Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

T heo stood in the train station with a bouquet of flowers, wearing his Sunday best even though it was Monday. He blew out a breath and kept reminding himself to release his hold on the flowers when he was fisting them. They were poinsettias, since it was hard to get any other kind of flower that close to Christmas. Sprigs of Holly decorated the columns in the train station along with big, red bows. He blew out a long breath and watched the wisp of it rise toward the top of the train platform. In the distance came a train whistle announcing the arrival of the noon train. And Theo's new wife.

Serena was her name. He had not a clue what she would look like or anything much about her except what was written in the one letter that had arrived on Friday which she wrote to him before coming, since she'd said she'd wanted to introduce herself to him in some capacity before they would actually meet. Her penmanship was neat, proper, and feminine. In the letter, she'd explained her situation as an orphan who'd been adopted by a man who was forcing her into an unwanted marriage arrangement. And that she was willing to marry Theo by proxy if they could do so right away. He'd found it strange that she'd wanted to do it so quickly when Mrs. Slocum had made arrangements with Mrs. Jones of the orphanage in Atlanta over telegram. But since the offer was for an annulment of the marriage if things didn't work out, and the possibility that the young lady would stay on as a nanny if not his wife, it appealed to him, so he'd agreed.

Atlanta. How would his brother and father feel about him marrying a southern bride?

As the steam engine pulled into the station with brakes squealing, Theo couldn't help but be a little nervous. Mrs. Collins and Mrs. Slocum had both suggested that Theo wear his best clothing and to bring the flowers for his new bride, but Theo just felt completely out of sorts. This wasn't the kind of thing he was used to. He'd thought before that he didn't have time to woo a woman, but now, did he really have the time to entertain one while she learned how to take care of the ranch and young Joshua. It would have been nice if Mrs. Collins had recovered enough to be able to do so. And it also would have been better if he could have just sent Hank or one of the other cowboys to fetch this lady from the train.

The train in front of him pulled to a stop, and the workers made their way to the steps to help passengers disembark from their cars. Theo took a deep breath and watched as people were unloading. How was he supposed to tell what his new wife was going to look like? He imagined that she'd be plain, and apparently fairly young. He let out another breath. That wasn't something that he preferred, but it seemed that was the kind of lady that Mrs. Slocum could find. At least if this didn't work out, Theo had options. Maybe he'd make sure that it didn't work out so that he could back out of the whole thing. Perhaps he could still get her to stay on in the nanny capacity as she'd promised.

A young lady with curled auburn hair exited the passenger car and took hold of the conductor's hand as he helped her down the steps. She held her head high and her posture was one that held the sort of commanding grace that he'd not seen much in a woman before. Though her wary eyes scanned the crowd of people waiting on the platform, not much else about her seemed uncertain. Theo swallowed. It was her, he knew it. How could a southern debutante like her possibly have chosen to make her way to Indian Territory to become his bride? He blinked. They were even already married by proxy. Then her eyes met his and his heart skipped. Everything else seemed to fade away. The sounds of the crowd and the train and the shouts all quieted, and it was as though there were no other people in the station except for the lady with auburn hair and himself.

His breath caught as the smallest of smiles lighted upon her lips. And then she walked forward, away from the train steps and toward him, her hands clasping the carpet bag she held. As she drew closer, she asked in her southern drawl, "Mr. Archer, I presume?"

He blinked. Mr. Archer? Was that his name? He swallowed and nodded and then blinked again and snapped out of it, shaking his head free of the nonsense that seemed to be surrounding it like a cloud. And the sounds of the crowd and train around them came back in full force.

She tilted her head and scrunched her brows. "Are you not Mr. Archer?"

He needed to get a hold of himself. Swallowing again, he finally said, "Yes, I'm Theodore Archer. But everyone calls me Theo. Mr. Archer was what everyone called my father, and I suppose my older brother. I've not gotten accustomed to the moniker yet."

"Oh," she said as she nodded slightly.

