by Maren Smith
"Where's the girls?"
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She jumped with her whole body when his fingers skimmed her arm. "Oh my goodness gracious!" she gasped.
"What?"
"You!" She turned her face away from him, but not before he saw the bright red color deepening to dark scarlet shade.
"You're not wearing any clothes!" He blinked at her in surprise and then looked down at himself. His filthy jeans were riding low down on his hips. His bare chest was wet from both sweat and water and, though he'd worn a shirt all day, dirt had a way of working its way through cloth until it got to skin. He was going to need to heat water for a real bath before he retired to bed later on, but other than that, his was just an ordinary chest: muscular and hard from a lifetime of working his land, sparsely peppered with mostly dark, curly hairs, although some were turning as gray as the hairs on his head. Still, a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth as he raised his head to look at her again. "Well, well now, Miss Margo," he drawled, leaning a forearm against the threshold of the front door and angling his head to get a peek at her pretty, plump face. "That's not entirely true. I haven't shucked my pants right yet, now have I?" She didn't turn around. "I, uh..." she stammered and cleared her throat. "I was j-just coming to tell you ... to t-tell you..."
He picked up a wispy curl of her still mostly blonde hair and twirled it around his finger. "Tell me what?"
"Dinner's ready," she whispered. 92
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He accidentally pulled her hair because Margo retreated into the house so quickly that he didn't have time to release the curling lock. She didn't even bother to shut the door, but let it slam shut behind her as she scurried on to the kitchen. It bounced in the wooden frame, and Buster caught it. He popped his head inside, calling after her, "I'll there in a minute, Miss Margo. Just let me get myself cleaned up and presentable."
At the sound of his voice, the little blonde baby came toddling out of the back room, arms flung out and squealing happily at the sight of him. She was a beautiful blonde, just not the one he was currently aching to hold.
"Bath time," he told her.
The baby stopped stalk still in the hall, staring at him with wide, wounded eyes. Whirling about, she burst into tears and toddled back into the back room, sobbing loudly. That killed some of his ardor. Buster made a face and closed the door. He hurried to clean up, taking the time even to clean out from under his fingernails, a fairly useless cause since they would only become imbedded again tomorrow. Then he took off his muddy boots and went inside. He put on clean pants and a fresh shirt and then went into the back room to pick up the baby. Serenity punched him in the knee on her way to the table. Buster didn't say anything; he almost figured he deserved it.
Laying the baby against his shoulder, he bounced little Constance up and down. "Shush up, little one. I ain't gonna give you a bath. I was just kiddin'. Stop yer bawlin' now." 93
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She rubbed her head back and forth against his shoulder, wiping her nose on his clean shirt, but at least she stopped crying.
Carrying her into the kitchen, Buster sat down at the head of the table, with Constance on his knee and Margo served up chili for supper and freshly baked apple pie for dessert. He hadn't had apple pie since the Best Pie Bake-Off in Longview two years ago. The crust was so light and fluffy it all but melted in his mouth. He actually closed his eyes and very nearly groaned.
"Marry me," he said when he could finally bring himself to look at her again. He was only half kidding. Margo laughed, however, and her face turned slightly red all over again. "You do have a flattering tongue, don't you?"
"It's the pie," he lied.
After supper, Margo washed up the dishes and then washed up the children, despite all their tearful protests. Buster removed himself from the conflict entirely, retiring out onto the front porch to sit under the stars, surrounded by crickets and barn owls, and quietly tuned his guitar. As the cacophony in the house began to quiet down, he began to play.
The soft, slow strains of 'Darling Nellie Gray' filled the night, followed by 'Hard Times Come Again No More', a song that used to be his mother's favorite. When that was ended, he played a lullaby, mostly because he figured the girls would be in bed now and he couldn't think of anything else that wasn't a toe-tapper. The last thing he wanted was to get the babies roused up and excited again.
