Joe's Wife (23 page)

She surprised him by turning to face him, guiding his hands back to her breasts, then placing her hand on his shoulder. "You know what I like now, Tye. How about what you like? Can you tell me?"

She discovered their likes were mutual.

"Eve said you promised her a 'picwic,'" Meg said the following
noon
when Tye came in for lunch.

They exchanged a look that held secrets, a look of awakening and wonder only lovers share, and Tye warmed all the way to his toes. He'd never known the joy he'd experienced with Meg. If only—he caught himself and replied, "A what?"

"A 'picwic.' I figured out what she meant when she said you told her we'd take food and drinks and eat out-of-doors."

"Yes." He grinned, hanging his hat and taking a seat. "I guess I did promise her that."

"Why don't we do it this Saturday?"

Tye thought over the mental list of things he had to do, then cast them aside. Nothing was more important than his new family. "All right. Saturday."

Gus and Eve entered the kitchen, and Gus helped Eve onto the bench beside Tye.

A rancher had sent word that his mares were ready to cover, and Tye planned to take over the stallion that afternoon. "Meg," he said, buttering a slice of bread. "Joe had those liver chestnuts sent to the ranch while he was down south, didn't he?"

She spooned gravy over his plate of biscuits. "A couple of men delivered them."

"They didn't happen to give you any papers, did they?"

"Not that I remember. That was almost two years ago. Why?"

"There's something unusual about those animals. They appear to have some Arabian blood, but I'm not sure. They're fifteen hands high, but their heads are neat and their ears small, more ponylike."

"They're hardy animals," Gus said. "Healthy, and don't seem to mind weather. Admired 'em ever since they got here."

"They'd make great mounts if they were gelded,"
Tye
commented, "but I have a feeling they're worth more as breeders. Joe never said anything about them?"

"I never saw Joe after he sent those horses home," she replied. "And he never mentioned them in his letters."

Tye sipped his coffee, absorbed in his thoughts.

"Maybe there's something I missed among his papers and things that were sent to me," she thought aloud.

"Will you look?"

"Now?"

"I'd really like to know."

She wiped her hands on her apron and left the room. Several minutes later, she returned with a pouch of papers. "Maybe there's something in here."

An odd sensation dipped in his belly at more evidence of how she'd preserved all of Joe's possessions. The letters and grooming items in her trunk came to mind.

Tye dismissed the painful thoughts, pulled a stack of records from the leather pouch and leafed through them. A few official-looking documents caught his eye and he examined them closely. "Hot damn!"

"Tye!" Meg admonished.

Tye ignored her and laughed aloud, waving his discovery for the others to see. "Yorkshire Flame," he read from the first paper. "A Welsh cob, listed in section D in the studbook. We've got us a papered stud." He looked up again. "I've read about this breed—they're mountain horses."

"What does this mean?" she asked. "They're really worth something?"

Tye flipped through the pages. "All three of them. Papers are officially signed by someone named
Brescia
. Looks like…"

"What?"

"Looks like Joe won 'em in a poker game."

"No," Meg said, her voice disbelieving. She'd never known Joe to gamble.

"Here's the man's signature." Tye held it out for her to see.

She took the paper and read it herself.

"Smart of ya to cover our mares with him," Gus commented with a raised eyebrow.

"You did?" Meg asked, looking up excitedly.

"They look like they'd have stamina as saddle horses," Tye said with a shrug. "Had to make some kind of choice."

"So now what?"

"Now when I take old Yorkshire Flame a-courtin', I show his papers, and we can get a handsome price for his services."

"Did Joe know how much they'd be worth?" Meg asked.

"'Course he did. This man wouldn't have put up valuable horses unless the stakes were high."

Meg stacked plates.

Tye went for his hat. "I'll be gone the rest of the day."
I'll miss you,
he wanted to say, but Gus was still picking up dishes, and the words seemed too familiar.

"We'll be waiting," she said, as though she too felt the desire to touch or say something more before they parted. His gaze drifted across her hair. Surely his feelings for her were blatant in his every look. He couldn't look at her without a gut-wrenching twist of unrequited love wrapping him in knots. What a pathetic idiot he'd become.

"Carry me outside to wave goodbye," Eve said, enviously free to show her need for affection.

Tye picked her up, hugged her and gave Meg a final nod. Turning, he left the house, relieved that Meg had saved Joe's papers but disturbed that, even in death, Joe was still providing for Meg better than he could.

He'd been quiet ever since he'd brought her the stud money, enough to pay another three-month banknote. The rancher he'd done business with told another, and by Saturday, they'd had to deposit the cash in the bank.

Meg thought he should have been dancing for joy. She herself sang and daydreamed as she did her chores. But it wasn't only the money. The money had been the icing on the cake after their relationship had blossomed into intimacy.

She'd never known how exhilarating and wonderful it felt to cast one's inhibitions into the wind and enjoy another person wholeheartedly. Each morning she paused before the mirror and saw the change Gwynn had mentioned. She did look different. And she certainly felt different. She was so exhilarated some mornings, she couldn't even eat.

