The Heart Answers (Wyoming Series Book 3)

  “Jessica, dear, that lovely Reverend Cole is here for your picnic. The rest of the children are in the kitchen waiting.”

  “We’re coming.” She took Franny’s hand and followed her mother to the kitchen, where Miriam stood laughing up into Clay’s face. Jessica struggled against her jealousy. She didn’t care what he did or who he flirted with!

  Franny flung herself against Clay’s legs. “Hey, muffin.” He scooped her into his arms and hugged her. “Are you ready for a picnic?”

  She nodded vigorously. “Jessie teached me my letters,” she said importantly. “I’m gonna learn to write my name and read.”

  Clay looked suitably impressed. “I didn’t learn to read until I was five, and you won’t even be four until next month.”

  She preened, then slid down to the floor and ran to Jessica and hugged her skirts. “Jessie is my friend.”

  Jessica felt a warm glow. “Are we ready to go?” She stroked Franny’s silken hair.

  “I brought the fishing poles,” Clay said.

  Fishing poles? Jessica frowned. She’d never been fishing in her life, and the thought didn’t appeal to her now.

  Miriam clapped her hands. “I love fishing!”

  Jessica swallowed her dismay; she couldn’t let her cousin best her. “Then fishing it is,” she said with a shrug. She wanted to groan in dismay and think of a reason to stay home. This was not the day she’d planned.

  “I packed you some boiled eggs and potato salad,” her mother said. “I’ll put in a skillet and lard to fry up the fish you catch.”

  Jessica suppressed a grimace; the thought of frying fish herself was not appealing, though she supposed she could do it if she had to. She’d watched her mother often enough, but she hated the way frying fish made her hair smell. Would she be expected to clean the fish, too?

  Her mother handed Caleb the lunch basket, and they all filed out the door to the waiting two-seat wagon. Clay tossed the gear in the back, then helped Miriam onto the front seat. He lifted Jessica, Franny, and Bridie into the back before he swung up beside Miriam and Caleb.

  Jessica ground her teeth as she watched her cousin flirt with Clay all the way to the river. Meanwhile, Bridie kept up a steady stream of questions, and Jessica found it hard to keep from snapping at her. Why had she ever let herself be talked into inviting her cousins? They were just in the way. They were never going to be a family.

  When Clay stopped the wagon, the fort was only a blur in the distance. Blackbirds circled overhead, and the air smelled fresh and moist from the Black River gurgling its way down the mountain. Small, puffy clouds drifted lazily across the blue sky.

  In the shade of a large tree along the riverbank, Clay tethered the horses and lifted the ladies down from the wagon. “Find us a likely fishing hole, Caleb,” he said. “I’m starved.”

  While Caleb scrambled to do as he was asked, Clay spread the blankets under the protective canopy of the trees, then handed the fishing poles to Jessica. “Why don’t you get these baited?”

  Baited? Trying to hide her dismay, Jessica took the poles and the can of bait from him. She thought about refusing, but the look of challenge in his eyes stopped her. She eyed the sharp and dangerous-looking fishhook, then handed the bait can to Franny, and they carried them over to the riverbank. Miriam stayed with Clay, but Bridie followed Jessica.

  “Over here!” Caleb waved to her from further down the river.

  Reluctantly, she led the way to where Caleb stood peering into the clear water. She laid the fishing poles on a rock and took the can of bait from Franny. “Um, Caleb, would you like to bait the poles?”

  “Naw; Pa says everyone should bait his own hook. Here, I’ll show you.” He grabbed the can of bait and opened it. He poked around in it for a moment, then extracted a large squirming worm. A night crawler, she remembered her brother Jasper calling them. Taking the sharp hook, Caleb poked it into the worm’s body in several places and tossed the hook and worm into the river. “Nothing to it.”

  Jessica felt nauseated. How disgusting! She glanced at Bridie and saw her take a worm and thread it on the hook the same way Caleb had done. She bit her lip; she was not going to pick up a worm.

  “I can do it,” Franny said importantly. “My daddy showed me how.” She poked her small fingers into the can and drew out a worm.

