| |
Elliot showed Ellen where he kept his food stores. She made some biscuits and gravy with the fresh milk. Elliot brought their chairs outside to the yard and they ate in the last golden rays of daylight.
Laird lay down across the doorstep. Ellen still couldn’t get used to his eerie presence behind her, but he lay so still that she soon forgot he was there. He acted so differently than any other dog she knew. He didn’t beg while they ate. He didn’t seem even marginally interested in their food.
“It’s lovely here in the evening,” Ellen remarked.
“I like it all right,” Elliot agreed. “It sure is peaceful and quiet. But it gets lonely. Then you don’t like the silence so much.”
“It does seem strange,” Ellen remarked. “To think that the nearest people are so far away, and we’re out here all alone. You don’t think about that sort of thing when you live around people all the time. You only notice it once they’re gone.”
“There’s Clive, of course,” Elliot reminded her. “He’s not that far away.”
“Who are your other closest neighbors?” Ellen asked.
“There’s the Morgans, up the other end of the valley,” Elliot told her. “And there’s the Abbots across the river. We’re not all that alone, when you think about it.”
“So Clive could be right about the territory filling up,” Ellen observed.
“He might be,” Elliot agreed. “But it will take a while. We could be alone out here for a long time.”
“Unless we have children,” Ellen added.
Elliot grinned at her. “Right.” He stood up. “Let’s go inside. The sun’s gone, so it’s going to start getting cold.” Without waiting for her, he took his chair inside and started closing the shutters on the window. Laird followed him inside.
Ellen took their plates and washed them in the kettle of hot water hanging over the fire. By the time she dried them and set them on the shelf, Elliot had bolted the door and set his chair before the fire. Laird stretched out on the hearth.
“So what do you usually do in the evenings?” Ellen asked.
“Usually, I don’t do anything in the evenings,” Elliot replied. “Usually, I go to bed as soon as it gets dark enough to shut the window. I don’t much care for sitting up all by myself.”
“That sounds a bit melancholy,” Ellen remarked.
Elliot shrugged. “When you get up at dawn, you wind up going to sleep at dusk. It saves fuel, too.”
“Still,” Ellen persisted. “You could stay up and do something.”
“Sometimes I stay up and clean my gun,” Elliot replied. “Sometimes, I sharpen my axe. Sometimes I mend my gear, or tan hides, or grease my boots. But most of the time, I go to bed after supper.”
Ellen glanced around the room and gulped hard. “So do you want to go to bed now?”
Elliot fixed her with a piercing gaze and shook his head. “No. I want to stay up with you. Come here.”
Ellen looked around again. She caught sight of the chairs around the table and decided to bring one over, but Elliot stopped her.
“Come here.” He reached out a hand and caught her by the wrist.
He towed her over to him and pulled her down into his lap.
“I want to spend some time with you,” Elliot told her. “It’s our first night together.”
Ellen cast around in flustered confusion. “I know. I thought you might want to go to bed.”
“There’ll be plenty of time for that,” Elliot declared. “Right now, I want to concentrate on you.” He circled her waist with both arms and hugged her against his chest.
Ellen fought to breath in his embrace. Her mind flew in every direction, trying to make sense of what was happening. How ridiculous it was to fight against this now. She was married. This was her husband. They were alone, miles from their nearest neighbor. Why did she bother to resist?
Then she spotted Laird by the fire. Instead of dozing with his head on his paws, oblivious to everything around him, he lay with his head up, inspecting her with his inscrutable white-blue eyes. What was he thinking about? Was he preparing to rip her to shreds for attacking his master?
She’d intruded on his territory. She was a stranger. In all likelihood, she was the first and only person ever to visit the house. And here she was, moving in to stay. Not only that, he might take offense at the intimacy between this new intruder and his master. He might decide to fight her for possession of his master. Then what was she supposed to do?
She couldn’t concentrate on Elliot’s attentions with that beast staring at her like this. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. She understood how the cow felt, transfixed by his cold, calculating stare.
Elliot, meanwhile, noticed her odd behavior. He nuzzled his bristly face into the side of her neck. “Come on. You’re awfully nice. Let me have just one evening with you before we become another boring old married couple.”
Ellen tried to put Laird out of her mind. She closed her eyes and felt Elliot’s warm breath on her neck and in her ear. The heat translated down her body, over her chest and belly. He nuzzled down to the hollow where her neck met her chest. He burrowed his face into the top of her dress.
A sizzle of tension snapped her eyes open, and the first thing she saw was Laird, staring at her. She stiffened in Elliot’s arms.
“What’s wrong?” Elliot murmured from below her chin. “Don’t you want me? I thought you were ready to get married.”
“I am,” Ellen gasped.
“Then what’s the problem?” Elliot asked.