Meg set out their lunch on the blanket Tye had spread beneath a walnut tree and fixed places for the three of them.

"You was right, Tye!" Eve exclaimed. "Meg brung milk in a jar."

"Growing girls need their milk," he said with a smile.

"And I'm growing bigger," she said.

"You certainly are," Meg agreed. "You'll be big enough to go to school next fall."

"Will I?"

Tye frowned but said nothing.

They ate their lunch, an ordinary meal made special by Eve's exuberant delight. The sun filtered down through the leaves, speckling their heads and shoulders with golden light and bone-penetrating warmth. Meg couldn't remember being so happy.

Tye had initiated her to physical delights and taught her lovemaking was nothing to be ashamed of. Eve's presence added a cheer and a fullness to their home and their every activity that filled Meg's heart in another way.

And they had money in the bank. For the first time in several years Meg could breathe easily. There was enough for the next note
and
some improvements around the ranch. She could even buy material for dresses and order Eve a doll from a catalog.

What could possibly be better?

After eating, they threw walnut shells that the squirrels had left last fall, seeing who could throw the farthest. Tye let Meg win. He chased Eve across the tall grass and hid from her behind an outcropping of red rocks.

She found him, and they again chased one another. Finally, exhausted, Eve drank the remainder of the milk and fell asleep on the blanket, using Tye's thigh for a pillow.

He finger-combed the girl's hair from her forehead.

"Is something wrong?" Meg asked finally. He'd made exquisite love to her each night. He'd gone about his daily routine each day. But something didn't feel quite right.

"What could be wrong, Meg?" he asked.

"I don't know. You've been sort of quiet."

"Quiet bother you?"

"No." She plucked at the nap of the blanket. "You didn't seem very pleased about me mentioning school for Eve."

"I don't want her to go to school."

She stared at him. "But, Tye! How will she get an education? I know you're not one of those men who think women shouldn't learn reading and arithmetic."

"Not at all." He gazed affectionately on the sleeping child. "I want her to have a better life than I had. I want her to be educated. But you and I can do that."

She studied his handsome face, his blue eyes, letting her gaze encompass his broad shoulders and travel the length of his legs to where they crossed at the ankles.

When he noticed her perusal, his expression grew tender. He took the tablecloth she'd rolled, placed it beneath Eve's head and moved beside Meg. Stretching out, he pulled her down beside him, and she met his supple lips.

Tye stroked her cheek, gazed into her eyes and kissed her leisurely. She adored his attention. Craved it now. Everything he'd done since they'd ventured into this relationship had endeared him to her. And his love and concern for Eve only reinforced his goodness.

"I'm not a teacher," Meg said, touching his sun-dappled cheek. "And you have your hands full with the ranch. She can learn so much more in school."

"The only thing more she can learn is how small-minded and cruel other people are—children and adults alike," he replied, their noses touching. "I won't put her through that. I know how it feels to be looked on as something low and dirty. I never want her to feel like that."

Meg didn't know what to reply. She'd believed people would come around after she'd married Tye, but so far only one or two out of a hundred even spoke to her. She'd been excluded from church activities and women's gatherings, stared at, whispered about and verbally attacked.

And
she
came from a respectable family. Her parents had been married. She had no idea how much worse it had been for Tye all his life. How much worse it could be for Eve.

"Maybe we just need to show them she's as good as they are, and that we're not ashamed of her—or of ourselves."

"Just like you showed 'em, huh, Meg?" he said, caressingly threading his fingers through her hair. "Just like I showed 'em all those years. No. I won't have her hurt like that. And keeping her away from them is the only way I know how to keep her safe."

His protective instinct was understandable—and endearing, and she knew he meant to safeguard Eve from the same pain he'd endured, but was it right to keep the child hidden away? "I don't know if I have the qualities to teach her all she needs to know. And what about all the time it would take?"

Was she just being selfish?

"I will make this decision, Meg." His tone offered no room for opposition, and being shut out disturbed her … well,
hurt
her.

His vehemence disturbed her. He'd done everything she'd asked of him and never asked for anything in return. If he felt so strongly about Eve not attending school, surely Meg could manage to teach her the basics. He'd said he would share the task. She didn't want anything to change what had been taking place and growing between them. She didn't want to lose this incredible closeness and the delight of his imaginative attentions.

Tye made her feel young and beautiful and alive. He had changed her world. She didn't want to risk losing that for anything. She'd already lost enough.

"All right, Tye. If you feel so strongly."

He ran his palm up her spine, cupped her head and pulled her into a slow, easy kiss. From time to time they spoke softly of inconsequential things. Meg closed her eyes and rested, feeling his touch as he picked grass from her hair or stroked her arm, sensing when he leaned above her on one elbow.

Her face close to his, she smiled into his eyes and he caressed her cheek with a thumb.

When Eve awoke from her nap, she flung herself over Tye's side with an indelicate flurry of petticoats, and Meg and Tye moved apart to let her rest between them.