by Jodi Thomas
“Answer me,” Ford said quietly as he moved beside her into the light. “I need to understand. What happened? One moment you wanted me close, and the next you were pushing me away when I tried to touch your…” He couldn’t even bring himself to say the word.
“That is the way it is.” Hannah’s voice was colder than the winter air around them. She didn’t look at him as she set the new rule. “I can touch you in the darkness. I can break the rules, but you must never. If you do, I’ll leave. I’ll turn myself in as a thief. I’d rather be in jail than be pawed by a man.”
They moved along the rocks to the easy path toward the road, walking in silence, both thinking the other should speak first. Ford buttoned his coat, not because he was cold but because he wanted to hide the torn shirt, a reminder of how easily he’d been drawn into her little trap. It made no sense.
When Hannah saw a wagon coming toward them, she turned to face Ford. “Agreed? Nothing’s changed. You still can’t touch me in private. You never can.”
Ford felt trapped. He had no doubt that she’d tell everyone in his house how they’d met if he didn’t agree. If he did say yes, he’d be promising to never touch her. He could demand that she do the same, but he loved her touching him and couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t respond in kind. Maybe all women were like her—they liked to touch, but didn’t like to be touched. Maybe she was a one-of-a-kind woman, put on earth just to drive him mad. If so, she was doing a great job.
“Agreed,” he grumbled as the wagon neared. She slipped her hand in his just as the driver drew close enough to see them clearly.
Chapter 7
HANNAH PICKED UP another stack of plates and moved toward the kitchen. She’d already gone through three pans of dishwater, with no end to the work in sight. About the time the children finished breakfast, the adults were starting on dessert. They’d gone through all the china and tin plates Ford had and were using saucers and bowls.
“Dear, you shouldn’t be doing that,” Widow Rogers whispered in a childlike voice as Hannah passed. “Gavrila told everyone to leave the dishes and help with a signature quilt. She said we can always do them later.”
“I know, but since I’m not making a square on the quilt, I might as well do dishes.” Hannah leaned toward the tiny woman, who had spent the morning moving from chair to chair, leaning on her cane.
“I wouldn’t mind helping you out.” Alamo Rogers raised from where he’d been squatting next to his mother. The man had to be near forty, but there was something very boyish about him. Maybe it was his fragile size, or maybe the habit he had of touching his face and hair as if constantly checking to see if he needed grooming.
“No, really.” Hannah smiled, trying to be polite. “I can manage.”
Alamo glanced at his mother, then took half the plates, as though Hannah’s objections had been silently overruled.
Hannah skirted the huge circle of women huddled around the fireplace. They were all talking of things she didn’t understand, crops and church needs. Each sewed on a square Gavrila planned to put together for Ford and Hannah’s wedding quilt. Hannah didn’t want a quilt. By the time it was finished, she’d be gone. She noticed Gavrila made all the decisions of color and size without once asking her brother or his wife for their opinions.
Before disappearing into the kitchen, she searched the sea of faces until she found Ford. Since they’d returned from the cave, he’d made a point of staying half a room away whenever possible. She knew she’d hurt him, but could think of nothing to say, even if they had gotten a few moments alone to talk. He looked as miserable as she. He didn’t seem to join in the conversations with the men much more than she did with the women. She’d noticed he went out for more wood every hour and seemed to stay away longer each time. The last time he’d returned there had been a dusting of snow on his hair and shoulders.
The realization that Ford hadn’t asked for this situation any more than she had washed over her. Two days ago he’d probably been a happy man living alone out here in his beautiful canyon. Now he had a houseful of people he didn’t have three words to say to and a wife who wouldn’t let him touch her. To make matters worse, she couldn’t seem to keep her hands off him and touched him whenever she pleased. Add the fact that she was a thief. Besides which, they both knew she’d be dead soon to all in the room.
Hannah dropped her armful of dishes into the water and began her chore. Alamo stood silently beside her, waiting for each wet plate she handed him. If only she could wash up the mess she was in as easily as she could clean up the kitchen.
Alamo crossed the room with the first clean load. Hannah was thankful he didn’t seem to be a talker. His mother must have taken very seriously the battle cry that had been shouted during the Texas revolution, for she certainly remembered the Alamo when she named her children.
“There you two are!” Gavrila’s voice startled Hannah, and Alamo almost dropped the stack of plates he was carrying.
Gavrila hurried into the room as if she needed to stand between the two of them. “Put those plates down, Alamo Rogers. Do you want the other men to see you helping out in the kitchen?”
“I really don’t much care one way or the other,” he answered in a tone void of all emotion. “Work’s work, when it needs doing, and Mrs. Colston looked like she could use the help.”
“Well, I need you for something more important, so drop that dish towel.”
He did as ordered, but the wrinkling of his thin eyebrows told Hannah he wasn’t happy about being dictated to.
Gavrila didn’t seem to notice his displeasure. “I need that large basket from the back of my buggy. My brother informs me it is getting colder and we should be starting home. So once more, he’s ending my party. I’ll have to take the quilt home in a hundred pieces and sew on it myself.”
“I thought this was their party?” Alamo nodded toward Hannah.
