An Unwilling Husband (11 page)

Mud soaked the bottom of her skirts as she sloshed at a dead run for the barn. She let the chickens and that blasted ornery rooster out of the coop and ran behind them for cover, a stampeding herd of mixed species.

She shook the feed pail and it made a grainy sound against the sides of the wooden bucket. The chickens followed her to the dry middle of the barn and she loosed feed over the hay-scattered dirt. When even the rooster was occupied, she ran back to the coop and collected the eggs. She set the pail of fresh brown eggs inside the barn doorway. Later, when she was sure Garret was not in the house, she would bring them in. And preferably, when it wasn’t pouring fit to drown her.

The barn housed the horses, as well as the two mild tempered milk cows. Mild tempered if you kept up with the milking, anyway. Let their bags fill to painful proportions and one could make an enemy mighty quickly.

She’d always loved animals, and found she had an easy way with most of them. Granted, she wouldn’t waste her affections on the rooster, but other deserving beasts received kindness from her, and more often than not, they returned it. That being said, she was still somewhat terrified of sitting next to the huge milk cows, which had a tendency to kick the milker or the full bucket if one gave them too firm a tug.

“Oooh, there’s a good girl, Macy,” she cooed, running her hands down the brown cow’s back to let her know she was there to take care of her. She set up the stool next to the cow, which now looked back at her with big brown, doe eyes.

“Be kind to me today, yeah? It’s my birthday, after all.”

Macy replied with a loud bellow, which made her laugh.

“Why, thank you. What a good friend you have turned out to be.” She set to work like Lenny had shown her, and found the rhythmic patter of milk in the pail relaxing. After the pail was half full, she started to sing to the cadence.

Oh, please ne’er forget me though waves now lie o’er me

I was once young and pretty and my spirit ran free

But destiny tore me from country and loved ones

And from the new land I was never to see.

The song was a sad one, but eerily beautiful. It was an old English song about an emigrant’s daughter, and Mother had found comfort in it after she’d traveled to America from her home in London. She’d sung it often when Maggie was little. It had always stayed close to her heart, especially as she’d grown older and understood more of what her mother had been forced to give up.

Inherited from her mother, she had a fair voice, as far as she knew. When Aunt Margaret had thrown extravagant parties, she’d even requested she sing for the guests. Surely it was as close to a compliment as the woman ever paid her.

A poor emigrant’s daughter too frightened to know

I was leaving forever the land of my soul

Amid struggle and fear my parents did pray

To place courage to leave o’er the longing to stay.

The soft noise of boots scuffling straw sounded behind her. She turned abruptly, sloshing the pail with her foot but catching it before the bucket tipped over.

“Oh, bollocks!” She moved the pail out of Macy’s way. Garret stalked past her, headed in the direction of the horses’ stalls. He wouldn’t look her in the eye, and if she had to guess, he almost looked embarrassed. Just how long had he been standing behind her?

She moved on to Bossie and finished in silence. Her painful awareness of him was accentuated by the muscles in his arms and shoulders moving as he forked hay. The fluidity born of his strength never eased, and she pursed her lips in an effort to keep from ogling the man.

Grimacing in concentration, he didn’t seem to notice her devoted attention. He hauled skittish and rain soaked horses to their stalls from the corral, his deep voice silken as he soothed them. Apparently she had to be an animal to earn the reward of a kind word.

A wayward squirt of milk shot the leather of her shoe, and she righted the teat. Peeking around the cow’s back end, she blew a curled strand of hair out of her face.

The rain against the thin cotton of his button-down shirt had done wonders for the view. It clung to every curve of his torso. And now she was ogling. Such an intoxicating man was impossible to ignore. When she had two full pails, she hefted one in each hand and struggling, made for the door.

“You need help hauling those in?” he asked.

Primly, she declined. Ignoring his gaze on her back, she clomped through the mud toward the house. The morning colored in gray and pouring rain was indeed the perfect weather for the day.

By lunchtime, Lenny still hadn’t made an appearance. Without the Indian girl’s help, the meal was only partially burned and mostly edible. Triumph. She grinned with satisfaction.

