Joe's Wife (6 page)

"Well, goodbye and good luck,"
Rosa
said. "Hatch, I'll see you before I leave town." Hastily, she left the church.

Meg looked at the package in her hands. None of her
Telford
family except Gwynn had come to this ceremony. None of the other church members. If her hired hands and Tye's two friends hadn't come, no one would have witnessed their marriage.

Tye stepped into the small cloakroom with Reverend Baker, and Meg realized he was paying him for the ceremony. "Come sign the certificate, Meg," the reverend called easily.

A few minutes later, they stood outside the building, and the surroundings seemed oddly ordinary compared with the rest of this surreal day. "Well," she said. "Do we need to go get your things?"

Tye nodded.

Gus pulled up the wagon, Purdy riding in the bed, then got down and climbed in beside Purdy, leaving Tye and Meg to climb onto the springed seat.

"You know Gus and Purdy?" she asked.

"Worked roundups with 'em," Tye said, nodding to the two older men. "Guess we'll be working the ranch together now."

Purdy leaned forward and shook Tye's hand, mumbling his congratulations. Tye took the reins and drove the team to Banks's Boardinghouse. Meg and her hands stood, preparing to get down, but Tye stopped them with an upraised palm. "I'll be right back."

"We'll help," Meg offered in bewilderment.

"Don't need help."

She exchanged a glance with Gus, then sat back down. Tye eased himself to the ground carefully. A few minutes later he returned carrying a saddle and saddlebags, a bedroll and two rifles. He wore his hat and had strapped his gun belt to his hips. He stashed the saddle and bags in the back, the rifles under the seat, climbed back up and took the reins.

Meg said nothing. She'd been in his rented room once, yet she hadn't realized he owned nothing more than these few possessions. A man didn't need much, she guessed.

He made another stop at the stables for his horse, tied it behind the wagon and led the team out of town. They didn't speak more than a few words on the ride home, Meg knowing that the two old men were seated behind them and that any awkward thing they might say would be overheard.

Tye couldn't get the image of Meg's shock and confusion over the ring out of his mind. Had she planned to wear her first husband's ring even though she was marrying him? No, she must've just forgotten. But it bothered him.

She'd stared at that gold band on her hand, and he'd stared at it, too, knowing it was worth a lot more than the silver one he'd loaded fertilizer for four nights to earn.

And then, as if she'd been sacrificing an arm, she'd worked the ring from her finger and allowed him to replace it. No one in attendance believed theirs was an alliance of love and passion, so he had nothing to hide. But the fact that she'd worn Joe's ring to their wedding seared a new, yet familiar brand of humiliation into his previously callused hide.

Tye observed the land they reached and the meager assortment of buildings with mixed emotions. Legally this land was his now. Morally, it was Meg's. They'd struck a bargain. His entire life he'd never owned anything worth more than a rifle or a horse. He'd never had a place to call home or to sink time and sweat and energy into. He meant for this to be that place.

And he meant to do right by Meg and by their agreement.

Gus took the team and Tye retrieved his things.

Meg led him into the house.

The kitchen, smelling of warm bread, took up the entire back half of the structure. An enormous cast-iron stove stood at one end of the room. Two long trestle tables, lined end to end, occupied the center of the floor, benches along their lengths. The other side of the long room held a fireplace, a rocker and a few mismatched, overstuffed chairs. That area, which opened into an L-shape, shared the fireplace with whatever lay beyond the doorway.

Meg removed her bonnet and gloves and set the small package on the table.

Tye deposited his belongings near the door.

"I'll show you the rest of the house," she said matter-of-factly.

He followed her down the length of the room to the bottom of the L. The space around the corner held a sofa and chair, an oak cabinet of some sort and a glass-fronted china closet.

"That was my grandmother's. Joe and I planned to have a real house someday, with a porch and a dining room and a parlor. I have my mother's china packed away. No sense using it out here with only cowhands eating at my table."

"You can still have your house with a porch and your dining room," Tye said.

She didn't look at him. "Maybe someday," was all she said.

After a minute, she opened a door that led into a bedroom that smelled like violets—like her. He followed her uneasily.

He first noticed her chest of drawers just inside the door, a tall, hand-carved piece of heavy furniture. A comb and brush, a book and a few hairpins lay on the top. Meg's things. He had the crazy desire to reach out and touch them, but he kept his hand at his side.

A metal bedstead stood against the wall, the mattress covered with a star-patterned quilt, soft-looking, homey, inviting images of sleeping with her beneath its downy comfort. He refused to entertain those thoughts right now and let out a slow, self-disciplining breath.

At the foot of the bed sat a horsehide chest. The stand beside the bed held a pitcher and face bowl on an embroidered scarf. He pictured her standing there in her underclothes … or less … washing. A reprehensible tide of heat and longing engulfed him, and he reminded himself she'd brought him here to show him where he'd sleep, not to rip off his clothes and immediately sate his aroused body.

Whatever happened between them would have to happen naturally. Slowly.

He turned abruptly. A wardrobe stood on the opposite wall. Tye's attention was riveted on a pair of black polished Union boots standing beside it. Joe's boots.

