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And, she acknowledged with a ripple of unease, it was much the same today.
“But not Ivanhoe, huh! An’ nobody in Smoke River’s prej’dist, huh?”
Leah made an involuntary sound. Over Teddy’s head, her eyes locked with Thad’s.
“Sure they are, son,” Thad growled.
Leah marked her place in the leather-bound book with her forefinger. “Remember the mean things the students at school said about me that first morning? That I looked funny?”
“Sure, but you’re not a Jew.”
“No,” Leah said with a sigh. “But here in America I am different because I am half Chinese.”
“I bet Ivanhoe wouldn’t care if you was Chinese.”
Leah had to laugh. “Ivanhoe had never seen a Chinese person. Or talked to one or—”
Thad sent her a look that melted her insides. “Slept with one,” he interjected. Immediately he looked away, unfolded his long legs and stood up. When he stepped around Teddy he absentmindedly ruffled the boy’s unruly brown hair. “Time for bed, son.”
Leah glanced up at her husband, but once again his eyes were distant. Deliberately she closed the volume on her lap. She must speak to him. Now. Tonight.
Teddy scampered up the ladder to his loft. Leah sat still for a moment, staring into the dying fire, then roused herself and headed for the bedroom. She undressed quickly, sponged off in the basin of warm water she had heated earlier on the stove, and drew on her silk sleeping robe. It was one of her Chinese garments, but she liked it because it absorbed the heat of Thad’s body when she lay next to him.
She liked sleeping with Thad. She liked being close to him, listening to his voice rumble near her ear, feeling his soft breathing fan the back of her neck.
Thad paced back and forth on the front porch, his hands jammed into his jean pockets. He hated winter. When he thought about the months between now and spring, his mind went cold and his thoughts became brutally clear. He could do nothing about his wheat seedlings except pray the winter storms would leave them undamaged. Right now, he knew he had to think about other things. His son, for one.
Maybe it was about time for Teddy to have a pony. Matt Johnson had a colt about old enough to ride; maybe by Christmas…
Hell’s bells, he didn’t want to think about Christmas. He’d hated it ever since Hattie died. He didn’t want to think about Leah, either. Sure would be easier if they didn’t sleep in the same bed.
It was getting harder to crawl in bed and lie next to her. Something about being close to her made him sweat, and when he tried to nail it down, whatever it was choked him with fear. It grew worse each night.
He walked twice more around the barn, then tramped back into the house, to find a light still glowing under the bedroom door. Quietly he twisted the brass knob and pushed it open. A kerosene lamp burned low on the bureau.
He kicked off his boots, dropped his trousers and shirt onto the rocking chair under the window and puffed out the lamp. He hesitated, then lifted the quilted coverlet and slid into bed.
She didn’t move.
“Leah?”
“Thad, we need to talk about something.”
Oh, damn, here it came. She was unhappy. She wanted more from him, and he wasn’t ready. He hoped that the ache gnawing at his heart would fade in time, that he’d get over Hattie’s death, but…
But what if he never healed? What if he kept backing away from Leah, protecting himself by not caring about her? Hell, if he kept avoiding her, he’d lose her, too. Either way he was damned. Maybe she wasn’t tough enough for life out here on the frontier and she’d leave him, go back to the city.
He didn’t want to talk about this. It hurt even to think about it. But Leah was his wife now, for better or worse, and she deserved honesty.
“What’s on your mind, Leah?”
“Teddy.”
Teddy! Thad closed his eyes in relief. “What about Teddy? Something wrong at school? Are the kids still riding him about his new moth—”
“Nothing is wrong at school,” she said in a quiet voice. “Something is wrong at home.”
He thought that over while he tried to get his heartbeat back to normal. Had he and Teddy argued about something? Nothing came to mind. In fact, he could not remember having much of any conversation with his son all week long. Oh, Lord, that was it. Had to be.
“Thad, Teddy needs you. He has lost his mother, but he should not have to lose his father, as well.”
“He’s not losing me.”
“He is losing you. A son needs to be noticed by his father.”
“I do notice him.”
After a long silence she spoke again. “When my mother died, my father withdrew into himself, into a shell that excluded me. I was not a child, as Teddy is, but it was miserable for me. It was as if Papa had died, too, and left me alone in the world.”
