"I don't know. You've been sort of quiet."
"Quiet bother you?"
"No." She plucked at the nap of the blanket. "You didn't seem very pleased about me mentioning school for Eve."
"I don't want her to go to school."
She stared at him. "But, Tye! How will she get an education? I know you're not one of those men who think women shouldn't learn reading and arithmetic."
"Not at all." He gazed affectionately on the sleeping child. "I want her to have a better life than I had. I want her to be educated. But you and I can do that."
She studied his handsome face, his blue eyes, letting her gaze encompass his broad shoulders and travel the length of his legs to where they crossed at the ankles.
When he noticed her perusal, his expression grew tender. He took the tablecloth she'd rolled, placed it beneath Eve's head and moved beside Meg. Stretching out, he pulled her down beside him, and she met his supple lips.
Tye stroked her cheek, gazed into her eyes and kissed her leisurely. She adored his attention. Craved it now. Everything he'd done since they'd ventured into this relationship had endeared him to her. And his love and concern for Eve only reinforced his goodness.
"I'm not a teacher," Meg said, touching his sun-dappled cheek. "And you have your hands full with the ranch. She can learn so much more in school."
"The only thing more she can learn is how small-minded and cruel other people are—children and adults alike," he replied, their noses touching. "I won't put her through that. I know how it feels to be looked on as something low and dirty. I never want her to feel like that."
Meg didn't know what to reply. She'd believed people would come around after she'd married Tye, but so far only one or two out of a hundred even spoke to her. She'd been excluded from church activities and women's gatherings, stared at, whispered about and verbally attacked.
And she came from a respectable family. Her parents had been married. She had no idea how much worse it had been for Tye all his life. How much worse it could be for Eve.
"Maybe we just need to show them she's as good as they are, and that we're not ashamed of her—or of ourselves."
"Just like you showed 'em, huh, Meg?" he said, caressingly threading his fingers through her hair. "Just like I showed 'em all those years. No. I won't have her hurt like that. And keeping her away from them is the only way I know how to keep her safe."
His protective instinct was understandable—and endearing, and she knew he meant to safeguard Eve from the same pain he'd endured, but was it right to keep the child hidden away? "I don't know if I have the qualities to teach her all she needs to know. And what about all the time it would take?"
Was she just being selfish?
"I will make this decision, Meg." His tone offered no room for opposition, and being shut out disturbed her … well, hurt her.
His vehemence disturbed her. He'd done everything she'd asked of him and never asked for anything in return. If he felt so strongly about Eve not attending school, surely Meg could manage to teach her the basics. He'd said he would share the task. She didn't want anything to change what had been taking place and growing between them. She didn't want to lose this incredible closeness and the delight of his imaginative attentions.
Tye made her feel young and beautiful and alive. He had changed her world. She didn't want to risk losing that for anything. She'd already lost enough.
"All right, Tye. If you feel so strongly."
He ran his palm up her spine, cupped her head and pulled her into a slow, easy kiss. From time to time they spoke softly of inconsequential things. Meg closed her eyes and rested, feeling his touch as he picked grass from her hair or stroked her arm, sensing when he leaned above her on one elbow.
Her face close to his, she smiled into his eyes and he caressed her cheek with a thumb.
When Eve awoke from her nap, she flung herself over Tye's side with an indelicate flurry of petticoats, and Meg and Tye moved apart to let her rest between them.
"Did you take a nap, too?" she asked.
"Yes," Tye replied with an irrepressible smile. "And now I have work to do, so we'd better get packed up and head back." He sat up.
"Aw, heck," Eve said with a pout, sounding suspiciously like Gus. "Do we have to?"
"Yes, we have to."
"Where's Molly?" Eve asked, glancing around. She got up and searched the blanket.
Meg rose to her feet and straightened her clothing and hair. "Did you bring her? I don't remember seeing her since we've been here."
"I brung her! I did."
