, that made her squirm on the camp stool and that were anything but childlike.
The so-called trail followed the Taiya River out of Canyon City and toward a cleft in the rocky walls that opened into an area someone had christened Sheep Camp. Perhaps two thousand tents crowded Sheep Camp, each marked by piles of goods mounded before the flap. A choking haze of wood smoke overhung the camp.
While waiting for Tom’s Chilkats to bring up their outfits, Zoe wandered toward the river to escape the smoky camp and to watch weary men trudging back and forth along the snow-wet trail, their eyes on the ground, their backs bowed from the weight of heavy, bulky loads. Occasionally, though not often, she noticed a woman following a man, toting what she could. Two of the women she saw carried babies bundled in their arms.
By now Zoe knew that she wasn’t with child. But the possibility of pregnancy had kept her awake nights after learning about Clara and Juliette. Thank heaven she didn’t have the complication of an infant to add to the disaster wrought by Jean Jacques Villette.
“A penny for your thoughts…”
When she looked up from the rock where she was sitting, she saw Tom Price seated atop a roan gelding, his arms crossed on the pommel as if he’d been watching her for a while.
“Have you ever killed a man?” she asked abruptly.
Surprise lifted his eyebrows and then his smile hardened. “I’ve busted up a few, but I haven’t killed one yet. Why do you ask?”
“I just wondered.” She turned her head toward a field of rocks poking through wind-drifted snow. The snow had stopped falling earlier in the morning, leaving the world brushed in strokes of white and gray. The river resembled molten slate rushing to reach the sea, reflecting the gray sky overhead. Gray stones scarred the snowy landscape. Even the men trudging past seemed gray today, gray-clad, gray-faced. The reddish sheen of Tom’s horse struck Zoe as a jolting splash of color in an otherwise drab landscape.
“There’s something I was wondering about, too.”
“What would that be?” Damn, he was handsome. Occasionally Zoe caught him looking at her in a way that shot an electric spark burning down her spine. It was a narrowed speculative look that kindled fire in the depths of those green eyes. That particular look and her response troubled her greatly.
“My teams are working smoothly, everything’s under control. It seems I have a free afternoon.” The horse shifted beneath him, and his body moved as if part of the animal. “I wondered if you’d like to join me for a picnic up near the glaciers.”
Men didn’t picnic by themselves, so inviting her wasn’t a last-minute impulse. He’d planned this, had packed a lunch.
