JOE'S WIFE

by Cheryl St. John

  One of the stallions whinnied from his pen.

  A whippoorwill called its mournful cry.

  "Remember that baby you asked about, Eve?" Meg said softly.

  "What baby?" she replied, her head against Tye's chest.

  "You wondered when God was going to give us a baby."

  "I remember."

  Meg's heart fluttered as though she stood atop the barn roof ready to leap. "Well, God gave us a baby just like we talked about."

  "He did?"

  "Mmm-hmm."

  "Where is it?" she asked, her eyes wide and her amazed expression endearing.

  "It's in my tummy. It will take a while to grow big enough to be born."

  Tye's fingers convulsed on hers. He turned his face to see her eyes.

  "Is it a boy baby or a girl baby?" Eve asked.

  "I don't know. We'll have to wait and see."

  "Meg," he said, his voice hoarse.

  She couldn't see him for the tears that filled her eyes.

  He pulled her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips against the backs of her fingers. Meg followed her hand and leaned into him, raising her face.

  In order to reach her, he crushed Eve between them, pulling Meg close so he could kiss her. Eve squirmed and hugged them both.

  "Meg," he said again, his voice disbelieving. "A baby?"

  She nodded, her forehead now against his.

  "Will the baby be mine, too?" Eve asked.

  Meg kissed the top of her head. "It will be your brother or sister since we are your legal parents now."

  "But I don't have to call you Mama," she said quickly.

  "No, you call me Meg if you like. I know you have a real mama, and it's okay." And it was, it really was. Eve had loved her own mother very much; it was unfair of Meg to think she could easily forget her or not resent the fact that she was gone.

  How many times had she been angry with Joe for leaving her life in a jumble? A new mother didn't replace a previous one.

  Just as a new husband didn't replace a previous one. But Tye had added a whole new dimension to her life, a dimension she'd never have known if Joe hadn't died.

  Perhaps if she was patient, she could be someone special to Eve, too. She'd come to love the child more than she'd believed she could. She wanted to be a mother to her.

  Later, when they'd climbed into bed with the lamp still burning, Tye pulled Meg close and stroked her hair. "Are you happy about the baby, Meg?"

  Of course she was happy. Was he? "I wonder if the news is less exciting because you've just learned about Eve."

  "You're wrong. This baby is special because it's the only thing I gave you that Joe didn't give you first."

  Those words cut straight to her soul. But it was so untrue. Tye had given her so much more. "What about you?" she asked, sitting up. "You already have Eve."

  "I love Eve as much as I possibly can, but I didn't love her mother. This is as different as can be."

  "How is it different?"

  He was silent for several minutes. "I've admired you from the first time I ever saw you," he said. "I thought you were the most beautiful girl at school. The kindest, too. When none of the others would talk to me, you always did.

  "I spent my whole life on the outside looking in, and you were always in the center of things. I watched you grow up and get prettier and prettier. I saw how happy you were with Joe, and I knew I'd never have a woman as lovely and perfect as you."

  "I'm far from perfect," she denied.

  He ignored her. "When you proposed the idea of marrying to save the ranch, I couldn't believe such good fortune could fall in my lap. It took a good many others' bad fortune for me to get there, but it didn't matter that I wasn't first choice. All that mattered was that I had a chance to marry sweet Meg."

  "And start your packing plant?"

  "Too much good fortune for a fella like me to believe. I let it go to my head, though."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Occasionally I forget the reasons we're married. Joe's the one you love. You never promised me anything different. I had a strong back to offer. It's yours with no regrets."

  "You're a foolish man."

  "So you've said."

  "You've given of yourself Tye. You said Joe had supplied the cobs, but I would have wasted their potential without you. You're the one that recognized their breeding and prodded me to find the papers. I might have sold them for a lot less than they're worth. Because of you, we still have the cobs and now the foals, plus the stud fees."

  "Yeah, well, that was luck."

  "Was my father's ring luck, too? You worked nights for a month or better to get that ring back for me."

  "It was because of me you had to sell it. If I'd have come into this marriage with something, you wouldn't have had to."

  "Hogwash." She straightened the quilt. "What about the porch? You took time from other work to build a porch just because I wanted one."

  "A porch is a far cry from a piece of jewelry or something a woman really likes."

  "I really like the porch. It's personal. It's from you. You give of yourself, Tye."

  "I just love you, Meg. I always have. But that's never been enough."

  His words touched her heart and calmed her spirit. He loved her. He'd always loved her. "I'm sorry I didn't know," she whispered.

  "It wouldn't have changed anything," he said. "You love Joe."

  Yes, she'd loved Joe. She'd loved him with her whole youthful heart and being. But she'd gone on without him. And she'd forged a new life.

