Kitabı oku: «Yukon Wedding»

Here was her husband-to-be.

Lana grabbed the rail for support as she nearly tripped down the last stair.

It seemed as if the entire hotel staff and guests had turned out for the occasion—the parlor was filled with peering eyes. Lana felt very much on display, even here among strangers. Mack was right—she’d never have survived this charade in the middle of Treasure Creek.

“You’re a fine sight,” he said as she stepped onto the parlor rug. His voice was tight and unsteady.

“You cut a fine figure yourself,” she managed, then gulped at how foolish the words sounded. He really had surprised her, however. In all the muddy making-do of Treasure Creek, she’d completely forgotten the way he could command a room when formally dressed. Half her bridesmaids had swooned over him at her wedding. Her first wedding.

Stop that. You can’t think about that now. This is a new life.

ALASKAN BRIDES: Women of the Gold Rush find that love is the greatest treasure of all.

Yukon Wedding—Allie Pleiter, April 2011

ALLIE PLEITER

Enthusiastic but slightly untidy mother of two, RITA^® Award finalist Allie Pleiter writes both fiction and nonfiction. An avid knitter and unreformed chocoholic, she spends her days writing books, drinking coffee and finding new ways to avoid housework. Allie grew up in Connecticut, holds a B.S. in Speech from Northwestern University and spent fifteen years in the field of professional fundraising. She lives with her husband, children and a Havanese dog named Bella in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.

Yukon Wedding
Allie Pleiter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

—Matthew 6:18–21

To everyone—and I mean everyone—at Comer Children’s Hospital at the University of Chicago

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Letter to Reader

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

Chapter One

Treasure Creek, Alaska, June 1898

Mack Tanner looked up to see a raging storm coming toward him.

“Good morning,” said the storm, otherwise known as Lana Bristow. Each syllable of her greeting was sharp and steely. She stood in that particular way he called her “speechifying” stance, which heralded an oncoming verbal assault. Mack spread his own feet, not particularly eager to endure whatever was coming in front of the half dozen gold rush stampeders he’d managed to hire off the Chilkoot Trail to build his new General Store.

Lana’s blond hair was a nest of frayed locks, strands sticking wildly out of the careful twist she usually wore. Her apron hung diagonally across that impossibly tiny waist of hers, with a wide smear of something dark that matched the smudge currently gracing her son Georgie’s chin. The brooch she always wore at her neck—that silly, frilly flower thing with all the golden swirls on it—was gone. It was held bent and misshapen, he noticed with a gulp, in her left hand, while she clamped two-yearold Georgie to one hip with her right. One side of her hem was soaked and the boy sported only one shoe.

More was amiss than the argument he’d had with her last night, that was certain. They’d gone at it again regarding Lana’s accounts. Her mounting debts had been a constant sore spot between them since her husband, Jed—Mack’s best friend—had died in the Palm Sunday avalanche. She’d caught him monkeying with her store credit again, giving her more than what she paid for and “misplacing” numerous bills. And yes, Mack had taken it upon himself to slash her debt so that no one in Treasure Creek would guess the sorry state of her finances.

He owed her that much.

She didn’t see it that way.

Instead, his “generosity” made her furious. Why that confounding woman wouldn’t let him settle things up for her—when she needed it and he had the resources to easily do so—never ceased to amaze him.

Lana stood stiff and tall. “I have something to say.”

Mack could have been blind, deaf, half asleep and still have picked up on that. Every inch of her body broadcast “I have something to say.” A low commentary grumble to that effect rippled through the men around him until Mack raised his hand—the one with the large hammer still in it—to silence them.

Not taking his eyes off her, Mack shifted his weight and nodded slowly. For a moment he considered motioning her toward a less public place, seeing as this was no doubt going to be a long “something to say,” but the flash of fire in her blue eyes told him to stay put. He had the odd sensation of facing a firing squad.

“Yes.” That single syllable loudly declared, Lana spun on her heels, hoisted her son farther up on one hip, and started back down the way she came.

