Marry Me (14 page)

“I might consider it,” she murmured. “Now, about Jake’s—”

“Haven’t done a nude for a long time.”

“And neither will you be anytime soon.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He made a square with his fingers and framed her in it, squinting. “Been a while, I’ll admit, but I always did have an imagination.”

“We’ll see,” she said smoothly. “Now, about Mr. Sullivan’s wife…”

She ignored Jake’s glower. It was natural for her to be curious about his previous life. If he didn’t like it…well, he should have been the one to tell them about it in the first place, and from Emily’s sudden alertness, almost but not quite hidden by her attention to the gravy she stirred, she knew very little herself.

“I had one of those once.”

“You had what?”

“A wife.” Slumping in his chair, Biskup gratefully accepted the brimming glass of Joe’s special home brew.

“You did, Mr. Biskup?” Joe handed another glass to Jake and began to take his own seat.

“I’d like one of those, Mr. Blevins,” Kate said.

“Huh?” He fumbled to cover his surprise and disapproval. “Uh, sure thing. I just couldn’t…carry any more at once.”

“Here. Take mine.” Jake handed over his glass. “I don’t drink anyway.”

“You don’t drink?” she asked in surprise.

“Not anymore. You taste it one too many times on the way up, it kinda loses its appeal on the way down.” Then he turned to Mr. Biskup and changed the topic. “I didn’t know you’d been married, Mr. Biskup,” Jake said. Hoping that Mr. Biskup would be too busy nattering about his wife to speak of Jake’s, Kate suspected.

“Sure. Till Luard Chandler offered me three hundred dollars for her.”

Kate, who’d insisted on the drink only because Mr. Blevins hadn’t offered her one, nearly choked on the first sip. “You sold your wife?”

He shrugged. “She liked Luard better’n me, anyway. Smithie only cost me ten bucks, and he’s better company. Less trouble. Too fond of riding the bulls, but then, so was Myrtle.” He cackled at his own joke. “Still and all, once I got rid of the first one, I didn’t have much of an urge to get another. And here you are, Jake, with another one already!”

“Maybe I had better luck at picking them than you did.”

“Oh, you surely did at that!” Art hooted. “Pretty as a picture, that first one, if a little delicate-looking for my taste. Could see the stars when the two of you looked at each other.” He glanced guiltily at Emily. “Not that the two of you don’t—oh, criminy. Didn’t mean no offense, ma’am.”

“None taken,” Emily said serenely, bringing Jake a cup of coffee. She put her hand on his shoulder and his came up to cover hers. A touch awkwardly, Kate judged. Because it was uncomfortable to hear his first wife discussed in front of his second? Or because he truly was not as deeply in love with Emily? He would not be the first man who couldn’t love his second wife as much. A new worry. She’d been so busy considering whether Jake was good enough for Emily that she’d never considered whether he could
love
her; she’d just assumed he would. Who wouldn’t love Emily? But a man whose heart was completely and permanently broken…oh no.

“Excuse me!” May, who’d been efficiently puttering in the kitchen, suddenly bolted past Kate, hand pressed over her mouth, her usually ruddy complexion the color of diluted pea soup.

“Oh dear.” Emily rushed to follow her.

From just outside the door came the sound of vile retching. Jake gulped his coffee like he wished he’d taken the whiskey after all. Art merely tugged a couple of dates out of his pocket and gave one to Smithie. He popped the other in his mouth and chewed noisily, which, coupled with the sound of retching outside, made Kate queasy enough to glare accusingly at Joe.

Joe, who’d drained the last of his drink, caught her disapproval. “What?”

“In case you’d somehow missed it, your wife is ill.”

“So?” His usual pink skin flushed deeper.

“Don’t you think you should go to her?”

“Why? Emily’s with her.” The jug was on the floor near his chair, and he scooped it up, sloshing a hefty glug into his glass. “Not like there’s anythin’ I can do.” He grinned proudly. “Already did my part. Now it’s her turn.”

“But—”

The two women returned, Emily supporting May’s elbow, while May swiped at her forehead with a damp cloth. May’s color had gone from green to chalky white. Better, but certainly not healthy.