  "I did love Joe," she said. "That can't change. Just like you being Eve's father can't change. That's all right. Those things have made us who we are today. But we can go on. We can go forward."

  "I'm tired of being a shadow, Meg," he said, pain in his tone. "I'll never live up to his memory. I don't want to try. I don't want to sleep with you with Joe's things at the foot of the bed."

  Meg turned down the covers, got out of bed and picked up the lamp. "Come here."

  He wrapped the quilt around his waist and followed.

  She knelt before the trunk and lifted the lid with one hand.

  Tye, with love and remorse scoring his heart, turned his gaze from her face to the open trunk. It took a minute for what he saw in the tray to register. A single dried wild rose. The rose he'd given her the day they'd ridden the riverbank searching for stuck cows. Beneath it lay a picture of a horse Eve had drawn with charcoal.

  Meg handed him the lantern. She removed the liner, revealing pressed tablecloths and sheets.

  "What did you do with his things?" he asked.

  "I sent them home with Edwina. Everything except the letters, that is. They're up in the attic."

  "Meg, I didn't mean for you to give up the things that were important to you," he said, regret eating his insides. "I was angry that day. I said things I shouldn't have said."

  "You said things that were true." She gave a shake of her head. "And I thought about them afterward. Those things gave me comfort when I needed them. But I don't need them anymore. I loved Joe. But he's dead." She blinked. "I've never said that before."

  He'd never loved her more than he did at that moment.

  "You taught me to be honest with myself, Tye. I hid from myself all along. I hid from my feelings, and I hid from who I was and who I wanted to be. I hid from the fact that Joe had his selfish qualities, and I didn't even face the fact that he was dead. I thought if I kept his dream alive, I'd keep him alive. But after a while my own dream seemed to be more important."

  "And what's your own dream?"

  "A man who loves me more than his dream."

  "I love you more than my dream, Meg. I don't need a packing plant if it doesn't make you happy."

  "And I don't need this ranch if it doesn't make you happy, Tye. We could sell it and start over somewhere else."

  "You mean that, Meg?"

  "I mean it."

  He thought over her words and the idea only briefly. "I think we sh
ould stay. And I think we should send Eve to school in the fall."

  "You do?"

  "I do. I don't think anyone will be giving her a difficult time after this."

  "I don't, either."

  "But if they did, I'd have to hurt them."

  "I'd help you." Their lips met.

  "I have a gift for you," she said.

  She'd never given him a present. "What is it?"

  "It's not an ordinary gift."

  "I'll try not to show my shock."

  She turned and pulled an envelope from her bureau drawer.

  "What is it?"

  "Open it."

  He placed the lamp on the night table and opened the envelope. An official-looking piece of paper slid out. He glanced over the document from the Colorado capital, stating the Circle H brand had been recorded. "What is it?" he asked again.

  "It's our brand. It's not the Circle T anymore. I drew them a picture of the new brand. See, we can add a bar across this side to change the T to an H."

  The significance of the gesture astounded him. "Thank you, Meg. Thank you isn't enough. You make me feel like I'm not on the outside looking in anymore. I don't know what else to say."

  "Say you're happy."

  He studied the honey hue of her hair in the light, the delicate bow of her lips, and rested his palm along her satin cheek. "There's only one thing that would make me happier."

  She didn't reply. She led him back to the bed and adjusted the quilt and the covers, then joined him beneath. He kissed her with all the love he'd harbored for so long, made love to her more gently than he'd done in the past, with a new reverence for her body and his child growing inside, Meg cried with the release of her pent-up emotions and the joy of knowing Tye loved her. While he slept beside her, she stroked his hair, his shoulder, and listened to the wind in the aspens along the ridge.

  All along Tye had thought he had nothing to give, when he'd given the most important thing of all—himself. And all along she'd withheld. Oh, she'd made love with him, but she'd held back that last little bit of herself. Initially she'd been so concerned over what Joe would have wanted for her that she'd ignored what she wanted for herself.

  That would have been too selfish. That would have been too revealing. That would have been too risky.

  Because what if she gave of herself and the feelings weren't returned? She'd been so sure of Joe. He'd been her safety. Her security. Her friend.

  Tye was a little wild. A little naughty. He'd known other women, and he even had a child of his own. Giving all of herself was taking a risk. But then so had marrying him been a risk. He'd never proven her trust unfounded.

  Loving Tye was not disloyal to what she and Joe had shared together. Theirs had been a different kind of love, a safe and comfortable kind of love. Loving Tye had seemed anything but safe and comfortable. And he was more than a friend.

  But how long would she hide from herself?

  "Tye?"

  He snuggled closer.

  "Tye?"

  "Mmm-hmm?"

  "I love you."

  Tye's hand found his wife's cheek in the darkness.

  * * * * *