“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” she called, urging Brian out from hiding.
The cat poked his head out from under the bed, then scampered across the floor like a streak of sunshine and flew out the door. Dottie followed.
She cocked her head and called toward the kitchen. “Hello, is someone there?”
In answer, the door swung open, and John moved into the corridor, her trunk balanced on his broad shoulders. It had taken two men to carry that from the cab to the train station in Cincinnati. She had a feeling it hadn’t grown any lighter since then. Yet he walked as if it was no burden.
“Where would you like this?” he asked. And he wasn’t even breathless!
She stepped aside to let him pass. “In the bedroom, please.”
With a nod, he went to comply.
Oh, yes, quite a fine physique.
Blushing, Dottie followed John into the room. Peter was cooing from his bundle on the bed, hands reaching up toward a beam of sunlight that was coming through the window. John smiled as he straightened from positioning the trunk against the far wall. “He looks right at home.”
Dottie felt it, too. But that was dangerous. This wasn’t going to be home, not for more than a week or two at most. It was no more permanent than the hotel room in Seattle or the apartment she’d left behind in Cincinnati.
John was moving around the room. He opened his trunk and gathered some flannel shirts and wool trousers. She turned in case he meant to lift out his unmentionables. As she did so, she couldn’t help noticing that even the windowsill was clean of dust.
Dottie frowned. Everything was clean. The floors had been swept, the gingham curtains on the bedroom window recently washed and ironed, and they also sported bows. Not one article of clothing had been strewn about the bedroom. No man she knew kept a house so clean, so lovingly decorated.
Anger flushed through her, and she rounded on John. “You lied to me! You have a wife. I demand that you return me to Seattle, immediately!”
* * *
John recoiled from Dottie’s vehemence. Her face was red, her eyes flashing, and she marched to the bed and snatched up Peter as if to protect him from John.
He dropped his things into the trunk. “I’ll take you back, if that’s what you want, but I don’t have a wife.”
“Really.” The single word held a world of suspicion. “And I suppose you’ll tell me that you clean house for yourself.”
He frowned. “I do. Ma insisted that all her sons know how to cook and clean and wash. Once in a while Beth comes by to help. I think she just likes having someone to look out for.”
Her face puckered. “You really wash your own clothes?”
Was that so odd? As far as he knew, Drew, James and Simon helped on wash day in their houses. It was hot, heavy work, and someone had to make sure the children didn’t go anywhere near the lye.
“Yes,” he said, feeling as if she was questioning his manhood. “A bachelor needs clean clothes as much as anyone else. And I don’t particularly like living in mud.”
She put one hand on her hip. “And I suppose you like bows as well.”
Bows? He glanced around the room, trying to see whether his sister might have left a hair bow lying around. “I’m not sure...” he began.
She stalked to the window and pointed at the fabric holding the curtains back. “Bows.”
“The ties?” Now that he looked at them, they did resemble bows. He’d never noticed before. “Beth made them for all of us last Christmas.”
Brian chose that moment to stroll back into the bedroom. He went immediately to John, wound himself around his ankles and glanced up with a pitiful meow. Normally John would have picked him up, stroked the ginger fur. But with Dottie looking at him as if he was some kind of oddity, he wasn’t about to give her reason to doubt him further.
“I...see,” she said. She drew in a breath. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wallin. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”
It was a strong reaction, but he supposed she had reason. He made himself shrug as Brian bumped his head against John’s calf. “Strange location, strange people. Anyone might have done the same. But rest assured I have no wife or any intention of taking one.”
She nodded, dropping her gaze. Brian reared up and dug his claws into John’s trousers. John refused to so much as protest. The cat dropped back down and stalked out of the room in high dudgeon.
Very likely, Dottie would relax once he was out of the way. John gathered up his belongings again. “All the food is in the cupboard near the stove,” he told her. “The fire burns pretty evenly, but I’ve noticed you have to turn the biscuits to get a golden top all around.”
She was staring at him again. Perhaps biscuits weren’t the most manly thing to discuss, either.
“And there’s a pump in the sink.” That was better. Machinery, logging, buildings: those were things men discussed. “Sometimes it takes a few tries for the water to flow. Oh, and that window sticks when it rains, but you shouldn’t need to open it this time of year.”
She nodded. “I’m sure we can manage.”
He straightened, arms laden. “Just don’t let Brian outside for long. It’s too easy for him to get eaten or end up in a trap.”
She shuddered. “I’ll be careful.”
“Good. Right.” John shuffled his feet. “Well, then, I suppose I better get going.”
He started past her, and she caught his arm.
“Thank you,” she murmured before standing on tiptoe and pressing a kiss to his cheek.
It ought to have been a neighborly kiss, a sisterly kiss, but the floor seemed to be rippling like a wave on the Sound. He had to stop himself from turning his head and meeting her lips with his own.
“Ho! John!”
His brother’s voice seemed to come from somewhere far beyond the little bubble that enclosed him and Dottie. She dropped to her soles, lavender eyes wide. Peter giggled.
James strolled past the door of the bedroom. “John? Are you here? I saw a wagon out back.”
“Excuse me,” John murmured, passing Dottie to the hallway.
James turned at the sound of his movement. “Ah, there you are. What, is it wash day already? What a tidy fellow you are. Ma would be so proud.”
John had a sudden urge to push his brother out the door. “Can I help you with something?” he asked instead.
James smiled. His next closest brother in outlook, James had a few inches on John, though he remained whip-thin. He’d also inherited Pa’s light brown hair and dark blue eyes. “Rina’s tooth is bothering her,” he explained. “Catherine’s given her a powder, but she’d prefer to take the day off tomorrow. She wondered if you’d step in.”
John and Beth had both substituted for James’s wife, who taught in the one-room school at Wallin Landing. Beth must have something else to do tomorrow that James would come for John.
“Of course,” John assured him. “Just have her write down what they’re studying in the various subjects. Last time Danny tried to convince me he couldn’t do more than add so he could get out of working on his multiplication. And perhaps Simon can return the wagon and horses to Seattle and bring back my horse.”
James opened his mouth, most likely to make some quip, as he was wont to do, but his gaze swept past John and no words came out.
John turned to find Dottie in the doorway to the bedroom. She smiled shyly at his brother before focusing on John.