Chapter Twenty-one

Remington’s head came up and he turned. “What?”

“He has a mustache.” She laughed suddenly, delighted, and held her forefinger above the curve of her upper lip and wiggled it. “It’s thick. Like a . . . like a plump, wooly caterpillar.”

“A caterpillar,” he said slowly. He released the door handle but didn’t approach.

“A plump, wooly, and dark, dark brown caterpillar. That’s why I didn’t see it clearly. It was almost the same color as the scarf around his face. And his chin, Remington. I saw his chin.” She removed her mustache and used the same finger to poke at the center of her chin. “Dimple. He has a dimple right here.”

He rolled his lips in to keep from smiling. “You probably should cease hammering your chin.”

She stopped, withdrew her finger, and examined the tip. “Oh. Probably so.”

Remington closed the gap between them and hunkered in front of Phoebe. “I’m sorry to have to ask, but are—”

“Sure? Yes. I’m sure. It was you this time, standing there at the door, and it put me in mind of Shoulders standing in the same place, only he was mostly facing me, not turned away. I never mistook you for him, if that’s what you’re thinking. You just helped me conjure a picture of him.” She touched her upper lip again. “His mustache brushes the top of his lip. It’s uneven, not groomed as your father’s is. I had a better image of his hair, thick and dark brown like his mustache, but I couldn’t tell if it was long or short at the back. The scarf hid it even when he pulled it away from his face.”

“Are you all right?” he asked. “I can tell you’re pleased that you’ve remembered something, but I don’t imagine it’s a pleasant memory.”

The faint smile tugging at her lips faded. “No, you’re right. It isn’t pleasant. I was afraid. Perhaps I should have been relieved when none of them would agree to stay behind with me, but escaping on my own was hardly a consideration when I imagined all the calamities that might occur if I couldn’t. I developed a rather lengthy list of unfortunate ways to die if no one came for me.” Her eyes moved past Remington to the window behind him where rain continued to spatter the glass. “And yes, drowning in a flash flood was one of them.” She managed a weak smile in what was a gravely set face. “I never stopped trying to get away, but I was ever so glad to see you.”

“Oh, Phoebe.” He cupped her cheek. “I wish I could have spared you this.”

She laid her hand over his and shook her head. “I wanted to come, remember? No matter what you think, I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t wanted to be. It was a good idea, Remington, and I’m not unhappy that you thought of it.”

He nodded and withdrew his hand when she removed hers. He leaned in, kissed her lightly on the mouth, and then stood. “I still have to go out,” he said. “The horses? That call of nature?”

“Oh. Yes. I suppose you do.”

Still, he hesitated. “It seems wrong to leave you alone. I didn’t understand so well before.”

“Remington, you have to. I know that. Go on. It’s better now than when you were going to walk out angry with me.”

“I wasn’t angry,” he said.

“Disappointed, then.”

“Frustrated,” he told her. One corner of his mouth lifted. As a smile, it was self-mocking. “And all right, a little angry.”

Phoebe waved him away, but she was smiling, too. “Go.”

As soon as the door closed behind him, Phoebe dragged the pot out from under the bed and used it, thanking Old Man McCauley for leaving it behind. She stepped outside long enough to empty the contents and let the rain rinse it out. She didn’t notice that the tail of her blanket was wet until she came back in. After toeing the pot under the bed, she checked her clothes. The thin camisole was the only article that was completely dry. She dropped the blanket and put on the camisole. She was standing in front of the stove drying the blanket when Remington reappeared.

Phoebe looked him over, saw he was almost as wet as he’d been when they arrived at the cabin, and jerked her thumb in the direction of the clothesline. “You’re going to have to remove your boots yourself.”

“I think I can manage,” he said dryly, “but I suppose it means you’re done courting me. That’s disheartening . . . and inconvenient.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “I didn’t realize that helping you out of your wet boots could be mistaken for courtship. You have me at a disadvantage. I don’t know the native customs.”

Remington laid his vest over the line, tossed his hat on the bed, and began unbuttoning his shirt. “Do you want to hear them?”

She gave him a wry, over-the-shoulder glance. “Oh, yes. Entertain me.”

“Well, there’s sharing a horse, for instance. Riding double with a fella generally means the gal has her toe in the water.”

“Fella? Gal? You are giving me the local color, aren’t you?”

“Aim to please, ma’am.”

“Go on.”

Remington shrugged out of his shirt and then peeled his undershirt off over his head. He tossed both on the line without straightening the wet, wadded fabric. “Then, there’s sharing a porch swing in the moonlight. A fella and gal that do that are reckoned to be sweet on each other, but when the gal rests her pretty little ankle boots in the fella’s lap, most folks would consider them betrothed.”

