A Headstrong Woman

chapter One

Six weeks later

Alexandria stood in front of the mirror, dressed only in her shift and assessed what she saw. Unruly curls sprang free from her night braid to frame her thin face in an untidy halo. Two small, firm breasts rode high on her chest, no womanly fullness there. Her stomach was flat, she mused and pressed her hand across its narrow expanse; she supposed that was something. Her hips, too narrow for feminine curve, were more angular than rounded. And her ridiculously long legs! They were so unfeminine; so… wrong. No, there was absolutely nothing about her to warrant a man’s attention. Her gaze, trained on her own reflection, seemed to reverse looking backward through time.

She was standing opposite Elijah again, her insides doing somersaults as she anticipated his kiss, her first real kiss. She felt his warm breath on her cheek as his arms closed around her, could smell the garlic from what he had last eaten at the reception. His lips had been warm on hers and had sent her jittering nerves into high gear. Then suddenly she was chilled, so cold as he abruptly stepped away from her, his arms held stiffly at his sides. His face was horror stricken.

“I’m sorry, Alexandria, I thought I could do this but I can’t.”

He had turned and left the room then and left Alexandria to stare after him. His words slowly registered in her mind and took up permanent residence there. They replayed in her mind every time she faced herself in the mirror.

Alexandria wiped impatiently at her wet cheeks and turned her back on the taunting images opposite her. Elijah had claimed his clothes from the room and moved into a room down the hall. The only thing Alexandria could figure was that Elijah had married her to be a mother to Lilly.

She loved Lilly, had loved the child ever since the day she was born, however she wanted to be more than a wife in name only and a step-mom. She wanted to love and be loved and she wanted babies of her own; the thought of never having that nearly took her breath away.

“It’s done now,” she muttered to herself as she dressed in a simple skirt and shirt. After braiding her hair she crossed the hall into Lilly’s room and woke the sleeping child to dress her for the day. She truly did love this little girl.

“I’m hungry,” Lilly announced as they descended the stairs, her blue eyes still more asleep than alert. Her white blonde hair was restrained in braids at the moment but Alexandria knew that by lunch, curls would be escaping to frame Lilly’s sweet face, lending her a cherubic appearance. Yes, she loved this child; did she love this child enough for that to be her entire future?

“I’m sure Millie has breakfast almost ready,” Alexandria assured the child as they neared the kitchen.

She entered to find Millie bustling about as she prepared to set the breakfast table. An older woman, ample in frame, Millie had graying dark blonde hair and warm brown eyes. When Alexandria had first arrived, Elijah had instructed her in the proper way to handle servants. Alexandria’s family had never had more than seasonal field hands in their employ; the idea of a servant was foreign to Alexandria. Elijah had no more than given Alexandria his spiel on servants and then taken her to meet Millie, than Alexandria had promptly discarded his rules and set out to befriend Millie.

She had learned that Millie had been hired when the mysterious illness that had plagued Martha had first over taken her. Alexandria supposed she had already known that. She had vague remembrances of Elijah and her dad talking about the renovations he was making to the house. Elijah had converted the formal dining room of his large home into living quarters for his newly acquired help. She had also learned that despite the air of formality Martha and Millie maintained that Millie had cared quite deeply for the first Mrs. Morris.

Elijah didn’t seem particularly pleased that she had befriended the proper house keeper but when he had made his protest she had silently raised her chin in challenge and he had not pressed the matter. If she didn’t befriend Millie who was she supposed to talk with? Elijah? Their conversations had become stilted exchanges of information on Lilly or need to know matters of house business. Maybe she could befriend the hands that Elijah wouldn’t let her anywhere near? Alexandria was now miles away from her mother and sister and the warm camaraderie they had shared day in and day out as they worked. All of her days growing up in the vast, beautiful landscape where neighbors were measured in miles between homes rather than blocks, had not prepared her the isolation of an empty, loveless marriage.

“Good morning,” Elijah greeted as he entered the kitchen where the two women were working in companionable silence while Lilly nibbled on a piece of toast.

“Good morning,” Alexandria returned coolly before handing him a cup of coffee. Elijah, his eyes dark with regret, nodded and turned to the table and his daughter. Alexandria caught Millie’s understanding gaze and busied herself with taking the biscuits from the oven. Of course Millie knew the state of Alexandria and Elijah’s pathetic excuse for a marriage; it would be impossible for her not to notice their separate rooms.

“Here we are,” Millie set a bowl of breakfast potatoes onto the table. “Will there be anything else?”

“Join us, Millie,” Alexandria invited almost desperately. She managed to cajole Millie into joining them as often as she could; any buffer between her and her husband was welcome.

“My place isn’t at the table…”

“Join us, Millie,” Elijah ordered. He seemed almost as relieved as Alexandria for the distraction of another body.

Alexandria felt relief flood her as she claimed her seat and filled her plate with food she would do little more than pick at. Elijah and Millie chatted as they ate and Alexandria retreated into her thoughts. She was pulled from those thoughts by a knock at the door and looked up curiously as Elijah stood to answer it. Any break in their monotonous routine was welcome to Alexandria.