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He was halfway through the tune when Margo came out onto the porch and sat down on the steps next to him. She folded her arms upon her knees, not offering conversation, just companionship, and so Buster continued to play until the last strains faded into the constant chirps of the crickets. Neither spoke for the longest time. Not until, far down the road, Buster glimpsed a light moving through the trees on its slow and rambling way to his house.
"Who's that comin' for you tonight?" he asked.
"Tillie Burkhardt is sending her eldest boy," Margo said. Buster frowned. "I didn't realize he was old enough to drive a team o' horses."
"Oh, I'll be fine," Margo told him, leaning over to playfully jostle him with her shoulder. "You worry too much."
"Only over what's worth worrying about." They were quiet for a moment more, watching as the wagon drew ever closer.
"Margo?" Buster finally said. She turned her head to look at him, and a corner of his mouth turned slowly upwards as he met her eyes.
"I was wearing pants, you know." Even in the darkness on the porch he could tell she turned candy-apple red in the cheeks, and then she quickly looked away. But not before he thought he heard her say something. His eyes bulged and for a moment he couldn't believe his ears.
"What?" he blurted, half laughing. "What did you just say?" Margo kept her face turned away, but one hand came up to cover her mouth.
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Buster leaned closer to her. Trying hard not to laugh, he asked again, "What did I just hear you say, sweetheart." She looked back at him, her eyes sparkling in the dark, reflecting the light from the house. She still had one hand covering her mouth, though he could tell she, too, was trying not to laugh. "I said, I wasn't havin' any trouble imaginin' the rest."
* * * *
Constance wiped her hands on the dish cloth that was slung over her right shoulder and dropped the stock pot down on the stove a little harder than necessary. Across the kitchen, in the middle of cutting up a dozen potatoes, Margo jumped.
She looked at Constance sideways, wincing. "Are you all right, honey?"
"Fine," Constance said shortly. She wrapped a towel around her hand and opened the stove to stoke the fire. Hesitating, the knife bobbing up and down in her hand, Margo finally had to put it down. "Honey, I have to know. Is there still going to be a wedding?"
Constance stabbed at the fire, her mouth tightening, her lips all but disappearing into a thin, angry line. She shut the stove harder than needed too. "I don't know yet. I haven't decided."
"Don't be angry with him, dear." Constance straightened as stiff as a broom pole. "Don't be angry with him?" she echoed. She faced Margo with a look of incredibility on her face. "He was kissing Amanda!" 96
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"Oh, but honey, you have to understand men." Margo followed Constance from the stove to the table, where the younger woman began to expel her anger on a helpless ball of biscuit butter. "They're very ... physical creatures. I know the prospect of the marriage bed can be a daunting one, but with a man you care about ... well, it can be quite..." Margo blushed pink, averting her eyes. "...Magical." Constance gave her a dry look.
"Well, it can be," Margo said defensively. She fussed with her collar and cleared her throat. "I think you and Mr. Farris would be wond
erful together."
"What you think, or even what I think, make very little difference if Mr. Farris cannot keep his hands off the Amandas of this world." Cutting out the biscuits with short, sharp movements, Constance readied a tray and threw it into the stove. "I don't have much pride, I suppose, but I have that much at least!"
"Constance!"
Ignoring Margo entirely, Constance stoked the flames and added more wood.
"You aren't being very fair," Margo admonished quietly.
"Fair?" Constance wiped her hands again and then turned to face Margo with all her pain showing clearly on her face.
"What's fair? Is it fair to make me fall in love, to fill my fool head with marriage-talk, and all the while romancing everything in a skirt?" Tears stung her eyes, but Constance blinked them back. "In a smaller-sized skirt," she said brokenly.
Margo's shoulders slumped.
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"He doesn't want me, Margo. Maybe he wants someone to cook for him and to clean for him, and maybe he's willing to settle for me because I'm ... I'm lower maintenance than all the pretty Amandas in town, but he doesn't want me." Throwing the dish cloth onto the table, Constance headed for the door.
