Bride Blunder (14 page)

“Mrs. Miller, so good to see you!” “Glad you could join us this morning, Mrs. Miller.” “Wonderful to have you up and about, Mrs. Miller, why don't you sit by me?”

Marge watched and listened as the women of the town did precisely as she'd hoped and fussed over Ermintrude. Not only did the divided attention serve her well in helping foist off questions about her interest in teaching when she
must
plan to start her own family soon—the warm welcome went a long way toward putting her friend at ease.

Oh, Ermintrude hadn't said a word about it, but Marge knew she feared she'd avoided the townspeople for too long to be truly accepted so much later. Not that Ermintrude hadn't said a word about anything and everything else having to do with her first forced social interaction in years. But no matter how she grumped, threatened, or harrumphed, the old woman kept her bargain and joined Marge at the site of the schoolhouse raising.

“You put them up to this.” The mutters went largely ignored. “Don't think I don't know you told them to make nice to the old curmudgeon who's been making you miserable.”

“Don't think I don't know you're intentionally trying to make me show disrespect to one of my elders by giving in to the temptation to tell you to hush.” Marge nudged Ermintrude toward a large table. “I did no such thing, and you don't make me miserable except when you're trying to take credit for such an outrageous accomplishment.”

The resulting harrumph wasn't up to Ermintrude's usual standard, a sign she enjoyed herself more than she wanted to let on. “Going to deposit me at the biddy table and scuttle off to join your friends now, are you?” Behind the challenge lay a glimpse of the older woman's true worry.

“Not at all.” Marge settled herself across from Ermintrude. “Aren't you used to peeling potatoes with me by now? Soon someone else will come to join us. It'll take a lot of mashed potatoes to go around when everyone in town wants a serving!”

“You have no idea.” Opal Grogan slid onto the bench beside her. “I'm so glad Adam had them set up these tables beforehand. It will make preparing and serving everything so much simpler. Good morning, Mrs. Miller. It does my heart good to see you. I've been a poor neighbor, I fear, not stopping by more often.”

“Not at all.” Ermintrude waved her paring knife in as magnanimous a fashion as a knife could possibly be waved. “You've a little one tugging on your skirts and another soon to follow. Before your new-addition-to-be made his presence known, you stopped by a few times. I should've returned the favor but didn't want to impose.”

“Impose?” Opal's laughter matched her looks—fiery and full of life. “It'd be a respite to visit for a while.”

“I'd thought, with your family and your apiary, you kept as busy as those bees of yours.” Ermintrude's peeling picked up the pace, a barometer of her opinion of the conversation.

“Never too busy for a new friend, Mrs. Miller.”

“Oh. You have time for new neighbors but can't be bothered to bring Rachel to visit her grandmother?” A sour-faced frump whose name Marge couldn't recall at the moment flounced up to the table and planted her hands on her hips. “I'm sure Mrs. Miller here wouldn't approve your choice.”

“Considering you've scarcely bothered to speak two words to me since I came to this town, I doubt you're in any position to speculate on what I do and do not approve of, Lucinda Grogan.” Ermintrude's swift reply supplied the name Marge needed.

Ah, yes. This is Opal's mother-in-law.
She took the opportunity to look over Lucinda as the woman made a show of settling wearily onto the bench beside Ermintrude. Deep bitterness dragged gray brows to a habitual scowl over a face aged beyond its years, thin features wreathed in the wrinkles of a perpetual frown.

I never would have remembered—much less guessed—this to be Adam's mother. Though, if I think back further and remember that this is a woman who helped keep a feud going, it makes more sense.

It took all Marge's effort not to shoot Opal a commiserating glance. Such things were too often misinterpreted, and Opal, while showing the promise of a good friendship, didn't know her well enough to read her intent. Besides, she might have a soft spot for the unpleasant woman haranguing her and take exception to anything that could be seen as negative.

Although,
Marge admitted to herself after catching a glimpse of the grin on Opal's face as Ermintrude took up the cudgels on her behalf,
that doesn't seem likely.

Ermintrude, who, with at least a dozen years on her new bench mate, put the younger woman to shame as her pile of potatoes grew by leaps and bounds. For that matter, she put them all to shame. Marge figured it was safe to assume her friend was enjoying herself.

“You're mistaken, Mrs. Miller.” A disdainful sniff that would have been more in place coming from one of Daisy's snobby town friends punctuated Lucinda's response. “I speak with everyone. If you've chosen not to engage in conversation when the opportunity presents itself, you've no one to blame but yourself.” She left unspoken—barely—the obvious truth that Ermintrude had avoided contact with everyone.

