“She?” he echoed in wonder. “A daughter?”
“Come see her,” Libby said, her voice still reedy and thin.
Wesley walked toward her but stopped when he caught sight of the bottle sitting on the floor. “Whose idea was that?” he asked, whirling on me as though he knew the answer. “God help you if you’ve given my wife a taste for liquor, Maggie!”
* * *
“How is she?” Clay asked when I came into the house, my dress wet through and tired down to my bones.
“Fine. She’s doing just fine.”
“Wish I could say the same for you. You look wrung out, wife. Come on, let’s get you in some dry clothes and you can rest for a spell.”
“Thank you,” I accepted gratefully.
We went toward the bedroom and once inside Clay helped me by undoing my dress and handing me my nightdress. “Use this for now.”
Accepting it from him, I slipped into it, sighing gratefully as the soft, dry fabric went over my body.
“Why don’t you lie down? You look like you could use some rest.”
“Lie with me?” I invited. “I want to tell you about it.”
Clay grimaced comically. “Oh, I dunno, Maggie.”
“Please.”
It was all I needed to say and Clay threw back the covers, letting me lie down first before he slid in beside me. “She’s really alright?”
“Oh, she will be, but I don’t mind telling you, it was a hard ordeal.”
He winced and I knew he was thinking of our own baby. “Do you reckon it’s always like that?”
“Yes,” I told him gently. “But don’t fret, Clay. Abby’s as good a midwife as I’ve ever seen.”
“That’s alright then.”
“She’s beautiful, Clay.”
“A girl, eh? How does Wesley feel about that?”
“Oh, I think if Libby’d given birth to a calf he still would have looked at her like she hung the moon.”
“I reckon you’re right. That’s how I’ll look at you, you know.”
I smiled at his soft, sensuous words, drinking in his face before I closed my eyes with his hand resting protectively over my stomach.
Chapter Six
I was churning cream into butter when I felt the first pains seize me. I stilled, my hands clutching the paddle as I waited for it to pass. When it did, I got back to my butter making, only to gasp in pain a few seconds later. By the third pain that crashed over me, right after the second one ebbed, I knocked the churn over and dropped to the floor, not even minding the spilled cream.
That was how Clay found me: hunched over and crying. “Maggie?” He was at my side before I could draw breath for a reply. “What is it? Are you alright?”
Wordlessly, I shook my head, racked with pain.
“I’m goin’ for the doctor,” he announced, standing abruptly.
“No,” I managed to croak out. “Please, C-clay. Please stay.”
He did, however reluctantly, lingering by my elbow watching helplessly as I gasped and writhed on the floor. “Can I get you somethin’? What’s happenin’?”
“I don’t know,” I sobbed miserably, even though I thought I did.
“Are you sure I shouldn’t—”
Just then, hot liquid gushed from me, and I stuck my hand under my dress. When I brought it back, it was sticky with bright red blood.
“What the devil?” Clay boomed. “Maggie… Maggie! I have to ride for the doctor!”
Looking into his panicked face, I nodded my agreement. Clay kissed me hurriedly and sprinted for the door. I’d only sent him away because it would make him feel better to do something, even though I already knew nothing could be done.
I managed to get myself abed before Clay returned with the doctor, wincing with every step and feeling hot, embarrassed tears come to my eyes when I saw the blood stains on the floor that I had no energy to clean. The instant I slipped into bed, the tears came, hot and angry. It was a flood of anguish and I didn’t even try to stop it. What did it matter if the doctor walked in and I was boo-hooing like an infant? Nothing mattered anymore.
I marveled at how quickly a world could shatter. We’d spent the last six weeks so happy, so deliriously happy. I hadn’t been that content in much of my life, not since I was a young girl. And now, for the second time in my life, I was watching helplessly as my joy was snatched away and I was powerless to keep it from happening.
“Maggie! Maggie?!”
I was too weak even to answer him, but Clay found me anyway. Perhaps he’d followed the trail of blood, I thought, muffling my sobs with my hand pressed to my mouth.
