Preacher's Wife (Sweet Town Clean Historical Western Romance Book 5) Read online

"And what place would that be, Mrs. Bjugstad?" Matt shuffled the papers in his hands hoping she would catch his hint and abandon the conversation.

  "Why, running a laundry, of course. Irish are known for being great washer women. Beulah working for her is fitting for a Colored woman. Now all we need are some of those Chinese to come build us a railroad."

  Patience, Matt reminded himself. How did this woman justify her beliefs? he wondered. But to defend Beulah specifically might give her ideas, ideas that could expose him. All he could do was to chastise her for her bigotry in general. "Need I remind you that we are to have love for one another?"

  "Need I remind you, that you work for this congregation? Just watch your step, Pastor, and see that Beulah leaves as soon as you are able to pump your own water." She turned to leave in a flurry of deep red flounced skirts and feathers trailing from an elaborate hat, but paused and looked back. "There's plenty of lonely men who've made matches of squaws and coloreds. Just don't you be one of them."

  Early morning light was casting shadows across a wool rug on the floor. Beulah sat Jonah down in the middle of the colorful pattern and gave him a rag doll to play with. Matt had gone to the church for his sermon notes, and this was a good opportunity for her to dust a little.

  The large oak desk took up a corner of the room and was piled with papers, books, and other things. She was being very careful to move just a bit at a time, dust, and then put everything back exactly as it had been. Her desire for order caused her fingers to itch to file the papers, and put the books on a shelf, but she wouldn't do that without his agreement.

  Jonah had recently learned to say "Mama", and was practicing his new skill. She glanced at him and smiled. To think how close she had come to losing him. Had it not been for Bridget's husband, Lorcan, finding him newly born in a shack, and carrying him to safety several miles through a blizzard, he would never have survived. And she could also thank Emma and her husband. Emma for taking care of Jonah, and Neal for finding Beulah and bringing her to Sweet Town to recover from the brutal treatment she'd been subjected to. Yes, she had much to be thankful for, not the least of which was Matt saving her life the other day.

  She inched another stack to the left and swiped her dusting rag across the golden surface of the desk. Her hand was on the stack to scoot it back when Jonah suddenly cried out. As her head turned to look at him, her arm continued pushing the pile and it fell to the floor, but Beulah only had concern for her son. He had pulled himself up, grasping the rolling desk chair. As he stood on shaky, chubby legs for the first time, the chair had moved and he'd lost his grip and support, tumbling to the rug. Her arms reached out instinctively, lifting him to her breast, while soothing words caressed him.

  His crying stopped almost immediately and it was then that Beulah noticed the scattered items from the desk. Bouncing Jonah in time to a simple rhyme, she bent over and grabbed a sheath of pages. "One, two, buckle my shoe; Three, four, open the door." Awkwardly she tapped them into some semblance of order, noticing that they were letters addressed to Matt with a signature scrolled across the bottom, Your Loving Sister Marie.

  "What fell?" Matt stood in the doorway, clutching his ribs.

  Startled, Beulah looked up from the letters in her hand.

  "What's that you have?" he demanded, grabbing them from her.

  "Jonah fell and caused me to…"

  "Were you reading my private letters? Don't touch my things." He interrupted, nearly shouting.

  Beulah had only ever seen Matt calm and understanding, so the change in him shocked her. She stood looking up at him, trying to keep her face blank, like she had for her childhood. Even when she had watched her father sold at an auction, taken away and never to be seen again, or when her mother, tired at the end of a busy day, was told to come back to the main house and do some paltry task for the mistress, Beulah had kept her face blank. To show fear, or anger, or pain, invited notice and being noticed was never good.

  "This room is off limits. Do you hear me?"

  She nodded, not trusting her voice.

  "Did you read this?" He shook the letter, the only one she had seen, in her face.

