Chapter 7

"Tomorrow, before we go and look at the homestead, I'm going to talk with the local banker about getting money transferred here from my bank in Independence."

They walked toward the hotel, watching their step because the town was bustling with folks heading in different directions. Kat wasn't sure what Seb was thinking, but she was trying hard not to think about the night ahead.

"I didn't put my name on the homestead," she said, "and I had no choice about signing the church registry book. That's not a very public book, though. But now, wiring your bank in Independence, the town where you were shot, to tell the bank exactly where you are?" Kat shrugged uncertainly. "We are really coming out of hiding."

"I know." Seb glanced at the bank as they walked past it. "What else can we do? I have money in that bank, and it seems foolish not to transfer it here and use it. I'll contact my bank, and I might as well wire my lawyers in Independence about sending new earnings here."

"Lawyers? Plural?"

"Yes, two of them."

"You can afford to hire two lawyers?"

Seb nodded, and Kat thought he looked a little smug. But she couldn't say he was a boastful man since he'd kept all this to himself for over a year.

"I've had some good results with my patents. It's not a fortune, but it's always been enough to buy the supplies I need and to feed myself. I hope they've been investing my earnings wisely while I've been gone. Of course, the patents will run out. I have to get new patents to keep earning money. Still, we can probably afford to have anything we want, as long as we don't want too much."

They exchanged a smile of understanding, then entered the hotel. Seb went to rent themselves a room.

Kat figured he'd had some money when they found him in that alley. He'd offered Beth money to pay for things he wanted to order for his inventions. And heaven knows he'd never spent a cent of it other than for those odd supplies to be shipped to Fort Bridger. She had no idea what they cost, yet it sounded as if he was well off enough that they could afford a meal in the hotel and a room for a few nights. But they couldn't live for long on what Seb had in his pockets.

After a fine meal, they went up to their room. The sun had set, and night had fallen.

"W-would you like me to step out of the room while you change?" Seb had removed his hat and was now strangling the brim. His fretting made hers a bit easier to bear.

Kat, her hand shaking a bit, pointed to the dressing screen. "I'll go back there. You can ... uh, stay."

She pulled her nightgown out of her satchel, and gold coins went bouncing and rolling across the room. Kat gasped. She and Seb scrambled, chasing after the coins.

"These are twenty-dollar gold pieces," Seb said. Frowning, he dug into his own satchel and came up with a fistful of gold.

Kat pulled out a note. "It's from Beth." She unfolded it and read aloud.

"I brought most every penny I could gather from my trust fund when I fled Chicago, only to discover that there is no place to spend money here in our canyon. You have both worked hard by our sides. Kat, you were a great comfort to Mama, both in Horecroft and since then. She has told me she believes her escape was successful largely because of you. She views you as a second daughter. Please accept this money as a gift from all of us at Hidden Canyon."

Kat looked up from the note and met Seb's eyes.

"There's no way to return the money," he said, "not without turning around and riding back and handing it over."

"You think we could find that canyon again?"

Seb shrugged. "We studied our back trail as we rode out of there. Remember how much time we spent talking about landmarks and such?"

"I do. I also remember the endless piles of rocks and groves of trees that all started to look alike, and how well hidden the canyon is. Honestly, I'm not sure we could find it."

"I'm not at all confident either. I suppose Bruce could, though."

"We did work hard. I could cook better than Beth and Ginny. I worked at Ma's side while she was alive and ran the household after she died. I grew up working, cooking, and sewing. It all came back while on the wagon train. Still, all the things they taught me, especially Oscar and his brothers and Beth—it was like being trained in how to survive in the West. Beth doesn't owe me a thing."

"I was unconscious or hurt enough to be mighty fragile for a month. And Oscar already had the cabins built. Nope, she shouldn't have done this."

But she had.

Kat looked down at the gold in her hand. "I don't think I'll pack up the coins and mail them to sit in the O'Tooles' cabin for months. And I have no wish to ride back and hand the money to her."

"We'll spend this until my money comes," Seb said. "Maybe we should put it in the bank, too. I wonder if we're more likely to be robbed on the trail or for the bank to be robbed?"

He looked up. Their eyes met.

She'd let the gift of coins distract her from the night ahead. But no longer. She forgot about money and working with Beth and Jake. She forgot about the O'Tooles and mail and bank robberies. Kat stared at her husband, her cheeks heating up, and she whirled away. "The ... dressing screen." She shoved the money into her satchel and hurried behind the screen, not sure if she'd be so quick to come back out.

"I'll change out here," he said.

Kat squeaked but didn't speak beyond that while she quick changed into her nightgown.

His wife emerged from behind the screen dressed in a white nightgown. It covered her from neck to wrist to toe. Her hair was pulled into a single braid that hung over one shoulder. She couldn't have been more modest if she'd been living in a convent.