“Well, of course it is, silly, but someone has to take charge. Now fetch my basket.”
Hannah could see Alamo’s indecision. He seemed to dislike being ordered around, but he wasn’t a man to cause a scene.
“Thanks for helping out.” Hannah tried to make it easier on the poor man. “I can handle it from here, and we must do all we can to speed my new sister-in-law on her way.”
Alamo’s gaze met hers. A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth, telling Hannah he understood her meaning. With a quick wink only she could see, he disappeared out the back door.
Hannah suppressed a giggle. Despite his thinning hair and slim frame, she found the shy Alamo charming.
Gavrila folded her arms and leaned against the counter. “I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to talk with you. You wouldn’t believe all the things I had to do to organize this party.”
Hannah noticed her new sister-in-law loved listing all she’d accomplished and all she was about to achieve to anyone who would listen. “You’ve already told me all you’ve done this morning,” Hannah said, hoping to be spared another listing. But no such luck.
Gavrila saw herself as the busiest person on earth, and everyone else’s lives were so dull and slow by comparison, that she must constantly remind them of that fact. Which is what she did while Hannah washed another pan of dishes.
Hannah reasoned her sister-in-law’s next favorite activity was planning lists for the rest of the world to follow. When she began giving Hannah several suggestions for improvements that must be made on the place, in order of importance, of course, Hannah stopped listening. She wasn’t about to change even the placement of furniture in Ford’s house. No matter what Gavrila said, this was not Hannah’s home—now or ever.
Gavrila was still talking when Ford placed his hand on Hannah’s shoulder. He turned her gently toward him, not seeming to hear his sister only a few feet away. “You’ve chapped your hands,” he whispered to Hannah as he opened her soap-covered fists.
With a damp towel, he dried her hands gently, then ran one finger over the line of calluses at the top
of her palm. For a second she noticed his brows pull together in question, but he didn’t say a word.
Hannah could still see the anger in his eyes, but he was playing by the marriage rules they’d agreed on. Touching her in public. Being the loving husband.
“It doesn’t matter,” she answered as his first two fingers continued to circle her palm.
“It does matter, darlin’,” he answered and glanced at Gavrila, then back to Hannah. “I didn’t plan on you having to clean your first day of marriage. You’ve done a month’s worth of dishes this morning.”
Gavrila patted the dish towel as if it would be too much for her to actually pick one up. “We planned to help,” she rattled on, “but it wasn’t at the top of my list. Other things are more important, brother.” She surveyed the kitchen, which still needed an hour’s work. “I was just trying to explain to this woman you married that if we had time we’d love to clean, but we must be going. It’ll probably be snowing again before we get home.”
Ford was stone quiet. If she’d expected him to encourage her to stay, she’d wait forever. He didn’t take his attention from Hannah’s hands as he continued to hold them in his.
“I should also inform you, dear brother, that I had to practically run Alamo Rogers out of this kitchen.”
If Ford heard his sister, he paid no mind to her talk, and Hannah had to admire him for not even blinking when Gavrila was so blatantly trying to cause trouble.
Gavrila backed out of the kitchen, looking as though seeing her brother touching a woman disgusted her beyond words. She whirled to face the crowd. “Well, everyone, we must be going.”
To Hannah’s surprise, all the women tied off their stitches and the men grabbed coats so they could go ready the horses. They all seemed happy to be leaving, as if each had just been waiting for someone to make the first move. Women gathered up their platters and bowls and children while Gavrila folded the quilt and packed it away in a large basket Alamo had brought in.
“Thanks for coming,” Ford managed to say as he left Hannah’s side and opened the door. Hannah had only known him for hours, but she could tell there was no feeling in his voice.
“Don’t be a stranger!” Jinx Malone shouted to Hannah over all the others mumbling their best wishes and good-byes. “And if you have any questions about how to handle husbands, just stop by the post office. I’m there most afternoons. I reckon I’ve fallen in the marriage water enough times to know how to cross the bridge by now.”
Hannah couldn’t help but smile.
Alamo Rogers didn’t say a word as he reached the doorway, but he shook her hand, letting Hannah know that among these strangers she’d found a friend.
Professor Combs cleared his throat so loudly, everyone in the room stopped talking. He was an old man with a white beard he kept trimmed neatly and hair he neglected totally. “Everyone stop!” he yelled. “My watch is missing. Someone must have stolen my watch!”
For only a fraction of a second Hannah’s gaze met Ford’s, and what she saw in his eyes made her feel like her blood froze solid. Ford accused her. Not with words, but with a look.
“Someone stole my watch!” Professor Combs yelled again, as if everyone hadn’t heard him the first time. “I remember putting it back in my pants pocket not half an hour ago.”
“Hush up, old man.” An elderly lady waddled toward the professor. “You’d lose ever’thing, including your teeth, if I didn’t glue them in with a flour-n-water paste ever’ morning.”
The woman patted at his pockets with her cane until she heard a clank, then pulled the watch from his vest. “There’s your watch—not that it matters. The thing hasn’t worked in five years. The watch doesn’t care what time it is any more than you do, Professor.”
