Bossy Bridegroom (6 page)

“Whatever.” She did her best to act like it didn’t matter—but it did. It mattered so terribly. She’d always pictured him leaving her for another woman. The thoughts had tormented her, deepened her sense of failure.

She set her empty plate aside and stared at her hands, folded in her lap like a good girl. The pastor had asked something of them, and Michael had delivered. Her husband-the-rat was sincere about his new faith. Three months ago he’d made a commitment to Christ. If she was too hard on him, could she possibly undermine a new baby Christian? She didn’t want to mend their marriage. What could she do but be honest? God asked for nothing less.

“Michael, I’ll tell you what I love about you.” She met his eyes. His were a darker blue than hers. Right now they were locked on her, gazing, giving her a chance in a way he never had before.

“I’m a Christian. I became a Christian after I abandoned Sally. I ran off and left her, giving Buffy the papers she needed to begin adoption proceedings. When I left, I was as low as a person can sink. I hated myself, and I guess I’m not the suicidal type, because I never considered it, but I didn’t feel like I deserved to live.”

“Jeanie, I—”

“Stop.” Jeanie held up her hand. She could see it cost him, but he quit talking. “I need to finish this.”

Nodding, Michael subsided against the couch cushions, his lips clamped shut.

“I’m a believer. Jesus said plainly we’re to love God and love our neighbors. Those are His greatest commandments. So I love you. I am happy for you that you’ve found Christ, and I can see the change in you. I can see you trying to be kind, and that’s something you never wasted a second on before.”

Michael rubbed his hand over his mouth, clearly trying to hold back words. His blatant regret weakened her resolve. If she gave him another chance, he really would try. She believed that. She also believed he’d fail.

“But as far as a romantic love, I just don’t feel it. The only emotion you stir that isn’t negative—and there are plenty of those—the only twinges of love I’ve had for you are sick. They seem like traces of that old dependence. I’m
afraid
of loving you. Honestly, Michael, loving you and mending our relationship might destroy me, and it might destroy you, too. Can you honestly say you’re not afraid of slipping back into that awful excuse we had for a marriage?”

After so obviously wanting to interrupt her before, now he didn’t speak. His shoulders slumped, and he set his own sandwich plate aside and reached out tentatively to take her hands. She almost pulled away, but his demeanor, so defeated and humble, was such a surprise that she hesitated and he had her. She decided not to dispute the touch—for now.

“I
am
afraid. I am. But I also believe God calls us to one marriage and the vows are for life. If we can’t make our marriage work, then we both have to be alone forever. I don’t want a life like that.”

“I do.”

Tightening his grip, he shook his head. “You only want to be alone because I made it so bad for us. Maybe it’s true that we can’t be together. But I think we dishonor God by not at least trying.”

Jeanie shook her head.

“We owe God that much.” He threaded his fingers through hers. “We owe our faith that much—to try. Just walking away from each other isn’t honoring our vows any more than divorcing would be. God asks more of us than that. We need to get to know each other. Really start over. Nothing that we had before is a foundation for a marriage, so we throw that out and get to know each other as if we were strangers. Because we are strangers. We’re new people. New in Christ. Let’s just start over.” He eased his hands free and reached one out to shake. “It’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?”

“Why is ‘the right thing to do’ always what I
don’t
want?”

“You’re not the one who has the struggle ahead of you. Or if it is a struggle, it will be to keep me accountable. I’m the one who has to change. I’m the one who has anger and control issues knotted up inside. Give me a chance, please, Jeanie? Please?” His eyes pleaded. His words begged. His hand waited.

She couldn’t tell him no. And hadn’t that always been her fundamental problem? But this time, galling though it was, she felt the truth of it. They weren’t honoring their marriage vows by living separately and alone for the rest of their lives.

Heart sinking, tears threatening, she reached out. Their hands met and held. “All right. I’ll try.” Tears spilled over as they shook.

He pulled her forward and held her, hugging her. She didn’t realize how long it had been since someone had really held her. Not a brief hello hug, but real contact. The loneliness of her life made her cling to him—in joy for the human touch and in despair because she sensed she’d just taken her first step toward self-destruction.

Michael took his cue from Jeanie and began simply to say yes when something was asked of him.

