Back home, the ladies’ skirts always draped beautifully along the horse’s side when they rode. Hers were all bunched up, showing her limbs nearly to her knees. Though she wiggled and tugged, she couldn’t get the material down.

  Jeremy’s cheeks were turning red as well now. “We’ll ask Ma for a riding skirt next time,” he promised.

  Then he showed Caroline how to use the reins. She managed to convince Calico to plod out the door of the barn and back into the sunlight.

  She felt rather clever.

  “Let’s go a little farther,” Jeremy encouraged her.

  They rode out between the barns. The sky opened in all directions, blue and clear and impossibly high. A breeze ruffled the spring green of the grass. Calico’s walk was slow and even, making Caroline sway forward and back.

  “I rode on a boat across the Ohio River once,” she told him as the horses ambled onto a track that cut through the fields. “It felt like this, rocking while you were sitting still.”

  “You’re doing great,” he assured her.

  She braved herself to look toward the horizon. Beyond the trees, beyond the pastures, a massive, rugged cone of snow and rock rose in the distance, dwarfing everything around it.

  “Oh, my!”

  He smiled. “That’s what many say the first time they see the mountain. That’s Rainier. She’s the biggest of the lot, the highest in all the contiguous states and territories, Jacob tells me. What I wouldn’t give to stand on her top. Can you imagine the view?”

  She could more easily imagine him there, standing tall and proud, buffeted by the summit winds, snow flying around him, as he gazed off across the mountain he had conquered.

  “Maybe we could start with something smaller,” she suggested. “Like this drop Jason keeps mentioning.”

  He turned away from the view, but he didn’t meet her gaze. “We can ride that far when you’re more comfortable.”

  “I feel more comfortable every moment,” she promised him. “In fact, I’d like to make Calico run. Could we do that?”

  He chuckled. “She’s not used to running, but that’s a good thing, because she’s less likely to run away with you. But if you want to see what a horse can do, rein in a moment.”

  She did as he asked. He bent and patted Quicksilver on the shoulder, murmuring something in the alert ears. Then he straightened and shouted, “Hiya!”

  The horse dove forward.

  They raced away from her, dust flying up behind. Caroline put one hand to her brow to shade her eyes enough to spot them as they headed toward the horizon. A moment more, and they came thundering back, the cloud of dust parting like the Red Sea.

  As she watched, heart in her throat, he threw his leg over the saddle to join the other, dropped to the ground and bounced, then came up and back into the saddle again. Such skill! Such command!

  Quicksilver braced his legs as Jeremy reined in right in front of her, one hand raised in salute.

  She applauded, then had to hurriedly pick up her own reins again in case she startled Calico. “Oh, Jeremy, that was famous!”

  He ran his hand back over his hair, flattening it where the wind had whipped it up. “Jack and I used to try to best each other. Took me months to master that move.”

  “I wouldn’t dare try something like that in skirts.” She looked to him. “Can Jane do it?”

  “When she’s riding astride, maybe. But Jane doesn’t like to show off.” He grinned. “And I’m sure you can tell that I do.”

  “It’s not showing off if it’s displaying a hard-won talent,” she told him.

  “Ma might argue with you there.” His smile faded as he glanced toward the barn. “Would you mind if we rode back and helped with the painting?”

  “Not at all.” She managed to turn Calico around, and they ambled back toward the buildings.

  They spent the rest of the day scrubbing whitewash into wood, until her shoulders ached and her fingers were nearly as white as the paint. But she had to own a certain satisfaction when his father and Jack both praised her work.

  They finished in time for another lively dinner.

  “Caroline rode out a far piece,” Jeremy reported as he passed the mashed potatoes to her. “She looked like she was born in the saddle.”

  She blushed under the number of admiring glances sent her way.

  “And did you go to the lake or the blockhouse?” his mother asked, lifting a few early peas on the tines of her fork. “Or the drop?”