“Mornin’ Rand; is there a problem?” Elijah’s deep baritone floated to her ears.

“No, sir; a man just rode in and says he’s lookin’ for work,” the familiar voiced responded. Rand was good friends with Alexandria’s brother and was engaged to one of her school chums.

“Well, send him to the house after he has some breakfast and I’ll see him; we could use some extra help.”

“Yes, sir.”

Alexandria heard the echo of boots moving away and the click of the door before Elijah’s heavy foot falls brought him back to his breakfast. He and Millie resumed their conversation as though they had never been interrupted.

Elijah stood after he finished eating, “I’ll be in my office looking over some things.”

Alexandria watched him leave and then stood to help clear the table.

“You go on; I know you wanted to get started,” Millie nodded toward the door.

“Thanks, Millie,” she offered the woman a grateful smile.

Alexandria scooped Lilly onto her hip to carry the child outside. She wanted to weed the garden and give Lillian a chance to run off some energy before the day heated. She opened the door to stop short as she found herself face to face with buttons, not an altogether common occurrence for her at her height. She titled her head up to meet two cobalt blue eyes that immediately stole her breath at the amount of pain she found there before the man schooled his features and his eyes became guarded. Somehow that pain struck an all too familiar chord in her own heart. Alexandria took a step back and struggled to find her composure. Neither of them had spoken but it seemed as if a moment of kinship had passed silently and inexplicably between them.

“You must be looking for my husband,” she finally spoke the first acceptable words that came to her mind.

“Yes, Ma’am,” the man nodded.

“Follow me,” she instructed and turned to lead him to the nearby office.

“Elijah, your visitor is here,” she announced and turned to leave.

Elijah quickly stood and moved to greet the tall, slender man who now filled his office door way.

“Elijah Morris,” he extended his hand.

“Jonathon Stewart.”

The man’s hand shake was firm; that was a good sign. “Come in and have a seat.”

Elijah moved back around his desk and studied the man across from him. He had noted the man was nearly equal to him in height but where he was thick and solid, the man before him was slender, though by all appearances well-toned. With a thick head of wavy black hair and startling blue eyes he was likely popular with the ladies; what Elijah wanted to know was what kind of hand he would make. That wasn’t as easily discerned.

“Do you have any experience as a hand?” Elijah queried. The man didn’t bear the look of perpetual drifter as so many of the hands who shifted through.

“Yes, sir, I worked my uncle’s ranch every summer for three years.”

Elijah nodded in satisfaction; he was willing to give the man a try and expressed as much.

Several minutes later the two of them rode from the house to find the men and the herd.

“You say you worked your uncle’s ranch summers, what did you do the rest of the time?” Elijah asked to make conversation.

“It’s been several years since I worked my uncle’s ranch. I own a farm in South Dakota.”

“What brings you out here then?” Elijah eyed the man curiously. He watched pain cross the man’s face and wished he hadn’t asked.

“I buried my wife and stillborn daughter six weeks ago.”

The man’s voice was devoid of any emotion.

“I buried mine about a year ago,” Elijah shared. He watched confusion fill the younger man’s face. “That was my second wife you met at the house this morning,” he was not quite able to stop the grimace that accompanied the words. “I had my daughter to consider after Martha died and she needed a mother.”

“I see,” the man nodded and Elijah had a feeling he saw too much. He felt a kinship to this stranger that he had seldom found in lifelong friends. Perhaps it was the all too familiar haunted look that filled the man’s eyes when he was unguarded as he was now.

“Her pa and I have been friends for more’n a decade.”

They rode in silence a moment. In the distance the Bitterroot Range, today cold hard silver against an azure sky, jutted into the horizon. More immediately the land around them rose and fell in sloping well watered valleys ideal for the herds of cattle that grazed there.

“Congratulations on your marriage,” the younger man finally ventured.

“I hurt her,” Elijah blurted. “I hurt her and likely one of my closest friends in the process.”

Elijah could hear the weariness in his own voice. It felt good to lay troubling thoughts out in the open and to finally confront them aloud.

“Sorry,” Elijah realized that this man had his own problems without Elijah adding his own to them.

“Don’t be, our problems somehow seem more bearable when we give them voice,” the man seemed to speak aloud Elijah’s own thoughts.

“Yeah,” Elijah grunted.

They topped a rise and the herd appeared below them, several hundred head of cattle being watched over by a half a dozen cowboys. The sight always lifted Elijah’s heart, even on his worst day and today was no exception; the change of topic was welcome too. He urged his horse forward to join the men below; the younger man fell in beside him.