It took less than a week before he’d gained a reputation as someone who’d lend a hand, and besides what he did for free, he made a few dollars. He was the Cold Creek handyman—a big change from a shark hustling building contracts.

He mowed lawns, did minor household repairs, fixed leaky faucets. He charged next to nothing and often didn’t ask for money at all.

It was a way to make a living. The business and marketing strategy of his corporation consisted of hand-printed signs taped up at the senior center, grocery store, bank, and mini-mart.

He joined the volunteer fire department, chipped in on all the Memorial Day committees that were shorthanded, and agreed to help with the Monday morning church service at the nursing home.

He did as much with Jeanie as he could, but when their lives pulled them in separate directions, he went where he was needed, because he sensed Jeanie respected his willingness to serve others and he wanted her respect.

He returned his rented car to Rapid City and came home with a small pickup, careful not to buy anything too flashy, even though he could well afford it.

They’d been together five days when he came home one evening and announced fearfully, “Jeanie, I bought a house.”

“What?”

He lifted both hands as if he were warding off a pit bull. “Listen, I didn’t do it to control you or to judge where you live. I was repairing a drainpipe on Myra Dean’s house, and her son showed up. He lives out of town, and we got to talking. He told me he really needed to get some money out of the house.”

“You bought Myra’s house?”

Michael had run himself ragged serving coffee at her funeral.

“Her family has a lot of bills to pay for the nursing home and the funeral, and they had no prospects. I promise I paid an honest price.” A steal is what it was. If that huge old house had been sitting in Chicago somewhere, it would have cost a half million dollars. He’d bought it for fifty thousand, and Lance had practically wept with gratitude.

“It’s a white elephant. It’s practically falling down. It’s been sitting empty for three years since Myra moved into the nursing home.”

Michael shook his head. “It’s been neglected, but it’s got great bones, a solid foundation. And I love that American foursquare architecture. I’ll enjoy refurbishing it. I had to do it for Myra’s son, didn’t I?”

Jeanie shook her head. “Yes, you’re right.” She whacked him with the bat. “But you should have talked to me first.”

“It was a spur of the moment thing. I’m sorry.”

“I’m busy. I’m not helping you pack and move.”

“I’ll close on it tomorrow and move everything by the weekend. You’ll live with me in it, won’t you? If not, we’ll just stay here.”

Jeanie knew Myra, and she knew the years in the nursing home had cost her family a lot. The Dean family did need the cash. “Yes, I’ll live there.”

“Thanks. I promise you won’t have to lift a finger.”

Jeanie rolled her eyes at him and turned to the kitchen to pull a pizza out of the oven. Frozen.

Michael felt lucky that she hadn’t bought a personal pan size. She was cooking dinner for both of them. He was tempted to jump up and down and yell, but he was afraid the bat would come out.

Working on so many aspects of the Memorial Day celebration got him involved. Maybe too involved. The weekend events bothered him for their complete lack of flare, and he convinced the town fathers to let him put a couple of ads in the Rapid City paper, at his expense, to lure in tourists interested in the buffalo. He enlisted a couple of area seniors to be available to drive a minivan out to the herd if anyone showed up wanting to pay for the privilege.

And he met his daughter.

“She’s huge.” Michael caught Jeanie’s hand, his eyes riveted on Sally. He took a step toward the little blond beauty, and someone blocked his path. He was so diverted by Sally he ran headlong into Buffy—his sister-in-law with the temperament of a buffalo.

“I heard you’d shown up in town.” Buffy jammed her fists onto her hips and looked as if she’d tear into him with the least provocation. Michael sincerely hoped no one gave
her
a bat.

Buffy was two years younger than Jeanie, but they’d been in the same grade because of Buffy’s genius IQ. While Jeanie played, Buffy studied. While Jeanie flirted, Buffy worked nights and weekends at a nearby wildlife park just outside Chicago. Buffy was lean and had dark, straight hair. He remembered she’d always worn it in a braid, but today it hung in loose, gentle curls. Then, as now, she’d ignored makeup. She’d been very solemn and quiet. The complete opposite of his blond, blue-eyed, flirty, flashy Jeanie.