Mack’s mouth fell open, letting the nails tumble out to jingle on the ground at his feet. Yes? What kind of riddle thing was that to say? Glory, but the Widow Bristow would be the death of him.

The men found this hilarious, sputtering into laughter and less-than-polite commentary until he threw down the hammer and strode off after her. Once away from the crowd, Mack expected Lana to turn and explain herself. It’s what rational people did, after all. When after twenty paces she failed to either turn or slow, he bellowed, “Yes what?” after her. It echoed across the intersection, raising heads on either side of the roads that made up the center of tiny Treasure Creek.

Lana stopped and whipped around to face him. The sudden move forced Georgie to grab at her just to stay upright, balling the neckline of her blouse in his toddler fists. Lana glared at Mack as if he must be dimwitted not to catch her meaning. “I said, ‘Yes what?’” he shouted again, not caring which of the curious onlookers gathered on the boardwalks heard him.

Lana furrowed her brows so far down she looked catlike. She flicked her eyes around at the small crowd now staring at them, as if his simple request for a reasonable explanation was some sort of cruel punishment. Lana took three steps toward him, and with something more like a hiss than a whisper, said, “For the seventh time, yes.” Having spoken her piece, she turned once again and set off up the boardwalk away from him.

Mack slapped his hat against his thigh, confused and angry. What was that supposed to mean, “the seventh time”? What had he done six times that this now was the seventh…

It struck him like a bolt of lightening, thundering though his chest as if struck by the hammer he’d held moments ago.

She’d said “yes.”

As in “Yes, I will marry you.”

He’d asked her six times over the last two months, the first time only a week after her Jed’s tragic death. Marrying her was the best way to protect her now. After all, he’d lured Jed up here with the promise of fortune and adventure. A promise that ended with Jed buried in snow, alongside dozens of other stampeders who refused to heed their guide’s warnings that Sunday. He could have done more to stop Jed, to make his foolhardy buddy see reason and be cautious. But he hadn’t, and now Lana was left up here on her own—without Jed and without the fortune he’d made and subsequently lost.

He’d asked her over and over after that, even though she blamed him for Jed’s death, knowing she’d rather marry a log than wed the likes of him, well aware of how much she disliked him, but equally aware that it was the only real way to make it up to her and her son. He’d asked her every time she struggled with this thing or that, every time she’d looked weary from keeping up appearances. He asked every time it looked as if the endless struggles of Alaskan living—and the greedy stream of despicable Alaskan men—were about to do her in.

Once, when a drunken “old friend of Jed’s” had actually tried to drag her off to Skaguay and marry her by force, he’d even offered to pay her way back to Seattle. She had no family left back there, but he was plumb out of ways to keep her safe when too many stampeders still thought she held Jed’s riches. After all, he’d known Jed’s lust for gold was growing beyond reason and into desperation. He could have tried harder to protect Jed from the impulsive nature that was always his undoing. The fact that Jed was gone was his fault.

She knew he could have tried harder to save Jed, too. She’d refused every single offer of help. Until now.

So why was his now new fiancée stomping off without an explanation? He’d lived long enough to know that a female could be the most furious of God’s creations when provoked, but he would not allow her to stomp off with the last word.

Especially when that last word was “yes.”

Grumbling that his keen sense of obligation would likely be the death of him, Mack set off after her. She stalked past the white church—one of the first buildings he and Jed had built when they founded the town—and still didn’t look back. Georgie did, though, catching Mack’s gaze with troubled brown eyes under that mop of curly dark hair. His mama kept up her furious pace, past the other shops and houses, attracting the stares of the men gathered along the boardwalk. She and Georgie were sulking off to her cabin, from the looks of it. She had to know he’d follow her, even if she kept her back ramrod straight as she turned the corner past the schoolhouse.

The Tucker sisters, a trio of rough-and-tumble gals who’d spent the past month working on that building, stopped their work to look up at the spectacle. Lucy Tucker waved, but Lana stomped on, paying Lucy no mind. Buildings sprung up overnight like mushrooms here in Treasure Creek. Mack felt on display as the sisters gawked among themselves. With his town nearing a thousand residents and ten times that many rushing through in a steady stream toward the Trail, why did all them have time this morning to watch Mack Tanner make a fool of himself?

