As Jake approached the road that led to his farm, he saw a heavy laden caravan of wagons up ahead. There were three of them, and whatever they were hauling in the beds lay hidden beneath tightly corded tarps.
Curious, Jake gently urged Fox into a faster pace in order to see where the wagons might be headed.
To his surprise, Brass Barber was driving one of the wagons. Commanding the other two were Brass’s son, William, and Brass’s widowed daughter, Nora. No Nonsense Nora, as she was known, had taken over the running of her husband’s small freight-hauling company after he died unexpectedly a few months back. Outside of Loreli, Nora was probably the prettiest woman in the county.
When Jake caught up to the wagons, a smiling Brass halted his team. “Afternoon, Jake.”
“Brass.”
Jake then turned to the other drivers. “Hey, Will. Nora.”
Nora, never known for her tact, asked, “Is it true you’re marrying a gambling queen?”
“Yes, I am.”
Nora laughed. “Well, she’ll probably be a whole lot more fun than any of these local crows, so congratulations. Can’t wait to meet her.”
Jake and Nora had grown up together, and she’d also been one of Bonnie’s best friends. Nora might have been one of the women he considered marrying had he not looked upon her as a younger sister. Their sibling-like relationship excluded her as a candidate, that and the fact that she could handle a sling shot like the biblical David.
William, five years younger than Nora, added, “Yes, congratulations, Jake. That bride of yours must be a pretty good gambler, because she owns a lot of stuff. We’re hauling all of this to your place.”
Jake viewed the wagons with confusion and alarm. “My place?”
Brass chuckled at the look on Jake’s face. “Yep. All of this is hers. Came in on the train this morning.”
Jake continued to eye the tarp-covered wagons with amazement. “She said some of her things were going to be shipped.”
“Well, son, the word some can mean different things to different people. In this case she should have said many things.”
Nora, smiling at Jake’s stunned face, added, “There’s so much here, we thought we were going to need four wagons, but we managed to load it all into three.”
“My lord,” Jake whispered. The house wasn’t large enough to hold all this. “What could she have been thinking?”
Brass slapped the reins down on the backs of the team to get them moving again. “Don’t know, but there’s a piano in the wagon Will’s driving.”
“A piano!”
Will said, “Yep, a piano. Guess you’ll have music at the wedding.”
Nora, driving her team as efficiently as the men, laughed. “I really can’t wait to meet her.”
Jake couldn’t either.
When the wagons drove up, Loreli paid them little mind. It was the tersely set face of Jake as he rode up on Fox that drew her attention. She wondered what was wrong. Loreli put down her lemonade and stood on the steps. The girls, who’d thought a glass of lemonade more than adequate pay for helping with the wash, had their attentions fixed on the wagons.
“What do you think is in them, De?” Bebe asked.
The always sage Dede responded, “Whatever it is, it’s a whole lot more than our roller skates.”
Jake dismounted. He stalked to the porch and said to Loreli, “We need to talk.”
“What’s in all those wagons?” Bebe asked.
“Loreli,” Jake gritted out.
But before she could respond, Brass Barber eased himself off the wagon seat and down to the ground. He looked up at Loreli on the porch and said, “You Miss Loreli Winters?”
“I am.”
“Well, I’m Brass Barber. This here’s my daughter, Nora, and my son, Will.”
“Pleased to meet you all,” Loreli replied.
Nora called out, “How do, Loreli. Hi, girls.”
The twins grinned and called back, “Hi, Miss Nora. Are our roller skates in there?”
“Not that I remember seeing, but there’s a whole mess of other things.”
Loreli brightened. “Are those my things from Philadelphia?”
Brass said, “Yes, ma’am.”
Loreli flew off the porch. She asked excitedly, “Is there a bathtub? Oh, please tell me Olivia sent it like I asked her to.”
Nora’s shoulders shook with humor. “Now, that I did see. Got it on this wagon here, as a matter of fact.”
