“Oh, Bart, I will.” Her heart full, Rosie met his ardent kisses with equal passion. She’d been so long absent from this man, it was all she could do to keep from crying aloud with need. As his mouth claimed hers, his hands caressed her shoulders and back as though to make certain she was real.
Just as hungry for him, she allowed her fingers to search out the warm skin beneath his collar and the broad, hard muscles of his chest. “Take me inside, Bart. I’ve been needing you so much.”
His mouth moved over her neck and cheek as he lifted her out of the wagon and carried her across the moonlit yard to their front door. Inside the dugout, he set her on their bed and stretched out beside her. Oh, he was a beautiful man. His green eyes caressed her as he reached for the buttons at her neck.
“Rosie-girl,” he murmured. “I love you better than life itself.”
She smiled, wrapped her arms around his chest and allowed her eyelids to drift shut.
It had once seemed impossible to Bart that he would ever have his Rosie so near his heart again. But as time passed he began to believe that he had been wrong.
Rosie let her option on the house elapse. She took Mr. Kilgore’s advice and used her savings to buy a small buggy and a gentle horse. Early each morning she drove her rig to town while Bart rode just ahead. At the school she continued to teach the children she had come to love as if they were her own. The death of Manford Wade had affected everyone deeply, and it took time for the students to resume their carefree behavior. But eventually they went back to their usual antics, and their teacher was obliged to cook up a new round of her very popular after-school punishments.
Bart’s sugar-beet crop promised a good income. Thanks to his careful thinning, good irrigation and diligent measures against blister beetles, leaf spot, black root, root rot and curly top, the plants had flourished. During the cool nights and warm days of the New Mexico summer, the long, silver-white taproots were growing toward a prime weight of two pounds or more each. Their crowns sent out brilliantly rich greens, each leaf a good two feet long. Bart planned to sell the leaves and crowns for livestock feed. The farm demanded so much of his time and energy that he knew he soon would have to quit his livery stable job just to keep up with his own fields.
With Rosie’s earnings, they bought another milk cow and the lumber to build a two-bedroom addition onto the top of their soddy. Bart finished digging the refrigerator alone, and he gradually filled it with venison, wild turkey, quail and rabbit. The kitchen garden began to yield a bountiful harvest, and the eggs Rosie sold in town brought in enough extra income to fence off the garden from hungry varmints.
Rosie started to grow healthier almost right away. With Bart’s teasing and her own comforting home so close at hand, she perked right up. As she felt better, her worries about Bart being carted off to jail subsided for the most part, and they began to attend a few of the Gate City’s social functions.
May brought frequent rain, but they drove into town on the twenty-first for the grand charity ball at McAuliffe and Ferguson’s Hall. The New Mexico Livestock Association hosted a ranch dinner four days later, and the Comet announced the building of a new Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway passenger depot. To everyone’s sorrow, on the fifth day of June, Sheriff Bowman died suddenly of a lung hemorrhage. He had been married just two years and was but thirty-six years old. The town mourned the county lawman, but Rosie couldn’t deny her relief that any investigation of Bart’s background surely would cease.
By mid-June three men had tossed in their hats for the vacant position of county sheriff. As Bart’s sugar beets grew and Rosie’s students learned their parts for the recital, the town scheduled a big hunt, formed a football club and made plans for the coming Fourth of July celebrations.
With all these public events to attend, Rosie decided it was high time for Bart to work on his manners. She sewed new shirts, trousers and ties, and taught him to wear them properly. As she learned to cook, she taught him how to pronounce English pea soup au gratin, roast sirloin of beef au jus and salmi of duck.
At night in bed they rehearsed polite conversations about the weather, current local and national news and the state of political affairs—anything to keep Bart from regaling polite company with his favorite jokes, as he had been known to do on more than one occasion. Usually, however, Rosie’s nightly lessons on morals and manners deteriorated into teasing, laughter and eventually such sweet passion that she forgot anything else.
