JOE'S WIFE

by Cheryl St. John

  Edwina adjusted her stiff black skirts, cast a reproachful eye on Tye and said to Meg, "I don't know what you're doing, bringing him here like this. As if you haven't disgraced us enough, Meg Telford, now you're flaunting this shameful alliance before the whole town!"

  Meg recovered from her shock immediately. "I'm coming to church like I do every Sunday morning. It just so happens that this particular Sunday I've brought my husband with me."

  "Husband!" The way she spat the word indicated she didn't consider Tye any such thing. "Joe is your husband and don't you forget it. This man is trouble, mark my words. I never thought my Joe married a stupid woman."

  Edwina gathered her skirts and made a wide circle around the couple. "Joe wouldn't have worn his holster to church," she continued, looking Tye up and down with scorn.

  "Joe wouldn't have been expecting one of the brethren to shoot him in the back," Tye said with an audacious grin.

  Harley ignored him, took Gwynn's arm and led her behind his mother. Gwynn cast a regretful glance over her shoulder.

  Wilsie scampered to join them.

  Meg stared at the empty buggy, hurt and anger warring in her breast. Beside her, Tye waited in grim silence. Finally, she turned and met his gaze.

  The hard blue stare beneath his hat brim revealed no emotion. He'd been expecting it. Had been braced for it. If a person bore insults a thousand times over, did the barbs lose their sting?

  "Still want to go in there?" he asked.

  Resolutely, she laced her arm though his and headed toward the building.

  The drone of voices hushed as they entered the aisle. The Telfords were already seated in their pew, third from the front on the right, the pew where she'd sat with them every Sunday since becoming engaged to Joe seven years ago.

  She couldn't sit with them now, she realized belatedly. She paused a few rows back and slipped into an available wooden seat. Tye sat beside her, his long thigh brushing her skirts, and stared straight ahead. He'd hung his hat on the row of hooks inside the door, so he had no brim to take refuge beneath.

  A few whispered comments broke the silence.

  Meg glanced around, taking note of the townspeople unwilling to meet her eyes. Friends who'd greeted her every Sunday morning since she could remember now avoided her. The ones who did look at her did so with disapproving stares.

  Finally Reverend Baker walked to stand behind the pulpit, Fiona stumbled through the beginning hymn, and the congregation stood.

  Meg opened the hymnal. The words and music blurred. Voices rose on all sides. She blinked, determinedly cleared her throat and joined them. Towering beside her, Tye remained silent. She extended the hymn book, and he took the other side obligingly but didn't sing.

  Later, instructed to sit once again, she noticed his long fingers massage his thigh unconsciously. She glanced at him, and his hand stilled. Reverend Baker began to speak, and Tye met her eyes at last. He hadn't wanted her to see this. Hadn't wanted the same ill treatment to befall her. He'd said as much that first day in his rented room.

  But she'd asked for it. She'd insisted. And she'd gotten what she'd asked for.

  She couldn't help thinking that the Telfords would gather for dinner after this, as they always did, and afterward they'd sit on the wide front porch, and the children would play on the lawn. Even during the war, she'd eaten Sunday dinner with Joe's mother, sister and sister-in-law. And after his death, they'd been her strength and her only family.

  Dinner! Her mind ran through the supplies she had to prepare a meal. She couldn't regret losing company for her Sunday meal. She'd gained a means to hang on to her life. They would come around, she told herself again. She hadn't changed. Nothing had really changed. They would see that.

  The service ended finally, and she and Tye made their way to the back like everyone else. No one greeted them. Everyone carefully maintained a reproachful distance.

  Reaching Reverend Baker, the couple received their first greeting and smile. "Meg, you're looking lovely. Hatch, I was pleased to see you in the congregation this morning."

  "You're the only one."

  The reverend grinned at Tye's low remark. "I hope this doesn't mean you won't be callin' on me Sunday afternoons anymore. I enjoy our talks together."

  "I'll make it a point to visit," Tye replied. "Probably not today, though. I've got a lot to figure out around the place."