His hands started exploring around her midsection. They squeezed her sides and crept forward to her belly. Without realizing what she was doing, she gripped his wrist to stop his hands advancing any further.
“What’s wrong?” Elliot asked again. He didn’t wait for a reply. His face came up from her neck and his lips nibbled over the side of her face in search of her mouth.
Ellen’s breath came heavier and with more difficulty. Why was she thinking of a way to get out of this? If she wasn’t ready to get married, with everything that went along with that, why did she agree to marry Elliot? What was she doing here, if not being a wife?
Elliot’s lips finally found what they were looking for and locked onto Ellen’s mouth. In one explosive jerk, she yanked her head away.
“What’s the matter with you?” Elliot panted.
“It’s that wolf!” Ellen blurted out.
Elliot pulled away and stared at her. “What? Laird? What about him?” He glanced over at his dog.
“He keeps staring at me,” Ellen explained. “I can’t concentrate with him staring at me all the time.”
Elliot looked over at Laird. The dog blinked at Elliot and then at Ellen, but he never moved. He didn’t make a sound or even acknowledge their attention. “What’s he doing? He isn’t doing anything.”
“He’s just staring at me,” Ellen repeated. “I can’t do anything with him watching me.”
Elliot opened his mouth. Then he burst out laughing. “He’s a dog. He isn’t watching you.”
“Oh, yes, he is!” Ellen insisted. “Look at him! He knows exactly what we’re doing.”
“So what?” Elliot shot back. “He’s a dog. Don’t tell me you’re going all modest in front of a dog.”
“I’m not being modest,” Ellen cried. “I can’t do anything with him staring at me. He’s making me too nervous.”
“You’re acting like that cow out there.” Elliot waved his hand in the direction of the barn. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of him.”
Ellen got out of his lap and stepped away from him. “You can make fun of me all you like. I understand now why that cow wouldn’t move with him staring at her. I don’t know whether to run from him or to fight him.”
Elliot snorted. “Come on. This is crazy. Just ignore him. He’s probably curious about why you’re here. He’ll get used to you, and then he won’t stare at you anymore. In the meantime, come here and just pretend he isn’t there.” He reached out for her hand again.
“I can’t,” Ellen insisted. “Can’t you put him outside?”
“I won’t put him outside,” Elliot replied. “He’s slept in the house every night ever since I got him, and I’m not putting him out now, just because you’re too silly to look away from him.”
Ellen crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, that just goes to show which of us is more important to you.”
Elliot got out of his chair and drew himself up. At his full height, he stood several inches taller than Ellen. “If I have to choose between him and you, then I choose him. He’s saved my life more than once, and I just met you this afternoon. He’s not spending the night outside. For one thing, bears, mountain lions, or wolves could come in the night, and we want him inside where he can protect us.”
“Don’t tell me you’d choose a dog over your own wife,” Ellen exclaimed.
“What wife?” Elliot snapped. “If you’re my wife, come to me now.”
Ellen squared her shoulders. “Put that dog of yours outside, and I will.”
Elliot threw up his hands. “I’m done with you. I’m going to bed now. I thought you might like to take a little time to get to know each other, but I guess you don’t want to do that. Maybe you didn’t want to be anyone’s wife after all.”
He stomped off to the bed, where he kicked his boots into a corner. He peeled off his pants and crawled between the unidentified animal skin on top of the bed and the blankets underneath.
Ellen watched him from the fireside with her arms still crossed over her chest. Had she made a colossal blunder? Should she run to him and give in? Should she find another place to sleep? Would he drive her back to town in the morning, put her on the next train, and send her home?
She stood there a few minutes more. Only the popping of the logs on the fire echoed through the little house. She looked around. Laird blinked his eyes and continued to stare at her. An overpowering hatred for the dog welled up inside her. She would have liked to kick him.
Was she just supposed to put up with him? Was she supposed to work around this hearth and this fire with that demon lying across her path?
Elliot clearly wouldn’t give her any consideration when it came to that dog. He’d just chosen the dog over her. This wasn’t exactly the start she hoped for to their married life together. And now it appeared to be over before it even started.
She had to do something to salvage the situation.
She tiptoed over to the bed. Elliot lay between the blankets with his face toward the wall. Was there even enough room in that tiny bed for both of them? It looked barely big enough for him—let alone both of them.
It didn’t matter. It was the only way to show him that she knew her place and was willing to follow through on her wedding vows. She unbuttoned her shoes and her dress. She shed her stiff outer clothes until she stood by the bed in her underlinens.
The last licks of fire around the logs glinted around the room, sending shadows dancing into odd corners. Ellen dared not look back toward the fire, where she could be sure Laird still watched her.
She pulled back the coverlet of the bed and slipped underneath it, into the warm nest next to Elliot.
