Instant Prairie Family (Love Inspired Historical) (11 page)

If only he could make himself believe that he could ever make a wife of his truly happy.

* * *

Abby stood at the foot of the church steps for the second time in one day, listening to the church bells ringing. This time, however, the bells were heralding her wedding. How could it be? She hadn’t imagined anything like this would ever happen to her. As a child she had dreamed of marrying some handsome man who would sweep her off her feet with his declaration of love and devotion. Mr. Hopkins fit the handsome part. But where was the rest of her dream—the fairy-tale romance with a man who brought her flowers and proposed on bended knee?

In spite of his promises to not hate her, Abby felt certain that instead of building a marriage or even a friendship, this coerced wedding would create resentment on his part after a time. If only she were more like Emma, it wouldn’t be so scary. Emma had married for money and station. It didn’t seem to bother her that her husband held her in disdain, as long as he continued to provide their lavish lifestyle. But Abby craved love, affection. Even if Mr. Hopkins—Will—treated her with the same kindness and respect he’d showed thus far, he wouldn’t give her what her heart truly desired.

“It’s time, child.” A soft voice to her right broke into her thoughts, even as Mrs. Phelps handed her the bouquet of wildflowers hastily collected and wrapped with a hair ribbon from someone’s reticule. “He’s a fine young man and so handsome,” the older woman continued, pulling her by the arm up the stairs. “He’s a gentle man, so you have no reason to be frightened. He’ll be a good husband—”

Before she could continue, the door opened and Mrs. Reyerson smiled at her. “You look lovely, dear.”

Through the open door, Abby could see that most of the congregation had stayed to witness her wedding. Or maybe they were just here to see Mr. Hopkins married against his will. No matter their reason, as she stepped through the portal, they all stood and watched her. On shaky legs, she started forward, unsure where she was even headed until she lifted her eyes and caught sight of her groom standing at the front of the church watching her. He was so handsome. His gaze locked with hers and pulled her toward him. He looked sure of himself. He looked safe.

Unaware as to how she got there, she was suddenly standing in front of him as he extended his hands to cup hers. It felt right—her smaller hand nestled inside his larger, rougher ones. Everyone else in the place disappeared and for a moment, she stepped out of time and felt safe. “It’ll be all right, Abby,” he whispered just before Pastor McKinnon started to speak.

“We are gathered here today to join the lives and hearts of F. William Hopkins and... Is it Abigail or Abby, Miss Stewart?” he asked, stopping the service midsentence.

“Abigail,” she answered, not daring to look away from her groom.

“Yes, and Abigail Stewart in holy matrimony,” Pastor MacKinnon continued. Abby felt as if she were an observer on the peripheral, watching a drama play out around her. “Do you, F. William Hopkins, take her to be your...” Pastor McKinnon’s voice droned on, but Abby couldn’t concentrate. What was she doing?

“I do.” Will’s voice was steady and sure. He gazed into her eyes and she wondered if he knew how scared she was.

“And, Abigail, do you take William Hopkins to be your lawfully wedded husband, to honor, respect and obey from this day forward?”

Mr. Hopkins squeezed her hands gently and she shook off her fears. It was her turn to speak. “I...I do.” Her voice caught, not because she didn’t want to be tied to this man, nor because she didn’t trust her life in his hands. She did. But in the middle of all of this, she realized it wasn’t until death do them part, it was until he could get her off his land and send her back East. It was only until the harvest was in. How could it be that she already wanted to weep for the home she was losing before she ever really had it?

“I now declare you husband and wife.” The pastor’s voice broke into her confused thoughts once again. “You may kiss your bride.”

She had forgotten about this part. No one had ever kissed her before. What if he chose not to kiss her? The marriage was in name only. Will was already standing so close, but he stepped even closer. Letting her hand go, he raised her chin with his finger, forcing her eyes to his. His gaze held her place as his lips descended on hers, or
almost
on hers. His touch was soft and warm, more of a whisper than a touch on the corner of her lips, her cheek. She felt herself tremble as he pulled away. But instead of releasing her as she expected him to, his fingers inched up her cheek and his lips descended once again, this time directly on hers, and the kiss felt like a seal on her heart.