  "Why don't you come to the Circle T for dinner next week?" Meg asked eagerly.

  "I'll do that," the reverend said, and shook Tye's hand.

  Meg smiled up at Tye. He settled his hat on his head, and they crossed the side yard, pointedly ignoring rude stares and whispers.

  Tye made a step of his laced fingers, and she climbed onto the seat and tied her bonnet beneath her chin.

  She'd been the prettiest woman there, just as she'd always been the prettiest woman anywhere in Aspen Grove. Tye wished he could be proud to have her beside him. But she hadn't married him for any reason he could take pride in.

  He'd borne the indignities of his birth and his mother's status his entire life, and he detested her observing it. He would have done just about anything to avoid her seeing how unkindly people could behave, and never for anything would he have allowed her to suffer the same if there was any way to prevent it. He'd come here for her.

  Because she'd asked him. And, he admitted to himself, he knew he'd never deny Meg anything she asked.

  She'd taken his arm in front of the whole town. She'd acknowledged him, sat by him and—Lord help her—married him. He perused her now and she surveyed him back.

  She wasn't ashamed to have married him.

  For the first time he allowed himself to look into the honeyed depths of her eyes without wondering what she was seeing when she looked at him. She had a peaches-and-cream complexion with a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose that she probably hated, but that were nearly unavoidable working every day on a ranch.

  He loved the saucy turn of her nose and the bowed shape of her pink lips. Her hair smelled like violets, and its scent fluttered on every breeze within six feet.

  Now, only a few errant curls were visible beneath the bonnet, but he knew the exact hue, like rich honey, and could only imagine the heady texture.

  Tye realized he'd worked himself into an embarrassing state simply by looking at her, and he tore his gaze away and fixed it on the rumps of the plodding horses. He wanted a cigarette bad.

  The Circle T, she'd called it, he remembered as they rode in. Not "the ranch," not "our place," but "the Circle T."

  "T" for Telford.

  He let the horses stand long enough to change his clothing, then led them into the barn, brushed them down, gave them grain and water and turned them into the pasture.

  Tye stood with one boot on the bottom rung of the fence, watching them graze with the other horses, and rolled a smoke. A robust liver-colored chestnut in a separate corral caught his eye, and he couldn't recall ever seeing a horse like it before. He pinched out the match, slid it into his pocket and inhaled tobacco into his lungs.

  His own horse, a black with speckled white hindquarters, galloped over to where he stood and nudged his shoulder. Tye stroked his forehead. He'd purchased the horse after the war and ridden him home.

  "Don't let the missus catch ya doin' that," Purdy said, coming up beside him and indicating his smoke.

  Tye acknowledged the advice with a nod. He hadn't imagined Meg would take too kindly to the vice.

  "Slack season's nearly over," Purdy said, referring to summer, with roundup and calf branding growing near.

  "Plenty to do before roundup," Tye replied. "Thought I'd go up in the hills this week and get some pine poles for a fence to make a south pasture."

  "Want help?"

  "Be glad for it."

  Purdy nodded.

  "What breed is that dark chestnut stallion?"

  "Don't know." Purdy shrugged. "Joe sent him and two mares home whilst he was gone."

&nb
sp; A bell rang then, its clamor echoing across the pasture.

  "Dinner on Sunday?" the old man questioned, his gray eyebrows raised.

  "You don't usually have Sunday dinner?"

  "The missus is generally gone until late afternoon. Gus cooks for us."

  Of course. Her Sunday routine had been shot to hell by his presence. Tye squeezed off the fire from his smoke and dropped the cigarette into his pocket. "Well. Let's see what it is."

  Tye was unaccustomed to so many meals and so much food. He'd already eaten her breakfast, so he prayed he could do another meal justice.

  He and the hands washed at the pump outside, entered the kitchen, hung their hats … and stopped in their tracks.

  The table had been spread with a pressed white linen cloth and set with vine-and-flower-bedecked china, the edges of the cups scalloped, the plates set neatly at the end where they'd eaten that morning. A clove-studded ham graced a platter, a bowl of creamy mashed potatoes beside it, and butter melted into a bowl of steaming greens. The cut-glass salt and pepper shakers with the silver lids had been filled and added to the setting.