Loreli declared, “Then by all means, let’s get yours unloaded first. Lord, I can’t wait to take a real bath!”
The girls came down and stood by her side. “Can we help?”
Loreli hugged them both to her damp, sticky side. “Of course, and when we’re done, we are going to have the best bath any girl has ever had.”
Their eyes grew bright as diamonds.
On the porch, Jake tried to banish his bad mood but failed. As Loreli and the others went to work on the cords holding down the tarps, Brass stepped up onto the porch and looked into Jake’s eyes.
The older man smiled and offered wisely, “Son, women are a race unto themselves, and they have different needs than we men. If you’re marrying up, you need to remember that.”
Jake heard him, but it didn’t mellow his mood. “You’d think she was furnishing a castle.”
“But she’s happy. Look at her. That is a gorgeous woman, Jake. Why be mad at something that fine, and I’ve seen that bathtub. It’s big enough for two.”
That said, Brass went down to help with the unloading. Jake, humorously shaking his head at Brass’s parting words, followed suit.
Waiting beneath the tarps were, among other things, upholstered chairs with embroidered backs and finely curved legs, dining china, flatware and a hutch to put them in. The girls carried in lamps, and then hatboxes, while Nora and Loreli hauled in trunks and the drawers to the two chifforobes. The men somehow managed to get the piano inside. Next came Loreli’s massive bedframe and its accompanying headboard. Brass likened the procedure to trying to thread hogs through the eye of a needle.
Jake’s mood had lightened but he still had trouble handling what he saw as Loreli’s excessive amount of possessions. Having been raised on a Kansas farm under an austere, Bible-thumping daddy, he’d never had many material things; even now, a man full grown, Jake lived modestly. He grabbed hold of another fancy-legged chair from Will’s wagon and headed for the porch. How much money does this woman have? his mind kept asking. It took him a moment to find a place to set the chair because by now, the parlor was so filled with goods, it resembled a big department store back East. Furniture, dishes, clothes. One would think England’s queen was coming to visit. The only thing missing were servants, and knowing Loreli, Jake wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t a butler or a chambermaid hiding under the tarps as well.
In the midst of the hubbub, his eyes met hers. He was certain she could see his discontent because he didn’t try and hide it.
Loreli didn’t need to be a carnival mind reader to sense Jake’s disapproval, but she didn’t care. If she was going to live in this backwater, she would at least be comfortable; and if her possessions somehow offended his small-town sensibilities, then he could register his protest by continuing to sleep on that board he called a bed, and by refusing to use her big luxurious bathtub. She shot him a look, then went back outside to help with the ongoing task of emptying the wagons. If he wanted to fight, she’d oblige him, but not until after she had her bath.
In all, it took the men, women, and children over an hour to empty the three wagons, and when they were done, they were all weary but pleased.
After the Barbers left with the bank draft for their services, and Loreli’s deepest thanks, she and the twins stood in the middle of the packed parlor and just looked around at all that was there.
Dede asked in a soft, awed voice, “Where are we going to put all of this, Loreli?”
Jake, stepping over an ottoman and squeezing by the chif
forrobes, drawled, “My question too.”
Loreli heard the censuring tone in his voice and so tossed back, “We’ll just build a bigger house. How’s that for a solution?”
The girls eyes widened with glee.
“She’s just fooling, girls,” Jake clipped out. “We are not building a bigger house.”
The twins looked deflated.
“I’m sorry, girls,” Loreli apologized. “I was just fooling, but I wasn’t fooling about that bath, so who wants to be first?”
They began jumping up and down in an attempt to be the first picked. To aid in the decision, Loreli fished a coin out of the pocket of her skirt. “Heads or tails?”
They chose and she flipped the coin into the air. When it landed in her open palm, she showed it to the girls. Tails. Dede would be first.
Loreli had instructed the Barbers to take the tub around to the back and set it on the ground near the back porch, and when she and the girls stepped outside, that’s exactly where it was. The girls dragged the twin caldrons to the pump, and while Loreli pumped the water, the girls investigated the tub.