Someone started clapping and Will opened his eyes, lifted his head, squeezed the hand he still held and smiled into her eyes before looking out to the people seated in the pews.

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins,” Pastor McKinnon announced to the congregation. Cheers and whistles filled the air.

Chapter Eight

A
s soon as Will lifted her from the wagon and set her on her feet by the kitchen door, Abby headed inside, her mind on putting dinner on the table for the men. How strange to enter the house she had left only hours before as just the housekeeper and return as Mrs. Hopkins. It felt more like a strange dream. Would she wake at some point and realize none of it was real—not the blackmail threat, or the ceremony...or the way he had kissed her with a gentle passion after they were declared man and wife?

After all, she could still remember the stories her mother had told her about her parents’ courting and wedding. Her father had carried his new bride across the threshold of their home after the wedding…. Here Abby was entering with her new stepsons. She didn’t even know what Will wanted from her or even how long he had planned to keep her there before he annulled the marriage and sent her packing.

Not that she could blame him, really. He hadn’t wanted the trouble of having a wife. Surely he was still in love with his first wife and didn’t want anyone to take her place. But in all honesty, Abby knew that she would never take the first Mrs. Hopkins’s place. From the color of the boys’ eyes and hair, she imagined a beautiful woman who had charmed and enchanted Mr. Hopkins. It was obvious Will blamed himself for not being able to make her happy. He must have loved her very much. Why else would he still keep her things in his room and refuse to consider looking for a second wife to ease his burdens of raising his boys?

She pushed a wisp of hair away from her cheek, and her fingers came away wet. Stunned that she had given into self-pity, she stood just inside the doorway of the kitchen and gave herself a good shaking. If she gave in to her tears right now, she wouldn’t get anything done for the rest of the afternoon. She needed to get to work. More than ever she needed to earn her keep while she was here.

Maybe with a little bit of work, she could ingrain herself into the family and workings of the farm to the point she’d earn a permanent position—maybe not as the loved mother and wife, but as the caretaker and homemaker who kept everyone well fed and comfortable. That would be her way to ensure her permanence with the Hopkinses.

Taking her emotions firmly under control, she stepped to the sink and started to get dinner on the table. The boys followed her in and she almost didn’t register their chatter as she worried about the chicken that had to be overbaked and burned to a crisp by now. What a way to impress her new husband and the preacher by offering them inedible chicken!

“Something smells good!” Tommy exclaimed. “I’m sooo hungry I could eat a horse.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that you had a hankering for horse today. I just made plain old chicken!” She forced herself to tease Tommy. Even though her mind was a scramble of different emotions, she didn’t want the boys to feel left out. What would today’s events change for the boys? For the farm?

“You’re silly,” giggled Tommy. Even Willy grinned at her joke.

“Why don’t you boys go up and change out of your Sunday clothes?” she suggested.

“Yes, ma’am,” Willy answered, ushering his little brother up the stairs ahead of him.

Abby knew she should stop to change, too, but the men would only take a few minutes to see to the afternoon chores, and then they’d be ready to eat. She just hoped she had something to offer them. She tugged an apron over her favorite dress, glad that she had worn it today.

Who would have thought that today would be her wedding day? And yet she didn’t feel any more married now than she had felt before the ceremony. Shocked and disappointed better described her state of mind. She figured with the expectation of annulment in the near future, she might never feel married. She wasn’t the kind of woman a man would want to be married to forever. The sooner she accepted the truth, the sooner she would be able to resume her chores and life would go back to normal.

Pushing her unruly thoughts aside again, she pulled the large pot out of the oven. She said a silent prayer and held her breath to see what was left of the chicken she had set in the oven hours ago. The impromptu wedding meant that they had been away much longer than she had planned, and almost all the water had dried out, leaving a mush of potatoes, onion and carrots. Still, maybe it would be edible after all. It did smell good. She scraped out the vegetables and put them all in a big serving bowl. Minutes later, she stared at her concoction. Instead of white mashed potatoes, they were orange, but she added butter, milk and salt and tried a taste. It was actually pretty good.