  "What are you gaping at?" she asked the gathering of men, carrying a bowl of gravy. "We're starting our own Sunday tradition."

  Tye and the hands seated themselves.

  "Tye, slice the ham and serve us, please."

  He picked up the knife and serving fork and did as she asked, placing a thick slice of meat on each plate. The bowls were passed, and before long he had a plateful of food to work his way through.

  He ate slowly, not remembering the last time he'd eaten ham, but he'd never tasted one so succulent. She'd made a thin, dark, salty gravy, pure pleasure to his unaccustomed palate.

  The hands took seconds and dashed through their meal, Purdy excusing himself and Gus getting up to start scrubbing pans.

  Tye glanced up to find Meg finished, watching him.

  He laid his fork down.

  "Is everything all right?" she asked.

  "Everything's good. Don't know when I've eaten so well."

  "Well, don't stop."

  He picked up his fork and endured her watching him finish the meal. "Coffee?"

  He nodded, and she brought the pot from the stove and filled the delicate china cup. Tye's finger didn't fit in the handle, so he picked it up by holding the brim between his thumb and forefinger and drank the delicious black brew. "Thank you."

  He studied her as she sipped her coffee, her small fingers holding the handle just so. Her warm tawny coloring reminded him of nature, of a beautiful mountain lion or an autumn hillside streaked with ore. Her eyes were bright and gemlike, lit from within like a smoldering fire.

  He thought of how he'd lowered her from the wagon twice that day, and how his hands had spanned her tiny waist. That harmless touch had been enough to inspire his lusty nature into more dishonorable thoughts. His fingers had recognized the bone shelf, and he wondered how she tied that corset herself, and if she wore it only beneath her Sunday clothing and had cast if off for the day dress she wore now.

  What else did she wear beneath those modest dresses? Her skirts didn't rustle like she wore stiff crinoline, but they were full and swayed as she walked, so layers of petticoats were evident. Were they dyed? Red or black? He'd glimpsed a white one that day at the boardinghouse. White seemed to suit Meg.

  Those thoughts reminded him she was Joe's wife. Joe Telford had married her, had known what sort of underclothing she preferred, and had initiated her to a man's touch. Those images disturbed him, so he blocked them from his mind.

  She turned those wide, tawny eyes on him now. "Tye?"

  She was the only person besides his mother and one or two schoolmasters who'd ever called him Tye. It made him sit up a little straighter and cast the errant thoughts aside. "Ma'am?"

  "Last year the Eaton boys and I cut two hay fields, but it got wet and rotted before we could get it into the barns. We spent this spring raking it so the new would grow. I had to buy feed over the winter, and it's gone now."

  "The fields look good," he said. "We should get two or three cuttings this summer."

  "I just want you to know where things stand. I told you right off I couldn't keep going alone. I need your help in figuring out what to do."

  "It'll probably be a spell before the first cut," he said. "But we really only need to feed the teams. The cattle are on their own until roundup, anyway. And we can move the rest of the horses from this pasture to another farther south as soon as I can get a new fence up. There's plenty of land here, plenty of grass and water. You got them through the winter, and they'll make it now."

  "We need seed for the garden, and the banknote comes due every three months. That's just a few weeks away."

  He considered her words and the pending situation. "Do you have any horses you can sell?"

  "We could sell one of Joe's horses, maybe one of the Welsh. He was going to breed them. That would be the last resort, though. I'd rather sell the furniture first."

  "Maybe we can make some money studding them," he suggested. He wouldn't allow her to sell her furniture.

  "Maybe," she replied. "If we found someone interested."

  "Let me take care of that," he said.

  Meg nodded her agreement and let her glance fall across his hair and face, grateful for someone to share the burden at last, someone who wanted to keep the ranch as badly as she did. Someone who wasn't trying to get her to sell the place off and move to the city.