And yet he'd never seen anyone more desirable, more beautiful. She stood with her hands clasped together in front of her, her blue eyes wide with nerves.

She said, "We decided we'd get to know each other better before ... well, before. I'm not sure why I'm feeling so shy."

"I think it's best we wait. Finding out today that you're a widow, and a widow to Jeremy Wadsworth no less—" he hesitated, shook his head—"it's made me realize we don't know each other that well. We have to do better, Kat. We both have to break this habit we have of not talking about ourselves. I understand why you don't like the Wadsworth name bandied about. And I think you understand why I don't talk much about my work. That's still a good idea when we're with others. But now that we're married, we need to trust each other and open up more. And I'm not saying this to goad you in any way. I'm worse than you are with my secretive inventing."

"We've talked about this before, but it seems like we always start planning the future and not talk about the past."

"Let's spend a bit more time tonight just talking—talking and nothing more. Get to know each other. Then let's get some sleep."

With a bright smile, Kat said, "Thank you." She lifted her hand, which was visibly trembling. "Here I am all shaking and blushing. I'm a widow. I know what goes on between a man and his wife on their wedding night."

"That's probably why you're feeling shy."

"Most likely."

"You know more than I do about married life. I've spent every spare minute of my life in a laboratory mixing chemicals. My best friends were my lawyers and the sweet old lady, Mrs. Gundersen, who lived across the street from my parents. I'm probably more nervous than you are."

She wrinkled her nose and shrugged. "I doubt that."

He took her trembling hand and guided her to the bed, where they sat side by side. "Tell me more about yourself, Kat. What was it like for you in Chicago?"

"Jeremy and I met..."

He'd wanted to hear about her childhood, her parents, working at her pa's side. It bothered him to think of her being married to another man. The feeling that burned in him couldn't be jealousy, could it? Why would he care? Probably because she'd loved her first husband, and Seb knew she didn't love him. And maybe never would. Without planning it, he interrupted her before she'd finished her first sentence. "But first, before we talk, can we share a kiss?"

When she nodded, he reached for her and pulled her close.

Then he kissed her, hoping to make the kiss one she'd remember. One she'd prefer to old memories she now seemed willing to share and he no longer cared to hear about. He deepened the kiss and then she kissed him back.

They did get to know each other better that night, but it wasn't in the way they'd planned.

The rattle of a wagon passing by their window two stories below woke Kat from the sweetest dream she'd had in years. Not for one second was she confused about where she was.

Cheyenne, Wyoming. Hotel. Married. Happy.

Her hand rested on Seb's chest. Her head on his shoulder. His arm wrapped around her back.

It was daylight, early still, going by the slant of the sun in their east-facing window.

She moved her head just enough to look up at her husband. His blue eyes met hers. Their children would have blue eyes. The thought made her smile.

"Good morning, Kat. It's a very good morning."

"My only regret is that I didn't marry you ten minutes after we met."

That got a chuckle out of him, which she felt beneath her resting head. "Even when I was bleeding, had broken ribs and a head wound? When I was mostly unconscious?"

"Well, maybe two weeks after." She giggled and yanked the hair on his chest.

He winced, then laid his hand over hers. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. She shifted to reach his lips, and they shared their first good-morning kiss.

"Sebastian, I realize now that I'd gotten in the habit of keeping my thoughts about myself inside. It started even before the asylum when I had people asking me for money or favors when they'd hear my name was Wadsworth. In the asylum I buried my honest feelings and was the calm, sane woman anyone could see should be released. Once I was out, I went to using a fake name and began the fake relationship with you. It became a habit to say nothing for fear I'd say the wrong thing. I wish I'd had more courage after we were on our own in that canyon. I wish I hadn't wasted a year when I could have been getting to know you better. I worked beside everyone in that cabin and never shared much about myself. But I promise to open up more now that we're married."

He kissed her again, then drew back. "I've been in the habit of being secretive, too. Keeping things to myself for fear my inventions will be stolen by someone."

Kat gave him a weak smile. "Like by the man who shot you last year?"

He nodded.

"That was strong evidence that someone was after your inventions."

"Someone, but not you. Not the folks in Hidden Canyon. I was already being secretive, and I suppose getting shot made me even more so."

Kat pulled him close. "I think we both need to try harder to let each other in, especially to let each other into our hearts."

"We'll make it a goal then. To get to know the woman I married is an inspired idea."

As he kissed her once more, he had another inspired idea. No amount of wagon traffic disturbed the rest of their first very good morning.

They were so late to breakfast, the waitress in the hotel restaurant took their order with a smug smile on her face. But nothing could ruin Kat's good mood. Seb was going to be an inventor, and she was going to be a farmer.