“My apologies,” May murmured. She lifted her arm away from Emily’s support and folded her hands in front of her apron. “It seems the typical morning indisposition is determined to strike me at suppertime instead.”

“A baby?” Jake set his cup carefully on the floor. “You’re having a baby?”

And then she had color, a bright bloom of pink.

“Yup,” her husband answered for her as he reached over to give Jake a companionable slap on his shoulder. “Beat you to it, Sullivan. Bet you five to ten it’s a boy, too. Good breeding stock, my May.”

Jake ignored him, kept his flat, expressionless gaze upon May. “When?”

“I—” She blanched again. “October. November, perhaps.”

“She’s worried about it,” Joe supplied. “Don’t know why. We’re farm people, both of us. Seen things born a hundred times. And look at her hips! Squirt it out just like my best heifer, I’ll wager. Why—”

Jake had him up against the wall before the last word faded away. His fists twisted the front of Joe’s shirt into a tight ball, and despite the fact that Joe probably outweighed him by twenty pounds Joe’s booted toes dangled six inches above the floor.

“You will,” Jake said slowly, “never compare your wife’s condition to an animal’s again.”

Joe was too stunned to be angry. “Hey, look, I—”

Jake shook him, making his heels thump against the wall. “You will do whatever she asks of you until her time comes.
Whatever.
Do you understand me?”

“I didn’t mean anything. There’s no reason for her to be afraid of havin’ a baby, I—”

“Do you understand me?”

By this time Emily had gained their side. “Jake—”

“I asked you a question, Blevins.”

“Yeah.” For pride’s sake, he’d tried taking a swing, but Jake had his elbows wide, pinning Joe’s arms to the wall, and the punch had no more effect than a buzzing fly. “Yeah, I understand.”

“If she wants a doctor, she gets it. If she wants to go back to Illinois, she gets it. If she wants you to
build
her a goddamn hospital before that baby comes, you’ll do it.”

“Whatever she wants,” Joe repeated.

“And you won’t make light of it again.”

“I never was.” He spread his hands, as wide as their position allowed. “Really, Sullivan, what the hell’s gotten into you?”

“Jake.” Emily touched his biceps.

Jake held Joe in that position, his chest heaving, muscles bulging with the weight of his burden, eyes hard as if anticipating Joe giving him an excuse to start swinging.

“Let him go, Jake.” This time Emily wrapped her hands around his upper arm and tugged. “He’ll take care of her. He promises, and so do I.”

Jake turned his head in her direction, mouth compressed, cheekbones jutting sharp and brutal. “Jake,” she said again, her voice so intimately soft she might have been whispering his name in bed. A shudder ran through him, and he let go, releasing Joe so fast he was unprepared and his legs nearly buckled beneath him before he found his feet.

Jake strode to the door, pausing briefly beside May, his head down. “I’m sorry,” he said without looking at her. “I—” His right arm came up and then dropped back to his side, as if he’d meant to touch her but thought better of it. “Take care.”

Bewildered, May nodded. “I will.”

“No, I…take
very
good care.” And then he was gone. The door slammed shut behind him, sucking in on a gust, leaving them all staring at it as if it might make some sense of what had just happened.

“Huh.” Art chewed on another date, jaw working in rhythm with his monkey’s. “Never used to be such a touchy fellow, least not that I can recall.”

“Hmm.” Kate supposed such a show of temper should worry her, but truly, she’d been on the verge of stringing up that idiot Joe herself.

Emily, who’d remained standing by the door, so lost in thought she’d appeared half asleep, suddenly came to life. “May, how are you feeling now?” she asked briskly.

“I’m better. I’m always fine for at least a few minutes after I empty out.”

“Kate, stay with her for a while, will you, just to make sure? Sorry to interrupt your dinner, May, it was a lovely thought, and we’re both ever so grateful, but please don’t wait for us if you’re ready to eat. And in any case, I’ll be over in the morning with a tonic we’ve found helpful.”

