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“Patrick!” Mrs. O’Brien called. “You’re needed.”
The man jumped down off the wagon and walked over to stand with his mother and Heather. He was huge. At least a foot taller than Heather’s five foot two. “Yes, Mother?”
Heather tried to hide a grin. He sounded like her when she was humoring her mother, but his voice was a wee bit deeper.
“Your sweet bride has a trunk that needs to come home with us, and I believe it’s there on the platform already. Would you be a dear?”
Patrick shrugged, walked over, and lifted it onto one shoulder as if it weighed nothing. He put it into the back of the wagon, then helped his mother up into the seat. He grasped Heather around the waist and lifted her straight over the side of the wagon.
She sat down on her trunk and waited as he got into the wagon. Heather was a bit uncomfortable riding that way, but it was better than the wagon bed, and that was the only other option.
He drove them down to an intersection, where he made a left turn, and drove for a couple of minutes. Then he pulled off to the right side of the road to a small church.
“This is a beautiful valley,” Heather said as Patrick lifted her out of the wagon. On her feet, she looked all around her, just trying to take in the beautiful place. It was a little harder to breathe, but she’d heard that happened in high altitudes, so she thought nothing of it.
He looked around, nodding. “I’ve always lived here, but the beauty strikes me every day.”
Heather was pleased. Her first interaction with her husband hadn’t been too terribly painful.
He led her and his mother into the small church, calling out for the pastor, who was sitting at the front, reading some notes. “Pastor Scott!”
“Hello, Mrs. O’Brien. Patrick.”
“This is Heather,” Patrick said in his deep rumbling voice. “She’s here to marry me.”
Obviously, the pastor had been warned they were coming early, because it was barely past sunup and he was in the church waiting for them. He was an older man, looking to be well into his seventies. “Well, we should get to that then, shouldn’t we?” The pastor seemed to see past Heather’s appearance, which had to be truly disheveled. Her dress had dirt on it, and she felt as if she’d never be clean again. “Welcome to the Bear Lake Valley, Heather. I hope you enjoy it here.”
“It’s a beautiful place,” Heather said. “I’m lucky that I’ll be able to call it home.”
The elderly pastor went straight into the wedding ceremony, and Heather was surprised at how little time it took. She’d been to weddings before, and they’d always seemed to take a long time, but here she was, with a wedding that seemed to take less than five minutes. “You may kiss the bride.”
Heather looked at the huge man beside her who was now her husband and waited to see what he’d do. He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek and quickly returned to his full height. Looking at the pastor, he said, “Thank you, Pastor Scott. We’ll be back on Sunday.”
And Heather and her new mother-in-law were led out of the church and to the wagon, where each was helped into it. After Patrick took his seat, he turned the wagon around and drove straight out of town. It wasn’t terribly surprising that he lived out of town, given the fact that he was a rancher.
They drove for what seemed to be about fifteen minutes, and Heather wondered the entire time if her new husband was always succinct with his speech. He didn’t seem to be willing to waste extra words on her.
When he pulled into a yard, he helped the ladies down, hefted the trunk onto his shoulder, and walked toward the house. His mother hurried ahead of him to open the door for him, and he carried the trunk straight up the stairs as Heather watched him. “Should I follow him?” she whispered to Mrs. O’Brien.
“I’ll show you around later. We need to get some breakfast into you. Well, into all of us really.” Mrs. O’Brien led the way into the kitchen. “When we realized your train would be here so early, we decided to wait on breakfast until we were back here, and the wedding was over.”
“That makes sense,” Heather said, digging in her carpet bag for her apron, and pulling it on over her dress. She did it out of habit, because at that moment, her dress was filthy and the apron over it was clean. “How can I help you?”
Mrs. O’Brien smiled. “For now, sit at the table for a minute. You look like you’re too tired to walk.”
Heather shook her head. “I’ve been sitting for days. Please give me a task so I can remain on my feet.”
“Well, I like that attitude for certain.” Mrs. O’Brien pursed her lips. “Go ahead and butter the bread, and then we’ll put it in the oven to toast it. I really prefer the taste of bread that’s already been buttered before it’s heated, don’t you?”
Heather opened her mouth to respond, but it only took a moment for her to realize that Mrs. O’Brien was used to talking to herself all day. “Patrick is out on the range most days. He has a dozen ranch hands who all take an hour for lunch, and while they eat, Patrick comes here. They see to themselves for breakfast and supper down at the bunkhouse. I think one of them cooks, and the others take turns cleaning, but I might be wrong about that.”
Patrick walked into the kitchen then, finding his new wife and his mother working together comfortably in the kitchen. “How long?”
His mother shrugged. “About twenty minutes give or take a few. Why don’t you go and unhitch the wagon and put the horses in the stable?”
Patrick turned and did as he was told.
“He doesn’t say much,” Heather said before his mother started talking again. She was finding it hard to get a word in edgewise.