“Darlin’, Dr. Palmer is here to see you.”
I nodded and looked at the old man standing in front of the bed. He was nearing sixty, to hear the townspeople tell it, and he looked it. His hair was silver and thinning, his hands fleshy and speckled with age.
“Howdy, Miz Callahan. Your husband tells me you’re ill. I’m goin’ to take a look, y’hear? If you could give us the room, Mister Callahan?”
I tried to protest—I didn’t want Clay to leave!—but my words came out feebly and hard to understand. My husband gave me a brief smile before he left the room, closing the door behind him. I closed my eyes against the sight of him leaving, and stayed that way while the doctor lifted my dress and began to examine me. Even when I felt him put my dress back down and pull the covers tight around me, I didn’t open my eyes.
The door creaked open and I heard the doctor and Clay begin to converse in hushed voices.
“These things happen sometimes, I fear… nothing I can do… with older women… perhaps, if she’d stayed off her feet more…”
I squeezed my eyes shut until it hurt, wishing I’d never heard his solemn admonishments. It made no difference that he hadn’t meant for me to. With older women… nothing I can do.
I’d always doubted I’d be able to have children, which was why we’d been so excited to learn I was expecting. If I was younger, this wouldn’t have happened. If I was younger, in a few short months, I’d be a mother. The pain in my heart began to eclipse the twisting in my gut.
“Maggie?” Clay asked softly. “The doctor’s gone now, darlin’. Are you asleep?”
I never thought I’d lie to my husband, but just this once, I stayed silent when he asked me that question. I was careful to stay as still as a log, not relaxing until I heard him leave the room. I wasn’t able to share my pain just now and wasn’t sure I ever would be.
If she’d stayed off her feet more… I heard his voice echo in my head again and again until I completely dissolved. My body was racked with a sharp, searing pain that was worse than any I’d ever felt. I muffled my moans by pressing a balled fist to my mouth, crying hot, silent tears into my pillow before falling into a blissful, dreamless sleep.
* * *
It took days before the pain stopped plaguing my body. By that time, I’d cried until my heart was numb. I’d lost interest in cooking or cleaning or even seeing my husband. I wasn’t entirely sure if I’d even brushed my hair in the week that followed my loss.
Clay, to his credit, let me sulk, though how long he would tolerate it I wasn’t sure. He brought me stew and fed me bite after bite as though I were truly sick. He changed the sheets on the bed, switching them out with the only other set we had. He tended to all the chores while I stayed in bed, staring blankly at the vanity mirror. When I got tired of the sight of my morose reflection, I turned on my side and stared at the wall. It seemed as good a way as any to pass the time.
My husband tried each day to sit with me and talk, but I had no interest in talking. I listened as he prattled on and on about the farm, about needing a new plow and going into town for some more seed. Not a thing he said moved me to so much as lift my head.
He’d gone to town without me and I suppose he figured things would somehow go different if I had someone else to talk to, because the next day my sisters-in-law stopped by.
“Make them go away,” I deman
ded when he told me they’d stopped back to visit. My voice came out sounding harsh from nonuse. “I’m not up for visitin’ today.”
“They’ve come all this way, Mags. Now, shine yourself up a bit and go talk with them for a spell.”
“I can’t,” I protested dourly.
“Sure you can. I won’t let you stay holed up in this room forever, d’you hear me?”
Instead of answering, I rolled over, turning my back on him. My body was tense, waiting to see what he’d do, but after a long pause he sighed and left the room.
I’d thought that’d be the end of it, until Libby came into the room calling out “Howdy” like we actually enjoyed one another’s company.
“I’ve brought Miz Mabel along to see you,” she said brightly. “She’s nearly a month old now! Doesn’t time just fly?”
A hundred biting remarks sprang to my lips, but I stayed stubbornly silent.
“Maggie? It’s Abby. We just want to check in on you and make sure you’re alright.”