  "All I saw was that it was signed by your sister, Marie." Her voice broke a little but she was proud that it didn't shake too much. "I was dusting and Jonah fell which caused me to knock the letters off the desk. I was just picking them up when you came in." As she stood, still as a statue, even Jonah having quit wiggling, she watched as he came back into his senses. His eyes brighter and greener than she had seen before, he looked intently into her face for a long moment. Was he looking for any sign of deception, she wondered.

  Never breaking eye contact, his voice nearly a whisper, he said, "Did Jonah get hurt?"

  "No." It was a sigh. The rest of the room faded into darkness. All Beulah saw was Matt's eyes creating a connection to her that she had never felt before. As a lightning bolt is attracted to the Earth, she felt that pull, and her fine hairs stood on end.

  Perhaps he was Creole, and not purely white, but he passed. Or maybe he was part Indian or Spaniard. It mattered not because the world saw him as white and there was no future except for heartache and danger in loving this man. She felt the electric pull of their attraction and reminded herself that lightning strikes in storms and that was all it was, a storm, with the power to leave great damage in its wake.

  The sun rose higher in the sky, burning off the morning dew. Matthieu rolled his chair back, putting both hands on his desktop, and pushed himself upright with a pained groan. The sermon was ready for Sunday, and with that task out of the way, he could no longer distract himself from thinking about his reaction that morning. He had overreacted, but more so, he had hurt Beulah. She hadn't done anything wrong. His anger had been born of his fear. Fear of his secrets being exposed. Fear of losing his position as the minister of Sweet Town's only church.

  Through the window he could see her in the garden. She had a basket and was picking what was ripe, occasionally pulling a weed, and simultaneously keeping an eye on Jonah. Her head was uncovered, and he admired the glossy black of her hair, each twist pulled up into the bun catching the sun. What she had said about the philosopher, Hume, might apply to his situation. Was he justifying his choices, his deceptions as logical or reasoned positions, when in reality they were driven by his own emotions? Perhaps. If nothing else, his anger that morning had shown him how on edge he really was.

  Having Beau Jennings here wasn't helping. He rubbed his fingers across his forehead and reached for his hat. It was time to mend some fences. He stopped and grinned. Now, he asked himself, was that emotions or reason directing his actions? Beulah was certainly getting him to think.

  Beulah looked up as Matt kicked a bucket across the garden. "What are you doing that for?"

  "It's going to be my seat. I can't lean down to pick it up." Another kick and it sat upside down on the ground. He grabbed the handle of a shovel that was embedded in the rich dark garden soil and used it as a cane to lower himself to the stool. "Now I can help weed."

  "There's no need. I'm supposed to be helping you and you are supposed to be taking it easy." She straightened up and put her hands on her hips, the basket handle dangling from one wrist.

  "Have mercy on me. I just finished my sermon for next Sunday and there's nothing more relaxing after mental stimulation than being outdoors."

  "If you're sure it won't hurt you more." She looked uncertain and seemed to study his posture.

  "I'm fine." He carefully leaned to his right and pulled a weed. "What shall we talk about?" He looked at her from the corner of his eye and saw her back stiffen. Was she afraid he was going to bring up what happened in his study earlier? "Hmm." He tapped his mouth with one finger. "How about this. What do you do for fun?"

  "Fun? Are you teasing? I don't have time for fun."

  "Now or ever?" He stopped pulling weeds and looked at her.

  "Right now I have my days and nights full with Jonah, helping at the mercantile, workin
g with Bridget at the laundry, and now you." She winked at him.

  "Am I such a burden?" He put one hand over his heart and made an exaggerated expression of sorrow.

  She laughed and threw a green bean at him, which he easily caught. He bit it in half and smiled as he chewed.

  "You really want to know what I do for fun?"

  "Yes, I do, but if you don't want to tell me I'll guess. You play poker with the prospectors at the hotel? You sing opera to the prairie dogs? You dance Irish reels in the back of the laundry?"

  Beulah's laughter rang out and he joined her. When she could control her mirth, she said, "Truly, I read. You know those books of Karl Price's I told you about? I'm reading through them like a steam engine going across the prairie."

