Alma's Mail Order Husband (Texas Brides Book 1) (7 page)

Alma nodded.

“Is this what you normally get up to in the
evenings?” he asked.

Alma nodded again. “This is it. It’s my turn
to clean up. What would you like to do?”

Before Jude could answer, Clarence called to
him from the shadows. “Why don’t you pull up a chair over here by
the fire? I want to talk to you.”

Jude jumped at the sudden snap of his voice.
Alma brightened. “That’s a good idea. You two probably have a lot
to talk about.”

Jude looked over his shoulder and back to
Alma, but she had already pushed her chair back and began gathering
up the plates.

He took the chair Allegra loaned him and
settled himself across the fire from his new father-in-law. As soon
as he sat down, though, he had to move back to make room for Alma
to get to the kettle hanging over the fire. She squatted in front
of it and washed the dishes in the steaming water. Even with her
back to him, she sensed Jude’s eyes on her back. Every word her
husband said to her father, he said to her.

“Alma says you come from Amarillo,” the old
man began.

“That’s right,” Jude answered.

“But you didn’t always live there, did you?”
Clarence asked. “You moved there from somewhere else. Where was
that?”

Jude’s voice hardened. “No. I was born in
Amarillo. I was born in the house my parents live in now. My father
built that house with his own hands.”

“I don’t think much of the mail-order
marriage system they have going now,” Clarence growled. “A man
could tell a woman any old thing he wanted, and she would have no
way to verify if he was telling the truth.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Jude told him.

“Maybe you would and maybe you wouldn’t,”
Clarence shot back. “We have only your word for whatever you want
to tell us. We have only your word that you came from
Amarillo.”

“I would have no reason to lie about that,”
Jude maintained. “It wouldn’t mean any more if I said I came from
Kansas City.”

“Kansas City!” the old man thundered.

“Or Galveston, or Baton Rouge, or any other
place,” Jude continued. “What difference would it make?”

“It wouldn’t” Clarence returned. “Unless
someone knew someone from Amarillo, or if they knew something about
you because of it.”

“Knew something,” Jude answered. “Like
what?”

“Oh, I think you know very well what,” the
father-in-law shot back.

Jude waved the accusation away. “I don’t see
how lying about it would profit me any. I’m marrying Alma. I could
only benefit me for her to know the truth about me from the
beginning. Marriages aren’t built to last on lies.”

“I’m glad you realize that,” Clarence
replied. “And you aren’t marrying Alma. You already married her.
It’s over and done with. You’re married.”

Jude lowered his eyes. “Okay. I married Alma.
But I didn’t lie about coming from Amarillo.”

“Maybe you didn’t lie about that,” Clarence
replied. “But you could have lied about that or just about any
other thing.”

“I just told you I wouldn’t do that,” Jude
insisted. “I married Alma in good faith. I could accuse you of the
same thing. Alma could have lied to me about anything to do with
your family, and I wouldn’t know about it until after we were
married and I came back here and found out for myself.”

“Maybe Alma doesn’t know everything there is
to know about her own family,” Clarence declared. “Like she said
before, her mother died before any of the girls really got to know
her, and they’ve never gotten to know either her family or mine.
But I’ll sit right here and tell you anything you want to know
about me. Come on. Just ask me and I’ll tell you.”

“I don’t want to know anything,” Jude told
him. “I’m satisfied with what Alma told me about your family.
Everything she told me has been true so far. I trust her.”

Clarence snorted. “Then you’re very trusting.
Well, I’ll tell you anyway, just so you won’t be able to accuse me
of withholding any important information.”

“Are you accusing me of withholding important
information?” Jude asked.

Clarence ignored him. “I was born in
Tuscaloosa, and I joined the Confederate Army at the age of
twenty-four. I fought with Robert E. Lee, and I even had the honor
of shaking his hand after the Battle of Little Crooked Ridge. So
what do you think of that?”

“I don’t think anything of it,” Jude replied.
“I didn’t ask you to tell me. You don’t have to tell me
anything.”

“Do you know,” Clarence asked. “About fifteen
hundred Confederate soldiers were massacred at Little Crooked
Ridge? Did you know that?”