  The platter of venison wobbled in his grip as he passed it on as well. “Far enough to know Caroline will have no trouble riding. Although we need to find a riding skirt for her. Maybe one of the mercantiles in Puget City has ready-made.”

  His mother’s eyes snapped fire. “None of my girls is wearing that shoddy ready-made. I’ll make you a skirt myself, Caroline. Until it’s finished, Jenny can loan you one of hers.”

  “Happy to oblige,” Jenny assured her.

  His mother went on to lay out the plans for the evening and morning. This time, she didn’t give either Caroline or Jeremy a chore. Maybe that’s why their steps turned for the front porch.

  She felt as jittery as when she’d first mounted Calico. But he stood gazing across the dark fields into the black of the night sky, so she should probably do the same.

  “There must be a million of them,” Caroline said, watching the stars twinkle.

  “Only about a hundred head,” Jeremy said, but that teasing tone was back in his voice.

  “I can see why people told stories about them,” she said. “The stars, not the cows. They’re so bright, like you could reach out and touch them, like they want to be part of your life.”

  “Can’t blame the stars,” Jeremy said, moving closer. “One look at you, and I want to be part of your life.”

  She turned to him, surprised, and his hand came up to touch her cheek, soft, reverent. Once more she closed her eyes. He was so close. Her lips puckered in anticipation.

  “Are you going to kiss?”

  Caroline’s eyes snapped open to find Joy standing in the doorway, glancing between her and Jeremy.

  “That’s what courting people do, Joy,” Jeremy told his sister, voice now a little sharper. “Talk, walk, kiss.”

  “Well, go ahead, then,” she said. “But hurry up. Jack said to fetch you. It’s your turn with the cows.”

  Jeremy shook his head. “Duty calls. Good night, Caroline.” He strode into the house, leaving her wondering what might have been.

  ***

  This family! At this rate, he and Caroline might manage to kiss on their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary!

  Jeremy stalked down the corridor for the kitchen, nearly colliding with Jason as he came out. His younger brother held a handful of soft brown fur. “Thought you might want to give this to Caroline.”

  “Because nothing says love like a dead animal?” Jeremy guessed.

  His brother scowled. “It’s mink. I caught it in one of the traps the other day, and I skinned it. You can make something nice for her with the pelt, maybe a collar for her coat. Girls like that.”

  Jeremy shook his head. “And how would you know what girls like?”

  “There are four of them in this family alone,” Jason reminded him. “I listen. You should too.”

  He stalked off down the corridor, carrying the pelt with him.

  Oh, he was listening. He just had more thinking to do was all.

  He had plenty of time to consider as he took his turn with Jack and Jane. They’d spotted nothing unusual, but Jack still insisted on a triple guard. In the cool darkness, cattle lowing, Jeremy came to a conclusion. He couldn’t do anything about his father’s illness or the strangers in the woods. He could do something about his courtship.

  “It may rain later,” he told Caroline as Joshua and Joy brought in the porridge and bacon the next morning. “We should go for a ride. I want to show you the drop.”

  She agreed readily, but then, she didn’t know what the drop meant. His brothers and sisters knew that he and Jacob had taken Deborah and Maisy there on their ill-fated visit, though not that Jeremy had made a fool of himself by proposing. When Jesse had led his Alice to see the drop on their first visit, the others had decided that’s what the view was for—courting your sweetheart and giving her a kiss.

  He’d almost kissed Caroline last night. She’d looked up at him so sweetly, starlight sparkling in her hair, then closed her eyes, as if she wanted to feel his lips against hers. His own longing was welling up in him again now as they rode out. He managed to keep his hands on the reins even though all he wanted was to reach out and touch her.

  As they neared the edge of the cliff that ran down to the Nisqually Delta, his muscles tensed, and he slowed Quicksilver. Caroline reined in as well, easier in the saddle than he had been the first few times Pa had put him on a horse. She seemed to acclimate to new situations quickly. Another reason to admire her.

  “Oh, Jeremy,” she murmured, eyes shining as she gazed out over the delta. “It’s beautiful.”