She was six years younger than Michael, and back in high school, even from that disadvantaged level, she’d told him to his face he was scum for hanging around a girl as young as her sister. At the time he’d hated the little brat. Plain, no flare, no humor, no personality. But even then he’d recognized her as a better person than either Jeanie or him. Her words had echoed in his head like a sleeping conscience. And that only made him hate her more.

Maybe it was because he’d finally grown up, but he noticed immediately that she’d become a beautiful woman. Grouchy but beautiful.

“This is that no-account coyote who abandoned Sally?” A gruff voice pulled Michael’s eyes up and up until they met Wyatt Shaw’s. He stood behind Buffy. Jeanie had said Buffy’s new husband was a rancher, but Michael would have known it at a glance. The weathered skin, dark hair hanging a bit long below a gray Stetson, and an attitude as cold as a South Dakota winter. Wyatt held his little girl, Audra, in his huge, work-scarred hands. Patting the toddler’s back while the baby giggled until her dark curls bounced muted Wyatt’s arctic demeanor.

Michael knew he deserved this scorn, and he was determined to stand here and take it like a man.

“This is him.” Buffy turned her eyes on Jeanie, and Michael braced himself to protect his wife.

“Aunt Jeanie!” A small blond tornado hit Jeanie in the legs. Michael saw Sally up close at last.

Aunt Jeanie
. The words registered and cut like a knife.

Then two more balls of energy came onto the scene. Wyatt had twin sons.

Michael couldn’t take his eyes off of Sally, the image of Jeanie.

Then Buffy caught his arm.

Reluctantly, he turned.

“We need to talk. You’ve got”—Buffy glanced at Sally, who was talking nonstop to Jeanie, along with the twins who were as identical as mirror images—“papers we need signed.”

Michael clenched his jaw. Now wasn’t the time or place to tell Buffy that he intended to get back together with Jeanie and reclaim his daughter. He nodded. “We do need to talk.”

“After church. We can send the kids to a friend’s house for lunch and have this out.”

Michael wasn’t quite ready to have anything out. He suspected that, as things stood, for him to start a fight over Sally might be the last straw with Jeanie. She’d kick him out and there’d be no further chance of reconciliation. But he had until the end of summer to protest the termination of his parental rights. He didn’t need to tell anyone anything right now. He’d let things bump along as they were until he’d renewed his marriage.

“Fine, after church.” He had one hour to figure out just what he was going to say. For now, he decided to change the subject to the one thing that might possibly distract his cranky sister-in-law. “Has the mayor contacted you about the buffalo excursions for Memorial Day?”

Buffy scowled. “We agreed to move a small group to the holding pens closer to town so the ride won’t be so long and the buffalo will be close to the road.”

“Good. That’s settled then. You draw some tourists, right?”

Buffy nodded. “We do.”

“Do you have any pamphlets we could spread around to advertise the buffalo?”

“We’ve got something.” Wyatt caught Buffy’s arm and added, “Come on, kids. The parson’s getting read to start.”

The twins and Sally whined and said a lot of good-byes to Jeanie without so much as looking Michael’s way. His own daughter had walked right past him and had no idea who he was. It was like taking a knife to the heart. And it was a knife thrust by his own hand. His choices, his selfishness had led him to this pain.

He felt a hand on his elbow and looked up. Jeanie’s sympathy was plain to see. She knew how he felt. Their eyes held.

What was it she’d said? “God has forgiven me for that, but I’ll never forgive myself.” The difference was he’d brought her to the point where she’d abandoned Sally. Whatever forgiveness she needed, he needed a hundred times more.

She tugged on his arm and led him into a pew near the back of the hundred-year-old church. Then she went up front to the piano and accompanied the organist.

Michael felt abandoned though he was fiercely proud of how well Jeanie played.

The Shaws were sitting about five rows ahead. Michael could watch Sally whisper to her father—Wyatt Shaw, not Michael—with adoring eyes. That was what he’d thrown away.

His eyes burned, but he refused to let the tears fall. Instead, they stayed inside, cutting his heart like acid rain.

Michael deserved whatever he got.

Even so, Jeanie felt an almost compulsive need to protect Michael from Buffy, which was stupid, but she couldn’t help herself. She prayed for this “talk” as she played the hymns.