Chapter Five
When Angela woke up, she was aware of sunlight. Morning. It was already morning. She opened her eyes and right away regretted it because the morning light was directly on her.
She turned onto her side, and that was when she realized she was in a strange room. She didn’t recognize the old dresser, the old chair, or even the dog that was sleeping on the rug by the bed. The only thing she recognized was the carpetbag she owned that was by the dresser. She was ready to bolt out of the bed and run right out the door when someone behind her mumbled something she couldn’t make out.
Looking over her shoulder, she saw a man lying on his back, asleep. She almost screamed, but then she realized she had seen him before. He was the nice man from last night who had helped rescue her, Velma, and Natalie. Had it not been for him, she would be auctioned off to the highest bidder today. Sep. That was his name. Sep Wilson. And she had married him.
She breathed a sigh of relief. So she had not been abducted and taken to a strange place, after all. She didn’t remember falling asleep on the way here from the judge’s house, but she had been so tired after everything that had happened yesterday, she wasn’t surprised she did. Her parents often said she was a sound sleeper—that it would take God himself to wake her up—and now she knew they had not been exaggerating.
She didn’t remember Sep bringing her to this bed. She didn’t remember Sep taking off her boots. She reached up and touched her face. Was her veil still there?
It was. Good.
She knew she would have to show him her face sooner or later, but she really wanted to do that after she warned him. He wasn’t going to like what he saw.
She was surprised she slept so well with the thing on. The veil wasn’t all that comfortable. Sometimes it made it hard for her to breathe, and it made her face and neck sweaty. She’d love to take it off. But did she dare?
What if Sep woke up before she had time to put it back on? She took another look over at Sep to see just how deep in sleep he was. She leaned toward him and noted the way his eyes were closed. If she listened hard enough, she could make out his breathing. He seemed to be in a very deep sleep. Perhaps, she might get away with not wearing the veil for a small period of time.
Just as she was about to reach up and take it off, Sep rolled onto his side so that he was facing away from her. At once, she saw scars lining his back. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to them. They were haphazardly put there, and there were many of them. Eyebrows furrowed, she lifted the blanket that was tucked under his arm and saw that the scars went all the way down to his drawers.
What had happened to him? His scars were not at all like the ones she had. Hers had been due to a fire, but his were due to something else. Maybe a thick twig from a tree? A whip?
She shivered and let the blanket fall back into place. She’d never seen anything like that before, and she wished she hadn’t seen this, either.
From the rug, the dog whimpered. She turned her attention to the animal. The dog got up from his spot and went over to her. At first, she didn’t know what to do. Not all dogs were friendly.
The dog put his head on her knee and looked up at her with the sweetest eyes she had ever seen. Smiling, she petted him. The dog was well behaved. In fact, he was one of the best behaved dogs she had ever seen.
She wondered if he needed to go outside and take care of business. She glanced over at Sep. Would he mind it if she took his dog outside?
After a moment’s debate, she got up from the bed, slipped on her boots, and led the dog out of the room. She gave a quick scan of the hallway, noting the other two bedrooms on this level, before she followed the dog down the stairs. Once she made it to the first level of the house, she crossed the parlor and went into the kitchen.
The dog waited expectantly at the kitchen door. Well, that proved she had made the right decision in letting him go outside to relieve his bladder. She opened the door and let him out.
Then, curious about her new home, she stepped out onto the porch. There was a barn not too far from where she was standing, and next to the barn was a fenced-in pasture where three cows and two horses were eating grass. And on the other side of the barn, she saw a henhouse.
From the looks of it, Sep owned a lot of land because she didn’t see anyone else’s house. She went down the porch steps and went to the other side of her new home, and as she suspected, there wasn’t any other house in sight for miles from this angle, either. Which meant, if Sep didn’t mind her scars, she could take off her veil all the time. She would only have to wear it when she was in town.
That would be wonderful. It would be nice to be able to go freely around this property without worrying that she might offend somebody by the way she looked.
“Angela? Are you out here?”
She turned to the sound of Sep’s voice and saw him rounding the corner of the house.
Sep was wearing the same pants that he’d had on the day before, but he was wearing a new shirt. “When I woke up, you weren’t with me. I thought maybe you had second thoughts and was on your way back to town,” he said.
“No,” she replied. “I came down here to take the dog out so he could relieve his bladder. While I was at it, I figured I would take a look around my new home.” Her cheeks warmed. It was one thing to think of this place as her home, but saying it aloud made it more real.
He crossed the yard and stopped once he was by her side. “What do you think?”
“I like it. You have a lot of privacy out here. In my hometown, I lived close to other people. I couldn’t do anything without someone knowing about it. It’s nice to know that when I go outside and do something, someone isn’t going to be watching.”
He gave her a charming grin. “Did you have neighbors who tattled on you?”