Alma detected a slight hesitation in Jude’s
voice before he answered. “No, I didn’t. I never heard of Little
Crooked Ridge until right now.”

“A certain detachment of Union infantry
surprised a certain detachment of Confederate soldiers there,” the
old man continued. “They overran them while they ate their morning
porridge. They wiped out all but about five hundred of them. Did
you know that?”

“I just told you I didn’t know,” Jude shot
back. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

Clarence didn’t hear him. “I was there. I was
one of the survivors. Afterward, General Lee came down from
Arlington. That’s where I met him. He gave everyone of the
survivors of the attack an honorable discharge and a small pension.
He said we’d done our duty to the Confederacy. I took my pension
and came down here. I spent some time in Juarez, and that’s where I
met my wife.”

“That sounds like a nice way to ride out the
rest of the war,” Jude returned.

Clarence shot forward in his chair, gripping
the arms with white-knuckle fists. “You would think that. Now I
know I was right about you. Of all the things you’ve said so far,
that confirms what I knew about you from the very beginning.”

Jude shifted in his chair. “Which is what?
What exactly are you accusing me of?”

The old man turned his milky eyes back toward
the fire. “Now I know you’re not the man you claimed to be. Maybe
you could pull the wool over the eyes of some innocent girls from
the south Texas desert who’ve never had any dealings with men. But
you can’t pull the wool over my eyes. No sirree! I know you. Just
remember that.”

“You know me,” Jude replied. “Because I’ve
told you everything about me. I haven’t kept anything hidden.”

“Listen to me, Alma,” Clarence called out.
She turned around and wiped her hands on the towel. “This man is a
lying scoundrel. You can’t trust him further than you can throw
him. Mark my words. And now you’re married to him. This is what
comes of flouting the older generation.”

Alma threw the towel onto the table. She drew
herself up to her full height and towered over her father. “What
exactly are you accusing Jude of? If you have something to say,
then say it and stop blowing smoke out of your ears.”

Clarence wouldn’t say any more. He clamped
his mouth shut so tightly that his whiskers stuck straight out from
his face. He kept his face averted from his daughter and her
husband.

“That’s what I thought,” Alma concluded. “You
can ignore him, Jude. If he isn’t willing to come out and say
what’s on his mind, then there’s nothing you need to concern
yourself with him. Come with me. It’s getting late, and we have a
big day tomorrow.”

She strode away from the fire. Jude took one
more look at his father-in-law before he followed her to the other
side of the room. As she passed the table, she took the lamp with
her, leaving her father in darkness.

Alma set the lamp on the table next to her
bed and sat down.  Across the room, Allegra lay on top of her
bed, fully clothed, with her back to the room. Amelia reclined
against her headboard, chewing on a dry grass stem. She didn’t look
at Alma or Jude as they approached Alma’s bed.

Jude walked over into the circle of light. He
peeked at Amelia in the next bed and across to Allegra and the
other way to Clarence’s empty bed on the other side. “Where will I
sleep?”

“Here.” Alma patted the quilt next to
her.

Jude looked around again. “Here?”

“Where else?” she asked. “Aren’t I your
wife?”

Jude shrugged. “I guess so.” But he didn’t
move.

“Where would you rather sleep?” she asked.
“These are the only beds, and this one is mine. Now it’s ours.”

“Where would I rather sleep?” he repeated.
“How about the Monte Carlo in New Orleans?”

She smiled. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Jude chuckled. Then he sat down next to her.
“Shall we order room service?”

“I’ll have the lobster bisque and battered
catfish,” Alma replied. “And bring a bottle of your best Madeira,
too, while you’re at it, garçon.”

Jude raised his eyebrows. “You’re good. Let
me just get my wallet out.”

They looked across the gap between the beds.
Amelia stretched out right in front of them. Without acknowledging
Jude and Alma, she stood up from her bed, grabbed her flannel night
dress from the bedpost, and disappeared into the closet. When she
came out, she tucked herself under her quilts and blankets and
rolled over with her back to them.

Jude sighed and took off his hat. “No time
like the present, I guess,” he muttered. He hooked the hat over the
bedpost and kicked off his boots. With his sock-covered toe, he
pushed them under Alma’s bed.