  She sounded awed. Though he’d seen the view dozens of times, he couldn’t help marveling a little himself. The tide was out. The wide grasslands of the delta were greening with spring, and the Nisqually cut through them in silver braided streams, with Medicine Creek a darker gray just below. Gulls swept the skies to wheel down toward the bluer waters of Puget Sound.

  He’d called Deborah lovely here, but the real beauty was sitting next to him now. The breeze fingered through Caroline’s dark hair, setting tendrils to swaying like smoke. Her lips were parted, as if she couldn’t catch her breath.

  “That’s the Nisqually River,” he told her, pointing. “That darker smudge on the far side is the cliff rising to Fort Nisqually, the old Hudson’s Bay Company trading post. And there—that’s a whole herd of deer.”

  She stared at the brown mass, which seemed to be undulating, as if they bounded across the grass for the sheer joy of it. “How marvelous! Can we ride down and see them?”

  “Best not,” he said with a smile. “It’s not easy to get down that steep slope. You might say, it’s another world there.”

  “A wonderful world,” she assured him. “Why did you hesitate to show it to me?”

  Jeremy focused on the view. “Jacob and I brought two ladies from Olympia here once. Things didn’t go well.”

  “Why?” she asked with a frown. “Were they poor riders?”

  “We never had a chance to find out. Jacob’s lady decided she preferred the city, and my lady didn’t care for the ranch, or me, very much.”

  She stuck her nose in the air. “Well, she couldn’t have been very smart or very kind, then, because I think both are perfect.”

  She could not know how her words touched him, like liniment rubbed into a sore muscle to ease the pain.

  “There’s another reason I hesitated to come out this way,” he admitted. “My brothers and sisters have it in their heads that this is where you bring a girl to kiss her.”

  “Oh.”

  She waited.

  Expectantly.

  His heart whispered a warning, but Jeremy gave in to his longings. Leaning across between the horses, he brushed his lips against hers.

  They were soft and cool, but they quickly warmed. They tasted of the honey she’d put on her porridge, or maybe she was just naturally sweet. The touch of her lips, the way she sighed, the glow in her eyes as he released her were everything he could have wished for.

  Jack wasn’t going to get much work from him today. Such a kiss could shift the way a fellow saw the world, his future, and himself.

  Chapter Ten

  The kiss was soft and sweet, a mere caress of lips, but Caroline felt it to her core. Oh the joy, the wonder! This was worth waiting for.

  She opened her eyes as he pulled away. The awe on his face told her he’d felt something too.

  “I guess that means you’re my sweetheart,” he said, smile wobbly.

  She smiled back. “Guess it does.”

  “Just don’t tell Ma,” he said, turning his horse. “She’ll be insufferable.”

  Caroline laughed, and she turned Calico as well as they headed back toward the house to offer their help with the final day of painting. She could have painted the entire barn on her own the way she was feeling. Why, she could have flown right down to that delta and introduced herself to the deer! She was probably still grinning when they reined in near the barn.

  The others were already hard at work, but Jeremy’s father gladly poured them a bucket. “Front doors need a coat too,” he said, eyes twinkling.

  Jacob was working on the wall on one side of the door, Jane on the other. Jeremy’s brother nodded at Caroline with approval as she started slopping paint onto the planks of the door. Her shoulders protested, but she ignored them.

  “How did the riding go?” Jane called.

  “Caroline acquitted herself brilliantly,” Jeremy said, so proudly he might have popped a button.

  “We went all the way to the drop,” Caroline said before thinking better of it.

  Jane’s eyebrows climbed. “And?”

  “And there were deer down in the delta,” Caroline said, mindful of Jeremy’s warning.

  “A nice sighting,” Jacob said, but he was eyeing her as if he saw something more in her comment.

  At least that nudged them away from the subject of the drop. As it was, Caroline caught Jeremy’s gaze on her several times during the morning, and every time the memory of his lips against hers brought a blush to her cheeks.

  She couldn’t help hoping. Back home, a kiss was generally a prelude to a proposal. Maybe she’d be less mail-order and more bride soon.