She hesitated just a bit when she thought of Uncle Patrick. As a married woman, she was free from him now. But would the law stop him if he came for her to take her away? After all, her name was now listed in that church registry book.

"With you contacting the bank and your lawyers," she said, "I think we have to accept that we're no longer hiding."

The waitress, who was the wife of the hotel owner, and who'd been informed they were a newly married couple, put a plate of eggs and bacon down in front of them with the clink of china on wood. "Enjoy your breakfast, youngsters."

They again talked of the future, not the past, as they ate. They had a lot to accomplish today, so they ate quickly and emerged from the hotel with a long list of things to arrange.

Kat did her best to set aside her fears about Uncle Patrick. She wondered about the laws Beth had spoken of. Though her heart shuddered at the thought of dealing with Patrick Wadsworth, she would study up on the law to learn what she needed to do to make herself safe.

"There's no sense in trying to build the cabin ourselves." Seb looked around the town as if a carpenter might suddenly appear before them. "And I need a separate building for my laboratory."

Kat held his hand, and they wandered the busy streets of the new Wyoming town. "Why a separate building? Can't the laboratory be a room in the house?"

Shaking his head, he led the way to the general store. "I work with chemicals, and sometimes they react with, well, some volatility."

"Volatility? Are you going to blow yourself up, Sebastian?"

"I'm going to try most sincerely not to, but sometimes gases react, and sometimes the fire in the forge kicks up a lot of smoke and fumes. It's best not to bring all that into the house. Oscar once threatened to kick me out of the cave house."

"I believe I heard about that." Kat went back to looking where she was going. "Fine then. We've got Beth's money—let's use it."

"If we must."

"And while we have the builders working, we'll also need a barn and a corral for the horses. Not a barn as big as the one Jake and the Collins brothers built, but just two stalls and maybe one larger one for a couple of milk cows. I want chickens, too, and for that we'll need a coop. It's late in the year, but there's still time to plant a garden with a few vegetables. I'll need seed and a hoe, fabric and supplies for sewing our clothes. I'll need a basin for dishes and a washtub, a skillet, a cook pot, plates, and utensils. I've got a list far less exotic than yours, but possibly more important considering the steady need for food and clothing."

He smiled and swung their arms as they walked hand in hand into the general store.

The proprietor was delighted to help Kat, but completely flummoxed by Seb's list. Yet Seb knew just what he wanted and how to order it and from whom. Between the helpful but slightly confused owner and Seb's careful instructions, they succeeded in ordering his supplies. Including the forge and a bellows, flasks and retorts, and a small crucible, which Kat thought sounded dreadful.

As they were getting ready to leave the general store, with Kat's items on her list to be picked up later, the proprietor gave them the name of a man whom he considered to be a talented builder, and a man eager for the work. The builder had a homestead on the edge of town, and so Kat and Seb walked to his place to meet him.

The builder, Mr. Walther, agreed to ride out with them after his noon meal and get the lay of the land. He learned, too, that they'd never seen their property. They offered Walther a few of their twenty-dollar gold pieces to buy nails and hinges for the doors and a few dollars in advance so he could hire help. He thanked them kindly and said he'd go talk to the land agent to make doubly sure of the property line. He also offered to hitch up his own wagon and haul the supplies from the general store to the building site.

Kat was relieved to have someone guide them to wherever they were planning to live. She'd hate to build her house, only to find out later that they didn't own the land underneath it.

Walther hurried off to get his morning chores done on his own homestead with a promise to meet them in front of the hotel at one o'clock.

Seb's next stop was the bank.

When they finished up there, Kat said, "You have a lot of money."

"It's the same amount I had in the bank a year ago. It's not Wadsworth money, but it'll get a roof over our heads. But the patents will run out after a while, and even before they do, new methods often crop up by other inventors and everything changes. It's the age of progress with new industry steadily replacing the old. I need to keep inventing new things if I want to make a living. And I haven't made much headway in the last year."

Kat nodded. "Jeremy and I had money, but it was all on paper—stocks and trusts and bank accounts he had to have permission to access. Permission he was never granted. It didn't matter really because we didn't spend lavishly. We lived in an apartment in a building his father owned. I found out after Jeremy died that we didn't pay rent. His father hired our cook maid, and she took care of the groceries. We had an account at a clothing store, but neither of us socialized much, so we didn't need fine clothing. Though Jeremy had a trust fund, his father had it tied up somehow. And with Jeremy's father dead, his uncle Patrick held the reins very tightly—"

"Kat." Seb stopped her. They faced each other. "You're opening up about your past."

Her brow rose, and her eyes brightened. "I am, aren't I?"

"It seemed like it was easy for you just now. Maybe we'll both learn better ways. Tell me more."