After taking the bag from her hands, he offered her the bouquet. "These are for you."

"They are lovely. Thank you," she said, but she didn't seem very interested in the flowers, it seemed that the words she'd said were ones that she'd rehearsed many times before.

Theo tried not to be offended as he looked toward the baggage car. "Do you have a steamer trunk or anything that I need to fetch for you?"

The lady shook her head. "The carpet bag is all. It's just necessities for travel and my other dress."

He frowned. "You have only two dresses?"

She shrugged. "I had several dresses in Atlanta but chose to leave them behind."

That statement gave him pause. He looked her up and down as discretely as he could while she was touching the petals of the poinsettia he'd given her. She seemed like the kind who would have a great wardrobe full of dresses, but she'd brought only two?

She looked up at him. "This is an unusual flower for a bouquet."

He lifted a brow. "Do you get many bouquets?"

"On occasion. I'm not sure I've seen poinsettias used in this way. Aren't they usually given as potted plants, traditionally?"

His heart sank a little at the thought that she frequently received bouquets from other men, though it shouldn't have surprised him at all since Serena was much prettier than he'd thought she'd be. He shrugged. "I'm not really sure. With it being near Christmas, it was either that or Christmas roses, and I thought that those flowers were a bit small and used more often in making medicine than in saying ‘welcome.'"

Her lip quirked up a bit in a half-smile. "I suppose you're right in that."

Offering her his elbow, he guided her out of the train station and to the cart that he'd planned to use to return with her to the ranch. Her southern drawl and mannerisms were different than he was accustomed to. The only southern accents he'd heard were that of confederate soldiers in the war. A woman's voice with that drawl had a decidedly different feel to it. He offered her a wool blanket to lay across her lap in the cart to keep off the chill that was in the air.

Theo and Joshua's father had served and died in the war for the union and had no patience for men of the confederacy. Those strong feelings by their father rubbed off on Theo and his brother. They both joined the union during the last year of the war, and neither of them had spent much time in the army. The war had ended within six months of them becoming soldiers. They had very little dealing with confederate soldiers or southern men. And none of the women. Were all southern women so proper and did they carry themselves this well?

By the time they made it to the stretch of road just outside of town, things had quieted a bit, and Theo realized that he'd not said a word to the young woman in at least a quarter hour. He cleared his throat. "Your letter said that you were from Atlanta. I suppose that our little town of Atoka is quite different from what you're used to?"

She turned back to look at the town as they reached the top of the first hill and nodded. "It's a bit different, to be sure, but I rather like getting away from all the hustle and bustle of life in the city. This will be a pleasant change of pace. Sometimes being in Atlanta can be suffocating. There are people everywhere, and yet somehow there was always someone who would know me or my guardian, Johann. And the people there can be very demanding."

He lifted a brow. "Demanding? How?"

After offering a shrug, she said, "Johann was a very powerful man in some of the top social circles in Atlanta. People wanted to get close to him and be acknowledged by him."

"And this Johann was your guardian, you say?"

She nodded, her eyes looking in the distance as though she was seeing straight back to Atlanta. "He was."

Two short words for an answer. It seemed as though that small phrase was pregnant with meaning. Unsure if he should press further, Theo waited to see if she might offer more information. But it seemed that the southern lady was just as good at remaining silent as Theo was. He was beginning to wonder if this union was going to work out. If both of them had a tendency toward quiet, would they just go through life never speaking?

Then she let out a small breath. "You read my letter?"

He nodded, his gloved hands still gripping the reins of the horse pulling the wagon.

She placed her hands under the blanket on her lap to keep them warm. "I suppose I should tell you my reasons for coming all the way out here. My guardian had designs on marrying me, and I wasn't interested in having that life forced upon me."

Theo frowned. "Your… guardian wanted to force you into marrying him?"

"Johann has a way about him. As long as he gets what he wants, then everyone is allowed to be happy and at peace, but if you tell him that he can't do or have what he desires, then he becomes quite difficult."