Everyone in the room laughed. Everyone except Hannah. She’d seen Ford’s eyes. If only for one moment, she’d known that he believed she’d stolen the old man’s watch. All she’d ever be to him was a thief.
* * *
Ford leaned against the barn wall and watched the snow fall along his canyon. All the folks had left hours ago, but Hannah hadn’t spoken a word to him. She’d cleaned the dishes while he moved the furniture back into place. When he could endure the silence no longer, he’d walked into the kitchen and found a plate ready for him. One plate on a table where he always ate alone.
At first he thought she was mad about what had happened in the cave. But she’d been willing to talk, even yell about that to him. Then he thought maybe she was upset about all the company, but she hadn’t had a word of complaint when she’d cleaned up, even though she had reason to be angry about what his sister had done to them today.
He watched her from the window as she walked to the road and back. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her waist, and her legs paced in quick, angry steps. She was upset, but he had no idea why. She’d been acting as though she had read his mind when he heard the professor’s watch was missing. His first thought was that everyone would suspect her if they knew she was a thief. Then he thought surely she’d never steal while in Saints Roost. But who could expect a thief to be honest, even for a short time?
Ford couldn’t just watch her pace. Yet he didn’t have any idea what else to do. Most of the times in his life when he was hurt about something, he’d found it better to just be alone, so he allowed her room.
He worked over by the corral until late afternoon, when the snow started blowing like tiny slivers of ice against his face. Just as the sun was setting, Ford loaded his arms with wood and headed for the house. He had thought Hannah might be ready to explain. He’d even apologize, if necessary. Or maybe she’d yell at him and set down a few more rules. By now he didn’t care; he just wanted her to talk to him. Ford had never known until today that having someone around not talking could be lonelier than being alone.
The house was spotlessly clean and silent when he entered. She’d swept the hearth and banked the fire for the night.
“Hannah?” Ford called.
No answer.
“Hannah!”
The living area was silent. He stormed to the kitchen and found a plate of cold meat and bread waiting at his table.
Panic chilled him worse than any winter wind could. She’s left, he thought. That’s why she was pacing off the distance to the road. While he’d been down at the corral, she’d packed and left, preferring to walk back to town in the snow rather than stay with him. The trip wouldn’t be easy with all the wagon ruts in the muddy road, but at least she couldn’t get lost. With only her bag to carry, she could probably make it back to town in a little over an hour.
He’d rushed to his bedroom, knowing he’d find the old, tattered carpetbag missing. But when his hand touched the knob, he was surprised to realize the door was locked and bolted. He checked the other door to the dressing area from the bedroom he’d slept in last night. Locked.
When he passed his bed, Ford noticed Sneeze stretched out like a fur pillow. Hannah was still here; she’d never leave without the calico.
“Get off my bed,” he grumbled at the cat.
Sneeze made no effort to move and Ford didn’t push him off the bed. He just sat down beside the animal and stroked the fur as he tried to think.
Part of Ford wanted to pound on the door and demand she come out. Was this the way it was going to be for the next month? He didn’t want her to work like a hired hand around the place and disappear behind a locked door as soon as she could each night. He owed her more than that, but he’d promised to stay out of her way when they were alone. She seemed to be making sure he kept that promise.
Ford rambled about the house for a time, then pulled on his coat and walked outside, strolling to the edge of the canyon before slowing. Usually he loved the way the sun turned all the colors of wet rock to diamonds at sunset. But tonight he didn’t see the beauty. Part of him wanted to scream that he didn’t want this woman here in the first place and he’d be glad when she was gone. He wished he could say that he didn’t care why she was
mad at him this time. What difference did it make? In a month she’d be out of his life and he could live in peace again. All that would remain of her would be a headstone bearing her name.
But another part of him needed to know the reason behind her actions. He’d never thought himself good at understanding people, but he couldn’t even get a grip on the problems in this marriage. Be it based on a lie or not, they were bound together—if only for a month.
The sun disappeared, turning the canyon walls into layers of gray and black. The wind died to a low moan, echoing off the walls and whirling the final few wisps of snow through the air. Indians who camped from time to time in the canyon told Ford that twisters build and form along the miles of canyon wall. They’d said the “crying wind” whirls onto flat land about the spot where Saints Roost was built. One old native even said the wind would turn angry and destroy the town someday, but no one believed the tales.
Ford turned and headed back toward the house, deciding he’d never understood women any better than he did the weather in this land. They seemed about as predictable as a tornado.
Just as he reached the edge of the barn, he heard Hannah calling his name.
“Over here, Hannah.” The light snow made it hard for him to tell where she was in the darkness.
“Ford!” she called again. “I can’t find Sneeze.”
“Where are you?” The wind seemed to be whirling her voice around him.
“Here.” She moved from the shadows on the far side of the barn. “Do you think Sneeze ran away?”
He could hear the fear in her voice. “No,” he said, wishing he believed his own words. “He was in the house a while ago.”
“Are you sure? He must have had a terrible day.”
Join the crowd, Ford thought. He’d seen the children chasing the huge calico several times that morning, but most cats put an end to any teasing when they got tired of it. “Maybe he’s in the barn.”