Lana didn’t think she had any tears left to cry. She made her way back through the crowded, muddy main street, past the church Mack and Jed had insisted mark the center of the town they’d founded together just three months ago. Three months that felt like thirty years. She picked her way as fast as she could past the schoolhouse under construction, the bank and several rows of cobbled together shacks where farmers and butchers sold food. She didn’t stop until she reached the cabin she and Georgie called home. She hadn’t expected to cry, couldn’t believe that tears threatened now, and would not, absolutely would not cry in public.

Mack was behind her, she knew it. And he ought to be, if he had an ounce of compassion in that stubborn, domineering head of his. She was sure she heard the thud of his angry boots behind her as she rounded the corner beyond Mavis Goodge’s boarding house, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him see her turn.

She’d done it. She’d surrendered to the only viable option available to her in Treasure Creek. Some “treasure.” It was awful here—cold and crude, muddy and noisy—and this was one of the better towns. It seemed ages ago when Mack and Jed had founded Treasure Creek. They’d been full of big ideas, seeking to create a place of faith and values in the lawless, greedy chaos of the gold rush. Only it hadn’t turned out that way. Not for her. Yes, Treasure Creek had become known as a God-fearing town, but what good had faith done in the face of all the rampant swindling of the Chilkoot Trail? Faith hadn’t kept Jed off the trail that Sunday, even though the guides warned “the mountain was angry.” Faith hadn’t squelched Jed’s relentless need to chase gold rumors, skipping Sunday services to meet an Indian guide boasting leads to an undiscovered lode. God hid no huge, undiscovered treasures up on that mountain. In her darker moments, Lana believed God sent the deadly wall of snow, stranding her up here and stealing Georgie’s father. A vengeful God punished her husband’s greed, backing her into so dark a corner that she must accept a marriage of convenience to Mack Tanner.

She laughed at the thought as she pushed open the door of her cabin and stepped into the tiny confines. It wasn’t a marriage of convenience. It was a marriage of survival. And survive she would. Here, because here seemed to be the only place there was.

It had struck her last night, after yet another argument over her accounts with Mack, just how bad things had gotten. The point had been pushed home, literally, when she snatched her favorite brooch out of Georgie’s hand and pricked herself on the now-bent pinpoint. The toddler had gotten into her jewelry box when she’d left it open after sorting through which jewels she might be able to sell discreetly in Skaguay. Some jewelry box. The rustic chest Jed had built her on her last birthday could barely be called such a thing. Life here was nowhere near what she dreamed it would be. She ought to be thankful that Georgie hadn’t speared himself with the brooch before she found him. As it was, Georgie had managed to bend and dent the soft gold by banging it against the hearth until its floral shape was lost forever.

Why did she wear a brooch out here in the first place? Purely ornamental, it wasn’t strong enough to hold a shawl or cloak together and it snagged on everything. Still, she wore it daily, a flag of refined defiance. No one would ever know how badly Jed had left their finances. She was and always would be “a lady of means.”

Trouble was, she had precious little means left. Lana had realized, as she stared at the broken brooch, that her former self—the delicate Seattle socialite who’d followed her husband on his grand fortune hunt—no longer existed. She couldn’t limp back to Seattle and be some man’s useless ornament. She craved independence now, but it was a hollow craving without sufficient means.

Women could achieve astounding independence up here. The concept of “female” had been reinvented in Alaska. Transformed into something she wanted very much to be. She couldn’t bring herself to turn from that freedom now. Not only that, but to sulk back to Seattle would be to admit that Jed and his adventures had all been nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Lana refused to count herself among the thousands of duped and squandered fortune hunters. Treasure Creek, for all the pain it held, was still the lesser of all available evils. Seattle might be more comfortable, and there were things Georgie could have there that she could never give him here, but Lana had swallowed so much pride over the past three months that she didn’t think she could stomach the feast of humility it would take to head south.

I’ll do whatever it takes to stay here, she told herself as she pulled the cabin door shut behind her with a declarative slam. Whatever it takes.