Though he couldn’t see it because of the veil, a slight smile crossed her face. “I never got in any serious trouble, but yes, there were a couple of neighbors who told on me when I wasn’t perfect.”
His eyes lit up in interest. “What kinds of things did you do?”
“When I was a child, I would go over to a neighbor’s yard to snatch a few apples that had fallen off her tree. It wasn’t like she was going to eat them. She never did. But if someone saw me taking them, my parents would hear about it, and then they would let me know that they didn’t like me doing it.”
“That makes no sense. If she wasn’t going to eat them, why did you get in trouble?”
She shrugged. “I guess it’s because she didn’t want anyone touching them.”
“What else did you do when you were little?”
“I used to climb trees all the time. The boys did it, but for some reason, no one liked girls doing it. I tried to be sneaky and not get caught, but most of the time, someone found me.”
He shook his head. “What a shame. A girl should be able to climb trees if she wants to.”
Before he thought her motives had always been good, she added, “Sometimes when I climbed trees, I would take one of my neighbor’s cats with me. My parents didn’t want a pet, and the cat was the closest thing I had to one. The cat was always running around that area anyway, but whenever that cat got in the tree, it didn’t like to come back down. I never had trouble getting down, but the cat would always get stuck. The cat’s owner didn’t like that.”
He chuckled. “Are you telling me you had a spark of mischief in you?”
“Only a tiny one.”
“What were you doing while you were in the trees?”
“Daydreaming, mostly.”
“What did you daydream about?”
Her face flushed. “Silly things. The kinds of things girls daydream about.”
His lips curled up into a teasing smile. “Like what?”
She couldn’t be sure, but she thought her face turned the brightest shade of red it’d ever been. It was a good thing her veil was hiding it.
“I won’t laugh.” He put his hand over his heart. “I promise.”
She still couldn’t tell him. It was silly that she used to dream about being a wife and mother.
Probably realizing she wasn’t going to answer the question, he said, “I dreamt of silly things, too. When I was a kid, I used to imagine that I could fly like a bird. One time, I even went up into the barn loft and jumped down from it. I thought if I flapped my arms fast enough, I would fly.”
She gasped. “Did you get hurt?”
“No. I got lucky. I landed in a pile of hay that my father had just raked into the barn. He wasn’t all that happy about it. He had just taken the time to rake all of the hay into a really neat pile. When I fell into it, the hay scattered everywhere.”
She laughed. “Oh, no!”
“Oh, yes.”
Once she stopped laughing, she said, “I bet your father would rather have had you unharmed than have the neat pile of hay.”
“You wouldn’t have known it by the way he yelled at me.”
Wondering if his father had been the one to cause the scars on his back, she asked, “Did he hurt you?”
“No. My father was a good man. He was the kind of man who would give another person the shirt off his back.” He hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Did you see the scars on my back?”
She almost said no, but starting off her marriage with a lie didn’t seem like a good idea. She cleared her throat and nodded.
“My father didn’t put those scars there,” Sep said. “My sister’s first husband did. He was a drunk. It didn’t take much to upset him. If the meal wasn’t cooked right, if the horses were neighing too loudly, if his chair wasn’t positioned just right, or if one of us happened to drop something that belonged to him, he would get into a violent rage. It took me a long time to get over the things he did. And he was mean to her, too, though he never was as mean to her as he was to me. I wasn’t all that upset when he died. In fact, I was relieved, but I suspect my sister was much more so. She’s much better off now because she has a husband who treats her better.” He cleared his throat. “I only say all of this because you don’t have to be self-conscious about the scars that are under your veil.”
Without thinking, her hands went to the veil covering most of her face. “How did you know about them?”
“I saw them last night when you tripped on that rock in the livery stable. I bent down to get it out of your way, and when I looked up, I saw the scars under the veil.”
“If you saw the scars, then why did you marry me?”
“I married you because of the scars. We have something in common.”
“But I got mine because I got caught in a fire. I was seven, and I was playing in my uncle’s barn. My cousin dropped the lantern by accident, and my uncle didn’t find me in time. The right side of my face, neck, and part of my right leg got burned.”
“I would much rather have scars because of a fire than because my first brother-in-law was a jerk.”
She thought over his words and realized he was right. She would rather have her scars due to a fire, too. Her scars were painful because of people’s reactions to them, not from getting them.
Sep reached up to her veil. “Do you mind if I take it off?”
Despite the fact that he knew what to expect, she hesitated. But something in his eyes—something tender and kind—prompted her to lower her hands and let him remove it.
When he had taken it away from her face, he smiled. “It’s nice to see all of your face. You’re a pretty woman.”
“But… But my scars.”
“Are hardly noticeable.” He brought his fingers up to her right cheek and traced her scars, his touch so gentle she could hardly feel it. “How far do the scars go again?”
His fingers had reached the collar of her dress, so he wasn’t able to go further down than what her clothing allowed. “They go down my neck and to my right shoulder. I also have some scars on my lower right leg.”
