Mary Connealy (52 page)

“I don’t
think
you’re too young for chopping. There’s no
I think
about it. You’re
too young for chopping
, period. You’re only five. I keep that ax as sharp as an Apache tomahawk, and it’s every bit as dangerous. I’ve only been letting the older boys work it for a couple of years.”

Mark glared.

Daniel had to hold his frown firm. He was mighty proud of all his boys, but Mark was the biggest handful. Maybe not the smartest, because all of them were smart, but the craftiest for a fact. Daniel loved that about him. It’d take Mark as far as he wanted to go in life—as long as it didn’t take him to the ax. “Your chance’ll come. After the watering, you can fetch around sticks with John ’n’ Luke then break up the ones you brung in.” Daniel held Mark’s gaze for as long as it took.

Finally, Mark kicked at the nearest mound of snow, sending a plume of white into the air to be swirled about by the wind. “All right. I’ll leave it be.”

“You know better ’n to lie to me, boy. Right?” Daniel waited. Mark might cut a corner time to time and mislead a body with vague words, but his son knew not to lie straight to Daniel’s face. Mark had learned that lesson over Daniel’s knee.

“I know.” Mark stomped his foot hard. “I promise.”

“Good boy.” Daniel ran his gloved hand over Mark’s heavy fur cap, almost knocking it off his head. Daniel leaned close.

Mark gave him a suspicious look, the one he got if Daniel ever did something so foolish as hug him. Daniel stooped quickly, grabbed a handful of snow, and smeared it into Mark’s face. Mark shrieked and dived toward the ground, caught up a ball of snow, and threw it back. Daniel laughed, and the fight was on.

By the time they were done, Daniel was almost too warm in his fur-lined buckskin coat and his long scarf, wrapped five times around his neck. His already-battered Stetson had been knocked off his head and trampled. Snow pounded onto his head had turned him halfway into a snowman. And he knew from the burn that his cheeks were glowing red with cold every bit as much as Mark’s. Slapping his son on the back, Daniel said, “Get to it, boy.”

Daniel glanced at the door to the cave. Normally about now, he’d go inside and slice more steaks. He brought a hank of meat in every night to thaw for the next day. They went through a cow and a pig about once a month, and he had the better part of a cow carcass hanging in the barn right now. He was glad he’d cut it down to size, because it was frozen solid.

He didn’t want to go inside. “Bringing a new ma home for you boys was kinda an accident. But we’re stuck with her now. There’s no way back.”

Mark sighed.

Daniel knew exactly how he felt.

“Reckon we’ll just have to make the best of it, huh, Pa?” Mark crossed his arms and shot a hostile look toward the cave.

Daniel well remembered Grace’s scathing comments about his sons when she’d been their teacher. And she’d been particularly hard on Mark. He didn’t blame his boy for being unhappy. Daniel said, “Remember last summer when the McClellens were attacked and almost killed by those murdering renegades who were running the hills?”

“Yep, ’twere a mighty close thing.”

“Well,”—Daniel picked up his hat and whacked the snow off it against his leg—“having Grace come live with us can’t be any worse than that.”

“The McClellens got to solve their problems by shooting folks.” Mark gave their home a contemplative look.

“No, they didn’t. No one got shot in that mess, although it looked to be shooting trouble for a while. They solved their problem with their smarts. They worked it out. Grace…uh…that is, your ma…is here to stay. So we’ll use our smarts to figure out a way to get along with her.”

“And Miss Calhoun is smart, too, or leastways she kept acting like she was.”

Daniel shrugged his shoulders. “She might be smart. No sign of it anywheres I can see. And besides, there’s smart and there’s smart.”

“What’s ’at mean, Pa?” Mark scooped up a handful of snow and seemed to be studying the house.

Daniel had to bite back a smile. “It means…smart is what you do with it.” Daniel nodded his head at the house. “I’ve known a few real educated men, got through high school ’n’ everything, who didn’t have a lick of sense. And I’ve knowed some men who couldn’t read nor write, who didn’t have a day of book learning, but I’d trust ’em with big decisions about real important stuff, like my cattle, even.”

“So we’ll just see what kind of smart Ma turns out to be.”

Daniel sighed again, and this time the sound seemed to come all the way from his toes. “Yep. The good news is, since we’re stuck with her for life, she’s got a lot of time to learn.”