She turned and looked at Mack through the cabin’s only window. Even if it takes him. The tears she’d held in finally burst out in sobs so great they shook Georgie as he clung to her side.

He stood perhaps a hundred paces from her home, staring at her closed door. The patient, dark expression on his face mirrored the way he looked that awful night Jed died. She’d cursed him that night two months ago, cursed their plans to carve a wholesome community out of the greedy scramble that Alaska had become. She’d gone so far as to accuse Mack of urging Jed on too far, of leading Jed to his death as if he’d sent the avalanche himself.

Mack had stood there then, dark and silent as he was now, letting her call all sorts of guilt down on his head, without a single word of dispute. Mack hadn’t killed Jed; Jed’s own greed led him to his death, driving him to the point where he ignored the Indian guide’s advice to stay off the trail that Sunday. He seemed to accept her hate as his penance for not keeping Jed from his foolish self.

She hated the thought that his repeated proposals were just more of the same penance—obligation rather than affection. Affection would have followed her into the cabin, swept her off her feet with some dashing kiss and spun her around the room like the world’s finest prize, the way Jed had done.

As it was, obligation stood in her front yard, angry but immovably resolved, like some sort of monument to their mutual resignation.

Mercy, Lana, she lectured herself in her mother’s voice, you can’t hate him like this. It’s no way to start.

Lana wiped her eyes. Alaskan women never admitted defeat. Alaskan women figured out how to carve a life from the harsh realities around them. If she wanted to be an Alaskan woman she needed to steel herself and face facts. And the fact was Mack Tanner was her only option if Georgie was to have a decent home and father.

Stepping into a future she hoped was worth her present pain, Lana pulled open the cabin door. “You’d best come inside and settle things.”

Chapter Two

Mack couldn’t even believe he had to ask. “Why did you finally agree to my proposal?”

Lana looked surprised, as if it was obvious. Why were women always so impossible? Why would something so cryptic as why one proposal gets accepted when the previous six were declined be obvious?

She broke a biscuit in half and handed it to Georgie as he sat on the rug. For the hundredth time Mack looked into the tot’s dark eyes and saw Jed’s face stare back at him.

“Would you like me to say it was your irresistible charm?”

Glory, she was infuriating. “I think I’m entitled to the truth, don’t you?”

“Truth. Oh, that’s an ideal to be sure. We’ve got far too much of it up here, and loads more deception besides, wouldn’t you say?”

Odd as the paradox was, Lana had a point. Alaska overflowed with deceived folks slamming up against the harshness of truth. It was part of the reason he’d come here with Jed, to build a town that gave folks the truth about surviving the Chilkoot Trail. Treasure Creek had no saloons and no swindlers, only good, honest folk bent on equipping stampeders for the very real dangers ahead.

They’d founded Treasure Creek with a single building—the church, as a matter of principle—but God had blessed their efforts and Treasure Creek was growing almost faster than anyone could manage. Every man they convinced to leave off the foolhardy pursuits of the gold digging was a victory to Mack. Every ill-prepared or deceived man who died up there seemed a tragic, preventable loss.

Losses like Jed. “Why?” he repeated, more softly this time. She’d clearly been up all night and crying besides, so it can’t have been an easy decision. She deserved whatever tenderness his baffled surprise could muster.

Lana straightened her spine, resolve settling her expression into a quiet he’d not seen on her before. “There wasn’t another way,” she said matter-of-factly.

He’d known that all along. Spirited as she was, Lana wasn’t made of strong enough stock to go it alone. Nevertheless, it jarred him to hear her put it so bluntly. He didn’t know what he expected from the moment, but it wasn’t this. Her answer was more surrender than agreement. It wasn’t as though he expected enthusiasm, but her tone couldn’t help but confirm marriage to him was a last-chance proposition.

Mack stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I was thinking it might be best if we went off to Skaguay to marry. Day after tomorrow. Skip trying to do the wedding here and just keep it private. I’ve got some business in town anyways,” he added, afraid to admit he was doing it mostly for her sake. “So I thought maybe the Tucker sisters would take Georgie for a day or two. You could do some shopping while you’re there. Things for the house and all.”