I turned toward them at last, sitting up so fast it made my head pound. I narrowed my eyes, trying to make them out in the dimly lit room. “Alright?” I echoed in a reedy whisper. “‘Course I’m not alright! If you thought for a second that I would be, why, you haven’t got the brains God gave a donkey!” It was more than I’d said since I’d lost my child, and the effort drained me. I fell back onto the pillows, enjoying the shock on their faces. When little Mabel began to cry, I turned away from them, silently urging them to leave.
The next thing I knew, I felt Clay shaking my shoulder and I awoke, looking up at him with bleary eyes. “Have they gone?”
“Yep. And I’ve got to tell you plain, Maggie, I’m tired of this.”
“What?”
“This mopin’ you’re doin’. It’s not good for you, darlin’. I thought if I let you to yourself, you’d snap outta it, but… you haven’t. And I’m not puttin’ up with it no more. I want you out of this bed, now.”
I blinked at him in confusion and surprise. “Clay, I…”
“I know this is hard, darlin’. You don’t think I’m upset, too? You don’t think I’ve cried?”
I looked closer at him and realized that he’d aged in the short week that had come after my bleeding had started. I hadn’t even thought of him, I was ashamed to say. “Then you shouldn’t make me do this.”
“Enough. You’ve had your time to wallow and it’s not done you a lick of good. Up you go.”
I shook my head stubbornly, but I was weak from blood loss and hardly eating. Clay lifted me up and I had no choice to go with him. “Please, don’t,” I protested.
“First thing, you need a bath. It’ll help you feel better.”
“It won’t,” I declared, feeling a bit of the fire stir inside me. “Put me down.”
Clay ignored me and walked toward the washroom with me in his arms. “Listen here, Maggie, you’re going to take a bath or—”
I began to kick my feet. “Or what?”
He stopped in his tracks, looking down at me and arching an eyebrow. “Do you really want to find out?”
I glared at him, amazed that I had any fight left in me. “You’re a brute!”
Clay’s eyes widened in surprise, and if I didn’t know better, hurt. “Is that how you feel, Maggie?”
I fell silent, glaring at him, determined to get back to the bed that had become my safe haven.
“Answer me, Maggie. Is that what you think of me?”
I met his eyes, the eyes of the man who’d cared for me so tenderly during our loss, our mutual loss for which he’d been in pain over, too. A lesser man might have ordered me up days ago. A lesser man might have called Abby and Libby to come care for me until I was myself again. Still, I was so angry for all I’d lost, and it felt good to be mad at someone I could rail at.
With a sigh, he set me to my feet. “Alright, have it your way.” He took a step back, and I quickly realized I hadn’t been on my feet in over a week, because I stumbled and had to grab on to him to keep from falling.
“Help me back to the bed,” I gasped.
His arched brow inched higher. “Beg your pardon?” He shook his head as I glowered. “You could really use a spankin’, little girl, and I think I’m goin’ to give it to you if you don’t change your tune and quick.”
I snorted, liking the anger that flared hot in my veins. “You wouldn’t dare!” I realized too late that it was the worst thing to say.
Clay chuckled, low in his throat, and it was a sound I didn’t like at all. “Well, now, normally I wouldn’t, but seein’ as how I’m nothin’ but a brute, anyhow…” He pinned me with his brown eyes and I met them, unflinching. “Alright, Miz Maggie. Have it your way,” he repeated.
Taking me by the elbow, he led me over to the chair he’d placed against the wall. It was the one he’d sat in to talk to me this past week. Seeming to have a different purpose in mind for it now, he sat down, but didn’t pull me along with him. Instead, he released my arm and looked at me expectantly.
With a hard swallow, I remembered that he preferred for me to offer my bottom willingly for chastisement, but after a faint flutter of nervousness, I decided I wouldn’t abide it. “I’m going back to bed,” I declared.
“No, you won’t,” he replied calmly. “You’re going to stay here and get that spankin’ I promised.”
I shook my head firmly, stepping back a few paces. “You can’t do this.”
