The Bride Backfire (13 page)

The first stone could have been an accident. Easily. The second possibly, if less likely. But by the time his hand rustled through the husks to close around a third rock, they might as well have taken up residence in Adam's stomach.

How could she?
He groped for an explanation even as he searched out two more of the offending objects, placing them in a neat pile beside his parents' bed. When he found no more within his reach, Adam stood, walked to the head of the bed, and withdrew his pocketknife.

Swift slices made short work of the tight seam, but Adam didn't kneel to finish the job.

“Opal.” For the first time, he looked at his wife.

“Adam.” All color had fled her cheeks, leaving her hair a brilliant flame of defiance as she raised her chin.

No need to ask whether or not she'd done it. She made no more protestations of innocence. Only insolence flashed in those blue eyes. Anyone walking through the door of the soddy at that moment would swear she had cause for righteous anger. The kind that swept over Adam as he saw his mother surreptitiously rubbing her lower back.

Sure, Ma hadn't been the most welcoming person in the whole world, but that was to be expected.

Ma's smart enough to suspect I didn't run around with Opal Speck and that the shotgun wedding was a farce. Stands to reason she'd be wary of the woman she thinks tricked me into marriage.
He looked at Opal's rigid stance, a slim line soon to swell with another man's child.
Especially since it's true.

“Come here.” Adam stared at his wife. The same woman he'd wanted to kiss earlier that day.

Opal drew closer, not challenging his authority. She stood at the head of the bed, shoulders tense as she ignored Pa's fulminating glower, Larry's calculating air, Willa's betrayed expression, and Dave's angry fidgeting.

“You find the rest.” He stepped back and gestured for her to finish the job.

She sank to her knees, spine straight as could be, stiffened by a pride the likes of which Adam never saw before. He waited as she groped around, making the dry bedding rasp and shift until she pulled out first one stone then another. Opal plunged her arm into the mattress again, reached until it swallowed her shoulder, and then gave up. “Seems like there aren't any more.” Her voice took on a flat quality he hadn't heard before.

“You'd know.” Pa kicked one of the rocks, making it fly and hit her skirts before it bounced off. “Planting these to make my wife miserable, after all she does.”

“Rotten thing to do.” Willa's admonition took everyone by surprise, since she rarely spoke against anyone.

“Isn't it, though?” Opal agreed with his sister but looked at his mother as though in challenge.

“Why didn't you just confess?” Adam wanted to know. “Ma gave you the opportunity.”

“I couldn't.” Her tone kept that lifeless luster he found so disturbing. “She knew that.”

“Suspected as much,” Ma sounded more triumphant than sorrowful. “That she wouldn't give an inch. Hoped I wouldn't risk looking like a fool if my suspicions were wrong, didn't she?”

“I don't like it.” Larry looked from Ma, to Opal, and back again. “Don't like it one bit, Ma.”

“How could you wish that on anyone?” Adam still couldn't reconcile such a petty act with the woman who'd helped keep peace for so long.

“Didn't.” Her gaze stayed fixed on the wall.

“No need to wish when you can make it happen, eh, girlie?” Pa bent over to pick up one of the rocks. “Handy for a stoning. That's what they would've done to a woman like you in biblical times. Not pure on her wedding night—”

“Pa!” Adam clamped a hand around his father's wrist, making him drop the stone. “There'll be no talk of that.”

“She must be punished, Adam.” Pa wrenched his hand away. “I know she's with child, but you'll have to think of something.”

“I already have.” He knew what would hurt her most. “Opal, there are seven stones. One stone for each day makes that a full week you won't go to help out on the Speck farm. Aside from church the next two Sundays, you won't see your father or brothers.”

“No!” She swung from the wall to fix on him, eyes wide and pleading. “Please, Adam! Don't do this!”

“I didn't.” He forced himself to see past her tears to the hard heart behind them. “You brought it on yourself.”

“Why?” But she wasn't looking at him. Opal stared at Ma. Her shoulders never drooped, but the one whispered word belied her pose. “Why?”

Ma's gaze went colder than Adam had ever seen. “Because he has to learn. I won't have my son shackled to a liar.” Her voice lowered almost to a hiss. “Adam needs to know what you
really
are.”

“Buzzard!” Midge's indignation went a long way toward soothing Opal's own roiling temper. “I wish she
had
slept on rocks. Old besom probably waited until that morning to plant the things, though. Ooooh, I'd like to get my hands on that Lucinda and make her fess up.”

“She won't.” Opal poured a measure of water in the pie tin beneath yet another hive. “If you waved a loaded shotgun her direction and told her to spill the truth or else, she'd take the bullet.”