  “Be careful with the hook,” Jessica warned.

  Franny nodded. “Daddy told me.” She took a few moments longer than the other two, but she managed to get the worm on the hook. She looked at Jessica expectantly.

  Jessica fought the panic rising in her throat. She just couldn’t touch a worm! She swallowed hard. Maybe she could get Franny to do it for her when no one was looking . . . she jumped when she heard Clay’s deep voice behind her.

  “Ready?” He stepped up behind her, and she shivered at his warm breath on her neck. She didn’t understand these strange sensations she felt whenever she was close to him, but she didn’t like them. She pushed away the shivery feeling and turned to face him. She would just tell him she couldn’t touch a worm. But when she saw the amused look on his face, the words died in her throat.

  Miriam was only steps behind him. Jessica’s cousin took a fishing pole and a worm and went to sit on a warm rock. Her hook and worm went into the river with a gentle splash, and she rinsed her fingers off in the water.

  Jessica looked at Clay, then down at the pole and bait can. She had to do it. Somehow she just had to do it. She swallowed the bile in her throat. “Take yours, then I’ll go on downriver.”

  With a knowing look, Clay took a pole, pulled a worm from the can, and walked over to a nearby rock. Jessica looked at his broad back as she picked up the last pole. She took the bait can and walked a bit downstream from the others. Glancing behind her to make sure no one was watching, she shook the worm out of the can and onto the warm rock. She nearly screamed when she saw the fat, wriggling body. She bit her lip until she tasted blood, then took her hook with determination. Holding the hook firmly between her thumb and index finger, she stabbed the barbed end into the middle of the worm’s body. As the hook sank into the soft body, the cold flesh of the worm touched her finger, and she dropped the hook with a soft moan.

  “Need some help?”

  She stood up quickly at Clay’s deep voice. “Not at all.” She was surprised by the steadiness of her voice. “I’m ready to start fishing.” She hurriedly tossed the hook and worm into the water before Clay could see how poorly the worm was attached to the hook. She knew she should poke the hook through in another spot, but she could not let that cold body touch her fingers again.

  “I’ll fish here beside you for a while,” he said. “Franny is with Bridie.”

  Jessica nearly groaned aloud. His presence was the last thing she needed. She didn’t want him to realize she’d never been fishing in her life. She glanced upriver to make sure Franny was doing all right, then sat gingerly on the rock and stared at the bobber floating in the water. How was she supposed to know when she got a stupid fish anyway? She felt Clay sit beside her, but she didn’t look at him. If she did, he would surely be able to read her expression. She kept her eyes fixed on the bobber and gripped the pole tightly.

  After about five minutes, she felt a tug on the pole and the bobber ducked under the surface of the water. She looked again at the bobber. Was the worm trying to get away? What would she do if it did? She just couldn’t put another worm on that hook. The bobber jerked again and stayed under the surface of the water.

  Clay jumped to his feet. “Hey, are you sleeping? You’ve got a bite!”

  A bite? Did that mean the fish had teeth? She shuddered at the thought just as the pole jerked again and almost went flying out of her hands. She stood and gingerly pulled on the fishing pole. The fish pulled back. She scowled and jerked up on the pole. A large trout, dripping and wriggling, came straight for her head. She shrieked and swung the pole to the left. Before Clay could react, the wet fish slapped him in the face. He shoved it aw
ay, and Jessica swung the pole again.

  “Watch out!” he shouted.

  Jessica swung the pole again, and this time it landed in his armpit. He jumped away, but she threw the pole and fish into the sand at his feet. “Why didn’t you stay out of my way?” She dared a glance at him. A single fish scale clung to the tip of his nose and shimmered in the sunlight.

  Slowly, Clay brushed at the sand and water on his face. “I didn’t know fishing with you would be dangerous. What were you trying to do—behead me?”

  Jessica drew herself up to her full five-feet-four inches. “I was doing just fine until you came over here breathing down my neck. Why don’t you go stare at Miriam? She would welcome your attentions, but I do not.”