Mark hurled the snowball at the cave door. It splatted harmlessly against the rough wood. “She’s got the rest of our lives.”

Daniel nodded, thinking that the menfolk in his family leaned toward long lives. He envied the boys getting to grow up and move away.

Then Mark perked up. “You know what?”

“What?” Fear skittered down Daniel’s spine like an eight-legged creepy crawler. He’d seen that wily look on his son’s face before.

“She don’t have the rest of
our
lives. She’s only got the rest of
her
life.” Mark tipped his head sideways in a way that was purely cheerful. “Gotta get to the chores.”

Mark went off toward the barn whistling, almost as if he knew Grace’s life wasn’t necessarily going to be very long.

S
he was going to die. If she was lucky, it would happen soon.

Grace pushed herself away from the wall. “And when in my life have I ever been lucky?” The whispered words echoed in the burrow she now called home. She might as well plan on making a hundred years old. She moved hesitantly toward the steak—expecting the bloody thing to make a run for it.

It just lay there, taunting her. It turned her stomach, but she was hungry. After a dozen or so nervous looks at the door, which she expected to crash open any second, she got tough. The one thing Grace knew how to be was tough.

She picked up the fork Daniel had washed up and set aside, speared the steak, and tossed it on the stovetop. The steak sizzled and sent a savory plume of smoke toward the roof of the cave, all of twelve inches over her head. Grace picked up the egg and biscuit sandwiches and began gnawing on them as the steak turned to a more edible color. The dry bread and cold eggs stuck in her throat, but they tasted like heaven.

Daniel and the boys had downed all the milk, and Daniel had left the bucket, now filled with rapidly melting snow, on the stove.

She looked at the communal tin cup, remembered how she’d lived with Parrish, and decided this wasn’t so bad. She dipped herself a drink of cold water to wash down the crumbling biscuits. When the biscuits and eggs were gone, she used the fork to lift the brown steak, now dripping clear juice. Unable to find a more ladylike way to dine, she proceeded to eat it hanging from the fork with all the manners of a hungry wolverine.

Grace ate the whole steak, which was at least an inch thick. She’d been hungry for a very long time, eking out a living on the two dollars a month she kept from her teacher’s salary. She thought enviously of the blackened potatoes. She could’ve had one if she’d been on her toes.

She licked the fork clean, considered what to do with the steak bones, pitched them out the door as the boys had done, and washed the fork. She found a rag and wiped the blood from her steak off the table and looked around her home with satisfaction. There wasn’t going to be a lot of housekeeping to do. That was for sure.

As she tried to wrap her mind around her current circumstances, she remembered the foul accusation Daniel Reeves had made last night. Equal parts fury and humiliation flooded through her as hot as the blood in her veins.

She had learned how to walk and dress like a lady. She’d learned how to speak correctly, remember her manners, and always behave properly—all without help. To be caught in this compromising situation by the parson then accused of flagrant sin by that worthless Daniel Reeves—Well, it was as if the last two years of struggle for respectability were for nothing.

With a pang of fear that overrode her anger, she suddenly wondered if the condition of being poor and unwanted clung to her like an odor. Perhaps she’d fooled no one. Maybe the whole town had turned up their noses at her from the first. Maybe the school board had been looking for an excuse to fire her when Daniel came to them with his complaints.

The door crashed open. Daniel filled the doorway then came inside carrying a huge knife.

He might be planning to kill her, but again she remembered that she’d never been lucky.

Daniel closed the door and set a bucket on the stove. He went to a dark corner of the tiny room.

In the shadows, Grace noticed half a beef hanging by one skinned leg. How odd that she hadn’t seen it before. Of course, she’d been in a daze since she’d awakened in this house. “Daniel…” Grace figured there was no point in putting this off. They definitely needed to talk.

“Huh?” Daniel hacked away at the meat without so much as glancing at her.

“Umm, I…I think—that is, we need to…” Grace had no idea what to say.

Daniel turned to face her with a stack of meat in his hand. “Talk? We need to talk? Is that what you were going to say?”

Grace nodded, her tongue as frozen as the world outside. She saw the fury in him. She saw the despicable suspicion clearly written on his face. She wanted to deny his accusations. She wanted to demand he treat her with respect. She wanted a different husband. Or better yet, no husband at all.

