LITMIR.BIZ

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ease the strain on their hands and bodies, Hannah and her mother took turns. While one hunched over the board, scrubbing the garments and tossing them into the rinse water, the other twisted each piece, shook it out and hung it on the clothesline. The process took all morning.

      Hannah ached with the weariness of a night spent tossing and turning, but she knew better than to complain or to plead her condition. Her mother had done laundry up to the last hours of her pregnancies. The same would be expected of her.

      While they scrubbed and rinsed, Annie took charge of the kitchen and the small children. After Hannah married Judd Seavers, Annie would likely be promoted to laundry duty while thirteen-year-old Emma took on the child-minding. The boys would help Soren in the fields until they were old enough to take over the farm or leave to find menial jobs that paid a paltry wage. As things stood, none of them would go to school beyond the eighth grade or do any kind of work that didn’t involve their hands and backs. It was a hard lot, but it was theirs and they seemed to accept it.

      Somehow, Hannah resolved, she would find a way to make their lives better.

      With the laundry finished, there was still plenty to be done. Hannah found a rusty hoe and went out to help eleven-year-old Peter finish weeding the vegetable patch. Today she was grateful for the work and for Peter’s childish chatter. It helped to keep her mind off Judd’s impending visit.

      What if he didn’t come?

      What if he’d changed his mind?

      She wouldn’t blame him if he backed out. After all, she hadn’t given him any encouragement. Judd knew, of course, that she didn’t love him. Truth be told, she wasn’t even sure she liked him. But that didn’t matter, Hannah reminded herself. This was a legal arrangement, to protect her baby’s rights until Quint returned. She and Judd would be living together like two polite strangers in a boardinghouse, with his mother and the formidable Gretel as chaperones.

      A nunnery couldn’t be safer.

      She was yanking the last tangle of wild morning glory from among the string beans when she glanced up to see a tall rider approaching the gate. Even silhouetted as he was, against the blaze of the setting sun, there was no mistaking Judd. Hannah’s emotions fluttered between dismay and relief. He’d come early, giving her no time to clean up. Her hair was plastered to her head beneath her mother’s ugly sunbonnet. Her face was smudged with dirt, and her gingham dress felt glued to her body. But why should her appearance matter? It wasn’t as if they were courting. He’d made her a plainspoken offer last night. Now he’d come for his answer.

      She could only hope it was the answer he wanted to hear.

      

      Judd eased out of the saddle, opened the sagging gate and led his horse through. It was early yet, barely sundown. The family would still be at evening chores. He should have waited until after dark. But never mind, he wouldn’t be here long. All he needed was a single word from Hannah—yes or no.

      Turning, he closed the gate behind the horse. He could see Hannah now, standing in the family garden, clad in the faded gingham she’d worn to see Quint off on the train. A blue sunbonnet dangled by its strings from her left hand. With her right hand, she was hurriedly finger-combing her hair back from her face. The motion strained the fabric of her bodice against one swollen breast.

      Judd tore his eyes away from the sight. Hannah might be his future bride, but she was carrying his brother’s child. He’d be well-advised to discipline his gaze.

      Hannah had seen him. She hesitated, shading her eyes against the sunset. Then she started down the slope. She was tall like her mother, with a graceful stride that no one else in her family possessed. Just watching her walk toward him was a pleasure.

      “Hello,” she greeted him as she came within speaking range. Judd could feel the tension in her voice. Maybe she’d decided to refuse his offer. He had to be prepared for that.

      “Let’s walk,” he said, tethering his horse to the pasture fence. “When you’re ready you can tell me what you’ve decided.”

      With a silent nod she turned onto the footpath that led along the creek. The tall wheatgrass rustled in the wind. From somewhere beyond the willows, a bobwhite quail piped its plaintive lay-low, lay-low.

      Judd waited for Hannah to speak. He’d promised he wouldn’t rush her but it wasn’t easy to keep still. It was as if she held his life in her strong, young hands.

      “I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Quint,” she said at last.

      Judd exhaled slowly. “You know I’d tell you right off if I had. I went into town and checked the mail myself. There was nothing.”

      “But he’s got to be alive, don’t you think? Surely, if the worst happened, somebody would notify his family.”

      “One would hope so. I’m already working with an agency in Denver. They’ve got a good reputation for finding people. But anything they can do is going to take time.”

      She clasped her work-reddened hands. Her interlaced fingers flexed and twisted. “Meanwhile, there’s not much we can do except wait, is there?”

      “You and I can wait. It’s the baby who can’t.”

      “I know.” She turned to face him. The setting sun cast her features in soft rose-gold, like a Renaissance painting. “That’s why I’ve decided to accept your offer, Judd. Until Quint comes home, I’d be honored and grateful to be your wife.”

       Chapter Four

      Hannah and Judd were married by a Justice of the Peace the following Sunday afternoon. The ceremony took place on the spacious front porch of the Seavers house with Edna Seavers, Gretel Schmidt and the nine Gustavsons attending. Annie, in the pink Sunday dress she’d made over for herself, served as bridesmaid.

      Hannah wore the yellowed satin wedding gown that Mary Gustavson had put away and saved for her daughters. In place of a veil, her unbound hair was crowned by a simple garland of wildflowers that Annie had picked and woven half an hour before. She carried the same flowers in a bouquet.

      The mood of the little gathering might have been better suited to a funeral than a wedding. Edna sat poker-straight in her wheelchair, looking as grim as Whistler’s portrait of his mother. Gretel, in gray, stood like a granite pillar behind her. Mary, in a mismatched skirt and jacket with an out-of-style hat, wept through the entire ceremony. Soren simply looked lost. Only pretty, romantic Annie seemed to see the wedding as a cause for celebration. But she was too busy shushing the younger children to pay close attention to the ceremony.

      Hannah stood beside her bridegroom, fighting tears. For as long as she’d been in love with Quint, she’d dreamed of their wedding. She’d imagined looking up into his twinkling brown eyes, clasping his hand as she vowed to love, honor and cherish him for the rest of their lives. She’d imagined their first kiss as man and wife, long and tender, filled with sweet anticipation of the wedding night to come.

      Now the wrong man stood at her side, his low voice speaking vows that were more mockery than truth. “I, Judd, do take thee, Hannah, to be my lawfully wedded wife…to love and to cherish…in sickness and in health…as long as we both shall live…”

      Their divorce documents lay locked in Judd’s desk, awaiting only two signatures to dissolve the marriage. There would be no wedding night, no intimacy of any kind.

       Where are you, Quint? Why can’t you come home and put an end to this travesty?

      “With this ring I thee wed…” Judd was sliding a thin gold band onto her finger. The metal felt cold and strange. It was all Hannah could do to keep from tearing herself away, leaping off the porch and dashing for the gate.

      “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.” The justice was an elderly man who’d performed hundreds of weddings. Judd had taken him aside and asked him to leave out the kiss, but the old fellow had clearly forgotten.

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