  Jeremy bent over their bucket and swept his brush along the sides. “We’re running low.”

  “I’ll get more,” Caroline volunteered, handing him her full brush.

  “I’ll help you,” Jacob said, abandoning his own bucket to pick up theirs.

  She followed him into the barn, the scents of hay and horses wrapping around her. Jacob moved to a workbench along one wall, where the bigger vat of whitewash was waiting. They had used a good amount of it so far, but they still had a lot of barn to paint.

  “You seem to have taken to riding,” Jacob said as he bent to dip a smaller pail in the paint.

  “It’s not hard with such a gentle horse as Calico,” Caroline said, watching him begin to fill her bucket. “I don’t know if I’d fare as well on a bigger, faster horse like Quicksilver.”

  He wiped the paint off the little pail before setting it aside. “My brother’s horse can be unpredictable.” He straightened. “So is Jeremy, but he deserves a wife who will be steady and true. Are you that woman?”

  Caroline stepped back, stung. “I’ve never represented myself as other than I am. Do you think I lied?”

  He cocked his head as if considering, eyes half hidden behind his spectacles. “No. You appear to be honest. But do you intend to go through with this marriage if my brother proposes?”

  If Jeremy proposed. So even well-read Jacob wondered.

  “I came here to be a mail-order bride,” Caroline said. “That hasn’t changed.”

  “And she shouldn’t have to justify that to anyone,” Jack said.

  Caroline turned to find him coming down the stairs from his room in the loft. He touched the brim of his hat to her, and she managed a smile.

  “I was merely trying to protect Jeremy,” Jacob informed his brother.

  “Understandable,” Jack allowed, moving to join them. “But I’m fairly sure Jeremy can protect himself. Best you head back to work.”

  Jacob shook his head, but he handed Caroline the bucket and stalked out.

  “Sorry about that,” Jack said, grabbing a hammer off the workbench. “We tend to watch out for each other.”

  “Which is commendable,” Caroline assured him. “But I’m not out to hurt anyone.”

  “I can see that. You’re always willing to lend a hand, and what you don’t know, you’re happy to learn. I hope to find a bride like you one day.”

  The chill she’d felt at Jacob’s doubt melted. Yet, if Jeremy was right about the number of women in the area, Jack had a challenge ahead of him to find any bride at all.

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  He nodded as he turned for the door. “Just tell Jeremy it’s time to move things along.”

  Maybe she should.

  If she was as brave as Jeremy’s oldest sister, she could ask him where she stood. Jane rode astride, like the men. Jane helped guard the cows at night. If a fellow had kissed Jane, she’d probably demand a proposal that moment. Jane might be the one proposing!

  But she wasn’t Jane, and pushing for anything in her family or at the academy had meant she was more likely to hear the word no than the word yes.

  ***

  Caroline worked diligently beside Jeremy the rest of the afternoon, casting him the occasional glance. By the time they’d finished for the day, that glance had turned into a frown, as if she wasn’t sure of him.

  Why should she be sure? He’d kissed her and called her his sweetheart, which was pretty close to admitting he was hers and she was his.

  But she wasn’t his. Not really. Not until he uttered those fateful words: Will you marry me?

  And she agreed.

  As they cleaned their hands at the side of the barn before dinner, the others having gone ahead, those words trembled on his tongue, begging to be released. He’d praise her beauty, her commitment to her family, her kindness. He’d take her in his arms and press his lips against hers. They’d only had a moment at the drop. This time could be deeper, richer.

  But what if he hadn’t done enough to convince her to stay? What if she agreed with Ma that they still needed time to know?

  What if she said no?

  What if he stopped fretting and just plunged ahead?

  Beyond her, a movement caught his eye, and he blinked. Someone was heading toward the open door of the barn. He only caught a glimpse of the fellow. His hat was pulled down over his hair, but the black leather duster didn’t belong to any of his brothers, and he couldn’t recall seeing one on any man who attended services.