“I can’t?” he asked, his mustache twitching as though he’d heard the uncertainty in my voice, hard as I’d tried to hide it.
“Please,” I said at last. “Please don’t do this.”
Clay looked at me steadily, and for an instant, I thought he might recant. But then his jaw hardened and he shook his head. “You might not recall, but just a little while back you promised to honor and obey me.”
My eyes hardened even as my chin quivered. I knew I was defeated. I could never keep away from him on the best of days. I couldn’t even step out of reach in my weakened state right now. “Fine.” Without further ado, I walked over and dropped over his lap, not one bit happy about it.
“My, you seem to have quite the foul attitude these days, Maggie.” He patted my back, rubbing his hand up and down. “I know this has been hard for you, darlin’. It would go hard with anybody. But you have to remember, I love you.”
“Just get on with it,” I said, pressing my face against his leg to hide the tears rapidly filling my eyes.
“Alright then.”
I felt him lift back my dress and shivered as the cool air kissed my skin. I waited for the spanking to begin, but even in my position over his knee, I could feel his hesitation. When his hand connected with my bottom, it was soft as a feather. Before I could say anything, the next swat came, followed by another, each gentle as kittens.
“I’m worried about you, Maggie. I know how bad you hurt, darlin’, but you’ve got to snap out of it.” Every other word was accompanied by his hand meeting my behind in a caress. “We can keep tryin’ to have a baby, but you have to get out of bed. Hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” I whispered.
“You’re a good girl, Maggie. I need you, darlin’. The house is so lonely without you.”
As more gentle swats landed on my upturned rear, I found the tears spilling on my cheeks sooner than they’d ever done during a real whippin’. Each time his hand stroked my bottom, I felt the love he had for me and knew myself unworthy of it. I’d not done a thing to deserve it, and yet, there it was: strong and undeniable.
“You’re not a-angry with me?” I sobbed.
“Angry? Maggie, whatever gave you that idea? I’m not mad at you. My heart hurts for you, is all.” Clay continued peppering my bottom with love taps, letting me cry it out over his lap until I was well and truly spent. Only then did he gather me in his arms and with kisses just as tender as the spanks had been, he kissed my face clean of tears.
I buried my face in his chest, feeling shamed by his ki
ndness toward me. I hadn’t done a thing to earn it.
“Promise me you’ll never again behave toward your sisters the way you did today,” he said, his voice only a mite stern.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good girl. Do you feel better?”
“Yes, Clay. Thank you.”
He kissed me on the forehead as he said, “Good. I’m so glad.”
“Clay?”
“What is it, darlin’?”
“I…” I took a deep breath, forcing myself to meet his eyes. “I promise I’ll try to do better.”
“There now, that’s all I can ask.”
With his smile shining down on me, I snuggled back against his chest, listening to the steady, calming rhythm of his heart.
* * *
Determined to hold true to my word, I did try. When Clay came into the bedroom Sunday morning, he found me dressed and ready for church.
“I didn’t have time for a bath,” I admitted timidly.
“Never you mind,” he said, the warmth in his voice instantly putting me at ease. “You are a vision, darlin’.”
I smiled at the compliment and took his arm, allowing him to escort me out of the house and to the buggy, where Sapphire waited. I took a moment to pat the horse, leaning my face against his mane and inhaling the mingled smell of horse and earth that surrounded me.
“You ready?”
I turned to my husband and tried to smile. “I reckon.”
Clay lifted me up in the buggy and it wasn’t long after that we were pulling away from the house. Clay seemed to have run out of things to say, for the moment, and I wasn’t up for making conversation, either. It wasn’t until we’d pulled up to the church that he turned to me.
“Just remember, Mags, no one knows but us and your family.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak and allowed him to help me down and walk me to the door. We were walking up the steps when Clay spotted my brother standing by the door, talking to the preacher.
“Will you be alright for me to talk for a short spell? I’d like to have a word with your brother.”
Maggie Meets Her Match Page 11