Into the silence, Daniel said with a sneer, “We could talk about the fact that you are now my wife, even though I neither want nor need a wife.”

They probably really did need to talk about that. “Well—”

Daniel cut her off as if she were just another steak. Of course, he didn’t use the knife. His sharp tongue was enough. “We could talk about the fact that you hate my sons. Not a good thing when you’re now their ma.”

“I don’t—” Grace stopped. Daniel had a point. She wouldn’t have gone so far as to say
hate
. Hate was a little harsh. It wasn’t Christian to hate anyone. Sure, she thought they were crude, grimy, smelly, noisy, rowdy, and rude. But hate? No.

Daniel snorted at her silence as if she’d just admitted to hating his boys. “We could talk about the fact that I’ve got no time for you, no place for you, and no interest in you.”

Grace wanted to say, “Same here,” but Daniel didn’t give her a chance.

“Or we could talk about the really interesting question. The one that really might answer all the others.” Daniel glared at her. The silence stretched. He finally said in a voice that could have blown in on the icy wind, “What were you doing hiding in the back of my wagon? Were you hiding from someone? Or were you planning exactly what happened? Did you need a husband and you heard I owned a nice stretch of land?”

“As if”—finally he’d asked a question she could answer, so she crossed her arms and lifted her chin and glared right back—“I’d pick
you
.”

Daniel’s fair complexion mottled with red. “You might. You might if you found yourself…needing to be married right quick.”

Daniel’s blue eyes flashed bolts of lightning. “Desperate times call for desperate measures. What’s his name, Grace? I’ll deliver you and his”—Daniel glanced significantly at her stomach—“
mistake
to his door.”

“Daniel Reeves…” Grace jammed her fists onto her hips. The coarse cloth that touched her hands reminded her she was wearing pants. She was embarrassed, vulnerable, and so insulted she wanted to slap him. “There is no man. That is a dirty lie you made up to shame me. Don’t you ever—”

The door flew open. Didn’t anybody ever open and close the door slowly in this place?

Mark came in carrying a bucket of snow. He stopped short and looked between the two of them, reading their expressions.

Daniel relieved him of the bucket and handed him the other one, the snow inside now melted.

Grace had to step back to let Daniel pass her.

“Mark, get back outside and stay there. Your ma and I have to talk a few things over. Don’t come back in here till I tell you to.”

“Are you fixin’ to return her now, Pa? I can hitch up the team for you whilst you get her out of Abe’s clothes and back into the nightdress. It’ll be plumb nice to have her gone. You won’t have to share your blanket anymore, nor lie with each other. I’ll be glad to tell the parson she did nothing but sleep with you the whole time she was here.”

“Quit helping me!”

Mark pointed to the floor. “There ain’t no room for her. The two of you was so crowded you ’bout had to lay right smack on top of her. Now that you’ve tried her out, you can tell Parson Roscoe and the whole town she just weren’t no good.”

“Mark!” Daniel’s roar made Grace jump.

“I’m only trying to chip in and return her. It’s what we all want. Her, too, I reckon.” Mark glanced at Grace.

She remembered those eyes. This one was
always
thinking.

Mark swung the bucket of water.

“Get out. Get your chores done,” Daniel ordered.

Grace didn’t like the tone of Daniel’s voice. She felt sorry for the little boy. No wonder he was so difficult.

Parrish had been able to scare children into submission with just his voice, too. Although he didn’t always confine himself to yelling.

“Get to work and stay busy until I call you in for dinner. Go!”

Mark glared at Daniel then turned his eyes on Grace. With enough stubborn grumbling to save himself from being obedient, he finally turned and marched out of the cave, leaving the door wide open.

Daniel shut it without comment.

“You leave that little boy alone.” Grace surprised herself. And she wasn’t done yet. “How hard do you make him work?”

“Until he drops over if I’m lucky.” Daniel gave her an unreadable look. He was probably trying to decide how much hard work he could get out of her.

“Children aren’t slave labor.” Grace stepped right up to his face and wagged a finger under his nose. “It’s no wonder they acted up in school. They’re used to this kind of treatment. They think this is normal to be worked like dogs from morning to night. When I treated them decently, they probably—”