"Where are you going?" Margo called after her.
"The hen house," Constance called back over her shoulder.
"The character and quality of men notwithstanding, we still need three chickens for dinner."
She walked outside, hands digging and balling in the folds of her skirts, grateful that Margo let her go so easily. Killing something for supper had never been one of her favorite chores, but at the moment, wringing a few necks could only serve to improve her current mood.
Or so she thought.
She was still fuming mad as she stalked back to the house, and the only difference in her mood was the weight of three dead chickens on her conscience. She was so taken up with her own problems that she didn't spot Grace racing tearfully towards the house until her sister's horse had nearly run her down.
Constance managed to leap back out of the way in time to avoid injury, but one of the chickens fared considerably less well; it was trampled under the horse's hooves as it thundered past. Grace did not rein in and dismount as much as slow down and fall from the saddle.
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of Grace's eyes and nose made it clear that she had been crying for some time, perhaps for the entire ride from town to home. Perhaps for even longer.
"Grace?" Constance forget all about the trampled chicken. She was scarcely even aware of the two she still held. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"This family is cursed!" Grace spat vehemently. She sucked in a shaky breath and then dissolved once more into weeping. "None of us will ever be happy in love!" Grace fled into the house, leaving Constance gaping after her. Her first instinct was to rush after her sibling and demand to know what Judd had done now, and it took a moment for her to remember that Grace was suffering her own star-crossed infatuation, one that had nothing at all to do with Judd. Shocked at her own ungraciousness in the face of her sister's misery, Constance picked up the battered poultry and, head down, trudged inside.
Margo had caught Grace at the bottom of the stairs and was wrapped around her, administering comfort in equal portions with interrogation. "Where's Serenity?" she was asking.
"She's gone!" Grace bawled. "Cullen spanked her and now she's left!"
Constance and Margo looked at one another over Grace's head.
"Left for where?"
Grace waved one arm in a vaguely southern direction.
"California, where else? And it's all my fault! I ran her off because I thought she was after Stephen and that's why he 99
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didn't want me!" Grace seemed to crumple in on herself in wretchedness. "But I knew she wasn't, really. I knew she would never steal a man from me. And how could she steal him anyway when he never wanted me?" She began to cry even harder. "Not when he can have Lucy, or Edith, or even Amanda!"
Margo rubbed Grace's back, pointedly not meeting Constance's eyes. "My word, that little hussy certainly gets around, doesn't she?"
Constance dropped the chickens on the table and took off her apron. As she snatched a shawl from the hook by the door and headed outside, she heard Grace plaintively ask,
"Oh Margo, why can't I make him love me?"
"Oh honey," Margo said, shaking her greying head. "That's not the right question. I think a better one would be: Why do you so desperately want a man who doesn't love you?" Love, Constance decided as she hurried for the south field where Cullen and her father was waging their annual war against corn-ear worm. Love wasn't anywhere near as wonderful as she'd once dreamed it would be. Not even for beautiful women like Serenity and Grace, and certainly not for her.
She was still a good hundred yards across the field when her father emerged from the tall forest of corn stalks. He paused when he saw her, raising his hand to shield his eyes from the sun, as if wondering whether she might be a figment of the heat. Then, hands on his hips, a deep frown lining his weathered face, he stood waiting for her to come closer. 100
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"You ain't bringing me lemonade," he said grimly. "Who's done what, to whom, and how much trouble is she in?"
* * * *
It was a very quiet table that night for supper. Two chairs were vacant and the only one who ate with any gusto was Buster, and even then the sound of his fork stabbing into the food on his plate seemed angry.
"Why didn't Serenity come home?" Margo asked yet again, her voice barely above a confused whisper.
"She has her own life," Cullen said, prodding his mashed potatoes without much enthusiasm.
Margo blinked first and him, and then at Buster. "What ... what does that mean—she has her own life? Of course she does. But it's here, in Longview, with us." Buster snorted. Stabbing a piece of chicken and stuffing it into his mouth, he growled sideways at Cullen, "Thought you said you were going to take care of her?" Cullen stiffened in his seat, but didn't look up from his plate. "I did."