  "But surely that isn't all you do for your own pleasure? What makes your heart sing, your soul rest easy? What gives you the energy for another day?"

  She looked off in the distance and grew still. "When I was a little girl my daddy used to play the fiddle when my brothers and sisters and I were going to bed. I'd lay there in that big old bed, a baby sister on one side and a baby brother on the other, and listen to that fiddle music drifting in from the other room. Even though life was pretty hard, I'd feel safe and cozy and very much loved." She looked back at him and he saw that her eyes were shining with unshed tears. "All we had was each other and people still wanted to take that away from us."

  Matt nodded, not wanting to break the spell.

  "Anyway, it was like a little town of us, in our ramshackle houses off at the far end of the field. On special occasions my daddy would play his fiddle and everyone would come out and sit on their stoops to listen. Sometimes they'd sing or dance." Her voice trailed off and she began picking beans.

  Matt watched her. She was just a little thing, short of stature and slight of figure but her face was pleasantly rounded. The war had ended thirteen years before, so even though she looked like not much more than a child herself now, she had to be older than she appeared if she could remember the time before emancipation. "How old are you, Beulah?"

  Startled, she glanced his way. "I'm twenty-two. Why?"

  "You're too young to think all the good times are in your past."

  "I have dreams of someday finding that sense of community again. I want Jonah to feel that."

  "Are people not kind to you here in Sweet Town?"

  She smiled and shook her head. "Folks here have been real good to me and my baby, but it just isn't the same. I guess because I'm not the same as them."

  He couldn't fix all her sorrows but he knew of something that might give her a little respite from her loneliness. Perhaps it would also make up for snapping at her earlier. He smiled to himself and continued pulling weeds.

  "Are you too tired from all your work today?"

  Beulah finished drying the last dish from supper and put it away. "Too tired for what?" The simple domesticity of watching over Matt and his home was no more taxing than any other day. Were he injured enough that she had to support him as he hobbled about and hand-feed him on top of caring for Jonah, it might have been something different. Instead, it felt perfectly natural to add enough food for another person to what she'd have to cook for herself and Jonah anyway. The only truly troubling part in all of it had been his anger and fear over her finding those letters.

  "I had a surprise," Matt said. He raised something in his hands, a fiddle and bow.

  She stooped to pick up Jonah from the floor where he was balling up a rag rug in his fists. Sunday services had hymns often enough, but they were always sung without accompaniment. The church had no organ and she was quite certain she would have remembered the pastor fiddling. "You play? Why not on Sunday?"

  "I only know a few hymns. The songs I learned growing up aren't solemn enough, I don't think," he explained, before he began tuning the fiddle.

  A preacher who didn't know enough hymns. She cocked her head skeptically, looking him over as she pondered just what that meant. Just how recently had he received his calling to serve the Lord? "Then what kind of music did you learn growing up?"

  "Well." His lips curled in a self-deprecating smile and he lowered his eyes. The bow drew across the fiddle and he launched into the melody, one foot tapping out a beat. It sounded slightly like some of the country folk music she'd heard, but there was a different feel to it as well. The song was faster, certainly, and had a sense of life to it. Then he began to sing in French and she realized it had to be Creole dance music.

  Even without ever being to a dance in his short life, Jonah perked up at the song, wriggling in her arms. Beulah laughed and hugged him closer before she started swaying to the music with the baby. "Do you like that? Let me show you how to clap."

  It took a few tries of demonstrating, but by the end of the first song Jonah was clapping his hands together. He looked so pleased with himself for learning a new trick.

  Matt paused at the end of the song and pointed at Jonah with his bow. "Now you can't convince me he isn't especially bright, learning that fast."

  "Oh, I never said he wasn't bright." Beulah gave the baby a little bounce up and down. "If you wanted my opinion, I'd say he was the handsomest, smartest little boy in the world, but mother's are biased."