“Idea has merit.” Her friend plunked a few pebbles into the tin. “At least if you won't get vindication, you get a little vengeance.”

“And then I'd be known as the woman who smuggled rocks into mattresses and shot her mother-in-law.”

“Folk heroes have been made from less.” Midge's grin faded. “Still burns my biscuits that Adam didn't think twice before condemning you.”

“I shouldn't blame him for believing Lucinda.” Opal recited what she'd been telling herself for the past two days. “She's his mama, she put on a very convincing performance, and the evidence was indisputable. Rocks came out of the mattress. Who would believe she put them there just to make me look bad? I shouldn't blame him.”

“Just because you think you shouldn't doesn't mean you don't.” Her friend took a sip of water. “I would.”

“I do.”
It shouldn't feel good to admit that.
“It's not fair that I should expect him to trust me over his mother and his own eyes, but I'm angry at him all the same.”

“Justice is a virtue, you know.” Midge sounded particularly pleased to tell her so. “Wanting some doesn't make you a bad person. In fact, I'd be worried if you didn't.”

“Maybe if I'd yelled and flung accusations at Lucinda he would've thought twice.” Opal confessed the other part that still festered. “Instead, I got so mad I shook. Barely managed to choke out a single word once I realized what she'd done.”

“If you'd started hollering, they'd have thought you went daft. Now, there's a thought.” She came to such a sudden halt, Opal almost bumped into her. “Maybe Lucinda wants to drive you crazy so they can have you put away?”

“Even after two years you still think like a city girl sometimes. They don't have any of those places in the middle of the prairie even if I did start raving. Her plan seems to be more along the lines of making Adam set me aside. Or maybe making me so miserable I head for the hills. She'll learn it won't work.”

“Glad to hear it.” Midge squinted. “I can understand why the bees need water, but why do we put pebbles in the tins?”

“So the bees can have a place to drink without drowning.”
Pity life doesn't always come with a pebble to give you better footing. Just stones planted by devious mothers-in-law.

“And Lucinda said something about showing Adam what you really are? What do you think she means?”

“A liar.” Opal's mouth went dry. “She made up the rocks in the mattress, but I think she knows I'm not carrying Adam's baby. Lucinda just doesn't know how to prove it.”

“She won't have to wait long.” Midge stuck her finger in the stream of honey Opal poured into a tin and took a taste. “Mmmmm. Everyone will know when you don't start showing.”

“By then, the marriage has to be real.” Opal dribbled in a little wine and placed the tin under the first of twenty hives, next to the water. “Or Adam will get that annulment.”

Midge sprinkled salt on the mixture. “What's this stuff for?”

“After winter, hive supplies run low and most of the workers are busy building combs instead of making honey. So if there's an apiary, sometimes bees will raid other hives to steal food.” Opal set down the next tin and moved on. “This way keeps them the most productive. I don't do it for long ... and not every day.”

“They go on raids?” Her friend looked at the hive before her with new respect. “Viking bees!”

Opal laughed for the first time since she'd cleaned out the chicken coop. “Viking bees ... I like that.”

“Yeah, but you've got someone even more ruthless to worry about. I figure you've got a month before your secret's out. A little less with Lucinda so suspicious.”

“Less than a month.” Opal froze for a second. “I only have a couple weeks to convince Adam to become my husband?”

“No. He's already your husband.” Midge nudged her out of the way so she could sprinkle the salt. “You just have to convince him to act like it.”

“Tomorrow everyone will find out about the marriage.” Opal sounded like she didn't know whether to be afraid or horrified.

Neither.
“Good! It's the perfect time to start laying the groundwork.” Midge could see that Opal needed some encouragement. “With you two being introduced as husband and wife, it's only natural for you to be looking up at him all admiring, always touching him, whispering to him ... things that will catch his attention.”

“I'm beginning to see why Pete's so obsessed with you.”

“Don't be silly.” She pshawed. “I don't need to do anything to catch your brother's attention.”

“Right. People will think I've anticipated my vows and the marriage was necessary.” Opal gave a big sigh. “Which is what the parson thinks, and my husband thinks, and both our families think, so I suppose it shouldn't matter.”

“But it does.” The very idea of everyone in Buttonwood finding out where she
really
came from made Midge's stomach turn, and the thought of her friend being exposed to the same kind of scorn didn't sit any better. The whispers, the stares, the judgment ... “You don't deserve that.”
I do.

“I'd rather face gossip than a gunfight.” Her friend's tone was light, but she meant every word. “But I feel so...”