Suddenly it felt brazen to refer to the fact that she’d be moving in. Which was nonsense—of course she’d be moving in—but it just opened up a whole, wriggly issue of what kind of marriage he had in mind. He’d been clear about it before: he was offering his protection without expecting anything—anything in return. She just never seemed to believe him. The air in the cabin grew hot and prickly, and he looked around the room in the gap of silence. It was one of Treasure Creek’s nicer cabins—he and Jed had seen to that—but nice by Treasure Creek standards was a far cry from what he knew Lana was used to. What Lana had wanted.

In what Jed had always referred to as “the high times,” the Bristow place was lush and showy. Now, despite how little she had, Lana still managed to add fancy touches. The crude table in her cabin always had a tablecloth, even if it was cut from an old skirt. She always carried a handkerchief everywhere she went. He thought it ridiculous when she’d sewn a ruffle to the oilcloth that covered the cabin window to make it look more like a curtain. Now he couldn’t picture her windows without it.

“There’ll be no…expectations,” he reassured her again, feeling ridiculously awkward. “Our arrangement is purely for your protection. And Georgie’s.”

Lana took forever to answer. And even before she did, she gestured for him to sit down at the table, then arranged herself carefully opposite him. She smoothed the worn little tablecloth out with her hands. “I suppose Skaguay would be a good idea.”

“Still, I want you to know I intend to do this up right.” He’d buy her a fine wedding dress, good meals and they’d stay in a nice hotel far from the seedy side of town. Of course, Skaguay didn’t really have a nice part—the entire city was a wild, lawless den of thieves—but it was also one of the few places nearby where things of any civility could be had. Refinements were important to Lana, and he owed her that much.

Mack also knew, without her saying it, that a town-wide, smiling-faced wedding in Treasure Creek would be more than she could bear. This marriage was raw, difficult territory for both of them. A little privacy was the only decent thing to do under the circumstances. That, and the very practical consideration that there wasn’t anyone capable of legally marrying them in Treasure Creek. Mack knew the town needed a preacher, but now Mack personally needed to ensure that more than his impassioned but unordained preaching filled the pulpit at Treasure Creek Christian Church. “We can have a fine meal and some new clothes. Get some nice things,” he repeated, getting back to the subject at hand. “For you. For Georgie.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’ve made my decision, Mack. There’s no need to lure me in.”

She made it sound like he’d won some kind of standoff. Trapped her like prize game. That’s not how this was, and she knew it. “I’m a gentleman, Lana. One who knows how a wife ought to be treated, and of no mind to skip that on account of…odd circumstances. We don’t need a big shindig, but nothing says we can’t make the best of things. My wife will have nice things.” It came out like a command rather than the statement of value he’d intended it.

“Out here?” She looked at the sad little jelly jar of wildflowers that sat on her frayed tablecloth as if it were evidence of how “nice” Treasure Creek was. “Yes, even out here,” he said sharply, mostly to defy the infuriating look in her eye. It was a sorry retort, but she had a gift for driving him to that. “And Georgie, too. He’ll be provided for. You both will.” He’d promised Jed and Lana a bright future, and he was going to make that future possible, even if it made his present miserable.

It took exactly two hours for word to get out. By the time Lana arrived at the home of the Tucker sisters, a trio of spinsters who held marriage—and men in general—in low esteem, it was obvious they’d already heard the news. Frankie, the oldest and arguably the prickliest of the trio, planted her hands on her hips the moment Lana stepped in their door. “Well, now I know why you was in such a huff earlier. Mack, huh? I suppose if you felt you had to go and marry someone…” She made it sound like even worse of a necessary evil than it was. While Lana admired their spunk—and coming from somewhere in Oklahoma, they had spunk and drawls to spare—they were far too rough for her liking. They’d come to Treasure Creek not long after she and Jed, but more for the adventure of a free life than any greed for gold. More like lumberjacks than any of Seattle’s society ladies, the Tuckers spent their days building the town’s tiny almost-up-and-running schoolhouse. They may have built the school, but Lana found them the furthest thing from “schoolmarms” she could imagine.

