“How do you move on when you feel like you can’t trust the other person? When everything you dreamed of has been taken from you?”
“Well,” Stephen said slowly. “You can keep looking back on shaky ground, expecting it to change when you can’t change the past. Or you can look forward, finding something new and stable to build on.”
“Again...how?” From Jasper’s vantage point, it seemed impossible.
“Pretend you just met her. How would you court a woman, who, for all intents and purposes, you’ve just met?”
Court Emma Jane? “You want me to court my wife? Doesn’t that end when a couple gets married?”
Stephen grinned, shaking his head. “Once a couple gets married, that’s the most important time for folks to court. Otherwise, you run the risk of taking each other for granted and missing out on the really beautiful parts of being husband and wife.”
There had been no beautiful parts about being married to Emma Jane. And with the way he’d just talked to her, he imagined there probably weren’t any beautiful parts about being married to him.
Maybe he had set an impossible standard, asking her to trust him before they even knew each other.
Could he do as Stephen advised and court Emma Jane? Would a courtship help them find common ground?
At this point, Jasper wasn’t sure he had anything else to lose. Stuck in the hotel, with nowhere to go and nothing else to do, he could at least try.
Otherwise, he might as well resign himself to a lifetime of marital misery.
Chapter Thirteen
Emma Jane smiled as Moses cooed up at her from the bucket they were using to wash him. She was beginning to see signs of dimples in his cheeks, and now that his dark hair was clean, it laid on his head in tiny little curls.
Abigail handed her a warm towel. “Usually I wouldn’t give anyone a bath in this weather, but he seemed particularly grimy, and I wanted you to have Mother and me here for the first one in case you had questions.”
Moses fussed as she lifted him out of the water, but once she had him securely wrapped in the towel, he quieted, staring up at her with his dark eyes.
“I appreciate having your assistance. So much. I didn’t know anything about taking care of babies. How do women manage with their own?”
Abigail smiled at Olivia, and the two women exchanged the kind of loving glance that made Emma Jane wish once again that she’d had that sort of relationship with her own mother. Even her mother-in-law would never possess that level of warmth toward her.
“They have wonderful mothers who take care of them.” Abigail gave her mother a squeeze as she passed. “Speaking of mothers, I need to check on my own brood. Charles tries, bless him, but I’m sure they’re driving him crazy about now.”
As Emma Jane dried Moses, Olivia came beside her and rested her hand on Emma Jane’s shoulder. “I know you must be thinking how hard it is, given that your mother isn’t the warmest of women.”
Emma Jane glanced up at her. She’d forgotten that Olivia had met her mother. Emma Jane’s stay here last time had ended when her parents arrived, full of fire over their daughter being “compromised” by Jasper. Her mother had not been kind.
“But don’t worry.” Olivia reached for Moses. “May I?”
Emma Jane handed her the baby, smiling as the older woman made baby noises at him.
“Becoming a grandmother changes a woman. I can’t explain it, but I am convinced that a grandchild makes a woman’s heart grow even bigger. I love my children, but my grandchildren...” She looked up at Emma Jane and smiled. “That love is so much deeper.”
Olivia planted a kiss on top of Moses’s head and handed him back to Emma Jane. “And this little one is so darling I can’t imagine not falling in love with him. You’ll see.”
“My mother went back east,” Emma Jane said, adjusting Moses in her arms. “She’s not likely to return.”
Actually, it had been a condition of Jasper’s father paying off her father’s gambling debts. The family was sent back to Charleston to live with relatives. Jasper’s father had some connections there, and her father was given a job. The Jacksons had made it clear that the Logans were not to return to Leadville or cause any scandal that would reflect back on them.
Emma Jane didn’t miss her parents much—at all, really—but she often thought about her sister, Gracie. How would Gracie do without Emma Jane to protect her? The only reason Emma Jane had chosen this life, marrying Jasper, was to protect Gracie. Would someone be willing to teach Gracie the way Olivia was her?
“Well,” Emma Jane said, looking down at the baby. “I think someone has fallen asleep. I’m going to put him down for his nap.”
Olivia touched Emma Jane’s arm as she passed. “You know, just because your mother wasn’t warm, it doesn’t mean you won’t be a good mother. You’re doing an excellent job of taking care of Moses.”
Funny, that idea had never occurred to Emma Jane. As she carried Moses to the cradle the Lewises had so thoughtfully put in her room, she realized that caring for the baby had brought out a strength in her she hadn’t realized she possessed. Defending her sister against her parents was one thing, but something about this innocent child made Emma Jane feel even more empowered.
Still, deep down she knew she shouldn’t have said all those things to Jasper. But he’d just made her so mad! She was tired of him acting like he was the victim of all the bad circumstances of his life. Didn’t he realize how lucky he was? Emma Jane had to make a life out of so much worse.
She smoothed Moses’s hair as she set him in the cradle. People shouldn’t fear their parents the way Emma Jane and Gracie had.
The only