  Clay’s lips twitched, and he made a strange sound. Was he laughing at her? Suspiciously, she glared at him.

  He choked again, then roared with laughter. “Red, you should see your face! You’ve never had a fishing pole in your hand before, have you?”

  “Don’t call me Red. I hate that name!” She chose to ignore his question about her fishing experience.

  “What’s wrong with Red? It suits you. In fact, I think I’ll call you that from now on.” Clay grinned again at the scowl on her face.

  She stamped her foot and turned to storm away.

  “Hey, Red.”

  She whirled, but Clay interrupted before she could say anything.

  “You forgot your fish. You’ll want to clean it and get it ready to cook.”

  Jessica gulped. Clean it? She didn’t have any idea how to do that. She slowly walked back to the fish and looked down at it. She looked back up into Clay’s expectant face. “I’m not in the mood for fish,” she said lamely.

  “Well, I am. That’s a nice trout you caught. We can’t waste it. Besides, I should have something for my trials. I’ve never had a cold, wet fish in my armpit before, and I can’t say as I recommend the experience.” He knelt and removed the fish from the hook with a practiced jerk, then stood and held it out to her. “Here you go. But pardon me if I don’t stand too close while you have the knife in your hand.”

  She managed a feeble smile and swallowed hard as she reached out an unsteady hand to gingerly take the fish by the tail. The cold, slimy feel of it raised a bubble of nausea in her throat, and she couldn’t look in its staring eye. With it held out in front of her, she walked over to the rock where Clay had laid out his fillet knife and some news-paper. She put the fish on the paper and picked up the knife. What did she do next?

  “Hey, you need some help?” Caleb’s hair stood up in spikes where he’d swiped a wet hand through it, and he carried a string of four fish.

  Jessica thought she’d never seen a more welcome sight than his eager smile. He wasn’t making fun of her; he seemed to really want to help. Her smile was tinged with relief. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve never cleaned fish before.”

  His grin widened. “You think we don’t know that? It’s nothing to be chicken about. I’ll show you.” He took the knife from her unresisting fingers and proceeded to scrape the scales off all five fish, then showed her how to gut and fillet them.

  Jessica didn’t really want to watch, but she felt it was the least she could do. In spite of the mess, she found herself actually interested in the deft way he handled the knife and how quickly he dispatched the process of preparing the fish for cooking.

  When he was done, he handed the fillets to her with a big grin. “I get the biggest piece.”

  “You can have two. Why did you help me?” she asked with narrowed eyes. “I haven’t been exactly warm to you.”

  Caleb hesitated and gave her a shy grin. “Last Sunday at church Clay told us to do something nice for someone you don’t much cotton to, so I picked you. But you know what? You ain’t so bad. When you first came here, you were like a bear with a sore head, always snarlin’ and uppity. But once I seen you don’t know everything, you were okay. I guess I could stand having another sister.” He blushed bright-red and ducked his head.

  He left Jessica with her mouth open. The heat rose in her face, but whether it was from pleasure because he had decided he liked her or because of how he had seen her before today, she wasn’t really sure. She looked down at the fish fillets in her hand and smiled. At least she knew how to cook them, even if she hated doing it.

  Clay had made a fire beside the water and stacked some rocks as a ledge for the skillet to rest on. As she cooked the fish, she thought about what Caleb had said. Was that really how people saw her? Cross and uppity? She wanted to be thought of as a force to be reckoned with, but not as someone who snarled at people and was totally unapproachable. She’d always wanted people to see her as beautiful and cultured but likable.

  Clay thought she was frivolous, without any real purpose in life. What was her purpose in life? Did she even know herself? What could fill this void, this insatiable hunger inside her? Her eyes smarted, and she tried to tell herself it was from the smoke of the fire, but deep inside, she knew better. She wasn’t happy, and she had never really been settled and content with herself or her life. She was good at putting on a facade, a beautiful and smiling face to fool everyone. But now it seemed, no one had been fooled after all. No one at all.

  five

  For several days after the picnic Jessica kept pretty much to herself. She began to notice how the others tiptoed around her as if afraid of incurring her wrath. Was that what she wanted? To be feared? As she watched her cousins interact with their father and her mother, she often felt like an outsider. She realized she had never had that kind of loving relationship with anyone, not even her own parents or her biological mother. She’d never felt she was a real, necessary part of a whole. Even her doting parents had seemed to stand together as a unit, loving her as a separate entity. She didn’t know how to even go about becoming part of a family.