“I'm not the one mistaken, Lucinda. You see, I've been watching the way things are done here, getting the lay of the land before joining in, so to speak. You don't talk
with
everyone.” Ermintrude paused in her peeling as though savoring the moment. “You talk
about
everyone.”

Amos looked over Midge's raggedy retinue then met her exasperated gaze with an amused one of his own. “Children, why don't you run along while I make sure Miss Collins feels all right?” Several were slow to leave, until finally only Tessa and Billy remained.

“I'll go tell Doc you've got it under control.” Billy must have been trying to make amends for fetching Amos, because he headed over to the far side of the growing schoolhouse, where several of the men had gone for some water before they started putting up the roof.

“It appears you've been abandoned.” Amos hunkered down to be at eye level. “Except for the sleeping beauty there, who almost puts you to shame.”

Refusing to rise to the bait, Midge looked down at where Tessa lay curled against her side, thumb still in her mouth. A little one like this could make the hardest heart melt. Sally and Matthew had a lot to be proud of in their firstborn.

“You're right.” She craned her neck as though trying to look beyond Amos. “Those Burn men do make some beautiful babies....” She knew every bit as well as he did that Brett Burn, the youngest of the blacksmiths, wanted a wife.

In fact, Brett had started edging closer ever since Pete Speck relinquished his claim on Midge and began courting Amanda Dunstall instead. The gossips said all sorts of things about Pete's defection, but when he and Midge remained close friends, folks started accepting something that looked more like the truth: Midge saw Pete more as a brother than anything else, and she'd finally managed to convince her friend of the fact.

“That's the Fosset side in her.” Amos referred to Sally, Matthew Burn's wife and Tessa's mother. He almost managed to sound completely unbothered, but Midge saw the slight lowering of his brows before he caught himself. “Anyone can see that.”

“Really? What else can anyone see?” Midge stroked the tips of her fingers through the baby-soft curls covering Tessa's head. To her way of thinking, plenty of things went not only unnoticed but completely unsuspected by the majority of people.

Take her and Pete, for example. Most came to understand the two of them weren't meant to be more than friends, despite the giant-sized crush he'd nursed for a couple years. Yet no one—or hardly anyone, since Midge sometimes wondered whether her friend Opal bore an inkling—so much as guessed Midge sent Pete to Amanda because he was too good for her and deserved better. Midge liked Pete too much to marry him, plain and simple.

Brett, on the other hand, she avoided for less altruistic motives. While all the Burn men worked hard, smiled often, and more than earned their good standing in town, blacksmiths possessed certain traits Midge preferred to grant wide berth. Barrel-chested men with ham-sized hands couldn't be controlled by any measure of quick wit or careful cajoling.

Hadn't she and Nancy learned that years ago, when Rodney's deep chest held an endless well of rage plumbed by huge hands turned to solid fists? No, Midge wouldn't choose a big, beefy husband, no matter how jovial or kind he may seem. Rodney charmed her sister into a life of degradation and filth with such pretense....

The flutter of a breeze on her petticoats made Midge shift, both her feet and her attention. A momentary fear she'd been sitting there with a leg exposed by her little scrape swiftly subsided into astonishment as she watch Amos inch her petticoats and skirt above the line of her lace-up boot.

“What are you doing?” She hissed the question, trying to keep quiet and pull away without waking Tessa or drawing undue attention from any of the rest of the town.

A devilish grin lit his face. “Checking your ankle, something not just anyone—like Brett Burn—can see.”

“Neither can you!”

He caught her hand, impeding her progress in tugging the hem of her skirt to cover her ankle. “Billy said he saw you twist it. Let me make sure you're all right.”

“It's fine. Really.” The concerned determination in his eyes made her hesitate for a split second too long. He had a grip on the layers of cloth again when she tried to shift away, the end result exposing her calf almost to her knee. “Stop it!”

“What's this?” One large hand—large, not heavy or thick knuckled—clamped to hold her skirts at her knee as Amos squinted at the ugly, puckered pink marking her shin. “What did you do?”

“It's nothing.” She tried to wriggle away, only to be held fast. Not by force, but by the tender way he used one fingertip to trace around the healing gash. Midge knew it would scar when she had reopened the wound two weeks ago in church, but scars faded. Right now, the mark flushed a deep, angry pink.

“It's not healing well, so I'm assuming you didn't tell Dr. Reed when it happened.” He released her knee, his refusal to drop a question Midge couldn't answer making her agitated beyond belief. “That's
not
nothing.”

“We just have different definitions of the word.” Midge levered herself onto her feet, cradling the heavy weight of the sleeping toddler as she stood. “The fall was nothing, the scrape was nothing, and so is this conversation.”

