Jack returned and nestled an iron skillet down in the coals and set a heavy lid on the top. “We might as well get an early start. Seeing as how we’re both awake.”
Demonstrating her lack of cooking skills wasn’t the best way to show her worthiness. Uneasiness curdled her stomach. She stood. “What should I do?”
He grabbed the lantern and lit it. The light illuminated his stoic expression. He strode back to the wagon and shoved things around. “Just sit. I’ll get things done faster if you aren’t in my way.”
“I know I’m not what you expected,” muttered Olivia as she sank down onto the buffalo hide.
She wanted to curl into herself and disappear. “When you sent your photograph, I wanted...wanted to marry you.” She could hardly speak to a man for most of her life and now she blurted out the most pathetic details.
The rattling in the wagon stopped. “Because of a photograph—” incredulity rang in his voice “—you decided to marry me?”
Olivia twisted her hands together. “You looked like a man who could face the world and survive.” His appearance of solid strength drew her like metal filings to a magnet. Yet his descriptions of the beauty of his home showed he was not a brute. “I thought you could protect me.”
“I can’t protect you, Olivia.” His rustling resumed. “I spend weeks at a time trapping. Life here is demanding and a woman needs to hold her own. I thought I was clear about that.”
He sounded resigned.
“You were clear,” she mumbled. She was the deceiver.
“You had choices. There are men in town looking for brides.”
“Because not being able to cook would have been an asset in town,” she spit out.
“You’ve never cooked at all, have you?” he asked with a deadly quiet to his voice.
“No. I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d marry me if I told you.”
He bent forward and didn’t say anything for a bit. Then he picked up the shirt she’d made for him and held it up. “A lot of the miners in California are wearing rags. A shirt like this would fetch a dollar, maybe five. They can get material, but they don’t know how to sew.”
How would she have known? But that was neither here nor there. She lifted her chin. “I chose you. I only wrote to you.”
“Lucky me.”
Selina had written to at least three men and Anna never would say how many different advertisements she answered. Olivia swallowed hard. Surely she hadn’t been the only one to respond to his request for a wife. He must have chosen her, too.
“I didn’t want to live in a tent or a...or a dugout.” She had to hold her hands tightly to keep from waving them around to make her point.
“Fine,” he said with finality, as if the subject had been exhausted. “It’s done now.”
But it wasn’t done. The preacher had said they had a month to decide. Jack could still reject her. Tremors rolled down her spine and her stomach knotted. She bit her lip. “Do you intend to take me back to Denver City and pretend this marriage never happened?”
“Is that what you want me to do? Have you decided you’ve made a mistake?” he asked, his voice rough.
Had she made a mistake?
“N-no.” She shook her head and stared down at her clasped hands. “I’m not the one who is disappointed.”
“Yes, you are, if you expected a full-time protector.” He left the wagon and his boots stopped in front of her.
She drew in a deep breath, hoping for an olive branch. Her gaze traveled up his buckskin-clad legs. Her breath left her in an unexpected whoosh. He was the embodiment of the man in the photograph. Strikingly attractive, strong yet domesticated with a pot cradled against his ribs... Just grouchy. His eyebrows knit. He had stayed up all night protecting her and the livestock.
Jack dropped a tin pan beside her. Outstretched in his hand was a chunk of butter. “Here.”
She stared at the butter. What was she supposed to do with it?
“Grease the pan with that.”
Olivia picked up the tin and carefully took the butter. She smeared the butter in a circle in the bottom of the pan.
Jack dropped to his knees beside her.
He hadn’t denied being disappointed in her. She fought back the bitter familiarity of failing to meet expectations. Determined to show she could do a good job, she dragged her fingers in left and right lines. She tried to erase her finger marks only to leave new trails.
He combed a fork through a whitish mass in the pot he held against his stomach. “Get the sides, too.”
In the predawn darkness, Jack’s gaze weighed heavily on her. Her throat felt thick. Could she just get one thing right? Why hadn’t she paid attention to the kitchen servants when she was younger?
Jack reached for the bucket of water and cracked the thin layer of ice on the top. He dipped a towel in the water and held it out. “Clean your hands.”
Could he be any more condescending? He treated her as if she was three. Olivia wiped butter residue off her hands.
“How does it happen you’ve reached the age of two and twenty and never cooked?” Jack scooped a handful of water into the mixture. He ended up with a sticky dough.
“We had servants,” she muttered.
“You, Anna and Selina?”
Olivia looked up. Jack watched her as he fashioned the gooey mess into pale lumps and put them in the tin on her lap.
“No, my parents. At the boardinghouse, our landlady, Mrs. Richtor, didn’t allow us in the kitchen because she thought we stole food.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Did you?”
Olivia’s cheeks heated and she dropped her gaze. She hoped with the dark he couldn’t see her guilty flush.
He reached across and pressed another lump into the tin. His hand so close to her leg made her feel squishy and soft.
She picked the pan up and held it out to him. “The price of boarding included breakfast and supper, but if we bought dinner, no money was left. So we took extra food at meals. I suppose it was stealing.”
“What about after your parents died? Where did you live then?”
“An older lady in Norwalk took me in.” The elderly Miss Carmichael had failing eyesight and had wanted Olivia to read. Her benefactor had been disappointed when Olivia stuttered. Was she destined to disappoint everyone who took her in?
“She didn’t eat?”
Olivia smiled in spite of herself. The movement of her face felt funny, as if it had been a long time since she’d smiled. “She had a cook. After she died I lived in a mill dormitory for a year and a half. They fed us gruel in the mornings and soup for dinner and supper. I hardly ate for the first week. I really missed good cooking.”
Jack used the dry edge of the towel to lift the lid off the skillet, put the tin inside and settle the lid back on the pot. With the wet end, he brushed off his hands. “You didn’t have any relatives?”
She shook her head. “The only relatives I know of are in Norway, and I’ve never met them.”
He reached out a hand to Olivia. “We have fifteen minutes to wash up before the biscuits are ready.”
Biscuits.