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BOOK: Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers]
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Dozie’s eyes slowly filled with tears.
“Land a livin’.” She grabbed hold of Henry Ann’s hand. “Ya be takin’ on dis ole woman as fambly?”
“Now what’s so surprising about that, Dozie Jones? You’ve always been family to me.”
“Ya’ll be gettin’ wed someday—”
“Your biscuits may be the only thing that’ll get a husband for me,” she teased.
Tom was barely able to comprehend what he was hearing. This slim, sweet woman was everything he had imagined his life’s mate would be. But fate had played a cruel joke, and he had to play the cards he was dealt.
“Dere be thin’s I not want to leave here—”
“Of course. Bring whatever you want. I know you’ll want to bring your rocking chair.”
“My mama rock me in dat chair.”
“And you rocked me. When can you be ready?” Henry Ann had a happy smile on her face. “I’ve got to get you out of there before you change your mind.”
“I ain’t a changin’ it, honey. I be ready in not much more’n da switch of a dog’s tail.” Dozie’s face was creased with smiles. “Truth is, all dem younguns goin’ in and out and slammin’ de door was ’bout to frazzle my mind.”
Henry Ann turned to Tom. “We’ll take care of Jay at my house until you can take him home.”
“What will folks say? I don’t want to cause you any trouble.”
“We can say your wife is sick . . . if anyone asks.”
“She is . . . in a way.”
“Will it upset her if you don’t bring him home?”
“Only that she wouldn’t want him to be with you.”
“Why me?”
Because you’re young and pretty and . . . she knows she can’t hold a candle to you.
“Well, probably because . . . you’re handy,” he said finally because she was waiting for an answer.
Heaven help me! If I’m not careful, I’ll fall in love with you.
They smiled into each other’s eyes.
He really is a very nice man in spite of that frown and that wild hair.
“I’ll take Henry Ann home, Aunt Dozie, and be back for you.”
“I be ready, Mistah Tom.”

 

Chapter Seven
Emmajean lay on the floor where she had fallen when Tom struck her. At first she had been consumed with self-pity, cried, and pounded her forehead on the floor. Then a feeling of elation swept over her. The thrill that knifed through her settled in her genital area. Her hand went there, and she lay on the floor caressing herself as she did sometimes when she was in bed wishing her husband would come to her and do the things he had done the night they met. Until then she had only imagined what wonderful things went on between a man and a woman.
She had liked the pain when he took her virginity. She had liked it when, far too drunk to realize it, he had been rough with her. She had liked it so much that she was determined to have Tom for a husband, and knew that if she told her parents, they’d make him marry her.
She told.
And they did.
But only on their wedding night had he done that wonderful thing to her. And he had been so gentle that it had infuriated her. The next day he had looked at her as if she were a stray cat! She was sure that she could have persuaded him to stay in her bed if not for the damn kid that started growing in her body.
Almost immediately after they were married she was sick, then her stomach began to stick out, and her feet and legs became so swollen she couldn’t even wear her high-heeled shoes. She became mean and irritable and had crying fits that lasted for hours.
After she delivered, she wanted nothing to do with the
ugly, wrinkled, bawling thing.
The idea of its sucking on her breasts was so repulsive to her that she had screamed when the midwife had tried to put the brat to her breasts. She hated it then, but hated it more when Tom turned all his attention to it. When she refused to take care of it, he took it to a woman to care for during the day, and at night he spent every possible minute with it.
Emmajean was lying on the kitchen floor thinking these thoughts and caressing herself when a car drove into the yard. It wasn’t Tom’s car, she could tell that by the sound of the motor. She got up off the floor and went to the front window when she heard a door slam.
A man stood beside a shiny black touring car, hands on his hips, surveying the homestead. Her brother, Marty. She ran to the door and out onto the porch.
“Marty! Marty! I’m so glad you’ve come—” She began to cry and wring her hands. “Look what he did to me! He beat me—” Her eyes were swollen, her cheek was red from Tom’s blow and scratched from lying on the rough floor. She lifted her hair to show the bumps and cuts on her forehead.
Marty came up onto the porch. He knew his sister and had no doubt that if her husband had beaten her, she had deserved it. But it wouldn’t do to tell her that. This just might be something he could make work to his advantage.
“Why did he hit you, Emmy?”
“He was going to leave, and I didn’t want him to go. I was in his way and he . . . and he . . . knocked me to the floor.”
“Where was he going?”
“I . . . don’t know.”
“I saw him sitting alongside the road just now. Someone was with him.”
“It was
her
!” Emmajean’s crying stopped as suddenly as if the tears had been turned off by a faucet. A look of extreme fury came over her face. “He goes there all the time. He fixes her fence, fetches the doctor, takes her . . . things—”
“Who?”
Marty had never liked his irrational sister. She had been strange all her life and was an embarrassment to the family. When they’d had an excuse to marry her off and get rid of her, they had taken it, thinking the man would take her and go back to Nebraska. But he had not been as docile as the family had expected him to be.
“That Henry slut. She lives on the next place. We hadn’t been here a week until she came sashaying over here to see him. He takes Jay over there. She gives him toys—”
“Why aren’t you dressed? It’s the middle of the day.” Marty knew that his sister often lied. He was fond of saying that she wouldn’t know the truth if it jumped up and bit her.
“He . . . won’t let me. He wants me in my gown all day so that . . . so that when he comes in, I’m ready to do . . . it.”
“It?”
“You know . . . in bed. He wants it three or four times a day.”
“Three or four times a . . . day? Good Lord! He must be quite the stud.”