Not that they weren’t friendly; they were kind and bighearted as the day was long, but “rough around the edges” was putting it mildly. Of course, Georgie loved the shocking, free-wheeling trio, and they adored him. Even though some part of her brain worried that the sisters’ appetite for mischief out-paced even Georgie’s, Mack had been smart in his idea to ask them to watch the toddler. They’d accept in a heartbeat, and Treasure Creek wasn’t boasting a whole lot of families able to take in a toddler on short notice. Besides, three-on-one was barely fair odds when it came to Georgie.

Once inside, Georgie headed straight for the “cookie jar” the sisters kept on their table. The Tuckers often gave Georgie what they believed passed for “cookies.” Lana thought they were closer to sailor’s hardtack than anything that would pass in Seattle for a cookie. That hardly mattered to Georgie; he gladly accepted every one they doled out.

“Mack is a fine man,” Lana said, defending him to the now glowering Frankie, as the small, wiry woman reached into the cookie jar. Frankie replied by shaking her head and making a derisive snort as she plunked a dense beige circle into Georgie’s chubby palm.

“Well, I suppose he is,” Frankie’s sister Margie conceded as she stood against the mantel and stuffed her hands into the pockets of the odd split skirt she wore tucked into huge black boots. “But that don’t mean you have to marry him. Not up here.”

Most especially up here, Lana thought. She’d been so taken up with making the painful decision, she hadn’t had time to think about the fact that other people would actually have to know. How ridiculous, she chastised herself as she felt her cheeks flush, of course everyone will know. Mack had been kind enough to keep his relentless marital campaign a secret, so she hadn’t had to deal with the public consequences of becoming Mrs. Mack Tanner until this moment. It made her feel foolish to be blind-sided by something so obvious.

Lucy, the youngest of the trio, came in from the other room scratching her short dark hair. Lana had the unkind thought that that was probably the closest that her hair ever came to being brushed. Lucy had a gift for getting under Lana’s skin, far more than the other two. Perhaps it was her age as the youngest, but it might also be the lovely woman Lana expected Lucy might really be under all that bawdy demeanor. “I guess we’ll have us a wedding! That’ll be fun.” She turned to her sisters. “We ever had a wedding in Treasure Creek before?”

Margie twisted her mouth up in thought. “Can’t recall one. Should be a hoot!”

“Well actually, that’s what I came to talk to you about. I was hoping you could watch Georgie while Mack and I go into Skaguay to make it official.”

“Skaguay?” Lucy balked. “You’re not marrying here? Mack built that church. First off even, practically before he built his own home. Why, he and Jed…” Her voice trailed off as she realized why marrying Mack in the church Jed helped build might pose a problem. Lana began to wonder if this could get more awkward. “Still, you’d think…”

Lana didn’t want to get into this with anyone, much less the Tuckers. “We haven’t got a real preacher here to do it, Lucy. And we need to buy things for the house.” It irked her that she’d had to resort to Mack’s reasoning—or was it Mack’s excuses?—but she was stumped for a better answer. “He wants us to have a fancy time of it. You know, as a gift and all.”

The sisters all raised eyebrows, clearly showing what they thought of that idea.

“It’s the only place we can order books and such for the school, too. I walked past the schoolhouse this morning. It’s nearly done, thanks to you.” Lana hoped the compliment would divert their attentions.

Nothing doing. “Oh, we saw you walk past the schoolhouse,” Frankie cackled. “Lovebirds, the pair of you.”

This was going to be harder than Lana thought. “Can you watch him?” she asked, in the sweetest version of her we’re not going to have that conversation voice.

Lucy bent down and ruffled Georgie’s hair, something that always bothered Lana but sent Georgie into fits of giggles. “Of course we can watch the little fellow. Think of it as a wedding present. A little privacy for the happy couple, hmm?”

Her bawdy tone sent the trio into laughter, elbowing each other like a crowd of sailors. Worse yet, Georgie laughed right along with them. Lana began to wonder if the next boat back to Seattle might not be so horrible after all.