On Sundays they went to church, sometimes taking a nervous Cheyenne Bill along with them. Rosie taught Sunday school, and Bart volunteered to help landscape the church property.
In fact, Rosie realized one noon as she was driving her horse and buggy away from the schoolhouse, she and Bart had settled into a life so full of contentment and peace that it almost frightened her. Every day held more promise than she’d ever known in her life. Each night in Bart’s arms she felt more and more at ease with the world they were building.
The only wrinkle in the whole picture was her health. Though it had improved considerably, she still felt that something might be seriously wrong. Mourning Mannie, she had missed an appointment with Dr. Kohlhouser, but as time passed, she scheduled a quick lunchtime visit while the children played tag and picket under the supervision of Mr. Kilgore.
Rosie drove her buggy to the doctor’s office and pulled it up outside the small frame building. After lapping the reins over the hitching post, she bent to give Griff a pat on his massive head, then stepped over the dog and entered the building.
“Afternoon, Mrs. Springfield,” the physician greeted her.
“Good day, doctor.” She gave the burly man a smile as he escorted her into his examining room. He gestured to a chair, and she seated herself demurely, hands in her lap.
“Now, how would you describe this problem of yours, Mrs. Springfield?” Taking a notebook, he adjusted his spectacles and stared at her.
“It’s a…a feminine problem, sir.”
“I see. Of what nature?”
“Well,” Rosie said with a flush, “I was ill some time ago, and since then my monthly flow seems to have stopped altogether.”
“What sort of illness did you suffer?”
“A violent stomach ailment. I was nauseated for several weeks. That subsided finally, but my cycles never resumed.”
He lifted his head and gave her a tender smile. “I’m assuming, therefore, that you believe you may be with child.”
“What?” Rosie sat up, startled. “Oh, no, that’s impossible. I can’t have children.”
“You can’t? How do you know?”
Rosie fiddled with the folds of her skirts. She had known this was going to be difficult, but she hadn’t expected this turn of conversation.
Finally she cleared her throat. “I was married before, you see. To my husband.”
“Your husband?” He made a note in his book. “May I ask, Mrs. Springfield, when your husband passed away?”
“Oh, he didn’t. Pass away, I mean.”
The doctor was staring at her with a new look on his face, a look of disapproval. “So, you are a divorced woman?”
“No, the first husband is the same one I have now. But he left me, you see. Back then.” Rosie began to wish mightily for a fan. “I trust this is a confidential conversation, Dr. Kohlhouser.”
“Of course.”
“I am a married woman—and have been for the last six years. Mr. Springfield is my husband. But past events rendered me unable to conceive. So, will you please tell me what’s wrong with me?”
The doctor placed his notebook on his leg and tapped the tip of his pen against it. “I’m going to have to ask you some more questions, Mrs. Springfield—about your marriage.”
She bristled. “I don’t see why. That is none of your business.”
“It certainly is if I’m to learn why your monthly cycles have ceased.”
Rosie sank back into the chair. “All right,” she said glumly. “If you must know, m
y husband left me two weeks after our wedding.”
“And I’m assuming you had a normal marital relationship with him during those two weeks.”
“No.” She wrung her hands. “We were very young, you see. I lived at home until my father found out what we’d done.”
“Ah. But as you didn’t have a true marriage relationship with your husband, you could not have conceived. So how do you know that you’re unable to have a baby? Were you with another man during the years before you reunited with Mr. Springfield?”
“Another man? Oh, of course not!” She shook her head. “No, I loved him. I loved him so much, in fact, that I became very ill after he left me. I was sick all the time for more than a year—unable to sleep, unable to eat. My cycle completely stopped, Dr. Kohlhouser. My father is a physician, you see, and he took me to be examined by several doctors, friends of his. They all said the same thing—I’m barren.”
“Will you permit me to send to these physicians for your medical records, Mrs. Springfield?”
“Absolutely not.” Just the thought of contacting men who would rush to her pappy and tell him where she was sent a chill into Rosie’s bones. “That’s all in the past.”