“Is that right?”

“Hmm.” He sat down on the bed and shucked his boots and socks. He set the boots beside the bed and slapped the socks over the clothesline. “When a gal asks a fella to buy clothes for her, it’s—”

She interrupted. “I gave you money for those clothes.”

He put up a hand. “Do you think I’m talking about you? I am explaining the commonly held opinions regarding courtship.” He added a distinctive drawl as he went on. “Anyway, I’m comin’ around to that. So, like I was sayin’, the gal askin’ is one thing, the fella agreein’ to do it is another, and the fact that there was money passed from the gal to the fella, well, that is acknowledged to be an intimate exchange no matter how it’s sliced.”

“Huh. There is so much to learn.”

“It’s like walkin’ in the grasslands after the herd’s moved on. You have to watch where you’re going every step of the way.”

Phoebe’s laughter came in short bursts. She knuckled tears away from the corner of both eyes. “Of all the things I’ve heard so far, that might be the one worth remembering.”

“It’d be a risk to ignore the others.”

“I appreciate the caution.” Phoebe stepped away from the stove, turned, and regarded the untidy clothesline. It was not that she wanted to do it; it was more that she could not help herself. She had organized the precious space of too many theater dressing rooms to allow Remington’s chaos to stand here. She lifted his socks off the line, wrung and smoothed them out, and then rehung them. “Is that everything?” she asked, removing his wadded shirt.

“Almost. There would be folks who’d point to a gal accepting an invitation to go riding out alone with a fella and say that she’s thinkin’ real hard about her weddin’ dress. Probably about the cake, too.”

“Fiona would say that,” she said, snapping out his shirt. Droplets of water sprayed the floor. “Would Thaddeus?”

“Hard to say. Ellie would. Maybe it’s a woman’s view.”

Phoebe arched a brow. “I need to be clear, then, that never once during our ride did I think about a dress or a cake.”

“Probably because you were trying so hard to stay in the saddle.” He threw up his hands to ward off her glare. “That’s not me saying that. That’s what they’d say.”

She balled up the shirt she had taken such pains to smooth and threw it at his head. He caught it easily and pitched it back underhand. “That was not at all as satisfactory as I’d hoped,” she said, unfolding the shirt again. She placed it carefully over the line. “That has to be the last of it.”

“Not quite. It would be accepted as fact that a gal who is fussin’ with her fella’s wet clothes is already hitched in her own mind, whether or not there’s been a proper exchange of vows.”

Phoebe snorted. “Now that is plain ridiculous.”

“Maybe. But that’s the customary thinking. You asked.”

“So I did.” She finished straightening the clothes and looked back to see if he intended to give her his pants. “Are you going to take those off?”

“They’re not so wet. They’ll dry quickly once I’m sitting in front of the stove again.” He looked her over, head to toe. “Do you have anything you can put on over what you’re wearing?”

Phoebe looked down at herself. She was modestly covered in her camisole and knickers, and was still wearing her socks. It occurred to her that Remington had never seen her toes. For some reason that made her grin. She wiggled them. “This is no more revealing than a bathing costume,” she said. “They are all the rage at Gravesend.”

Remington’s mouth took on a wry twist. “I’ve been to Coney Island. Just once, but it was only a year ago in July. No woman on the beach or in the water was wearing anything comparable to what you have on.”

She plucked at her camisole until it hung more loosely. “The costumes have sleeves,” she said. “I’ll give you that. And some have a skirt, but you must have observed that many women leave off the skirt and swim in bloomers.”

“Bloomers. Yes. I saw those. Bladders attached to a woman’s hips.”

Phoebe laughed. He wasn’t entirely wrong, although she might have called them balloons.

“Those women also wore stockings,” he said. “Dark stockings.”

She wiggled her toes again, drawing his attention to her feet.

“Very nice,” he said, “but I’m noticing a fair amount of bare skin between the ruffle at your knees and the top of your socks.”

“Then don’t look there.”

“You would not say that if you knew how difficult it is to look anywhere else.”

“Surely not a Herculean task.”

“Just about.” Remington tore his eyes away from her finely curved calves and met her amused gaze. “Have pity, Phoebe. Wrap yourself in that blanket.”

She shrugged. “All right. But what do folks say about courtship when the gal’s closing the barn door after she’s let the horse out?”

“Nothing about courtship, I can tell you. They’d say the gal’s feeding that horse from a bucketful of sass.” He pointed to the blanket on the mattress. “Go.”

Phoebe picked up the blanket and wrapped herself in it. It had absorbed heat from the stove and was pleasantly warm around her shoulders. She settled in, facing the fire, then drew up her knees and hugged them.