A man in bad temper was, in Kate’s experience, best left alone to stew. You could cheer him up when the edge was off, if you wanted, but there was no point in trying when his mood was running hot. “Emily, don’t you think—”

But once again her sister was gone before Kate could stop her, rushing headlong into potential disaster.

I
t took her a while to find him.

The minutes Emily spent thrashing through hip-deep grass gave her a little too much time to wonder whether she should, indeed, be chasing after him. No doubt he’d much prefer to be left alone. And she’d certainly no
right
to go running after him. He was not her husband, something that was becoming harder to remember than it should have been. Which undoubtedly gave credence to their charade, but it had happened far too easily for her peace of mind. While she didn’t feel
married
to him, exactly, nevertheless she couldn’t deny that, way down deep, she felt as if she had some claim on the man. And some responsibility to him.

Which, while natural—what one acted very often was what one became, in her experience—also seemed disconcertingly dangerous. Because once he’d seen Kate on a coach, he’d shove her on the very next one.

But then she rounded a rise a few hundred yards west of the Blevinses’ and found him there, standing on the top of a slight bluff, braced into the wind, solitary and lost, and she couldn’t leave him alone.

She mimicked his stance beside him, hands clasped behind her, the wind hot and dry in her face, lifting her hair. Sunset bled across the horizon: red, orange, purple. Hot colors, seething, born in violence and flame.

“Beautiful.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

How’d he do that? Strip himself of every emotion, tamp them down and down until there was no chance of them erupting again? She was sure they were still there, somewhere deep; he didn’t seem empty and dead, but so ruthlessly contained that the emotions had turned in on themselves.

The light danced over his features, brutally forged, strong. Like an ancient warrior illuminated by a bonfire’s flames, when the only thing that mattered was survival.

He fascinated her. It surprised her, that. She’d never suspected she was so susceptible to physical allure. So drawn by a man’s secrets, a man’s pain, a man’s strength. She could look at him, kissed by sunset and dusk, for hours. Forever.

It would be easy just to stay beside him and enjoy the view. Muddling in deep, dark places, in long-ago memories, always held the danger of wandering into wounds best left alone. She’d no doubt he’d fight her should she try to venture in.

But years of experience had taught her the value of lancing a wound instead of letting it fester. Abrief, brilliant pain rather than a lingering, cancerous one.

She took a deep breath and plunged in. “So. There was a baby?”

He closed his eyes, swallowed hard. “Yeah. There was a baby.”

Then he looked down at her. His eyes, dark as an old bruise, sought hers and held, only a few inches away. She hadn’t realized she’d stood so near; he’d seemed so very far away, she realized, she’d gotten close without recognizing it. She could kiss him, lift up to her toes and press her mouth to his, and forget all this. Make
him
forget, at least for a little while. And perhaps that would be a greater kindness.

Except he surprised her. “Where do you want me to start?”

“I thought I’d have to drag it out of you, word by word.”

“Me, too.” Not a smile, but a sad, hard curve to his mouth. “I’ve
not
talked about it for a long time. Hasn’t helped.”

“Start wherever.” There were no lines on his face, she realized in faint surprise. It seemed like his past should have left a mark somehow. She could tell where they’d etch in time, a deep bracket around his mouth, a furrow between his brow. Impulsively she touched him there, her fingers brushing against the corner of his mouth, and the tight tension there eased. “Tell me about your wife.”

“Since when does a woman want to hear a man speak of another?”

“This woman does.” She’d sometimes been told by Goodale’s patients that she had magic hands. It was an essential part of the healing process for her, laying her hands on an ailing joint, an aching belly. She didn’t know exactly why. Perhaps the heat helped, the energy, or maybe there was simply some tactile symptom she detected through her skin that she couldn’t define but nevertheless helped her diagnose ills correctly.

She’d never before hoped so much that her hands truly could heal.

Stepping closer, she slid her arms around his waist. She laid her cheek against his chest—hard, warm—and just held on. And it all sighed out of him, a gust of breath, a rush of tension, and the words came.

“I can’t tell you about her without telling you about me.”