The boys appeared back at the door as she finished doctoring the “mush” as she dubbed it in her mind. They stood just a pace away from the table and watched with fascination every move she made. The chicken fell apart when she lifted it onto the serving platter. What little juice remained she drained off to make gravy.

“Auntie Abby, can we eat now?” Tommy looked longingly at the platter as if he wanted to eat the whole chicken by himself.

“Not yet. Your pa, Jake and the pastor haven’t come in from the barn yet. As soon as they come in, then we’ll eat.” She made a face at him. Giggling, he made one in return.

Turning back to the stove, she could hear Willy and Tommy whispering. They often discussed things like they were little old men. Tommy came up with all sorts of ideas and Willy, always claiming to know it all, explaining the whys and hows of life.

“But she is, too,” Tommy argued, louder this time. “Aren’t you, Auntie Abby?” he asked, his voice belying how much he wanted to be right.

“What are you talking about, Tommy?” she asked pleasantly, remembering the times she intervened between her nephews. She just hoped it was something that she knew the answer to. Her nephew Peter would come up with questions about why the sky was blue or why the geese flew away from the pond in the town square every winter and where they went to.

“I told Willy that you’re our new ma. Pa said he was marring you at church and Jill said if you married our pa, that made you our ma. Can we call you Ma? I’d like you to be our ma since our old one is dead.” Tommy’s matter-of-fact statement caught Abby completely off guard. How could she answer the boy when she didn’t know the answers herself? She had so many questions and she was afraid that even if she and Will were to sit and discuss things, they still wouldn’t be completely settled for a time.

Abby searched for words, ideas, anything to be able to reassure the boys, but came up with nothing.

“I told you she didn’t want to be our ma. Our real ma didn’t even want to be our ma, so why would a stranger?” Willy’s words only tore at Abby’s heart and confused her. What had Mrs. Hopkins been like? Why did Willy say that she hadn’t wanted to be his mother? Had she been sickly or more uninterested in children, like Emma? Either way, it helped her to understand his belligerence and why he held himself away from others.

Abby slid the pan off the stove and set it aside. The gravy could wait. The boys were more important. Kneeling before them, a hand on each boy’s shoulder, she gazed into Willy’s eyes and then Tommy’s.

“It would be the biggest honor in the world for me to be your ma. But that’s a question you need to ask your pa. I know that things are hard to understand....” She paused to organize her thoughts and beg God silently for the right words. “I will always love both of you and I will be here as long as God gives me the opportunity. Everything that happened today was a surprise and I’m still trying to figure out what to do. I don’t know what your pa would think if you called me ‘Ma.’”

She swallowed hard. She would love to be “Ma” to these precious boys. After all, her heart’s desire had always been to be a mother. In many ways, she had been a second mother to her nieces and nephews, but she’d had to leave them behind. Even if she would never have children of her own, she had already come to care for these boys deeply. But was it fair to let them get attached if Will was planning to end their marriage and send her away in a few months? Would he think she was trying to usurp his first wife’s place in the house and with the boys?

In spite of all her questions and doubts, she couldn’t resist pulling the boys closer to her and hugging them tight.

Willy was less receptive, but having nursed them through the chicken pox, she had gotten used to the facade he showed at her attempts of affection. The first day the boys had been sick, she had tried to give him more space and not baby him as much, but then she saw the look of longing on his face when she held Tommy. She slowly began to touch his shoulder, forehead or finger his hair out of his eyes since then.

“I want you to be our ma,” Tommy said with a pout, but before she was able to correct his attitude, they heard the men clomping up the back steps.

“How about we talk about this later?” she offered, not wanting to have this discussion with everyone else in the room. Maybe later in the afternoon, she would be able to approach Will about the changes that were happening on the farm and what he wanted from her. In the meantime, she had dinner to put on the table.

* * *

“Something sure smells good in here!” exclaimed Colin as soon as the door opened. “I can tell that you’ve been hard at work, Mrs. Hopkins.”

Will glared at his friend. He wasn’t sure what to do in this new situation he found himself thrust into, but he knew that it didn’t make him look good to have his friend beat him to the punch on complimenting the new bride. Colin was right about the food smelling good. It made his belly growl and he realized it had been hours since breakfast.