“He . . . he wears me out.” Emmajean allowed her voice to quiver.
“What do you do with the kid?”
“Oh, he don’t care if he watches.”
“Good Lord,” Marty said again.
“Come in.” Emmajean grabbed her brother’s hand. “He won’t want me to do it while you’re here.”
“Go get dressed. I’ll wait on the porch.”
“You won’t go?”
“No. I’ll be here.”
* * *
Jay was asleep in Henry Ann’s bed—the bed she had been born in, and the one where her daddy had died. She had brought out an oilcloth and put it under the sheet to protect the mattress should the little boy wet.
“He’s been real good about . . . that,” Tom said. “I take him out every night and then again in the morning.”
“He may not have control for a while.” Henry Ann covered the child with a sheet. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I don’t know how to thank you.” They looked at each other across the sleeping child.
“Thanks are not necessary. Neighbors should help neighbors.”
“We never did get around to talking about exchanging help. I’m willing to help Johnny—teach him what I know.”
“What can we do to help you?”
“I’ll never get my crop out by myself. I’ve been taking Jay to the field with me. I wish to God I’d taken him this morning.”
“We’ll work something out. The man we hired doesn’t seem to want much more than food and lodging.”
“I can’t offer him even that. A working man needs to put his feet under a table and have three squares a day.”
“Supper’s ready. Can ya stay, Mistah Tom?” Dozie came to the bedroom door. “Johnny and that other’n come and went to milk. They do chores later, they say.”
“I’d like nothing more, but I’ve got chores of my own to do.”
“Don’t worry about Jay. We’ll take care of him.” Henry Ann left the room and Tom followed. “If we need to go back to the doctor, I’ll send Johnny to get you.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow.” He didn’t want to leave but knew he had to. “I need to put water in my radiator before I go.”
Henry Ann walked out onto the porch, picked up a bucket, and walked with Tom to the well. She heard a whoop coming from the barn and then laughter—Johnny’s. Grant, carrying the milk bucket, came out of the barn first.
Lordy! She’d forgotten about milking.
“Who won the bet, Grant?” Henry Ann called.
“You had doubts, Miss Henry? I gave him a chance at two more rows and still beat him four out of five.”
“He took the easiest rows,” Johnny yelled from inside the barn.
“Don’t believe him. He’s mad ’cause I won’t help him with that mule.”
Tom stood holding the bucket of water. The new hired man didn’t act like a stranger. Had Henry Ann known him for a long time? An unfamiliar feeling came over Tom. He felt sudden dislike for this friendly man who talked so easily to Henry Ann. My God!
He was jealous!
“I’ll put the milk on the porch, Miss Henry.”
“Grant, this is our neighbor, Tom Dolan. Tom, Grant Gifford will be helping us for a while.”
The two men shook hands while Henry Ann explained that Tom’s land joined theirs on the south.
“You from around here, Gifford?” Tom asked.
“You could say that. I’m admiring the automobile. Is it yours?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t see many of that model anymore.”
“I try to keep it up to snuff. I’ve got to be going, Henry Ann. I’ll be over in the morning.”
Henry Ann walked with Tom to the car and watched him remove the radiator cap and pour the water.
“Have you known Gifford long?” he asked.
“A week. Maybe a little longer. He stopped by for a drink of water and asked for work.”
“He’s from the road? A bum?” Tom turned to look at her with a frown drawing his dark brows together.
“I suppose so. He and Johnny hit it off—”
“You don’t know anything about him. He could be a convict.”
“I doubt that.”
“Is he staying in the house?”
“In the barn.”
“Do you lock the doors at night?”
Henry Ann laughed. “We don’t have keys for the locks. I suppose Daddy had them at one time. I can’t remember the last time we felt a need to lock the doors.”
“Things are different now. A third of the population is out of work. Not only are men roaming up and down the roads looking for a handout, outlaws are on the prowl looking for easy pickings. There’s a bank robbery about every day. Some of these men are desperate. You’re a woman alone.”
“I’m not alone. I have Johnny.”
“He’s just a kid.”
“Johnny is more of a man than you think he is. He can handle things,” she said, with a note of irritation in her voice.
“How do you know? He came from the city, didn’t he?”
“Are you worried about leaving Jay here?”
“No. I just . . . well, that fellow, Gifford—”
“He wouldn’t have a chance between me, Johnny, and Aunt Dozie.” Her face relaxed, and a smile tilted her lips. “Would you like to go up against Aunt Dozie with a skillet in her hand? I was taught how to take care of myself. I got to be even a better shot than Daddy.”
Tom grinned in spite of himself.
She looped a strand of hair behind her ear and reached for the empty bucket. He was intensely aware that he had only to lift his hand to touch her. She was pretty and natural as a woman was meant to be. He wanted to keep on looking at her but feared that he would embarrass her—and himself. Instead he opened the car door.
“I’m sorry if I overstepped—”
“You didn’t. We’ll keep an eye on him.”
“Thanks for keeping Jay.”
“You’ve said that ten times.”
He grinned. It was easy to do when he was with her.
“I guess I have.”
She stood in the yard while he backed the car out and turned down the road. She didn’t wave, just stood there until he rounded the curve and could no longer see her when he looked back.
He wanted something, wanted it badly.
For a while now he’d felt a deep hunger for the soft warmth and tenderness, the sweetness of a woman. He wanted a decent life, a family like his brother Mike had in Nebraska. And now the most amazing of all—
he wanted it with Henry Ann Henry.
BOOK: Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers]
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