Good, she thought; her curiosity would be satisfied at last. His heart thumped beneath her ear and his chest vibrated each time he spoke. A nice place to be, curled up against him. She wished it were for no other reason but the pleasure of it.

“My father delivered ice. It provided barely enough for a wife and a son, I suppose, though I don’t remember much. I was only three when he died. Rushing home, went too fast around a corner, and the wagon overturned.”

“So we’ve more in common than I knew.” She tightened her arms, let her hands wander up and down, a motion that couldn’t pretend to be anything but a caress, although the purpose could be debated. She could say it was only for comfort and almost believe it. “My mother died not long after I was born, my father when I was five. So young I barely knew enough to miss them.”

“Yes.” She was peeling the bandages off wounds he’d carefully covered, layer by layer, and Jake couldn’t even say he minded. The pain was there, but kept at a low, dull ache by the feel of her body pressed lightly against his, her hands moving over his back. There was comfort in each stroke, a cool and soothing balm. And yet at the same time a simmer of desire, as healing in its own way as the comfort, holding the worst at bay. “But I still had my mother.”

“And I had my sisters,” she said briskly, turning away any sympathy he might have offered before it began.

“And a formidable pair they must be, from the one I’ve met.”

“Oh no. I’ll tell my secrets later. It’s your turn now.”

“I wasn’t changing the topic on purpose,” he said, startled to find it the truth. She…interested him, in a way little had for a very long time. Curiosity, long dormant, stirred. He let it sit for a bit, found he liked it more than he would have thought. “I’d like to know, though.”

“Would you?”

“Yes.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I am.”

“Then I’ll confess that I am, too.” His shirt was thin cotton, and her breath seeped through it, warm and moist against his skin. He gave in, and wrapped his arms around her so that he held her as tightly as she held him. “It wasn’t all that long ago that I figured you’d rather run from here to Billings than have to listen to one detail of my life.”

“I would have.”

She slapped his back lightly in reprimand. “And you’re distracting me, wandering off the subject again.”

“You’re not going to let me off the hook, are you?” He chuckled, wondering at the ease of it.

“Yes I would.” Her hands stilled. She tilted her head back. “I would. If you really want me to.”

“Too late now.” Gently he pushed her head back where it belonged. He couldn’t look at her and get through it all. He knew that much. He’d see the sympathy, the understanding in her eyes, and he’d be lost. And suddenly it seemed important to say it all at least once. “You’re stuck.”

Blessedly, sweetly, her hands took up their warm caress again. He found himself speaking in rhythm with them, as if they drew the words from him with each circle they made. “My mother had to find work then. There wasn’t much. She’d no experience, no skills. Just cleaning, and oh, she could do that!” He smiled at the memory. “Still does, come to think of it. Can make a floor shine like it was made out of diamonds.”

“She’s still alive?”

“Oh yeah. Still scrubbing floors. Says she’s afraid she’ll stiffen up like an old lady if she stops, so she keeps at it. She could run me into the ground any day.” And suddenly he missed her, with her wiry body that barely came up to his chest but that could still make him quake in his boots. He’d write her tomorrow, he promised himself. “So she went to work for the Bateses.”

“Rich?”

“Oh yeah. That house I struggled so much to build wouldn’t be fit for his dog.” He expected that admission to bite; he’d never been able to look at his claim shack without comparing it to the house in which Julia had been raised. But he’d built a house with his own hands that had stood up to two winters on the plains. It was more than most he knew in Chicago could claim.

“I know the kind,” she said dryly.

“Oh?”

“Later,” she promised, and he made a mental note to ask. Another similarity, it seemed. It no longer surprised him.

“I was too young to be left alone all the time, and the housekeeper was kind. She let Mother smuggle me in now and then. Even let me hang around the kitchen and ’approve’ the desserts.” He hadn’t realized he still held good memories of Bates House. They’d been submerged for years, sunk beneath the weight of the darker ones. It felt good to take them out again to glitter and shine, the glowing pieces of a childhood that had been mostly bright. “They had a library. A huge room, with big arched windows that welcomed the sun. I’d never seen anything like it, and there was hardly ever anyone there. It became my sanctuary.”