He waited while Colin and then Jake washed their hands and faces. When he had walked in, Abby had been kneeling in front of his boys, hugging them close. He noticed that she and the boys looked upset, but he wasn’t sure what to do about it. Maybe once they had eaten, he could think a little more clearly.

After Colin had asked the blessing on the food and “the newly formed family,” everyone dug in. Abby was hard put to get more than a few bites before someone needed something. As soon as the boys finished their food, they begged to leave the table. Without giving it a second thought, Will waved them away and Jake followed them out into the barnyard. The door slapped shut behind them before he glanced at Abby and the strained look on her face.

“Pastor MacKinnon, would you like more?”

Her voice was as pleasant as always, but Will suspected that he had done something wrong and hadn’t an idea what it was.

“There’s plenty of mush. I’m sorry for the appearance...” She was repeating the same excuse for the third time.

“Don’t worry about a thing, Mrs. Hopkins. I happen to be a confirmed bachelor, so it’s a real treat to have such a good, home-cooked meal.”

Colin was his usual congenial self, but this fact bothered Will today. His friend was more at home with Will’s new wife than he was. It grated on his nerves that Colin insisted on calling Abby “Mrs. Hopkins,” as well. The formality was just another reminder to everyone of the big changes that had happened that afternoon.

“Mr. Hopkins, did you want more?” Abby asked, starting to rise even though her own plate was still half-full.

“Not until you finish what’s on your plate,” Will answered gruffly. “And remember, we agreed that you’d call me Will from now on.”

Humbly, she sat back down and began to eat without lifting her eyes from her plate. Guilt assaulted Will as he realized that she was acting afraid of him. Colin caught his eye—his look condemning.

“Listen, I’m sorry if I spoke harshly, but you didn’t even sit down to eat!” His voice rose as he struggled to keep his temper. He hadn’t wanted to be married ever again. Now that he was, he hadn’t even gone for a full three hours without having to apologize to her. In the last three weeks, they had become friends and now he felt as if he didn’t know what to say to her.

“I guess I’m not really that hungry,” she mumbled, pushing back from the table and standing once again. She had reached out to collect his dishes when he stopped her by clasping her wrist. A jolt ran down his hand to his arm, stunning him, and he released her.

“Wait.” His conscience got the best of him. It wasn’t her fault he was in a bad mood. It wasn’t even her fault that they had this problem to begin with, and now he had ruined her meal. “Listen, Abby.” Will didn’t know what to ask, but he didn’t want her to leave the table, either. “How about if I help with the cleanup while you rest for a bit?” he offered.

“No, I can do it.” She took his plate.

Standing, Colin started to stack the boys’ plates in a pile and headed over to the sink. Abby followed with her dishes and Will’s. She took a pot off the back of the stove and poured the warm water into the basin, added soap and set the dishes in to soak. Will placed the platter of chicken bones and the empty serving bowl next to the sink on the counter.

“Thank you, Mrs. Hopkins. Dinner was excellent.”

“Thank you, Pastor MacKinnon. I’m glad you enjoyed it.” She turned from the sink and took a platter and the sugar bowl out of the cabinet. “I have cookies. Would you like to sit and have a cup of coffee with dessert?”

“That’s a tempting offer, ma’am, but I don’t know how wise it would be. I think I’m about as stuffed as I can get before I burst one of my seams. I might be able to handle a little more coffee, though.”

Will fought the jealousy rearing its ugly head. She hadn’t offered any to him. But then again, he hadn’t commented on her cooking. Instead, he almost bit her head off for trying to get him something more. If he told her now that he had enjoyed her cooking, it would look as if he was just trying not to lose face.

“W-Will, would you like some more coffee or some cookies?”

“Sounds good,” he managed to mumble, feeling more miserable by the minute.

Abby held the kettle up and poured coffee into a big earthen mug instead of the fine china that she had used at the dinner table. Obviously, she had learned a few things about men’s habits during her stay. She filled the second mug, set them both at the table. The sugar bowl and a small pitcher of cream came next, followed by the plate of sugar cookies. Once everything was on the table, she glanced hesitantly at Will and then the back door.