  Morose, she decided to wander over and talk to Ellen about her feelings. She’d never really bared her soul to anyone before, but maybe it was time.

  Ellen had just put Franny to bed. The little girl sat up with a delighted smile when Jessica came into the cabin. “Jessie!” She reached out her arms. “Will you tell me a story?”

  Jessica gulped. She didn’t know any stories, but she walked slowly to the side of the bed and sat down. “What kind of story?”

  Franny looked up at her and thought for a moment. “How about one with a little girl with red hair like yours?” She reached up and touched one of Jessica’s curls.

  “Well,” Jessica said slowly. “Once upon a time there was a little girl named Ruth. She had red hair but she hated it.”

  “Oh, no, Jessie, she couldn’t hate it,” Franny interrupted.

  Jessica tickled her. “Am I telling the story or are you?”

  Franny squealed and giggled. “You are, you are. But any little girl would want hair like yours.”

  Jessica smiled. “This little girl didn’t. She hated her hair. She wanted beautiful blond hair like her friend Alice. Anyway, Ruth lived in a tiny house with her younger brother Jasper and her mother Mary. It was dirty and there were bugs, but they had each other.”

  “What about her daddy?” Franny wanted to know.

  “Her daddy, uh, he ran—I mean, he didn’t live there anymore. He went out west to find some land for his family, and was gone a long time. Anyway, Jasper had a tadpole he’d caught in the creek behind the house, and, my, how he loved that tadpole. Ruth did, too. One day she decided to surprise Jasper and find him another tadpole to keep the first one company. She took off her shoes and socks and waded in the creek with an old tin cup, trying to find a tadpole. She stepped into a hole in the creek and got all muddy. But she found that tadpole. She was so happy when she walked home because she just knew Jasper was going to be happy to have another tadpole. When she got home and her mother saw how muddy she was, she was sent to bed without supper.”

  “How mean,” Franny said with a pout. “You would never do that to me, would you, Mommy?”

&n
bsp; Ellen shook her head. She looked as engrossed in the story as her daughter.

  Jessica glanced at Ellen and smiled. “Well, your mommy is a special kind of mommy. But back to the story. Ruth went along to the little room she shared with Jasper. She didn’t care about supper, since she got the tadpole. She hurried to the jar where Jasper’s tadpole was and guess what she found?”

  “What?” Franny asked breathlessly.

  “There was a frog in the jar. It was trying to keep its head above water and looking kind of sickly. Ruth was shocked. Where had the frog come from? She got it out of the jar before it could drown, then looked all over for the tadpole. She couldn’t find it anywhere, so she figured the frog somehow got in the jar and ate the tadpole. She put her new tadpole in the jar and screwed the lid on tight so the frog couldn’t get back in and eat it. Just then Jasper came home. When she told him what had happened, he laughed at her and told her that the frog used to be the tadpole but had grown up and changed.”

  “Really? It really changed?”

  “It sure did. Ruth was surprised, too. But the more she thought about it, the more excited she got. Because that meant that maybe she could change, too. Maybe she was just a tadpole now, but someday she could be somebody special. And she decided she would be someone special.”

  Franny frowned when Jessica fell silent. “That’s not the end of the story, is it?”

  Jessica laughed. “It is for tonight. I’ll finish it some other time.” She tucked the covers around Franny and kissed her on the nose. “Now you go to sleep, little tadpole, and dream about what kind of frog you want to be when you grow up.”

  “I want to be just like you,” Franny murmured sleepily. She snuggled down into the covers and closed her eyes.

  Just like her. The words rang in her ears. Was she any kind of person a little girl should emulate? She was afraid she wouldn’t like the honest answer to that question.