“Alone?” The thought broke out before Midge could button it up.

“Yes. That's it, exactly. But more than that”—Opal finished pouring the last of the wine into the final tin—“as though I won't be good enough anymore.”

“I understand that.” Midge flicked the final bits of salt from her fingers and picked at her nails. “Felt like that when I came here.”

“I'm so glad you came!” The hug caught her off guard. “Thank you for coming to see me even though I've been disgraced.”

“Yours is a fake disgrace.” Midge angled out of the hug to grab Opal's shoulders. “Listen to me. I know your secrets, and I won't abandon you or tell a soul, no matter how people treat you. But you have to let me help.”

“You're too good.” Opal headed for the small grove of cottonwoods bordering the apiary and sat down.

“No.” Midge stayed standing when they reached the scant shade, rooted by the enormity of what she was about to do. “I'm anything
but
good. And that's why I can help. Listen, Opal. I have something to tell you, but you can't tell anyone. Only Saul and Clara know. I'm only letting you know because I can't help you win Adam without you knowing why I know some things.”

“What's this about?” Opal tugged her hands. “Sit down. I've already gotten the picture that you know more about things no one else notices than I can even imagine!”

“That's because I learned to look.” Midge reached down the front of her dress and pulled out the only link to her past. The battered brass locket had to be coaxed open to reveal its tiny portrait. “This here's my mom, but my sister, Nancy, looked just like her. I take after my dad.”

“She's lovely.” Opal traced the rim of the locket. “They both are.”

“Were.” Midge snapped it shut and thrust it back down her dress front. “I'm the only one left, that's true. And I met Dr. Reed on the streets of Baltimore, and he did save me.”

“Yes, that's what they said. That he couldn't save your sister, but he took you in.” Opal frowned. “There's no shame in living, Midge.”

“There's shame in
how
we lived.” She closed her eyes and could smell the dank stench of the alleyway, feel the cold creeping along the edges of their small fire, taste the terror when Randy looked at her ... “The fever took Ma and Pa when I was about eleven and Nancy fourteen. I always looked younger, but Nancy seemed older than her years. She got a job at a factory but lost it when the foreman found me in her room. We just about starved until Randy came along.”

“Randy?” Sudden wariness darkened Opal's gaze, showing she understood where the tale turned.

“You saw how pretty Nancy was. He turned her head, gave us a home. And in a week, he turned Nancy out. Either she worked the streets and served the gents, or we'd be back in the cold. Nancy refused, but Randy's fists did the convincing his mouth couldn't.” Midge shivered. “Randy's fists did a lot of talking.”

“Oh, Midge.”

Opal reached out as though in comfort, but she jerked away. “I ain't done.” She sniffed back tears. “For two years Nancy worked, and I took in odd jobs sewing. I still looked too scrawny to catch a man's eye. Then the day came Nancy's luck and potions failed her. She found herself expecting.”

Opal's quick indrawn breath somehow gave her more determination to plow ahead.

“Randy didn't hold with that. He sent for one of the butchers to get rid of the problem. Nancy fought him—and fought hard. So did I, but it didn't do any good. The quack ripped the babe from my sister's belly, but something went wrong. Nancy didn't stop bleeding. So the next day, Randy made me take her place. Dr. Reed was the first man I stopped. Saul noticed the bruises on my neck, how young I looked, and offered to help me find a better life. He even tried to save Nancy, but she'd already passed by the time we got to the room. And then he whisked me away from that place and brought me here.”

She spread her arms, palms out, shrugged, and waited for Opal's reaction. Now she'd find out if she'd made a mistake. If she'd lose a good friend and the respect of everyone else in Buttonwood to boot.

“You're amazing, you know that?” Opal's gaze held no disgust, only compassion and—could that be admiration? She reached out to snag Midge's hand and clasp it tight. “I never suspected you'd gone through so much. To think how the Lord brought you here, it gives me hope.”

“It wasn't the Lord.” Midge snatched her hand away. “It was Saul. Dr. Reed brought me here. God didn't answer Nancy's prayers, and He didn't hear any of mine on her behalf, either. Don't give Him credit for what Saul did!”

“I'm glad Saul came to Buttonwood. I'm thankful you approached him before anyone else.” Opal leaned forward. “And most of all, I'm glad you're my friend.”

Something hard inside her seemed to soften at Opal's complete acceptance of her. “You're sure? I'm not good like you.”

“No. I came from a safe home and managed to spin a web of lies to land myself in trouble. You grew up surrounded by danger and evil and are here to help me.” Opal gave a laugh. “We're not much alike.”