Tye and Meg inspected the ground and the basket of food and folded up the blanket. "Your doll's not here," Tye said. "Maybe you left her at home."
"No, I brung Molly. I know I brung her!" Eve burst into tears and crumpled to the ground.
Meg exchanged a startled look with Tye. "It's okay, darling," she said, hurrying to help her up and comfort her. "We'll find her."
They searched again. "Maybe she's at home," Tye whispered.
Meg finally had to agree.
They mounted the horses and rode back to the house, Eve wailing in Tye's lap. By the time they reached the house, Tye looked frantic and Meg felt sick to her stomach. Another investigation ensued without turning up the doll.
By this time Eve was hysterical, and Tye paced the kitchen, running a hand through his hair. "It's just a rag doll," he said and asked Meg over her howls, "Can't you make her another one?"
"Do-hon't want ano-hother one," Eve managed to say between sobs. "I want Molly!"
Meg pulled Eve into her lap and tried to console her.
"Maybe she dropped it along the way somewhere," Tye said.
"I looked as we rode home," Meg told him.
"But we may not have traveled the exact same ground."
"I'll go look."
"Take Major," Meg suggested.
Tye nodded and left.
* * *
Chapter Fourteen
« ^ »
Meg moved into the other room and settled in the rocker with Eve squirming in her lap. After a while the child calmed down some, but her hiccuping sobs nearly broke Meg's heart.
After a torturous forty-five minutes, hoofbeats sounded, followed by the thud of Tye's boots crossing the kitchen floor. He appeared, holding the much coveted doll.
"Molly!" Eve shot from Meg's lap and Tye bent to hand her the rag doll. She grabbed it in the crook of one arm, Tye's neck in the other, knocking his hat to the floor, and plastered kisses on his cheek. "You found her, Tye, you found her!"
Meg could only shake her head in relief and amazement. She'd never seen anything like Eve's desperation before, and while waiting, she'd wondered if they would ever be able to sleep again if the doll wasn't recovered.
Eve pulled away from Tye, plopped herself on the lion skin and stroked the doll's dress lovingly. "End of crisis," Tye said wryly.
"Where'd you find it?" Meg asked.
"Major's the hero. He found it in some tall grass we'd ridden through."
"Want a cup of coffee?"
He shook his head. "A cigarette."
Meg grinned at his back as he left the house.
The following week, Tye finished the porch and built chairs and a swing. Meg didn't know who was more surprised and pleased, she or Eve. Eve delighted in having someone with long enough legs sit beside her and rock her. Meg appreciated a place to sit and enjoy the summer air and the view of the ranch. One evening Meg rocked Eve while sewing a cushion from scraps of fabric. She worked and listened to Eve's chatter.
After it grew too dark to sew, she spread a blanket in the yard so she and Eve could watch the stars before bedtime.
Tye finished chores and discovered them lying on their backs, pointing skyward. "What're you ladies doing?"
"Looking at stars," Eve answered. "Did you know they have names?"
He lay down on the other side of her and stared up into the heavens. "I don't remember their names. Does Meg?"
&
nbsp; "Not all of them," Meg replied. All the more reason to send Eve to school.
"Is my mama up there?" Eve asked.
Meg cast Tye a sideways glance. He was always open and willing to talk to Eve. It was Meg with whom she'd begun to think he didn't want to talk.
"Wherever heaven is, Eve, that's where your mama is," he replied softly.
"Is it up there?"
"Maybe."
"Can she see us?"
"I think she's watching over you to make sure you're okay."
"Maybe she helped you find Molly today."
"Maybe," Tye said.
"Do you think she can see the swing?"
"I imagine so," Tye replied patiently.
Eve sat and picked up the doll. "Mama was pretty in this dress," she said.
Not comprehending, Meg sat up, too. "What dress, Eve?"
"This one." She straightened the shiny green fabric of the doll's skirt. "Mama made Molly's dress from one of hers. It was her favorite, she said, and she wanted Molly to have it."