  He was an anomaly, this blue-eyed man with the intent expressions. He was all bottled up and inside himself, and her only glimpses of his feelings were in the shadowy nuances of his expressive eyes when his barriers were down.

  Everything he did, he did purposefully and with calm control: eating, walking, speaking.

  Meg refilled his coffee cup and the unfamiliar scent of tobacco flitted against her nostrils as she leaned over him. She glanced down at the spare planes of his tanned face. "Do you like dried-apple pie?" she asked.

  "Yes."

  "I'll make one for tonight."

  His expression didn't reveal pleasure in her offer, but rather an almost pained look of resignation.

  Behind her, Gus clanged a skillet on top of the hot stove to dry.

  "I can't drink any more coffee," Tye said. "Thank you for the meal."

  He stood, catching his balance on the leg he didn't favor, and grabbed his hat from a peg. Major stood outside the door and sniffed at Tye's pant legs as he exited.

  A strange man, to be sure. A very strange man. But a man she trusted to help her.

  A few days later, Meg hung the laundry Gus had helped her wring. The clank of hammer against iron echoed across the space between the house and the barn, a few choice words following a prolonged silence. She didn't like swearing, and the men never did it in her presence, but often the wind carried the colorful phrases to her from the corral.

  Meg was grateful for Gus's help with kitchen and household chores, for she found them tedious, and once she worked her way through them, she preferred outdoor tasks.

  The hammering sound came again, and she followed it to where Tye had a mare tied to a post, her hoof bracketed between his knees. He bent over the task of pounding a shoe into place.

  He clipped the nails and filed them as methodically and with as much concentration as he did everything, not noticing her presence even after he'd clipped the last nail, filed it smooth and straightened, catching his balance. He loosed the mare and swatted her rump to watch her gallop sure-footedly across the enclosure. Apparently satisfied with his job, he went after the horse, his limp more pronounced than Meg had ever seen it.

  He spotted her then but looked away quickly and opened the far gate to release the mare into the pasture.

  "The Eaton boys haven't been in since day before yesterday," Meg said when he neared. "They usually at least come at noon. I thought I'd better ride out and check on the herds, take the boys a sandwich. They probably just went home for dinner, but I'd like
the ride."

  "I'll ride with you," he said.

  "I'll change." She hurried toward the house.

  She removed her petticoats and pulled a pair of Joe's knickerbockers on beneath her skirt. Returning to the corral, she found two horses saddled.

  The red dun bearing her saddle didn't shy as she approached. He accepted her weight and stood placidly.

  "You took the buck out of him," she said to Tye, who led a sturdy gray mare with his saddle.

  "Yes, ma'am." He raised his good left leg to the stirrup and swung the other up over the back of the horse with a grimace.

  Neither Gus nor Purdy was up to gentling the horses for her, and she was unaccustomed to the courtesy. Since there were no gentle horses left—she'd sold the tamest ones for profit—she'd had to handle them on her own each time she wanted to ride. Sometimes she feared she'd knock a hole in her chest with her chin before they settled down enough to command.

  Tye opened the gate from where he sat and closed it behind them. Meg kicked her horse into a gallop.

  They rode along the stream that meandered through the southeast section of the Circle T, wild rosebushes lining its banks. Tye climbed down from the mare and dipped water in his palm to drink. Before mounting again, he plucked a rose from one of the bushes, snapped off the thorns and handed it to her.

  Their gloves brushed as she accepted the delicate pink flower. "Thank you."

  Their eyes met only briefly before he adjusted his hat and turned away. Without a word, he climbed into his saddle, and her red followed his lead. Not knowing what to think, Meg studied his broad back. She lifted the flower to her nose, inhaled its delicate fragrance, then carefully placed it in her skirt pocket.

  They came across a small herd grazing in the afternoon sun. Tye looked them over, pointing out a familiar brand. "Double Oarlock. Mitch Heden's brand."

  "That one's Bar Sixteen," she said. "Belongs to the Wheaton outfit."

  "Worked for him one summer," Tye replied.

  The next herd they located was larger, with at least thirty calves. Aldo spotted them and rode over.