Lone Pine Bride (The Brides of Lone Pine #1)(4)

He made his way upstairs after doing it and surveyed the bedroom he had prepared for Rachel. That was one thing he had splashed out on, covers for this bed and for the one he had on the large bed he purchased for the room in which he slept. She would need to be on her own for a bit until she got used to him but how he hoped that wouldn’t last for too long.

But he would be patient where that was concerned and he was a bit shy himself when he thought about it. He had never been in a woman’s company for long, well, not someone who was unattached. So he would go slowly until she felt comfortable with him and what happened after that he did not really want to think about because it seemed unseemly to do so.

So everything was ready and she wouldn’t realise how much he had lied about things and how he exaggerated. He wasn’t really sure why he did that and maybe he would tell her one day. But that wouldn’t be for a very long time. What he had said which wasn’t true he would somehow have to bring about.

She wouldn’t lie about anything, he knew. Her letters were so genuine, so interesting, so alive. When she said she could knit, sew, cook and milk a cow he believed she could. No lady would say that and not mean it. He knew that from Caroline because she was everything she said she was.

So Rachel was going to be perfect in every way and they were going to love each other to bits. They were going to have a happy and long marriage. He wasn’t going to have to sit on his own and be lonely at night after he finished work.

Tomorrow he would be married. Tomorrow his new life would begin. Tomorrow would be the beginning of a future which was going to be good. Tomorrow and he was terrified.

But he shouldn’t feel like that because she would like it here. He was near Lone Pine which was a nice place. It had been established round ten years previously, five years before Lower Pine came into existence and two years ago everyone was very proud of Lone Pine’s new post office. About twelve miles away was Mount Whitney and Rachel had been very interested to hear about the area where he lived. He was looking forward to showing her round.

He didn’t actually live in the little community because his farm was a few miles from it. Sometimes he would walk there and back but he wouldn’t expect Rachel to do that. He would teach her to ride a horse because she said she couldn’t ride, and when he made more money he would buy a carriage instead of just using the basic cart he owned. Maybe he could even make one though he would have to make sure it was roadworthy because its cargo would be very precious. It would be Rachel.

March twenty fifth and in two weeks it would be his birthday. He would be turning twenty four and Rachel said she was nineteen. He had said twenty one in case she thought twenty four old but maybe he would tell her one day. She said she was bringing him a present. She would make him a birthday cake, she told him, and they would celebrate together. He was looking forward to that.

The stagecoach was due to arrive at ten fifteen in the morning, he had been told, and was coming from San Francisco. It was over three thousand miles from Boston, over four hundred from San Francisco and it would take her days to do it. She was the bravest woman out, Seth thought, and felt a tenderness he could not quite define.

She was doing it to marry him and nobody had ever done anything that big for him, not even his mother because he was born to her and therefore she would look out for him. But this was a lady and she considered him worth it to come so far. When she arrived he would make it up to her for the unhappiness she experienced at the loss of her parents and her home, and he would look after her and love her.

But now he would have something to eat and then he would go to bed. It was going on for nine and had been properly dark for about twenty minutes. Usually he did not retire so early, though it was never late because he rose very early in the morning, also because there wasn’t much to do in the evenings. When Rachel arrived that would be different because they would be able to chat together after him working on his ranch all day.

Which would start tomorrow. He was terrified in one way, in another he couldn’t wait. He mixed three eggs together in a pan, stirred it and put it on some bread which he darkened and crisped in the same pan. Delicious but tomorrow, or at least when she recovered from her long journey, Rachel would show him some new dishes.

He wouldn’t expect her to cook for him all the time, of course, and particularly not at first. He would somehow produce some food that was acceptable and if he put it attractively on a plate it would maybe cover the fact that he couldn’t cook at all. He could maybe catch a fish from the lake though usually when he tried to do that they eluded him. He would have to work harder at it.

But tomorrow he wouldn’t have to cook because the Reverend’s wife said she would bake dishes for all the new husbands to welcome their wives. They couldn’t expect them to cook on their first day, she told them, and maybe she would bring dishes for a few days. He could see what she put in them because when he had been invited to eat with them he had not really noticed. All he did was enjoy the food set before him. But Rachel told him she would cook for him and he was looking forward to eating the way he had before he left home.

Piling the food on his plate he took it through to the main living room and soon afterwards went up to bed. Not to sleep a lot, he found, but at least he was resting.





Chapter 4


Seth looked at himself critically in the mirror. Denim pants with copper rivets and they fitted well. He was not skinny but also not at all fat. His shoulders were wide, his stomach flat. He had a waist, which quite a few men, he had noticed, didn’t, and those were some of the men who were expecting new brides today. His shirt was white and neatly pressed and he had on a new jacket which matched his jeans. It had cost quite a bit but he had money left to buy Rachel a new dress if she wanted one when she arrived, even after buying her an ivory one to make up for the one she had to sell.