Mail Order Match Maker (8 page)

He closed his eyes, unable to imagine how she must have felt.  “I’m so sorry.”  He squeezed her hand.  “I’ll do my best to give you more babies.”

She stared at him for a moment.  “I really don’t think you could work any harder at it.”  He reached for her time and again during the nights.  She couldn’t complain, though, because he always left her feeling satisfied.

He smiled, bringing her hand to his lips to kiss it softly.  “I’ll work harder at it if you want me to.”  His eyes met hers over their joined hands.

She rested her head against his shoulder.  “I think we can just let nature take its course.  I’m not in a hurry.”  And she realized she wasn’t.  She didn’t want a baby to interfere with their private time together.  Sure, she wanted children and she didn’t want to wait until she was too old to have them, but she knew that a child would be demanding of her time.  For now she could enjoy her new nieces.

He nodded.  “I’m not either, but I would like to have a dozen or so.”

She shook her head.  “That may be a few too many for me.  Maybe three or four.” 

He shook his head.  “I need to beat Fred.  He had eight, so I need at least a dozen.” 

She sighed.  “I refuse to be part of that competition.”

He wiggled his brows at her.  “I can’t compete without you.”

She laughed.  “I like being with you.”  She was surprised by that.  She hadn’t enjoyed being around Arthur even before they married.  She’d always felt like he was watching her for something she was doing wrong.  With Max, she honestly enjoyed just spending time with him.

He brushed his lips against hers, wishing they weren’t in a public park together.  He was wondering the best way to convince her to go home and to bed with him when he heard a familiar squeal.  “Uncle Max!”

He looked over with a sigh.  “Lily and Jasmine,” he whispered to help Harriett remember their names.

Lily ran straight to them and stopped at the edge of the blanket they were sitting on.  Harriett was surprised to see the young girl was running around in a boy’s shirt and pants.  Her mother really let her dress that way?  Jasmine was slower than her sister but she was right behind her.

Jasmine put her hands on her hips and looked down at the newlyweds.  “Why were you two kissing in the park?  Isn’t that against the law or something?”  Her face was indignant.

Max shook his head.  “No it’s not against the law to kiss your wife in a park.”

Lily pushed Jasmine.  “Not against the law, stupid.  Just against the code of decency.  Husbands and wives should only kiss behind closed doors.”  She stared at Max, waiting for him to apologize to her for having kissed his wife in public.

Jasmine seemed to think about that for a moment.  “Why would they want to kiss anyway?  Seems boring to me.”

Lily shrugged.  “Why are you asking me?  I’d rather climb a tree than kiss some silly boy.” 

Harriett couldn’t listen to the talk about kissing any longer.  “How are you young ladies today?  Lily?  Jasmine?” 
She was embarrassed to have been caught kissing Max by their nieces, but certainly didn’t feel like she’d done anything wrong for kissing him.

Jasmine peered down at Harriett for a moment before flopping down on the blanket and helping herself to a cookie from the remnants of the picnic the couple had just shared.  “Did Uncle Max help you with our names?  Most of the people in town just call us all ‘flower’ because they know we all have flower names.”  She munched on the cookie in her hand and took Max’s glass of lemonade to wash it down.

Lily threw herself down on the blanket on her stomach, reaching for the last cookie.  “I’m sure he told her who we are.  No one remembers all our names after the first meeting.”  She propped herself up on her elbows, kicking her feet in the air.  It was a good thing she wasn’t wearing a dress.

“Your uncle did tell me your names, but it so happens I remembered both of your names.  You all made quite an impression on me the other day.”  That part was honest at least.  The girls had all certainly
imbedded themselves in her brain.  She wasn’t sure that she could name them all yet, but she knew these two and Rose and Amaryllis.  And little Iris, of course.  “How’s Iris’s squirrel?”

Lily shrugged, answering with her mouth full of cookie.  “His leg was better so Papa made her let him go.  He said squirrels aren’t mean to live in captivity.” 

“What are you girls doing today?  Other than interrupting perfectly happy couples in the park?” Max asked.

Lily sighed.  “Well, since it’s Saturday and there’s no school and it’s not raining for a change, Mama said we could play in the park.”

“Does your mother know what you’re wearing?” Harriett couldn’t help but ask the question.  She couldn’t imagine allowing her daughter to run around in public in boys’ breeches. 

“I don’t know.  Jasmine is the one who asked if we could come.”
  Lily shrugged as if it had never occurred to her that her mother would mind.

“While you hid so she wouldn’t see that you were trying to sneak out without a skirt?” Max asked knowingly.

“Maybe.”  Lily sat up and folded her legs in front of her.  “I hate skirts.  It’s so hard to climb trees when you have to worry about whether someone can see up your skirt and look at your pantaloons.”  She rolled her eyes.  “It’s not like everyone doesn’t know what pantaloons look like and that every girl wears them, so I’m really not sure why it matters, but Mama is convinced that it does.”

Harriett bit her lip to stifle the laugh that was coming to the surface.  “I can see that it would be.  Do you wear skirts to school?”
  Just how often did Lily get away with wearing pants in public?

Lily nodded.  “Mama makes me.  She says I can be a hoyden at home, but when I go out in public she expects me to at least be dressed like a lady even if she can’t get me to act like one.”

“That’s exactly what Mama says.  That’s why I had to be the one to ask if we could come to the park, so Mama wouldn’t know that Lily was wearing pants again,” Jasmine explained.  She looked at Harriett.  “You won’t tell Mama, will you?”

Harriett shook her head, lowering her voice to a whisper.  “It’ll be our secret.”
  Harriett couldn’t help but love the girls.  They were a lot of fun to have around.

Lily smiled.  “Oh, good.  We’re going to like having you for an aunt.”