Blinking, Theo tried to grasp what he was being told. "So, if he told you that he wanted to marry you and you declined, he'd make your life miserable?"

"That's the gist of it. And also putting it lightly."

He nodded. "Then you'd rather marry a stranger than this man?"

She shot a glance toward him for the first time since they'd mounted the cart. "Johann is very demanding. He had every minute of my day scheduled and plans for everything. He didn't want a wife, he wanted to keep control of me. He'd already told me that children were not in his plans, and I couldn't help but feel that he would discard me like yesterday's newspaper if I became of no use to him."

"I see," he said frowning. "That's very sad. What about love and companionship?"

A small smile tweaked at the corner of her mouth. "He claimed that he loved me, and in his own way, I'm sure that he did. At least, that was until I could no longer give him what he wanted."

Curious, Theo had to ask, "What did he want?"

She lifted one of her hands out from under the blanket and lifted it, peeling off her glove finger by finger. Once finished, she pushed it out in front of them to offer Theo a good look at the gash across the back of her hand and the bruising to her otherwise porcelain skin. "He wanted me to continue to play the piano. So, I did this to myself."

"You injured your own hand?"

She nodded as she went to replace the glove over it. "It was the only way that I could escape him. Or so I thought. He still came after me."

"Then you no longer want to play the piano?"

The southern lady shrugged. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to, anyway."

Theo could hear the sound of longing in her voice. Even though she'd injured her hand, purposefully, to keep herself from playing, he could tell it was something that she'd really not wanted to do. His grandfather had once told him about a wolf that had chosen to chew off its own leg when caught in a snare in order to escape, and it seemed that this young lady had done the same. What a horrible life she'd must have had before to want to escape it so badly. Now he understood why the young woman had wanted the possibility of an annulment to be open and why she might be willing to come all this way in order to marry him when others hadn't been so willing. Her motives were beginning to make sense.

The low cloud cover overhead finally let go of some flurries. They both quieted as they continued to ride along with the wisps of white dancing around their faces. Then a small giggle from the seat next to him erupted and he peered over at Serena. She had a hand stretched out and had captured a snowflake on the tip of her gloved finger. "I don't ever get to stay outside in the snow. Does it snow here much?"

Theo laughed. "Some years we get just an occasional flurry or light snow with no accumulation, and some years we get feet of it from a blizzard, but that's rare."

"I've never had a white Christmas before. Are there any chances of that?"

"We've not had one for quite a while, but I'll see what I can do."

She scrunched her brows at him. "What you can do? Can you control the weather?"

He shrugged and pointed toward the sky. "Maybe I can't, but I can put in a good word with the One who does."

She blinked at him, offered a small smile and then shook her head before returning her gaze back to the road in front of them. "I can even do that much."

"I suppose you could." They pulled up the long narrow drive to the ranch house, and he noticed that she sat up a little straighter. A shiver ran through her and her teeth chattered. He really needed to get her inside so that she could get warm. The drive had been a bit chillier than he'd expected, and for once he wished he had a carriage rather than just the cart. "We're almost there. Sorry for the long drive."

She shook her head. "No, it's all right. The fresh air is doing me good."

He doubted that what she was saying was anything more than politeness, since she continued to shiver a bit, and pulled the lap blanket up a little higher on herself. The snow began coming down in earnest as they pulled up to the front of the house. Theo half expected that Mrs. Collins would somehow make her way out of the bed and greet them on the porch, but he was glad that she hadn't pushed herself too hard in that way. He leapt from the seat of the cart and quickly made his way over to the other side to offer a hand and help Serena down from the wagon. She squeezed his hand gently as she dismounted. He reached in the back of the cart to grab her carpet bag and then skipped ahead to open the door for her and allow her inside. The warmth of the room enveloped them both the minute they entered.

Theo almost sighed. After closing the door behind them, he led her into the parlor. "This is the ranch house, where you'll be staying. There are four bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs. I'll could take you straight to your room or show you around the house a bit if you prefer?"