“Do you now have a normal marriage relationship with Mr. Springfield?”
“Yes, I do. But why won’t you simply take what I say as fact, Dr. Kohlhouser, and tell me what else could be wrong with me?”
He shrugged. “I’ll try my best. But a healthy young married woman with your symptoms certainly would seem to call for a diagnosis of pregnancy.”
“I’m not going to have a baby,” Rosie whispered. “I can’t. Please don’t mention it again.”
At the look on her face, the doctor’s own visage fell into tender lines, and he patted Rosie’s knotted fingers. “There now, I know how much you love little ones, Mrs. Springfield. Your work at the school has been exemplary. I’ll see what I can do for you.”
Rosie bared herself to the humiliation of a thorough exam. All the while, the doctor questioned her about every imaginable awkward thing. Had this or that changed? Was she always so emotional? Had her husband noticed anything different about her? She wondered how a woman doctor might be different, but of course such a possibility was remote.
Finally Dr. Kohlhouser allowed her to dress. “Mrs. Springfield,” he said when she was seated in yet another chair, “I can arrive at only one diagnosis, and it’s based on twenty-five years of medical practice. You are with child.”
A tingle washed down Rosie’s spine as she stared at him. “With child. But that’s impossible.”
“Mrs. Springfield, after your husband left you and your cycles ceased, did they ever begin again?”
“Well, yes, after a couple of years.”
“Sometimes emotional collapse combined with a lack of proper nourishment can cause a woman’s monthly cycle to be interrupted. Your cycle righted itself after time, and when you renewed your marriage with Mr. Springfield, you conceived.”
“Are you sure?”
“As certain as I can possibly be. You have every symptom. Based on what you’ve told me, I would say you’re about two months along. Maybe more. If I’m correct, you’ll deliver sometime around…oh, next January.”
Rosie couldn’t speak.
“Now, I could be wrong.”
“Yes,” Rosie breathed, certain he must be and fearful he might.
“I could be mistaken, and you’ll deliver in December. Or February. We’ll know better as you progress. But if I were a betting man, Mrs. Springfield, I’d wager you’re going to have yourself a baby in a few months. I’ve been wrong only twice in my career, and I’ve delivered nigh onto three hundred babies.”
“A baby…” she whispered.
“Congratulations. I hope you’re happy.”
“Happy! Of course—oh, a baby!” Rosie jumped out of her chair and ran to the window. She felt light-headed, fairly dancing with joy. But when she looked out at the reality of the bustling street, she had to turn again to the doctor.
“How?” she asked. “How can I possibly have conceived, Dr. Kohlhouser? All those doctors examined me, and they were good men, too. Friends of my father.”
Dr. Kohlhouser shrugged. “As much as I’d like to claim that modern medicine is perfect and physicians never err, I’m sure you know that is not true. Your dear father, as you must have discovered by now, is merely mortal. He makes mistakes. We all do.”
Rosie thought of the speech her pappy had given Bart—about his worthlessness, about the failure he would be as a husband, about the terrible life he would give his young wife. Pappy had been wrong. Very wrong.
“Yes, Dr. Kohlhouser,” she said. “My father made a mistake. And…and I need to forgive him.”
“A wise decision, especially under the circumstances. He’ll want to know he’s a grandfather.” The physician adjusted his spectacles again. “Now, I am going to record my assumption that your husband suffers no difficulty whatsoever with his reproductive system. And you, Mrs. Springfield, are as fertile as the good springtime earth.”
Rosie’s hands slipped down over her belly. For a long moment she stood in silence, trying to absorb the doctor’s words. She was with child. Through their loving, she and Bart had created a new life. Even now the baby was growing inside her body—developing, strengthening, forming into a beautiful child, the essence of each of its parents.
“A baby,” she murmured again. “A baby!”
Dr. Kohlhouser laughed. “Or maybe two. Now, Mrs. Springfield, here’s what you are to do.”
