Schulze, Dallas (22 page)

“Let’s go see if we can help Mrs. Sunday with anything,” she said,
holding out her hand to Mary.

“Mama told us to scat from the kitchen,” Mary said, taking Lila’s
other hand with the friendly confidence of a child who knew she was well loved.
“She said we were a pair of pestulant pests and that, if we didn’t get out of
her kitchen, dinner wasn’t going to be done until breakfasttime.”

“What’s a pestulant pest?” Angel asked, her blue eyes wide and
questioning.

“I guess it’s what you and Mary are,” Lila said. “Why don’t we see
if we can find something useful for the two of you to do?”

***

Bishop had never been a churchgoer. He didn’t have any quarrel
with the Lord, he simply didn’t feel the need to formalize his relationship
with Him by attending church. The last time he’d set foot in a church, he’d
been younger than Gavin. He’d found a frog on the way to the service and put it
in his pocket for safekeeping. The creature had escaped sometime during the
service and made its presence known by jumping onto the piano keys just as Mrs.
Cleary was beginning the second chorus of “Bringing in the Sheaves.” The
resulting chaos had been caused more by her hysterical screams than by anything
the frog did, but pointing this out had not saved him from a trip to the
woodshed.

The minister, a humorless man who viewed all humanity as a
seething cauldron of sin and Bishop as a proof positive of that theory, had
visited the McKenzie household the next day. He demanded—and got—an apology
from Bishop. He also demanded the right to punish the boy personally and
publicly. Bishop’s parents had refused and the sermon that followed had
detailed the wages of sin and the dangers of allowing them to go unpunished.
His parents had stood firm and the minister had departed, casting dark glances
in Bishop’s direction.

He’d learned several lessons from the incident: that the seat of
his pants was no protection against a firmly wielded piece of hickory; that he
wasn’t cut out to be a churchgoer; that being a man of God did not necessarily
give a man a charitable nature; and never to bring a frog to church.

Finding himself sitting down at a minister’s table twenty years
later, he had to restrain the urge to check his pockets for stray frogs. He
felt as out of place as a bull in a china shop or a sinner in church, for that
matter. Glancing around the table, he half expected to catch a disapproving
look or two but the only glance that crossed his was his hostess’s.

“Another biscuit, Sheriff?” Bridget asked, lifting the bowl and
offering it to him.

“No, thank you, Mrs. Sunday.”

“A mite more stew then?” Bridget suggested. “There’s plenty more
on the stove.”

“I don’t—”

“Leave the poor man alone,” Joseph ordered mildly. “He hasn’t had
a chance to eat what he has.” He glanced at Bishop, his dark eyes holding a
smile though his mouth remained solemn. “My wife believes that all the world’s
ills could be solved if everyone ate more.”

“You’ll not be trying to deny that hunger is at the heart of a
great deal of the troubles in the world today, now will you?” Bridget asked her
husband. “A man can’t be content when his belly’s empty, that’s a certainty.
And a man who’s not content is a man likely to go looking for trouble. And
that's
always easy enough to find if you’re looking.”

“Well, you certainly don’t have to worry about anyone getting up
from your table and looking for trouble,” Joseph told her, his eyes sparkling
with laughter. “The only thing you have to worry about is whether they’ll be
able to get up at all.”

“You can laugh all you want.” Bridget sniffed. “But I don’t recall
seeing you turn down a second helping in the last fifteen years.”

“Guilty as charged,” Joseph admitted, chuckling. “I can certainly
offer myself as evidence of the benefits of a full stomach making for a
contented man. But that doesn’t mean that our guests want to find themselves as
well stuffed as a Christmas goose, my dear.”

Listening to the light exchange between the other couple, Lila
wondered wistfully if she’d ever find that kind of ease in her own marriage.
Would there come a time when they could laugh with each other the way Bridget
and Joseph did? It was difficult to imagine such a thing. She stole a glance
across the table at Bishop and found him looking at her. Their eyes locked for
a moment. There was something questioning in his gaze, something that made her
wonder if his thoughts had been running along a path similar to her own. Did he
look into the future and wonder about their hasty marriage?

A loud squeal broke into her thoughts and drew her attention to
the end of the table where Bridget sat. George, the youngest of the five
children, sat next to his mother. At not quite a year old, he was plump,
rosy-cheeked, irresistible, and quite well aware of his charm. Perched on a
stack of books, with a dish towel looped around his torso, under his arms, and
tied in back of the chair, he waved his spoon with the enthusiasm of a medicine
man holding a bottle of snake oil and repeated his squealed demand for
attention.

“Heavens above, George, where are your manners?” Bridget scolded
softly. “You’ll have our guests thinking I’m raising a wild Indian, yelling at
the table that way.”

Delighted at finding himself the center of attention, George
laughed, a fat chuckle that made it clear that he didn’t take his mother’s
scolding seriously.

“He seems like a very happy baby,” Lila commented, watching
Bridget dexterously maneuver a spoonful of mashed potatoes into his mouth.

“He’s a spoiled young man, is what he is. Aren’t you, my pet?”
Bridget mopped potato off his chin and returned his messy grin with a loving
smile.

Beneath the table, Lila touched one hand to her still-flat
stomach. It still didn’t seem possible that she was carrying a child. In a few
months, she’d be a mother. From the beginning, the idea had terrified her.
Looking at George, for the first time she felt a twinge of anticipation. There
was something enormously appealing about the way his eyes crinkled almost shut
when he smiled. She wasn’t foolish enough to think that babies were always
smiling cherubs, but still...

Angel, who had been sitting quietly next to Lila, chose that
moment to speak up, apparently reading her stepmother’s thoughts with
devastating accuracy.

“Lila’s going to have a baby,” she said cheerfully.