“The books,” she murmured. He felt her mouth move against him, the press and brush of her lips against his cloth-covered chest, and had to struggle to hang on to a thought.

“Huh?”

“All those books. That you left in the shack. I wondered about them. About the kind of person who’d go to so much trouble to lug them out here and take such good care of them. And who’d have such a wide range of material.”

“Impressed you, did I?”

“You most certainly did.” He laid his cheek on the top of her head. He’d held her before, remembered her scent. But usually it had been for Kate’s benefit and he’d weighed each move for its best effect. This he did for himself. Because he liked the feel of her, and for no other reason. Because it made him feel hopeful and warm and yes, maybe even a bit happy.

“I was…ten, I think. I rarely saw any of the family—the Bateses, that is. I’d been trained well to stay out of the way. But I was curious. Why wouldn’t I be? I was in the library reading
Moby Dick
when Mr. Bates strolled in. He was
never
there during the day. Still don’t know why he was then, but it was too late to run.”

“Mr. Bates?” she asked.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Oh. I thought you were going to tell me about your wife.”

“I’m getting there,” he told her. “Story too slow for you? Want me to hurry up so you don’t get bored?” he asked.

“Don’t you dare. It’s taken me long enough to get even a hint from you. I want to hear every single detail.”

“You wondered about me?”

Her hair smelled like sunshine in a garden. The scent had haunted him for days, a light drift here and there just out of his reach that he hadn’t been able to get ahold of.

“Yes,” she admitted. “I wondered. A lot.”

“I’m flattered.”

“You shouldn’t be. I’m a curious sort, too.”

“Never woulda guessed.” Curious, and vibrant, and kind. And a lot of other things, he’d wager. Things he was now sorry he’d never have the time to find out about her. “Anyway, I stood there quaking in my shoes, clutching that book before me like I thought it might shield me. I figured I was out on my ass for good, and my mother, too.”

“But you weren’t.”

“Nope. He took one look at the book, rocked back on his heels, and opined that I might as well stop pretending, there was no chance that a poor rough urchin like me could be reading such a tome.”

“He didn’t!” she said, indignant on his behalf.

“Oh, he did. He had opinions, had Mr. Bates. I took offense. Stupid; I should have slunk out the first chance I got. Mom needed the job, and I sure didn’t need Mr. Bates on my tail. But instead I flipped open the book and started reading the first paragraph my eyes fell on. Fast as I could, spewing out the words before he could stop me, so I could
prove
that I knew how. That I wasn’t just some dumb punk kid looking at the pictures.”

“If you’d tried that on Dr. Goodale, you’d have made it to word two.”

“Well, I made it to page three before he stopped me. Then he grabbed a copy of
Ragged Dick
, opened it to the middle, and shoved it at me. I read—was too afraid not to. He took a liking to me, I guess. I never was sure why.”

Emily wondered how many questions she dared ask, how many pieces of the puzzle she’d discover tonight. The words that spilled out of him told her one thing. His body told her just as much; tenderness, strength, emotion carefully contained, all the more powerful for it.

“I didn’t see him all that much. Once every few months he’d call me in and have me tell him what I was learning. He’d fire questions at me, always at least a couple I couldn’t answer, and I’d better have it right by the next time or…well, he never told me what would happen ‘or.’”

“You always had the answer by the next time?”

“Oh yes. I’d have been terrified not to. And ashamed.”

He enveloped her. His arms linked around her back, his cheek resting on the top of her head, his voice pouring over her and sinking in deep. She’d never get the sound of it out again, not completely. From now on some part of her would always hold on to the memory of him giving her something she knew he’d given no one else.

“When I got old enough, he paid for my tuition.”

“That was very kind of him.”

“I thought so. Oh hell, I still think so, even though now I realize he educated me because he figured I’d be of use to him someday. It was still an opportunity I’d have never had otherwise.”

He paused. It got harder now. Darker. And full of his own mistakes, ones that he could explain all he wanted but would still make him look like the worst kind of cad. And he didn’t want her to think that of him. He shouldn’t care, there was no reason to care, but there it was. He did.