The doll's significance took on a whole new meaning. Meg looked over to find Tye still gazing into the stars, his fingers laced on his chest, his ankles crossed. He did nothing to indicate he was listening.
"Your mama made that doll for you?"
"Uh-huh. She wasn't very sick then. Just sort of. And she didn't go to work anymore. We played together a lot. She told me that someone would come get me before the angels took her."
Meg blinked back the sting of tears.
"And then Tye came," Eve finished.
Lottie had certainly chosen well. Meg had never thought of it like that before. With no one to turn to, the woman had done the very best she could for her daughter. She had to have known Tye would have Eve's best interests at heart. She must have known Tye as well as Meg did. Or better.
The thought disturbed her as immensely as all the others she'd been having. The more she saw Tye and Eve together, the more she noticed the resemblance. Their hair was the same thick, shiny black. Both had a wide lower lip and a softly sculptured upper one. And both had a solitary dimple on the left side of their mouth that winked when they grinned broadly.
That very day while Meg bathed Eve, she had admired her long, slender limbs and her all-over honey complexion. Both Tye and Eve had told her that Lottie had been a redhead. Eve had golden skin like Tye's.
She tried to remember what Tye had said regarding Eve's parentage, recalling only that it had been a comment about the impossibility of knowing who'd sired her. Had Lottie truly not known? Surely once a black-haired infant had been placed in her arms, the possibilities would have been dramatically narrowed.
Mortified at her thinking, Meg listened to the two of them talk softly. A bond had developed between them, a bond as strong as that between a parent and child. Was it possible that Tye actually didn't know? Men were blind to a good many things a woman knew by instinct, Meg had learned.
But Lottie … Lottie had to have known. She'd either used Tye or played on his honor. Or both. Meg chastised herself. She had no business judging anyone else's behavior or character. Rosa had certainly been nice enough. And if Tye had felt something for Lottie, she must have been a good person, too.
Bereft, Meg felt left out of their relationship. She hadn't known Lottie, nor had she experienced growing up without a parent. Eve was simply drawn to Tye and vice versa. Their parent-child bond was a good thing.
Eve yawned and crawled toward Tye. He looped his arm around her, and she curled up against him, the doll beneath her chin.
Meg observed their closeness with a hollow ache in her chest. Who was it she envied? Lottie? Eve? Or Tye?
Several nights later, Tye stood rolling his second cigarette in a row and listened to the distant sound of thunder splintering across the mountains. He stood in the side doorway of the barn, watching Yorkshire Flame. The horse was probably frustrated that his season's work was finished. He pranced along the far side of the fence and took a taunting run past Tye every so often. The high-strung animal had always been placed in this corral at night, the barn door left open so he could either exercise or enter at will. Gus had built a gate so he couldn't get any farther in than his own stall.
Depending on how many of their own foals were males, they might need a second barn in another year. Already they could afford it with the stud fees this horse had brought in.
Tye's feelings were in a quandary. He'd experienced great relief that Meg had saved Joe's things, the papers especially. Otherwise they'd never have known the true value of the Welsh cobs.
And every day he thought about Joe's stroke of luck—or genius—in acquiring the animals and having them sent home. Because of that, their financial difficulties were now ended.
But it disturbed and galled Tye that even in death Joe still managed to provide for Meg. Joe's horses, poker spoils or not, had been their salvation. Tye had pathetically knocked himself out earning the money for Meg's wedding ring, then recovering her father's ring, while faultless Joe had smoothly left behind a treasure trove from which to draw upon.
Tye crushed the stub of his smoke beneath his boot heel. Maybe he was better off not having anything lofty to live up to.
A year after the Welsh mares Tye had bred with Yorkshire Flame foaled, they'd be able to sell them. Add that profit to the stud money and they could build a new house.
And they now had collateral to start his project. Somehow he'd been unable to bring up the dream of the slaughterhouse. His insufferable pride held him back. It was still just that: a dream.