She listened in a fog as he explained how important it was that she rest, eat properly and take in plenty of fresh air during the months to come. She mustn’t tire herself or corset herself too tightly. The baby needed room to grow after all. She mustn’t be left alone much, and toward the end she should move into town to be close to the doctor when her time came.
“Yes,” Rosie replied to everything he said. “Yes, yes, of course.”
But as she walked out the front door, her head might as well have been a blank slate. She was going to have a baby! Forgetting all about her horse and carriage, her afternoon classes and the doctor’s admonitions, she began running down the street toward the stables. Bart! She must tell him right away. How happy he’d be! Oh, she couldn’t wait to see the expression on his face when she told him they were going to have a child of their very own!
“Bart,” she murmured aloud as she rounded the corner of the depot. “Bart, a baby!”
She whispered the refrain as she ran across the platform in front of the Harvey House, oblivious to the late-lunch train and the arrival of passengers who were startled at the sight of a woman dashing past them, her blue dress flying around her knees.
“Bart!” she shouted as she ran up the ramp into the livery stable. “Bart, where are you?”
“Rosie!” He emerged from the shadows and caught her before she could slam into him. “Rosie, what are you doing here?” His voice was harsh, as cold as steel.
“You’re supposed to be at the schoolhouse!”
She blinked at him and tried to fathom the look on his face. At the same time, it dawned on her that he was hiding something. Something he didn’t want her to know about.
“Bart?” she asked, flashes of fear darting through her mind. “Bart? What’s going on?”
“So, this is the little woman you’ve been telling me about,” a man announced, striding out into the middle of the stable, his pistol drawn. “Rosie, is it?”
She stared at a face worn into crags, at blue eyes hard and glittering. “Who are you?”
“Ain’t you told her about me, Injun?” the man asked, jabbing Bart in the side with his gun. “You better introduce us, pal.”
Breathing hard, Bart pushed the barrel of the six-shooter away from his injured side. “Rosie, this is a pal of mine from a long time back. We used to ride together in the old days. His name’s Bob Ford.”
“Robert Ford,” she mouthed. “Robert Ford…
the man who killed Jesse James.”
“That’s me. Not only that, but I saved young Bart from a bullet a time or two.” As he spoke, two more men emerged from the shadows. “And now me and my buddies have come to town to pay you folks a friendly visit. For old times’ sake, if you know what I mean.”
As Rosie turned to Bart, Bob Ford began to laugh.
Chapter Seventeen
“Rosie, get on back to the schoolhouse,” Bart barked. “Stay with the Kilgores tonight. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”
“You mean we rode all this way and we ain’t gonna get us a home-cooked meal?” Ford complained. “Now listen here, Miz Kingsley, don’t pay your husband no heed. You head on home tonight and whip us up somethin’ dandy to eat. We been livin’ on beans for almost a month now.”
Rosie glanced at Bart. To the best of her knowledge, she’d never seen him truly angry until this moment. Now she remembered, by the stance of his body, what became of men like that toothless Harwood fellow who tried to cross him. His bare biceps were bunched and knotted. Big fists clenched, his knuckles had gone white as bone. The muscle in his square jaw worked as he gritted his teeth, and his eyes sparked with a burning green flame.
“I told my wife to go back to work, Ford, and she’ll do as I say.” His head snapped toward Rosie, but his eyes stayed on the intruder. “Get out of here, woman!”
Her hand covering her stomach, Rosie started for the door. But when she crossed into the shaft of afternoon sunlight, she stopped and swung around. “Tell me one thing,” she demanded of Bob Ford. “I want to know how you found Bart.”
“That’s easy. Injun writ a letter to Frank James a while back. Frank mentioned it to some of the boys, and word leaked out. Everybody knows where he’s been hidin’ out.”
Rosie stopped breathing. “Everybody?”
“Didn’t I just say that? Are you deaf or some thing?”
“Watch how you talk to my woman, Ford,” Bart snarled. “She’s no lowlife like you.”
“I ain’t a lowlife, Injun. I’m famous, don’t ya know?”
The Gunman's Bride Page 17