Bebe confessed. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a bath in a tub this big, Loreli, at least that I can remember.”
“Well, you will tonight, and it’s going to be heavenly. Oh, do me a favor and take those rugs out of it. My housekeeper, Olivia, put them in to protect the tub’s finish.” Loreli went back to pumping. The quiet over by the tub caught her attention and she looked over to find the twins standing speechless. Each held a long box wrapped in pretty foil paper. “What’s that?” she asked.
“They have our names on them, Loreli.”
Loreli left the pump. Jake stepped outside at that moment.
Dede held up her box. “Look what we got, Uncle Jake.”
Loreli surveyed the box in Bebe’s hands and upon seeing Olivia’s familiar script, Loreli smiled. “You’re right, they are for you. Go ahead and open them.”
Having been given permission, the twins tore into the paper. The boxes were opened carefully, however, and the dress that each girl found inside made them speechless once again.
“Oh, Loreli…” Bebe whispered in an awestruck voice.
The dresses were fancy enough to wear to the wedding. Both were a soft blue velvet, but the trims and styles were different enough so that the girls would look like distinct individuals.
Dede held hers up for inspection, and as her eyes wandered over the lace-edged cuffs and the little rosebuds around the neck, she said, “This is the most beautiful dress in the whole world.”
Loreli looked up at Jake a moment and saw in his eyes that he was moved by the twins’ show of happiness.
Bebe asked, “May we wear these to the wedding, Uncle Jake?”
“Of course,” he said softly. His eyes met Loreli’s again, and held. Her generosity when coupled with the delight showed by the twins effectively negated his bad mood. As Barber said, Who can be mad at a woman so fine? Jake certainly couldn’t, at least not for very long. He finally said to Loreli in a tone he hoped conveyed his sincerity, “Thank you.”
She bowed elaborately. “You’re very welcome.”
They were distracted when Bebe gushed, “De! Look?!”
In the bottom of each box, and hidden beneath the paper holding the dresses were two pairs of white stockings and a pair of fancy young-lady slippers. They were black and each shoe had a tiny rhinestone on the front.
“When did you order these, Loreli?” Dede asked.
“Well, I wired your sizes to my housekeeper and told her you two needed dresses for the wedding and it looks as if she came through for us. I wasn’t certain the dresses from Bloomingdale’s would arrive in time.”
Bebe said, “I wish she was here, so I could give her a big kiss.”
Loreli laughed. “Me too, Be. She did us real proud, didn’t she?’
“I want to give her two kisses,” Dede said.
The girls very carefully boxed up their beautiful treasures, then took them to their room.
While Jake and Loreli were alone, he said to her, “You made them very happy.”
“They deserve it. Every little girl should have a pretty dress and fancy new slippers. I never did, which probably accounts for why I own so many dresses now.”
“Not to mention all the furniture, the china, the chairs and the rest. You can’t even turn around in the parlor.”
“It won’t look that way once we get everything in its place, I promise.”
Jake planned to keep her to that. “But why on earth do we need a piano? I assume you play?”
She waved him off. “No.”
“No?” He stared, amazed, “Then why own one?”
“Because everybody back East does. Maybe Art Gibson can give the girls lessons on it.”
Jake chuckled and shook his head. What a woman. He supposed the twins would benefit from having the instrument in the house, but—she left him speechless.
He eyed her and asked, “So do you have any idea who’s going to put together that giant bed of yours?”
Loreli replied with flirting eyes, “Nope, but you’d better come up with someone because our wedding night’s less than a week away…” She threw him a bold wink and went inside to check on the girls.
Jake laughed out loud at that one.
Getting into the mood of the occasion, Jake pumped the water and set it to heating while Loreli and the girls dug through the jungle of furnishings and clothing in the parlor in a search for toiletries. It took them almost twenty minutes of moving things, opening one crate, then another. Finally they chanced upon a small crate lying beneath the piano. It was filled to the lid with scented soaps and bath salts.