In the bright moonlight, he caught sight of Meg approaching the corral fence. She stood and watched the magnificent horse dart across the ground in erratic bursts of energy.
Tye walked through the barn and around the side to where she stood. "I think the weather has him edgy," he said.
"Me, too," she revealed, acknowledging Tye's company.
"It'll most likely blow over."
"What were you thinking about over there for so long?" she asked.
Had she been watching him before she'd walked over? "The horses," he replied.
"Can we talk, Tye?"
"We're talking."
"No, we're not. We're skirting around whatever it is that's changed."
"Nothing has changed." He still felt the same way about her. She still felt the same way about Joe. Everything was the same.
She released a frustrated sigh. "Something has, yes, it has. And it has to do with one of two things. I imagined it was the horses, but I don't know why you wouldn't be happy about that. Or else it was me suggesting Eve go to school."
He studied the night sky, and Meg studied his face, hating this expanding emotional distance between them. "I hate not being able to discuss it, if that's it. I agreed to teach her, after all."
"That's not it, Meg."
"It's the horses, then."
He rubbed his jaw and raked his hair back with his fingers. "I guess so."
"Well … why aren't you happy about them? We have everything we want now."
He turned and looked her fully in the face. "Do we?"
His coldness frightened her. A sick feeling curled in the core of her already churning stomach. "What more do we need? You can start your packing plant now—"
"Joe's packing plant, you mean."
The disturbing way he said Joe's name gave her pause. "What do you mean?"
"Yorkshire Flame is Joe's horse."
"Well…" Joe's dead, she wanted to cry, but the words stuck in her throat—and the fact in her heart. "We agreed," she said. "You help me, then I help you. You kept your end of the bargain. I will, too. It will be 'our' packing plant, won't it? Like it's 'our' ranch."
"It doesn't feel like it's 'our' ranch," he said.
Meg considered his words, gratified to understand them. She understood—because she felt the same. "I don't feel like Eve is 'our' child," she said bluntly.
He turned toward her.
"I have the responsibility of bathing he
r and dressing her," she explained. "I've sewn her clothes and cooked the meals she eats. But it's you she's crazy about."
"She likes you, Meg."
"Yes, but I have to discipline her and instruct her. You get to spoil her."
"She's not spoiled."
"She will be."
He stiffened his shoulders. "Are you saying I'm doing something wrong?"
"No. I just don't have equal say. And I obviously have no say in her education—you've made that clear."
"I'm sorry, but I can't change how I feel about her schooling. I'm sorry if it makes more work for you, but—"
"It's not the work," she denied. "It's not that at all. It's everything else."
"Like what?"
"Like…" Her better judgment screamed a warning. Her jealousy ignored it. "Like Lottie."
"Lottie?" he questioned, clearly puzzled.
"I'm not as ignorant as that fence post," she said. "You were every bit as familiar with that woman as you've been with me. How long ago was that? You never said precisely. Five years? Six? And then she summons you to her deathbed and wrings your promise to raise this little girl. This little girl with black hair and one single dimple on the left side of her smile. What am I supposed to think, Tye? What?"
He stood squarely before her, her momentous words—thoughts he hadn't known words for—groping for comprehension. Five or six years ago, well before the onset of the war… Yes, the timing was possible, but there'd been so many others… He had no way of knowing with certainty. And Lottie'd been as desperate for someone to take her child as Meg had been for a man to work the ranch. He hadn't been selected to take Eve for any complimentary reason that he could think of.
"Is Eve your child?" she asked.
Elation and doubt clapped around inside his head. Pride and tenderness ebbed and swelled and fought for prominence. Hope quelled them all and calmed his racing heart like a sweet promise.
Elusive thoughts he'd never allowed before came into complete clarity. He'd only been kidding himself about his relationship with Meg. She'd married him for one reason and one reason only. Everyone knew it—no one better than Tye. No matter what he had done and no matter what he could or would do—working, planning, praying—it hadn't been enough. It would never be enough. She was still Joe's wife. She would never really be his.
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