Blinking tearfully, Margo pushed back her chair. "I-I'm going to take a plate upstairs to Grace. Maybe she'll be ready t-to eat now that she's had a-a chance to calm down." Giving Cullen a dark look, Buster stabbed another piece of chicken and stuffed it into his mouth. Nobody said a word until after Margo put a tray together and carried it upstairs.
"I'd have dragged her back here by her hair," Buster growled into his plate. "What the hell were you thinking letting her go to California?"
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"Maybe I was thinking that if I ordered her not to go, she'd hate me for a smothering old tyrant," Cullen muttered, giving Buster a meaningful glare as he spoke the last three words. Buster's eyes narrowed.
Cullen blew a hard sigh and said, "And maybe I was thinking it was some sort of woman-test, and if I let her have her reins, she'd come back to me on her own." Buster grunted. Woman-tests weren't entirely unknown to him, but he wasn't about to show Cullen even a glimmer of understanding.
"And maybe I was thinking ... Oh hell, I don't know what I was thinking!" Cullen snapped, throwing down his fork with a clatter. "I can sit here and come up with a thousand stupid answers to your thousand stupid questions, but the bottom line is it seemed like the thing to do at the time. Well, I guess it wasn't after all, so you can take me out back and hang me or you can keep inviting me to dinner, but nothing's going to change what's done!"
Shaking his head in disgust and glaring at the younger man, Buster hunched over his supper plate. "I'd have dragged her back here by her hair," he growled again. "At least she'd have been safe."
Constance slumped in her chair, poking at her food and trying her best to discover the secrets of invisibility in the next few seconds.
"Yeah." Cullen wiped his mouth on his napkin, a curt gesture that terminated with him slapping the cloth square down over his half-eaten dinner. "You'd have marched her 102
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back here, so she could be good and miserable for the rest of her life—"
"Snapping a switch to her backside every time she balked a step!" Buster bit out in angry agreement.
"You've given her the life of an ornery mule!" Cullen finished, his tone rising to match the old man's.
"At least she'd have a life!" Buster's bellow shook the walls of the house. He knocked his chair over backwards as he snapped to his feet. "You said you would protect my baby!
You sent her to godforsaken California! There ain't no law there, you stupid sonuvabitch! Just rough, hard men, who'd like as treat her foul than look at her!"
"She's gone!" Margo's interrupting scream was almost a physical slap, stunning the room to silence.
"What?" Buster's hands dropped limply to his sides and he looked at Constance before turning to Margo, who hung frantically over the bannister at the halfway step. For a moment, he looked utterly confused. "Who?"
"Grace!" Margo cried. She flew the rest of the way to Buster, catching him by the front of his shirt and shaking him.
"She climbed out the window again! She's gone!"
"Aw hell." Cullen stood up.
"Maybe she went to the Doc's." Constance jumped up from the table and ran to the door to fetch her shawl from a coat hook.
Everyone stopped in place when a sudden, sharp knock sounded at the front door. Everyone turned to look, moving in perfect sync, like a handful of dolls whose strings are pulled all at once.
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Buster was the first to move, striding towards the door with his brows shuttering his anger-darkened face. "The belt's coming off tonight," he announced to the room in general. "I can sense it already. The belt is coming off." Constance was closer to the door, and in the hopes that she might defuse a situation before the powder keg caught, she took those last two steps and opened it, preparing to shield her sister from their father's wrath. But instead of a sheepish Grace standing shyly on the porch, there was Judd staring back at her. Clearly, he had heard the shouting of a minute before, because the look on his face was aimed six inches higher than her head and distinctly wary. When his gaze dropped to her, he held out a bouquet of wildflowers. "Is this a bad time?" he asked. Constance slammed the door on him, neatly snipping off the heads of half the flowers in the process.