"Well, Jeremy worked at the Wadsworth company, but he most certainly wasn't in charge of anything. He helped with construction and was decent at it. He had architectural training and assisted the older men Patrick put in charge. Still, I didn't have a need for a mansion or silk dresses. We got by just fine with what he made. Jeremy mentioned a few times that both his father and Uncle Patrick would grumble when he spoke of buying a house."

"You married into the Wadsworth fortune but couldn't afford a house?"

Kat shrugged and went on. "I occasionally still worked with my father up until he died because he needed a nurse, but I also earned a bit of money. Mostly I did it because Jeremy's job was demanding, and he was gone long hours six days a week. He wasn't a good fit for the job. He should have followed God's guiding and gone to Bible college."

"So you married into the Wadsworth fortune and yet had to work to make ends meet?"

"You sound like my father."

Seb, right there on the busy street, growled. Then he kissed her. "I do not want to be told I remind you of your father."

Kat kissed him back. "I promise to never say it again."

He jabbed his finger right at her nose. "See that you don't." He said it in a comically stern way that did in fact sound rather fatherly.

But she didn't mention it.

"This is a beautiful piece of land." Seb wasn't interested in being a big landowner, but the homestead—backed up to a mountain that would likely never be claimed because no crops would grow there and the grazing was meager—was soul-stirring.

He and Kat had bought horses. Now they staked them out just as they had so many nights on the Oregon Trail.

Mr. Walther did the same with his horse, then said, "The property line is straight out from this grove of trees. See that creek running there? I'll build the house so you'll have water right out the back door. No need to dig a well. The banks are low, so the horses can drink from the creek without any trouble. I'll build the corral so it straddles the water." Nodding, he began asking Seb and Kat rapid-fire questions to get their thoughts and approval.

At last, Walther said, "I'll be out tomorrow to start chopping trees. I've got two men who work with me, including my brother. We can get a cabin up for you in a week's time with building materials right here on hand. No cost for them except nails and other bits I'll get from the blacksmith. If the weather holds, you can move in by next Tuesday. I'll do the outbuildings next, and you can live in the house while I work. I'll lay a floor in the cabin, which can wait until I get your labora ... uh, your building up. You sound eager to get on with that."

"My laboratory. Yes, I'm eager to see it get built."

"I'll hope to get that second building up a week later."

Two weeks from today, Seb could get back to his inventing. "Thank you, Mr. Walther." The two men shook hands. "I think we'll stay here and scout around a bit, if you don't mind heading back to town without us."

"Not at all. I need to get back and make the arrangements. I'll build you a nice cabin, folks. I appreciate the work." With that, Walther said goodbye and galloped toward town, a man on a mission.

Seb turned to Kat. "Let's hike beyond the trees and see what it looks like on the mountainside."

"We rode through some big mountains. These ones barely count."

"Barely is good enough." Seb headed for the woods, down the creek bank. The creek was shallow enough that he picked out a couple of rocks to step on and walked across. The musically babbling water was lined with older trees, and the shade was cool and welcoming.

Kat was right behind him. "I think I'll pull out some flat stones and use the horses to drag them to the creek the way the O'Tooles did at their place. We won't need such large stones because the water isn't as deep. Won't take much to have us a sturdy walkway over the creek."

They hiked up a woodland full of rocks and shrubs with the occasional clump of trees. When they reached an open spot, Seb stopped, turned around, and looked back on their property. Kat turned to study the land with him.

"We climbed farther than I thought. It sure looks beautiful from up here." The land swept down before them, then leveled to a pretty grassland. They saw where the supplies Mr. Walther had hauled out were stacked, which was near to where the cabin would be constructed. Their horses stood grazing on the late summer grass.

"Look over there." Seb pointed. "About a mile to the southeast. A cabin. And to the left, you can see smoke curling out of a chimney. That's another cabin. We've got neighbors."

"Should we buy a few head of cattle to graze our land?" Kat asked. "They've planted some crops over there." She was gazing toward their nearest neighbor. "I don't think a big field of corn is necessary. A small herd that lives on the grass might be good, though. Would we need to fence the land?"

Seb turned, a bright look on his face that wasn't a smile; it was bone-deep contentment instead. "There's no rush on the cattle since I don't know how to turn one into a steak. But we can talk about it and decide later. We can be happy here, Kat. We can make a life. We'll decide about cattle and crops and fences as we go along. Right now I'm tempted to buy a tent like the ones we lived in coming west. I'd like to start living on our land straightaway."

"And start cooking outside, hauling wood and water? Mr. Walther hauled the pans out. I know how to cook over a campfire. And I could get a hoe and break up the land for the garden. We'll want to be out here every day anyway. If the weather stays mild like today, we wouldn't even need a tent."

Seb gave a firm nod. "Let's sleep here tonight. If we get hungry for a meal not cooked over a fire, we can ride to town, even sleep in the hotel if we have a rainy day."

And so their married life, on their own land, began.