“That's not what I meant!” But that didn't stop a secret part of her from liking to hear it. “And we're a lot alike. For one thing, neither of us gives up easy.”

“True.” The light of battle entered her friend's gaze. “Especially when so much depends on seeing something through.”

“Tomorrow will be crucial.” Midge watched as dozens of bees zoomed around the hives, dipping into the tins of water and honey-stuff they'd laid out. “The ambush yesterday set you back a good deal. You can't rely on Adam as an ally anymore. You've been cast in the role of a sneak, and the way things stand, Lucinda's better at it.”

“This isn't helping.” She raked her fingernails through a stalky clump of purple buds.

“It should.” Midge caught Opal's hand before she could shred anymore of the emerging wildflowers. “You can learn from this—the best kind of sneaking is done right out in the open, so no one suspects it.”

“People always suspect things.” Her hand clamped tight. “They will tomorrow.”

“That's where being sneaky comes in. You have to make them suspect what you want them to.” She stood up. “And I'm going to teach you how.”

Just in time for church.

Opal marched out the door of the Grogan soddy the next morning girded for battle. As she dressed, she kept in mind the armor of God.

For the breastplate of righteousness, she slid on Mama's pin. She felt that simply going as a Grogan counted as shodding herself in preparation for peace—standing as the link between their two families. The shield of her faith couldn't be seen, but she carried it as surely as she did Ma's Bible—her sword of the Spirit. Her best bonnet didn't quite classify as the helmet of salvation, but it would have to do since no decent woman left her head uncovered in God's house. Which left one missing piece.

Ephesians 6:14 kept running through her mind, mocking her with its impossibility.
“Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth....”
Because no matter how she tried, Opal couldn't convince herself she lived up to that spiritual standard. In fact, a virgin trying to seduce her husband to prevent an annulment on the grounds she wasn't carrying an illicit child seemed the very antithesis of truthful loins.

It took all the wash water and a trip to the well to stop her blushes after the realization that her virtue now made her the worst sort of fraud. A
sneak,
Midge called it.
My only chance to keep things together.

Opal raised her chin high and accepted Adam's arm as they walked to town.
I'll do my part to convince everyone this is a happy marriage, that our families cried peace, and no one needs to get hurt.

“Adam?” She deliberately slowed her pace until they were a good distance behind the others. Not too far, or they wouldn't arrive together, but far enough for her to speak her piece. “We both know the importance of today.”

“Yes.” He hadn't spoken a word more than absolutely necessary since handing down his punishment.

“Then you know that standing stiff as a board and looking like you're nursing a sore tooth will make people think you don't want to be my husband.”
In other words, they'll catch on to the true state of things.
“My family will see it as an insult to me.”

He let loose a drawn-out breath and made a visible effort to relax.

“Better.” She swallowed and pressed ahead. “Our families won't be able to hide their displeasure. The town will see it's a mask. But the two of us can show the picture of a happy couple united and uniting others or—”

“Let everyone know we were forced into it and provoke the type of speculation that will cause our families to snipe until they snap.” A grim nod. “You're right. No one need know of the shotgun wedding since Parson Carter agreed to simply say he married us in a private ceremony with Pete and Midge as our witnesses. Will Pete pull through?”

“Oh, Midge will make sure of it.” Opal gave a small chuckle at the thought of what awaited her brother if he didn't act as though he thoroughly approved the match. “She plans to stay near Pete and make sure he doesn't forget his role and scowl at you.”

“Pete doesn't stand a chance.” The tight lines around Adam's mouth faded. “I won't forget my part, either.”

“Is it such a hard role to play?” A wistful note crept into her voice before she could prevent it. “That you enjoy my company?”

“No.” He threaded his fingers through hers. “That's the problem.”

Before she could explore that intriguing comment, the clapboard church came in full view. Or rather, they came in full view of the church. And the entire town.

Folks typically gathered around outside, shooting the breeze until time came to shuffle to their seats. Today proved no exception. The Fossets stood chatting with the Calfrees on the left side of the whitewashed building. The Warrens exchanged pleasantries with the Doanes farther right. The Reeds caught up with the Burn men and the Dunstall women front and center.

The parson and his wife stood in conversation with newlywed couple Sally Fosset and Matthew Burn. Young men and women clustered near the well, pretending disinterest in one another while the children of the town made merry mayhem while trying not to dirty their Sunday best. Pa and her brothers headed to meet them, and suddenly it seemed as though the entire scene froze.

Conversations ceased midsentence. Mouths hung agape. Children stilled. And Opal started to pray.