Joe's room.

With a sinking feeling of disappointment in his gut, Tye pulled his gaze from the boots.

He didn't let himself look at the bed again.

Another man still occupied this room.

Inasmuch as they'd struck a bargain, he was a stranger to this woman. She'd been widowed barely a year. He'd seen the grief and pain in her eyes that day outside the mercantile when she'd asked him about her husband's body.

She wore a pale green cambric dress with darker green stripes, obviously not new, but nice, and he'd been pleased to see her appear in it that morning. Of course, she couldn't wear mourning to her own wedding ceremony, so this dress didn't mean anything, he realized. She was still wearing black in her heart.

She needed Tye to help her keep this ranch. But she didn't love him.

"Is there another room?" he asked without much hope. The house hadn't looked that big from the outside, and this seemed like the only space left behind the kitchen.

"A pantry," she replied. "A root cellar. And some storage space in the attic."

"Can I see it?"

"The attic?"

He nodded.

"Well … sure."

She led him back into the other room and pointed to a trapdoor overhead. "Pull on there," she instructed, indicating the dangling rope.

He did, and a narrow set of stairs extended. Grimacing against the pain in his thigh, he climbed the steps and surveyed the room above. It ran the width of the house and had a tiny window at each end. A few packing crates sat in a far corner, probably holding Meg's mother's china. The space wasn't tall enough to stand in, but the flooring was solid and there was room to stretch out.

"I'll sleep up here," he decided aloud.

"What?" she called from below.

He descended the stairs carefully, holding his expression firm. "I'll sleep up there."

Her wide hazel eyes rounded with surprise. "Why?"

"I can't sleep in the barn, because I assume your hands have rooms out there."

"Yes, but—"

"So, I'll sleep up there." He started to walk away from her, then decided he owed her an explanation and turned back.

She met his eyes, doubt clouding hers.

"We need a little time to get to know one another," he said. Besides, there was already one man sleeping in that bed with her, three would make a crowd. "Let's give each other that time."

Was that relief he saw in her expression?

A deep rose flush darkened her neck and cheeks. Her gaze moved to his shirtfront. If she had any feelings on the subject, she kept them to herself. But she didn't argue with him.

He'd known she wouldn't.

"Why don't you open your gift?" he suggested.

"Oh, oh yes, of course." She bustled into the kitchen. The small package looked pathetically alone on the enormous table. Meg approached it, reminded of her wedding to Joe and the reception that had followed at the
Telford
home, with guests spilling into the yard and gaily wrapped packages stacked atop a table on the veranda.

That had been before the war, when the citizens of Aspen Grove and the neighboring ranches had still been prosperous. Many of the items she and Joe had received that day had since been traded or sold.

Meg slipped the white ribbon from the package and peeled back the paper. The box held a set of carefully wrapped, cut-glass salt and pepper shakers with sterling silver lids.

"They're lovely," she said, and meant it. She'd had an entire set, much like them, consisting of spoon trays and berry bowls, jelly dishes and cruets, but those had been among the items she'd sold for feed last winter. "
Rosa
said it was from her and Lottie. Who's Lottie?"

He couldn't explain Lottie to her. Not just yet. "Lottie is … another friend of mine."

"Oh. Well, it was kind of them to send a gift. I'll be sure to send a proper thank-you."

"I'm sure you will."

She met his eyes uncertainly.

He'd have to tell her eventually. He'd given his word to take Eve and raise her.

Tye watched the mixture of expressions cross her lovely face, studied her straight spine as she turned and placed the salt and pepper shakers in her cabinet. The pale green dress was lovely on her. Its cinched style showed off the tiny waist he'd often admired and left him wondering about the softly rounded hips and legs so well hidden beneath the folds of the skirt.

A small, knitted purse with tasseled ties still hung forgotten from her elbow.

It had been all he could do in the time he'd had before today to earn the cash money for the ring. He would have liked to have given her something else, an heirloom or something meaningful, something a woman like her deserved. He'd never had much more than the clothes he wore. When he was old enough, he'd made enough to provide for his mother, and the rest … well, the rest he'd drunk and gambled because he was isolated and lonely—and because it was expected of him.

She wouldn't have wanted anything that had belonged to his mother, anyway, even if he'd had something.

Two solid thumps on the screen door brought him out of his thoughts.

Meg turned with a smile. "That's Major. He must have been out hunting when we arrived. He's probably curious to know who's here."

The door opened without her crossing to open it, and an enormous, long-haired dog nosed his way through. He carried a chunk of wood in his mouth, promptly crossed the room and dropped it in the wood box beside the stove.

"Good boy, Major," she said with a laugh.

The dog immediately zeroed in on Tye and came forward slowly, nose sniffing the air, tail wagging low.

Meg crossed to Tye and touched his arm. "This is Major," she explained, the touch obviously a sign for the animal that he was a friend.

The heat from her fingers seeped through his shirtsleeve, and Tye stopped himself from moving away from the temptation of her nearness. She moved away herself soon enough. "I'll change now. I was going to make a pie for our supper."

"I'll change, too. And then I'll acquaint myself with the place."