***

The rider sat atop his mount, his spy glass firmly trained on Elijah and the unfamiliar cowboy beside him. He sneered as he watched the man who seemed to thwart his plans at every turn. First Elijah kept snapping up parcels of land he had wanted for himself and then to add insult to injury he had married Alexandria before he, himself had ever made a formal attempt at courting her. Elijah had become the bane of his existence. Every night he couldn’t lay down to rest without torturing himself with thoughts of Elijah and Alexandria together; it ate at his peace of mind until he felt certain he would go mad. Perhaps he already had, he mused as he considered scenarios that would gain him the lovely Alexandria and with her would come the land; the land he had always wanted and then some. He smiled, the spy glass lowering as an idea began to take shape. He had made some connections over the past few years and they would serve him well now. He intended to make Alexandria and the Bison Creek Ranch his own and God help any man who got in his way.

***

Alexandria entered the church and her gaze quickly singled out her sister. It was a relief to be off the ranch and among friends again, even if it did mean pretending she was happily enjoying wedded bliss. Anna spotted her and moved her direction with a wide smile. Alexandria felt some of the tension leave her shoulders and a real smile grace her lips.

“I have missed you, where were you the last two Sundays?” Anna demanded.

“Elijah is shorthanded and having to pick up the slack and he doesn’t want me traveling alone,” she explained the only answer she had gotten to the same question. Elijah seemed to avoid the house much of the day and spent his evenings primarily wrapped up in his daughter.

“I’ll convince Daddy to send Michael for you.”

“Thanks, Anna, but it’s okay; we come as often as we can. How’ve you been?”

“Bored without you at home,” Anna’s pretty face settled into a pout. As the youngest of the family Anna had rarely been denied anything she wanted. Not because their parents were lax, more because when their parents said no, one of her older siblings usually gave into her anyway.

“I’ve missed you too,” Alexandria admitted. “Haven’t you been overrun with suitors?” she teased; she knew her sister was seldom without admirers.

Anna made a disgusted face. “Only the boys I knew in school. I want excitement and to be swept off my feet.”

“Have you been reading dime novels again?” Alexandria teased.

“So what if I have?” Anna demanded haughtily.

Alexandria laughed and shook her head at her sister.

She watched her sister’s eyes widen. “Who is that?”

“Who’s who?” Alexandria turned her gaze in the direction her sister was staring. The new hand from the ranch stood hesitantly in the doorway, his expression uncertain before he snatched his hat off his head as though just remembering it was there. He moved into the room and smoothed his thick hair out as he did. Alexandria noted that all of her unmarried friends seemed to be tracking his progress into the room.

“Elijah said his name is Jonathon, Jonathon Stewart, I think. He’s the new hand at the ranch.”

“The new hand at the ranch?” Anna’s eyes lit instantly.

Uh oh, Anna was notorious for her crushes, though she usually got over them quickly when the new object of her affection proved once again to be a mere man or as Anna often declared disdainfully, “A mere boy.”

“Yes, he just started a couple of weeks ago.”

“Maybe I should come visit now that you’ve had time to settle in,” Anna smiled widely.

“You’re welcome to visit any time but I only see him in passing and that rarely,” Alexandria warned.

“Well then we’ll just have to make sure our paths pass his, won’t we?” Anna’s smile was downright cheeky now.

“Yes, of course, how silly of me,” Alexandria returned. Anna had looped her arms through her sister’s and was guiding her, presumably to a seat.

“How’s married life?” Anna asked conversationally.

“Fine. Lilly is such a sweetie, her dad has been so busy she is clinging to him today like rain to a window pane,” Alexandria forced lightness into her tone. Anna still frowned at her as though there was something wrong with her statement.

“Alexandria, we need to be seated,” Elijah appeared at her elbow.

“Of course,” Alexandria nodded.

“Might I sit with you?” Anna requested.

“Certainly,” Alexandria was quick to agree.

“Oh! Excuse me!” Anna quickly apologized to the broad back she had just walked into. “I wasn’t watching where I was going Mr….?”

“No harm done Miss.” Jonathon turned and assured Anna.

Anna, her blue eyes wide, stared up at him expectantly. Alexandria realized that she was waiting for an introduction but she herself had never formally met the man.

“Oh, um, Jonathon this is Annabella Cannon, my sister-in-law and this is my wife Alexandria Morris. Alexandria, Annabella, Jonathon Stewart, my new hand at the ranch.

“It’s such a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Stewart,” Anna offered her hand and her most charming smile.

“My pleasure, Miss.” he took her hand politely, “and it’s a pleasure to meet you as well, Ma’am,” he added to Alexandria with a quick nod.

Anna still had not released his hand and Alexandria realized he was now staring down at it in consternation.

“This is your first time here with our congregation is it not?” Anna finally released his hand.

“Yes, yes it is,” he quickly tucked his hand safely inside his pocket.

“So you don’t know anyone yet?” her look was one of concern.

“She’s right, Jonathon, why don’t you join us?” Elijah invited as he led Alexandria into a pew. He seated himself on her left to allow Anna to sit beside her and Alexandria watched as Jonathon hesitated before seating himself beside Anna somewhat cautiously. Poor Mr. Stewart, he had no idea what he was in for, Alexandria mused as the first notes of music started from the front of the church.