“I hope so.  I think I can be a fun aunt.  At least I hope so.”  She leaned forward as if bestowing another secret.  “I’ve never been an aunt before.”

Jasmine smiled.  “Really?  It’s not too terribly hard.  You just have to make sure you give us presents every time you see us and if we say something rude, you have to forgive us.  Simple.”

Max looked over at Harriett.  “Why did we want to come to the park again?”  He was obviously exasperated by his nieces’ behavior.

Harriett smiled.  “So we could see your beautiful nieces?”

Lily frowned.  “I don’t want to be beautiful and have a bunch of boys sniffing around me like Rose does.”  She made a disgusted face.  “I think Rose likes to have six boys vying for her attention, though.  I have no idea why, but she really seems to like it.”

“A lot of girls do,” Harriett responded.

“Really?” Lily asked.  “Did you want to have boys all around you?”

Harriett shook her head.  “No, I was always shy.  My first husband was the first boy I ever danced with.” 
She leaned forward and whispered.  “Your uncle Max is the second man to ever kiss me.”

“You were married before Uncle Max?” Jasmine said with surprise.

Harriett nodded.  “I got married when I was Rose’s age, but my husband died a year later.”

“How did he die?” Jasmine’s eyes were round with wonder.

“He got shot,” Harriett told her honestly, leaving out the part about who shot him and what had precipitated it.

Max gave her a startled look.  “I never knew how he died.  I guess I was expecting it to be something else.”

Harriett shrugged.  “You never asked.”  And she had never volunteered the information, because it wasn’t something she talked about.

“Do you know who shot him?”  Max watched her face carefully when he asked the question.

“Yes, I do.”  She refused to say another word about it, though, especially in front of the children.  She hoped he wouldn’t press her on it.

Max seemed to understand that she’d said all she was going to say, because he didn’t ask anything else.

“Sometimes people need to be shot,” Jasmine said with her ten year old wisdom.

Harriett nodded emphatically, not realizing how much she was revealing.  “Yes, Jasmine.  Sometimes people really do need to be shot.”

*****

Max didn’t ask any more questions that day about how Arthur had died, but he couldn’t get what Harriett had s
aid out of his head.  Sometimes people need to be shot?  Just what kind of man had Harriett been married to? 

He considered hiring someone to find out what had happened during Harriett’s first marriage, but decided that she’d tell him when she was ready.  Enough had been revealed already that he honestly wasn’t sure that he wanted to know.  Would he regret that someone else had shot Arthur and he hadn’t had the chance to do it himself?

He laid in bed that night watching Harriett sleep, her face looking innocent on the pillow with her hair spread out all around her.  He didn’t have any idea how someone could mistreat such a special woman, but he knew that if he ever found out why or how she’d been mistreated, he’d want blood. 

As he closed his eyes, he wondered if maybe that’s why she was so close to Higgins.  Did he know exactly what had happened?  Should he question him again? 

He sighed, knowing he needed to give Harriett some time to tell him everything for herself.  There was something going on with her past, and he had a feeling her husband was at the center of it all.  He just wished she trusted him enough to tell him.

Chapter Five

Once Max settled back to work, Harriett found herself at loose ends.  When she’d been married to Arthur, he’d always left her a list of things she needed to accomplish while he was gone.  She felt like she had nothing to do now, because Max told her to do whatever wives do all day, having no idea what that was, or what he should expect her to do.

She looked around the smaller parlor, the one Max had told her was hers for whatever she wanted and started thinking.  She didn’t much like the colors.  Maybe she could walk over to the mercantile and pick out new fabric.  The sofa and chair needed to be redone and so did the curtains.

She looked out the window.  It looked dreary, but it wasn’t actually raining, so she’d probably be okay.  She found Higgins in the hall and let him know where she was going and why.  She’d never been much of a shopper, but when she needed something, she always liked to get it herself rather than sending someone else.

She walked along the busy streets, glad she had moved to a place in the city.  She wasn’t sure she was cut out to be a farmer’s wife like a good portion of the women she’d sent off to be mail order brides. 

The mercantile was a fifteen minute walk.  Her leg was aching a bit by the time she arrived, but she was glad she was getting some exercise.  With the weather being so fickle in Seattle, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to exercise it as much as she needed to.the mercantile for the first time and looked around.  They had a good selection, everything from food items to clocks and watches.  She spotted the fabric in a corner and walked over, studying the different materials on display. 

She noticed another woman, older and overweight, standing across from her looking over the same display herself.  “What would you think of this for a parlor?  I want to redo the sofa.”  She held up the fabric and showed it to the other woman, really looking at her for the first time. 

The woman looked to be in her mid-forties and had brown hair and eyes.  She had round cheeks that Harriett liked.  Harriett had always wished her face were fuller.  Her eye is what caught Harriett’s attention.  It was an angry shade of purple.  Harriett didn’t say anything about it, but she wondered what the woman would say if she asked.  She had made all the excuses in the book herself.   ‘I walked into a wall.’  ‘I fell.’  ‘Sometimes I just can’t believe how clumsy I am.’ 

The woman gave her a tentative smile.  “I think the one with the pink roses would be prettier.”

Harriett looked down and spotted the fabric the woman had mentioned.  “You know, I think you’re right.”  She held her hand to shake the other woman’s.  “I’m Harriett Long.  I mean Harriett Farmer.”  She blushed at her mistake.  “I really do know my own name.  I got married last week.”

The other woman’s smile widened, but her eyes remained sad-looking.  “I’m
Mildred Anderson.”

“It’s so nice to meet you.  Are you from this area?”  She picked up the other fabric and studied it for a moment, trying to decide whether she wanted to match the red from the roses for curtains or whether she wanted to match the green from the leaves.

“No, I moved here with my husband about ten years ago.”

Harriett smiled.  “Do you have children?”