Remington added two logs to the stove then took up the other blanket and joined her. Neither of them spoke. He did not know what she was thinking as they slipped into silence, but he doubted her thoughts were very different from his. He let her dwell on them, while he came to terms with his.

An ember popped, startling them both. Remington resisted the urge to use the break in the quiet as an excuse to talk. He waited for a more propitious sign and had it when Phoebe leaned into him and set her head on his shoulder.

“We should talk,” he said. He did not add that it would be a serious discussion. She would know that.

“Yes.” Her temple rubbed his shoulder as she nodded. “Will you begin, or shall I?”

“In almost any other circumstance, I would defer to you, but I want to go first this time.”

“All right. If you’re sure.”

Remington plunged in. “I didn’t plan on sleeping with you, Phoebe, but it would be a damn lie if I told you I hadn’t thought about it. A lot. But coming out here with you today was never about more than what I thought you might remember and what I thought I might find. Do you believe that?”

“I do.”

“Because you think I’m decent, I suppose.”

“No, not at all. That isn’t to say you aren’t decent, because you are, but you’re a bit more dangerous than decent, and that’s why I think if you’d planned this, you would have chosen somewhere less . . .”

“Dilapidated?”

“Rustic. I was thinking rustic.”

“That is without a doubt the kindest word ever applied to Old Man McCauley’s cabin, but you’re right to suppose I would have chosen differently. God knows, the barn loft would have been better, but I had something like a room at the Butterworth in mind.”

“Because no one would have known us there or what we were about. Yes, that’s a much better plan.”

He nudged her head with his shoulder. “Something like a room at the Butterworth.”

“Another hotel in another town. That might have been worked if you could have gotten me there.”

“When I was thinking about it, you have to understand I had the end in mind, not the getting there.”

“Yes.” She tilted her head and looked up at him; the smile that lifted the corners of her mouth a mere fraction was settled more firmly in her eyes. “I see that now.”

He turned his head and kissed her high on her brow. “So there you have it. It wasn’t planned, but somehow it was right. Or almost right.”

“Remington.”

He ignored the note of caution she used when she said his name. “I want to make it right, Phoebe. And wanting to make it that way is not an afterthought. I wanted to make it right before I made it wrong.”

“You’ve been thinking about this, then.”

“For a while. Maybe since I saw you on the train. Maybe before.”

“There was no before, Remington.”

“There was the photograph.”

“You don’t mean that. Even you are not that romantic.”

“Jumpin’ Jesus on a griddle,” he said under his breath. “Maybe I am.”

She gently poked him with her elbow. “I won’t say a word.”

He didn’t believe her, but he wasn’t sure whom she would tell. Not Fiona. Probably not Thaddeus. Maybe Ellie. Could be she’d tell one of the men; that way everyone in Frost Falls would know inside of a week.

“It was probably not the photograph.”

“See? You are already backing away from it nicely.”

“It was the photograph and all the things Thaddeus told me about you.”

“Thaddeus. The shadkhn.”

“The what?”

“Matchmaker. It’s Yiddish. Fiona called him that. She also said he was a yente. A busybody.”

“Like Mrs. Jacob C. Tyler?”

“Exactly like her.”

“I’ll be darned.”

“Don’t pretend you’re surprised. I think you’ve always known about your father’s matchmaking. But me? I didn’t believe Fiona.”

“Maybe you did. A bit. But maybe it was more difficult to believe that Thaddeus would try his hand in it.”

She laughed a little jerkily. “True. I held your father in higher esteem.”

“The mighty have fallen. Is that it?”

“Mm. I think so.”

“That will hurt him some—he values your good opinion—but probably not as much as failure.”

“I can see that. He likes to do everything well.”

Remington slipped a finger under Phoebe’s chin and raised it so she was looking at him again. “You are not making this easy.”

“Is it supposed to be? You’re the one with experience. You’ve proposed before. I’ve never heard one.”

“Alexandra said ‘yes’ before I finished.”

“That’s because she’d already chosen her dress. Silk, I imagine. Muttonchop-shaped sleeves. Perhaps a pouter pigeon bosom. Yards and yards of material for the train and veil. Oh, and a stiff lace collar around her throat to show off her swan-like neck.”

Remington stared at her.

Phoebe smiled. “Would you like to know about the cake you didn’t get to eat?”

“That’s it, Phoebe. You’re going to marry me.”

“It doesn’t sound as if you’re asking.”

“I’m not. There are some words a man can’t risk saying if he has to punctuate them with a question mark.”

Her smile widened. “You make a compelling argument for telling a woman what to do, but you’re still wrong if you think it works on me. I’m going to marry you, Remington Frost, but only because I want to.”