Lila flushed as all eyes turned in her direction. There was
nothing embarrassing about Angel’s announcement, she told herself. It wasn’t as
if she could keep her condition a secret for much longer. But she couldn’t
shake the idea that Bridget and Joseph had only to look at her to read the
truth—-that her child had been conceived out of wedlock. Angel continued before
anyone could offer any comment.

“I like babies,” she said, filling the silence before it could
become awkward. “I’m going to have a hundred of them when I grow up.”

Her extravagant claim caused the adults to chuckle. “I’ll offer up
a prayer for your husband, then,” Joseph told her. “He’s going to have his
hands full with such a houseful.”

“I’m going to marry Joey,” Angel said calmly. She bestowed a sweet
smile on Joseph, Jr., who turned crimson with embarrassment. At twelve, he had
his mother’s red hair and his father’s quiet nature. From the moment she’d been
introduced to him, Angel had viewed him as her personal property.

There was another round of laughter but, looking at, her
stepdaughter, Lila found herself wondering if perhaps young Joseph shouldn’t
start looking for a way to earn sufficient money to support a large family. If
there was one thing she’d learned about Angel, it was that, underneath her
sweet exterior, was a will of solid iron. In fifteen years, if she still had
her eye on Joseph, Lila wouldn’t be surprised if she got him.

The potentially awkward moment was past and the conversation
continued without anyone mentioning Lila’s pregnancy again. The rest of the
evening passed without incident. Lila insisted on helping Bridget clean up
after supper. Though she’d grown up with servants and had always assumed she’d
one day have servants of her own, her mother had made sure that Lila was
capable of running a household without them. She might not have washed many
dishes but she knew how to go about it, just as she could wash clothes, mop a
floor, and, if necessary, make her own soap to do those tasks.

She and Bridget worked companionably, talking as easily as if
they’d known each other for years rather than a matter of days. Bridget’s
friendship, new as it was, had helped to ease the homesickness Lila had felt at
finding herself abruptly transplanted two thousand miles away from family and
friends. By the time the evening ended, she was feeling relaxed and at ease.

The walk back to the hotel was enlivened by Angel's recitation of
her day’s adventures. She’d spent most of her time playing with Mary, but Lila
noted the number of times the name Joey was mentioned and guessed that she’d
managed to make herself known to her future husband in no uncertain terms.
Gavin, as usual, had little to say. When questioned directly, he lifted one
shoulder in a shrug and said that he liked the Sundays well enough. Coming from
her taciturn stepson, that was high praise.

Though she was vividly aware of Bishop’s presence, as long as the
children were with them, Lila felt safe. He’d already agreed to leave their
room arrangements as they were. She’d simply make sure that they didn’t find
themselves alone again the way they had this afternoon. She had no intention of
being caught off guard that way again, not until she’d worked a few things out
in her own mind.

Bishop was just as glad that the children were with them too.
Though a part of him wanted nothing more than to be able to take his wife back
to bed, another part of him found the very strength of that desire something of
which to be wary. There was a danger in wanting something so much. It could
make a man vulnerable.

They parted outside Lila’s door, each acutely aware of the other,
neither willing to let it show.

***

“The house has been empty for six months,” Bishop said as he
unlocked the door. “Pete Moreton built it when he struck a vein of silver. He
was planning on bringing his girl out from Boston but, when he sent for her,
she wrote back to tell him she’d married somebody else. No one ever lived
here.”

“What happened to Mr. Moreton?” Lila asked as she stepped across
the threshold, lifting her skirts a little to keep them clear of the dust on
the floor.

“He got drunk, lost his mine in a poker game and left town,
heading for Nevada.” He left the door open behind them, letting sunlight spill
in across the dusty room.

“The poor man. He must have loved her very much.”

“He was a fool,” Bishop said flatly. “He hadn’t even seen her in
almost ten years.”

“So he was a fool to still love her?” Lila slanted him a
questioning glance.

“He didn’t love her. After all those years, he didn’t even know
her any more. He was in love with a memory.”

“Perhaps. But perhaps not. I think real love can withstand a great
deal, including time apart.”

There was a wistfulness in her tone that made Bishop suddenly
remember the boy she’d been engaged to, the one who’d died. Was she thinking
about her dead fiancé?

“I guess this wasn’t real love then, was it? Lucky for us, Pete
built the house before he found that out.”

Lila looked a little startled by his tone or perhaps by his
callous dismissal of the other man’s loss. Bishop turned away from the
questions in her eyes, crossing the room with brisk strides to push open a
window, letting in a wave of crisp air. He turned and gave the room a critical
look.

“He furnished the place for her too. Had all this stuff hauled up
the mountain from Denver.”

“That will certainly make things simpler,” Lila said. She ran her
finger through the layer of dust on a small end table. “Who owns this place
now?”

“The bank does. They gave Pete a mortgage based on what the mine
was worth. When he left town, he left Frank Smythe holding the mortgage.
There’s not much call for houses this size in Paris so it’s been empty since.
Not many miners have families with them.”

As he spoke, Lila was flicking back the corner of the sheet that
covered an upholstered wing chair, studying it critically. Watching her, Bishop
was acutely aware that this house, while nice by local standards, was a far cry
from what she’d grown up with. He wouldn’t be surprised if she turned her nose
up at the idea of living here, he thought as he watched her move from room to
room. She was, after all, Lila Adams of the Philadelphia Adamses. Changing her
name to McKenzie couldn’t change who and what she was.

“Is the furniture included in the rent?” she asked as she returned
to the front room.

“Yes.”

She tugged the sheet completely off the sofa, dropping it on the
floor while she stood back and surveyed what she’d uncovered. Bishop looked at
the sofa and thought about the exquisite heirlooms that furnished River Walk.
The comparison was painful.

“Not exactly Queen Anne,” he said.