Bebe gasped. “I’ve never seen this much soap in my life!”
Loreli freed a few bars from their wrappers. “A woman can never have too many soaps,” she drawled.
They giggled.
She offered them a sniff of the scented bars in her hands; Bebe picked the bayberry and Dede, the violet.
Dede explained her choice of the violet. “It smells just like Loreli.”
Loreli leaned over and gave her a kiss on the forehead, then one to her sister. “Thanks for inviting me to be your mama,” she voiced sincerely.
They grinned and replied as one, “You’re welcome.”
Loreli opted not to take her bath until after the girls were put to bed; she didn’t want to be interrupted or disturbed. Her desires were to stretch out in a tub filled to the brim with hot water and salts, and sit and soak. So after prayers were heard and good-night kisses were given, Jake filled the caldrons for her and set them atop the grate in the pit to heat. Then he wandered over to the pens to check on the animals for the last time that evening. Loreli took down the dry laundry, folded it, and set the baskets inside. So much had happened since the morning, washday seemed like another day entirely. When Jake returned, she was seated on the porch. The weariness in her face was plain.
Jake told her quietly, “You look exhausted.”
“I’ll be better after I soak in the tub. I can’t believe it’s really here. Remind me to wire Olivia a raise in pay, first thing in the morning.”
He smiled. “Who’s Olivia?”
“One of my housekeepers. I told you about her. She keeps house at my place in Philadelphia.”
“One of your housekeepers?”
Loreli yawned tiredly. “Yes, I have three.”
Jake stiffened. “Three?”
“Yes. One in Philadelphia, Denver, and Boston.”
“Why so many?”
She shrugged, “I move around a lot, and when I get tired of being restless, I want to go to a place I can call my own—a place that has my bathtub, my bed linens, my cook.”
“A cook?”
Leaning her tired self against the porch post, she told him. “Sure, one for each house. In fact, I’m going to find one for here as soon as I get the chance.”
“We don’t need a cook.”
“Sure w
e do, but I’m too tired to argue about it now. Let’s do it tomorrow.”
Amusement tinted his tone. “Okay. We’ll argue tomorrow.”
“Good. How’s that water coming?”
Warmed by the pleasure of her company, Jake walked over to the pit to check.
It took the water another thirty minutes to heat, but once it was ready, Jake poured both caldrons into the pearl gray tub. The scent of the violet bath salts rose up to tempt his nose like tendrils of fragrant smoke, and just the thought of her being nude in the tub made his desire rise. Trying to stay distant, he went off to pump more water and set it on the grate just in case she needed more.
Loreli waited until the tub was filled before she began in on the buttons of her blouse. She couldn’t wait to slip her naked self into the warm quiet embrace of the water, and let it soak away the day’s sweat and tension.
Remembering what happened the last time he’d watched her undress, Jake planned on beating a hasty retreat. “I’ll be on the front porch, if you need anything.”
To his male dismay, she said, “I left a couple of bath sheets on that stack of chairs in the parlor. Meant to bring them out with me. Can you get them, please?”
By now the blouse was gaping wide, showing off the thin yellow camisole beneath. Seemingly ignorant of his plight, she undid the button on the back of her skirt and less than a breath later it dropped and pooled at her feet. Jake took one look at the long golden legs encased in opaque white stockings and the rose-petal garters anchoring them on her thighs, and his manhood swelled. He hastened into the house.
Loreli watched his retreat knowingly.
He was gone only for a few moments, but apparently Loreli had had ample time to get undressed and ease herself into the tub because that’s where he found her. Eyes closed, she was stretched out in the water with her head cushioned on a small pillow. This first look at her wearing nothing but the shadows of dusk and the evening breeze dazzled him so much his steps slowed. “Where do you want this?” he said quietly, holding out the towel.