“And the people back in your hometown… They were disgusted by them?”
She nodded. “I didn’t wear the veil there since they already knew about them. I only put the veil on for the trip out here.”
“Were you planning on telling the man you were going to marry about them?”
Now came the hard part. She had to be honest with him. He had not been as shocked by her scars as she had expected him to be, and that was a very nice surprise. However, his reaction to what she was going to admit next might not be so pleasant. She took a deep breath. “I wasn’t planning to tell him until after we married, and to be honest, I was planning to hide my face for as long as possible.”
“You wouldn’t have been able to hide it for too long. Some of the scars run down your neck and are on your leg. He was going to find out about them when you two were in bed.”
“I figured we would be intimate at night, and if the kerosene lamp was out and the curtains were drawn shut, he wouldn’t see them.”
His eyes widened. “I hadn’t thought of that. I have to admit, that’s pretty clever.”
“Are you upset with me?”
“Why would I be upset?”
“Because I was being dishonest. I was planning to lie for as long as possible.”
His expression softened. “Only to avoid being hurt. Just how did those people back in your hometown treat you?”
“Actually, they were pretty nice to me. They let me teach their children in the schoolhouse as soon as I turned sixteen.”
“And how long were you a schoolteacher?”
“Eight years.”
“So you are twenty-four?”
“I’ll be twenty-five next month.”
“Aren’t teachers forbidden to marry while they are under contract?”
“Yes,” she whispered. Now he knew her shame. Because of her scars, no one had wanted to marry her. She had been the most undesirable lady in her hometown. “If I had stayed, I would’ve had what I needed. They gave me housing, food, and a good job. It wasn’t that I wasn’t grateful. It’s just that…”
“It’s just that you figured it was time to have your own children instead of teaching other people’s children.”
She nodded. “I belonged in the community, and yet, I didn’t. I’m not sure how to explain how that feels except to say that it feels like you’re on the outside of something, and you’re looking at this wonderful world where everybody is happy. They know you, and you know them. But no matter how hard you wish it or how hard you try, you can never join them. All you can ever do is watch. I felt as if the rest of the world, as if life itself, was passing before me, and if I didn’t do something about it, I was going to fade away. So I answered a mail-order bride ad. Then I came all the way out here to Omaha. I just didn’t realize that the man who posted the ad was such a horrible person.” She swallowed then added, “It’s a good thing you came along when you did. I was going to allow myself to be auctioned off because I was that desperate to get a husband.”
To her surprise, he put his arm around her shoulders and drew her to his side. “I know you’ll probably find this hard to believe, but I know what it’s like to be in a situation where you’d do something you wouldn’t ordinarily do. After my sister’s first husband died, there was this man that was threatening her. When Joel Larson, who was the doctor’s assistant at the time, came out, I made him marry her. I was only fourteen at the time. Looking back, I realize how foolish I was, but at the time, I didn’t see any other way to help her except to keep Joel at this house until a preacher or a judge could come out to perform the wedding ceremony. I carried a gun with me and threatened to shoot him if he didn’t stay.” He chuckled. “Joel could have gotten out of here any time he wanted. I was no match for him. But it was nice that he let me think I was.”
She felt the burden of her actions lift from her shoulders. Perhaps he really did know what she had been going through. And that being the case, she was glad he had been the one who married her.
“I know this is happening really fast,” Sep said, “but Joel and my sister, April, are expecting me to go over to their house tonight for supper.”
“Tonight?”
“At the time I agreed to go, I didn’t even know you and the other two women were being held hostage at the livery stable. I wouldn’t have agreed to it if I had thought I would be taking a bride home last night.”
She was just now getting used to the idea of not wearing a veil around Sep. Having to meet someone else, especially someone in his family, so soon made her apprehensive. He had been surprisingly accepting of her. He had accepted her scars, and even better, he had accepted her reasons for wearing the veil and for coming out here to Omaha. But what if his sister and his brother-in-law took one look at her and told him that he’d made a grave mistake in marrying her? She wasn’t exactly most people’s idea of the perfect bride.
But, he had already made the promise to his sister and his brother-in-law. She was going to have to go to the supper with him. Whatever happened was out of her control. He was stuck with her. He had already made his vows. Witnesses were there at the wedding. It wasn’t like he could back out now.
“Alright,” she said. “I’ll be happy to meet them. Is there anything I should bring?”
“No,” he replied. “I never bring anything to their suppers.”
“In my hometown, it was customary for the guest to bring something. Most of the time, I would bring some potato salad.”
“Out here, we’re informal. All you have to do is show up. And anyway, we just got married last night. You have to get used to being here. No one expects you to do anything right away. You need to get settled first. Speaking of which, let’s return to the house. I’m going to make you some breakfast.”
He squeezed her shoulders in such an affectionate way that, for the moment, her unease subsided. Indicating her consent, she joined him in going to the house.