“Why don’t you take your guns off?” she
suggested.

Jude shot her a crooked grin. “Why don’t
you
take
your
guns off?”

Alma laughed. “Okay. I will, if you
will.”

They stood up together and unbuckled their
gun belts. They hung them side by side on the other bed post. Jude
sat down again. “Now what should we do?”

“I’ll change into my night dress,” Alma
decided. “That should simplify things.”

Jude nodded. “By all means.”

Alma disappeared behind the curtain and came
out in her checkered flannel night dress. She sat back down next to
Jude.

“Now I begin to recognize you,” Jude told
her.

“Recognize me?” she asked. “What do you
mean?”

“I mean,” he dropped his eyes to her dress.
“That this is more the person I married at the church than…that
other person.”

A flush of pleasure flashed across Alma’s
cheeks. “I’m glad of that. I’m glad she’s in there somewhere.”

“Now that I can see you this way,” Jude told
her. “I know I’ll see you this way every night. I know that other
person isn’t really the woman I married.”

“Do you think so?” Alma asked. “I was worried
you would only have the memory of me in my wedding dress to
remember me by, to remember that I could be something more than a
rough cattle puncher.”

“I don’t have to remember,” Jude told her.
“You’re right here, in flesh and blood, in front of my eyes. You
aren’t a rough cattle puncher. You’re a soft, beautiful woman, and
now that I can see you, I’m glad I married you.”

Alma smiled, but her eyes brimmed with tears.
“Thank you,” she whispered.

Jude raised his hand and traced the outline
of her cheek and jawbone with the tip of his finger. He pushed a
stray strand of hair behind her ear. He turned his face toward her,
but at the last minute, he glanced around the room.

Alma followed his gaze. Amelia and Allegra
breathed peacefully in their beds with their backs to the newlywed
couple. Somewhere off in the darkness, Clarence Goodkind made no
sound from his chair by the fire. He would be asleep by now. He
might rouse himself and stagger to his bed later in the night, but
he followed the same routine of falling asleep in his chair once
quiet descended over the rest of the house.

“Don’t pay any attention to what my father
said before,” Alma told Jude. “He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“He seemed pretty serious about it to me,”
Jude murmured.

“He spouts off about the past every now and
then,” Alma continued. “He can’t help it. He’s old. His mind
wanders back in time sometimes, and he starts reliving things that
happened to him. Sometimes he thinks the war is still going
on.”

“Where do you think he got the idea I was
hiding something from you?” Jude asked. “I’m not, you know.
Everything I told you in our letters was the truth.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Alma replied. “It’s like
I said. Just ignore him. What he said about you lying to me—it
doesn’t mean a thing.”

“I wouldn’t want to start out my life here on
a bad footing with your father,” Jude maintained. “We all have to
get along here. He could make my life very unpleasant if he
persists in making accusations against me that I’m making myself
out to be something I’m not.”

“I believe in you,” Alma told him. “That’s
all that counts. And Amelia and Allegra understand how Papa is.
They won’t hold it against you. Just go about your business. Let
him say and think whatever he wants to. He can’t hurt you with
words or thoughts.”

“It’s easy to say,” Jude muttered. “It’s not
so easy to do.”

Alma laid her hand on top of his in his lap.
“Listen. Tonight is our wedding night. Let’s not give any of them
another thought. Let’s just concentrate on us, you and me.”

Jude glanced around the room again. “It’s a
little difficult with all of them right there. How can I not give
them another thought?”

“They aren’t exactly watching us,” Alma told
him.

Jude’s eyes skirted around and he dropped his
voice to a whisper. “How do you know your father isn’t watching us
from over there? He could be watching us right now.”

“He wouldn’t,” Alma whispered back. “Anyway,
he can’t see very well. I don’t think he can see from there to here
even in the best of light. We’ll blow the lamp out, and then he
won’t be able to see us at all.”

Jude didn’t reply, but he kept glancing over
his shoulder toward the fire. Alma blew out the lamp and the whole
room plunged into darkness. Chirping insects outside raised their
voices to fill the void left by the light. The night noises grew to
a din on the other side of the thick adobe walls.