Billy's a good brother.
Amos watched his sibling saunter off to leave him alone with Midge. Or, at least, as alone as a man and woman could be with the entire town less than an acre away and a sleeping toddler snuggled against her side.
Lucky toddler.

Since Midge seemed unharmed, a little teasing was in order. As expected, when he named Tessa her rival, Midge joked back. What Amos didn't expect was the searing shaft of envy that struck him when she seemed to be looking around for Brett Burn. For a wild moment, he considered sweeping her off the ground and hauling her in front of Parson Carter right then.

She wants babies? I'll give her babies.
Some of the unreasonable jealousy leaked away at the thought.
Any child of Midge's will be beautiful. Our family will be blessed.

But he couldn't say something like that aloud. Midge would bolt like a frightened rabbit. Amos knew full well she'd seen this courtship as a farce from the outset. Otherwise, his freckled firebrand wouldn't have capitulated so easily to the idea. If she had an inkling he seriously intended to make her his bride, Midge would no longer play this little game of trying to wait for him to grow tired of her saucy ways.

Instead of voicing any of these thoughts, he ignored her compliment to the Burn men and gave credit for Tessa's cuteness where it belonged, with her mother. As he anticipated, Midge snapped out a response without batting a lash.

“What else can anyone see?” The dry question demanded a comeback, but Midge drew away from him even as Amos sat before her. She traveled somewhere in the landscape of thoughts she didn't care to share, didn't even enjoy having, and Amos couldn't journey with her.

The sparkle in her eyes grew shuttered. The pert tilt to her mouth flattened. Her breaths went shallow then deepened into an occasional sigh sad enough to rend him. There was only one thing to do—jolt her back from whatever memory caught her.

So Amos took advantage of the pretext of her fall to nudge her skirts above her boots. If nothing else, the action would grab her attention and put it back where it belonged—them. Now.

Obviously, Amos acknowledged as the ruffled hem of her petticoat fluttered to reveal slim ankles encased in tightly laced leather, the plan held other rewards. Besides, it worked.

“What are you doing?” If she hadn't been trying to avoid a scene or waking up Tessa, or maybe both—Amos couldn't be certain which reason guided her—Midge probably would've screeched instead of squawked. As things stood, she kept fairly quiet while trying to wriggle away and tug her hem back over the tips of her boots.

As though a glimpse of her boot laces might give him ideas. Amos would've laughed at the thought, if her concerns weren't so well-founded. One peek had him plotting ways to unlace those boots. “Checking your ankle, something not just anyone—like Brett Burn—can see.”
A twisted ankle surely needed to be examined more closely. Yep. That boot is coming off.

“It's fine. Really.” Midge's assurance came too late.

Amos made a plan and intended to see it through. Trouble came in when Midge decided to impede his progress by shifting away, inadvertently revealing a length of smooth leg almost up to her knee.

The sight of that fair skin, covered only by the sheer silk of her stocking, just about poleaxed him. He could find no other reason for his ungentlemanly gawking. Amos might have remained speechless for a good while longer if it weren't for the angry pink of a still-healing wound glaring up at him midway between the top of her boot and the bottom of Midge's knee.

She must have seen him notice, because she redoubled her efforts to pull away. He put a hand on her knee, ignoring the intimacy of the action to focus on her injury. “What did you do?”

“It's nothing.” For the first time, Midge sounded uncertain. She stopped trying to shift back, and Amos could feel her gaze following where he traced the area around the gash.

His fingertips, made rough from working all day with the bricks, snagged at her stockings, but Amos felt the warmth of her skin and the heat of her embarrassment with far more strength. And interest.
Midge isn't clumsy. Even her fall today came from being hit with the ball.

“It's not healing well, so I'm assuming you didn't tell Dr. Reed when it happened.” He removed his hand before he did something foolish. “That's
not
nothing.”

“We just have different definitions of the word.” Midge stood up, keeping a firm hold on Tessa so the toddler lay cradled in her arms. “The fall was nothing, the scrape was nothing, and so is this conversation.”

She didn't want to discuss whatever caused the cut, or why she hadn't told Dr. Reed about it.
Which means either she's embarrassed, or...

“Who hurt you?” He ground out the words, making it a demand for information more than a simple question. Amos felt his pulse kick into high gear as she paused, seeming to debate whether or not to answer at all.

“I struck my shin on a chest in my room.” Midge's explanation held the ring of truth, but her flat tone told Amos more lay behind the story.

“Let me know if you need someone to chop it up.” He knew his little joke was the right response when some of the stiffness left her spine.