  "Perhaps they are, but I'm inclined to agree with you." He looked her and Jonah over with an expression of such warm admiration she felt it like an embrace. Shivers ran down her spine even as her heart squeezed painfully in her chest. Why couldn't a man she could actually spend her life with look at her like that?

  Matt played another song while she danced around the little sitting room of the parsonage with Jonah, who laughed in delight. This time she thought she caught some of the words, though she only knew a handful in French and the accent was different.

  At the end, she asked, "What was that song about? I couldn't quite understand it."

  "It's about a man who drinks himself to death after losing all his money gambling, overtaken by his sins." Matt grinned, shaking his head. "I told you, they're not really the best for church."

  "I suppose it could be taken as a warning, but the song makes it sound like it's far too much fun." Jonah laid his head down on her shoulder and her hand came up automatically to rub circles on his back while he yawned. "I wouldn't think a song about dying would be so lively."

  "I suppose whoever wrote it had to take his joy wherever he could." Matt nodded to the baby. "Want me to stop playing so you can lay him down?"

  She pressed a kiss to Jonah's forehead, thinking. "If you wanted to keep playing, that's all right. Maybe just something more subdued?"

  Matt looked thoughtful a moment. "I can do that."

  He brought the the fiddle up to his chin and his playing style changed entirely, from the quick music for dancing to sustained notes. Only a few notes in, she recognized the melody and closed her eyes, rocking Jonah in her arms. He didn't sing this time, letting the music speak for itself for the first two verses. Moved by the song, this time it was Beulah herself who began to sing.

  Through many dangers, toils and snares,

  I have already come;

  'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,

  And grace will lead me home.

  The Lord has promised good to me,

  His Word my hope secures;

  He will my Shield and Portion be,

  As long as life endures.

  Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,

  And mortal life shall cease,

  I shall possess, within the veil,

  A life of joy and peace.

  The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,

  The sun forbear to shine;

  But God, who called me here below,

  Will be forever mine.

  When we've been there ten thousand years,

  Bright shining as the sun,

  We've no less days to sing God's praise

  Than when we'd first begun.

  When the last note faded, Jonah was asleep against he
r chest and Matt was staring at her as though she'd done something remarkable. Skin heating at his gaze, Beulah lowered her eyes. "Did I do something wrong?" she asked.

  "No. But I think an angel might be hard-pressed to sing Amazing Grace better."

  She scoffed in disbelief and walked past him to lay Jonah down in the servant's quarters. Tucking the blanket around her son, ensuring he was nestled just so, gave her a moment to compose herself. It was just a few songs, some compliments, a handful of days helping him recover, but it felt like so much more.

  Everything was silent out in the sitting room. Had he gone to bed as well? She stepped out and found him putting away his fiddle, but still very much awake.

  "Where did you learn all those songs?" she asked.

  "Some from my mother, some from her brother." He chuckled. "The ones a good woman like my mother wouldn't sing were all from my uncle."

  "They spoke French, then?"

  His expression grew guarded all of a sudden, as though he'd just realized that he was speaking freely about his family. For a moment she thought he'd get defensive again. Instead, he nodded. "Creole French."

  "Matthew Whitney sounds like an awfully English name for someone who speaks French so well."

  One corner of his mouth curled up. "The accent is slightly different for Matthieu." The way he said it, she could hear tee pronounced more sharply, the second syllable of the name carrying the emphasis. "My mother's family has been established down in New Orleans for ages and she tried to keep us cultured when we left the city. She even taught me to waltz when I was eight."

  What a wildly different life he'd led than hers, she marveled, and yet here they'd ended up in the same place, hundreds of miles from where they'd been born. Drawing her out of her thoughts, Matt offered her his hand, apparently misreading her expression as longing. "I could teach you, if you wanted."

  Reluctantly, she laid her hand in his, trying to ignore the jolt like lightning that raced through her at the contact. "It's one of those dances people do at balls and events like that, isn't it?"