"I prefer," she said as she nodded.

He took her on the small tour of the dining area and the large kitchen as well as the office area where his father used to sit at the large walnut desk. Books lined the shelves behind the chair and to both sides of the window. The smell of pipe tobacco still permeated the space. "My father spent most of his time in here running the ranch and smoking his pipe."

She ran her hand down the arm of one of the leather upholstered chairs. "This seems like a very manly space."

"I suppose it is. My mother used to do most of her things in the sewing room upstairs. It's the room that we converted into a bedroom for you."

"Your mother liked to sew?"

"She did. She made most of mine and my brother's clothing as we were growing up. I'm sure she would have loved to do so for her grandson if she'd been around to see him."

Serena shot a glance toward him, her eyes sparkling. "Could we see him next?"

He blinked at her. "Little Joshua? Of course. He's in with Mrs. Collins right now in the downstairs bedroom off the kitchen. Let's head that way."

"All right," she said as she followed him through the kitchen to the door off to the side. As they drew closer, they could here the child fussing within.

Theo knocked before he entered. "Mrs. Collins? We're coming in now. I'd like to introduce you and little Joshua to Serena."

Once he opened the door, he found Mrs. Collins sitting up with the baby in her arms. She smiled up at the two of them. "Ah! Hello. I'm so glad to see the both of you and it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Serena. Hank just checked in on us a half hour ago and then went to the barn to fetch another pail from the she-goat."

Theo nodded, feeling the need to go and check on things at the barn, but knowing that he needed to finish giving the tour to Serena. But the young southern lady had stepped forward and asked to hold Joshua. Mrs. Collins handed her the baby and immediately, the debutante began to glow with a warmth and happiness that Theo hadn't seen in her before. The baby quieted in her arms and seemed to study her face with his big blue eyes.

"Hello!" Hank called from the other side of the kitchen.

"I'll go and fetch that bottle," Theo said as he took a step back and then made his way toward the kitchen.

Hank met eyes with him the moment he entered. "Theo, how is everything? I had one of the boys take care of the horse and cart."

"Thank you," Theo said as he took the bucket and began filling a bottle with it.

"What's your new bride like? Is she with Mrs. Collins?"

Theo nodded. "She's quiet and seems to be getting along well with Joshua."

"That's not a bad outcome," Hank said with a nod.

The sound of Joshua fussing came to their ears as Serena came into the kitchen holding the baby. Hank's eyes went a little wide when he saw her. She nodded toward him and then met eyes with Theo. "Mrs. Collins sent me to see if the bottle is ready."

"It is," Theo said, handing it to her.

She took it and with practiced hands, began to feed the child while pacing a little in the kitchen and humming. Immediately, Joshua settled and closed his eyes. The picture of the two of them together couldn't have been more right. Serena hadn't lied when she said in her letter that she loved babies and was accustomed to taking care of them. Young Joshua even seemed to prefer his place in her arms over being in Theo's or Mrs. Collins's. The two of them already seemed to be creating a bond.

Hank lifted a brow.

"Oh," Theo said, feeling a little admonished. "Serena, this is Hank, one of the cowboys who work on the ranch. And Hank this is Serena, my… my wife."

"It's lovely to meet you, Mrs. Archer."

Her eyes went wide as a touch of red reached her cheeks. "Thank you. It's lovely to meet you as well," she said quietly, her gaze returning back to the child in her arms.

For the first time since Theo had agreed to this whole proxy marriage debacle, he was beginning to feel good about it. Without question, Serena got on well with young Joshua, and the baby seemed to like her too. And if things didn't work out, they could get an annulment and she'd agreed to continue to work on as a nanny, at least for a little while. That made Theo feel better. At least this marriage wasn't the prison that he was expecting it to be when Mrs. Slocum had suggested it in the first place. Besides, at least she was pretty to look at as well, he thought as he watched her take care of his little nephew.