“No, thanks.” She jostled Tessa in her arms, repositioning the little girl so she'd sleep more comfortably. Then she spoiled the mature, maternal image by looking up with a mischievous twinkle. “It's a good reminder that things keep me on my toes when I least expect it.”

Amos escorted her back toward where the other women worked and gave her a pointed look. “I know exactly what you mean.”

Rage soured the air Gavin breathed as Lucinda Grogan opened her mouth to snipe about Marge's intent to teach and what it meant to their marriage—as though it made any difference to her. He hadn't dealt much with the woman, but he'd heard and noticed enough to take her measure long ago. It was part of the reason why, once the walls were up and most of the men took a short break before beginning work on the roof, he'd headed over to where Marge and Grandma sat with the bitter busybody.

He'd also thought to head off Brett Burn and enjoy Marge's company for a stolen moment or two, but there was no denying Lucinda's tart tongue made for the most pressing reason to stand at her side. Or behind her, as the case may be.

“You're assuming marriage and teaching are mutually exclusive.” He didn't even fight to keep his tone even, instead letting the honest irony of his comment fill his words with dry humor.
So does Marge, but we've not discussed it.
Too bad. Now would be as good a time as any for him to point out a compromise that seemed obvious to him.

“They are.” Scorn smeared the certainty of Lucinda's statement. “Everyone with a lick of sense knows that.”

“We already know your own children don't ascribe to your theories, since two of them wed the children of your sworn enemy, so I suppose we should be thankful you didn't bother with any teaching once you got Mr. Grogan down the aisle.” Grandma sharpened her wits on the gossip, and although Gavin knew it wasn't very godly of him, he couldn't help but be glad of it.

If Lucinda didn't watch herself, she'd wind up looking like that pile of potato peels—sliced down and laid bare by Grandma's finest blade—her tongue.

“You know nothing of the situation.” How the woman made a sentence sound like a hiss with so few
s
's was beyond Gavin, but somehow the elder Mrs. Grogan managed quite well. “People shouldn't give an opinion on anything they don't understand.”

“Well I, for one, would like to understand more about Mr. Miller's views on married teachers.” Opal Grogan stepped in to calm troubled waters, an admirable trait Gavin suspected she used often considering her in-laws.

“Yes, Gavin.” Marge tilted her head back at what had to be an uncomfortable angle to see his face. “Explain to the ladies just what, exactly, you mean.”

If he detected any challenge in her invitation, her curiosity so vastly overshadowed it. Gavin figured this opportunity could be golden.
After all, one of the things Marge wants is to be appreciated for herself, and teaching is so much a part of who she is....

“God gave Marge a passion for teaching, and any child who studies under her will be glad of it. I see no reason why our children”—he gave her shoulder a slight squeeze—“should be the only ones blessed by her gifts.”

“Thank you.” Marge's smile, he'd come to realize, held the key to another one of her intriguing transformations. Not the small, tight smiles she gave when uncomfortable, or the overly wide ones that tried to mask when she didn't want to smile at all, but the wholehearted ones. The ones that spread all the way to her eyes and made the flickering green glow bright against their amber background.

He put his free hand on her other shoulder in a sort of bracing half hug. “You're welcome. I know how important family is to you, Marge. Ours will never lack just because you answer a calling outside our home.”

“See that?” Grandma jerked her head toward him. “He gets that from my side of the family. I've made it a point to try to teach the boys to appreciate more about a woman than the children she carries.” An uncharacteristically thoughtful pause followed. “You know, Lucinda, it's a lesson you'd do well to apply to your daughter-in-law. Opal seems a rare woman.”

“She is.” Marge spoke up almost before Lucinda opened her mouth to respond. Almost, but it looked to Gavin as though she ignored the viper's glower. “Opal manages to be a wife, a mother, and a businesswoman. Apiaries don't run themselves.”

“Oh yes. That's the whole problem, right there.” The older Grogan refused to back down, despite the good sense behind Grandma's advice. “Opal keeps my grandchild from me because she has too many demands on her time.”

“You're welcome to visit whenever you like.” The words bore the flavor of having been oft repeated, as Opal Grogan didn't even look up from the potato she grabbed. “It's your choice.”

“Maybe I would, if you weren't such a busy little bee.”

Gavin decided he'd had enough of hearing the woman sow strife. “It's good to fill one's time. Keeps folks from more troublesome things.”
Like making everyone else miserable.

“I'm sure I don't know what you mean. I have plenty to keep me occupied.”

“What my grandson means, Lucinda,” replied Grandma, putting down her knife as she spoke, the pile of peeled potatoes before her larger than any other on the table, “is that it's better to be a busy bee than a busybody.”