Free Wild Indigo by Judith Stanton Page A

be Cherokee.
    When her gaze returned to him, doubt clouded his lake-blue eyes.
    â€œWhat more can I offer you?” he asked.
    Love, she thought.
    â€œYour offer is a good one,” she said, her heart thudding dully against the inevitable. Marriage by the drawing of the lot. The groom requested. The Elders advised. The lot gave permission, sanction. At least Jacob would abide by the lot that he had sought. Who else would ever ask for her—the way Samuel had asked for Eva, the way Gottlieb had given up his world for Alice? And who was she, a foundling, to hope for love?
    â€œAnd so yes, Brother Blum. I will marry you.”
    â€œJacob. In private, I want you to call me Jacob,” he said, giving her a quick smile as he squeezed her hand. She allowed herself to savor his sure touch.
    â€œI will be a good husband to you,” he added.
    Because he needed her, she reminded herself. Still, she’d heard nothing but good of Jacob Blum. His tone held so much modest pride and yet entreaty that she had an urge to touch him. She stifled that urge. He said he needed her. It occurred to her that need was a kind of wanting. She wondered if it could become a kind of love.
    Â 
    Jacob led his tavern hack to the town’s large barn, heart thumping in his chest. It wasn’t from the fight. He sloughed off the concerns of Brothers Samuel Ernst and Frederick Marshall, both of whom had seen the altercation. The watchman approved, the Elder did not. Jacob didn’t care what either thought.As always, he had done his part for his town. No, what plagued him was something else.
    He had bungled it with Sister Retha. Rosina Krause hadn’t helped, of course, by introducing his proposal to his elected bride in such crass terms. He couldn’t control what his fellow Elder said. He clenched his jaw in sudden anger. Between the war and his wife’s death, he had little enough control over his life anyway. On top of that, he had lost his sense of humor.
    Scaife had riled him. Perhaps if the fight hadn’t sent Jacob’s blood boiling with the sheer joy of action, he would have kept his wits about him and proposed to Sister Retha like a man. She had accepted his half-witted offer with a look of resignation. It cut him to the quick. He never wanted a reluctant bride.
    Inside the barn, he mopped his brow. Compared to the stifling heat, the barn was cool. He welcomed its dark recesses. She was beautiful, yes, but he liked everything about her, even the way she had stood up to him. She had countered every one of his meddling questions.
    No, he told himself, he wasn’t meddling. He was exercising his rights as her Elder and her bridegroom.
    He smiled a little at the thought of Retha’s determined but ill-advised loyalty to the Voglers. He admired that in her, actually. Not that her loyalty was altogether misplaced. When Vogler had stood up against the community to marry the woman he loved, he had lost all but her. Jacob had loved his own wife in a quieter, easier way. Part of him envied Vogler such conviction, such passion, even whileJacob had exacted Retha’s pledge to stay far, far away from the man and his Cherokee wife.
    Despite the hounding possessiveness that made Jacob bristle to see his bride in another man’s arms, Jacob believed her innocent. Her tremors and her tearstained face convinced him that the fight had terrified her. The fight, or something about it.
    He wished she had been willing to say what. He could not brush away his nagging feeling that she had secrets.
    For it seemed that she did. And those unacknowledged secrets—not the likelihood that her friend was a spy nor the danger Retha could face if caught speaking English—disturbed him now.
    The horse gave itself a hard shake when Jacob lifted the saddle from its back. In fact, he thought Gottlieb as fortunate in Alice’s devotion as he himself had been in Christina’s. Sadness nudged him strangely. What would she