Garret headed out on Rooney in his heavy duster and when he’d gone from sight, the tension in her shoulders ebbed. A fair amount of her chores were outside, and with Garret here to take care of the bulk of them, she found herself grateful he didn’t seem to mind the torrential downpour.

She settled in with the wine colored dress, eyes on the sewing and her mind and ears on the door. Though he was abrasive and irritating, she still worried for the surly man. Which was irrational. Maybe it stemmed from a longing for the remnants of her long lost childhood friend, she didn’t know. No matter how many times she told herself the kind little boy she’d known didn’t exist anymore, just the same, loyalty made her wait and wish he’d appear. Silly, inconvenient, little hopes.

At dusk, Garret’s boots hit the creakiest board of the front porch, and she stood so suddenly, the book she had fallen asleep reading slipped from her lap and clattered to the wooden floor. Despite berating herself for feeling so, a weight so large it seemed tangible lifted from her shoulders.

Garret took a long, hard look at her as he came through the door and then went about the business of shaking out his clothes and hanging his hat and jacket. He was very busy avoiding her.

By showing up with a package wrapped in the brown paper from the dressmaker’s shop, Lenny saved the encounter from becoming more awkward. The girl’s grin was infectious as she handed the present to her.

“For me?” This was beyond reason, a gift for her. And how had Lenny known the date?

The girl nodded, and Garret said, “I told her it was your birthday. It don’t mean the same to the Indians, but she wanted to make you something anyway.”

Bloody hell. Right in that moment, he could have knocked her over with a feather. “How did you know it was my birthday?”

“I remembered. From before.” As he ducked into the kitchen to reheat the plate of her half burnt cooking in his hand, she could’ve sworn a blush darkened his tanned cheeks.

She took the gift from Lenny and sat on the chair, as excited as she’d been as a child on Christmas. She’d rarely ever received a gift.

From the wrappings she pulled out a pair of moccasins, much like Lenny’s, and clutched them to her chest. “Oh, they’re just brilliant!” she exclaimed to Lenny, who was grinning. Garret poked his head out of the kitchen, and she thought she caught him smiling too.

Then and there, she peeled off her shoes and put on the moccasins. Lenny showed her how to lace them properly. How long it had taken the girl to make them, she couldn’t guess but admiring the detailing, Lenny’s absence as of late made sense.

Laughing, she stood then crept around the furniture, miming a rabbit hunt with her hands up like guns. Lenny stood and scuffled and bumbled noisily around the room impersonating their first excursion, much to her delight. Garret grinned as he watched their antics.

Lenny talked to him in her language and made gestures good humoredly. He laughed but Maggie wasn’t offended. How could she be at such a time? She couldn’t take her eyes off the new and undeniably comfortable footwear. And the deep timbre of Garret’s unfamiliar laugh warmed her heart in tender ways she happily kept to herself. Another unexpected gift.

After they had settled, Lenny and Garret ate her cooking and didn’t even make awful faces at it. It had shaped up to be a right happy birthday after all.

Lenny left after dinner and Garret, no doubt, would escape to the solitude of his bedroom soon after. But he sat at the table with his hands clasped in front of his mouth. She fingered the stitching on a napkin, sensing he had something to say.

“That’s nice of you,” he said. “The way you treat Lenny. Not many women—not many people,” he corrected, “would be kind to her like that.”

“Why wouldn’t I be? She is my friend. Probably the nicest and most sincere friend I’ve ever had.”

Garret searched her face for a long moment. “See, that’s what I mean. You didn’t ever think you were better than her or Cookie.” He cleared his throat. “I got something for you. For your birthday.”

He pulled out a bright, fragrant orange and placed it on the table in front of her. Shocked into silence, a feat which didn’t happen often, she reached out and touched the peel gently with her fingertips. She had only eaten a few oranges in her lifetime.

“Where did you get this?” she whispered.

“I got it in town a couple of days ago. I pulled a couple of favors,” he said.

Shyness crept over her. “Thanks for remembering,” she said softly.

He nodded, and she peeled the orange slowly, savoring the smell. After she’d divided it into slices with care, she pushed half of them in front of him.

“It’s your present, Maggie. You don’t have to share.”

Arguing with Garret had never gotten her anywhere. So, she tucked her legs under her and ate the fruit piece by piece, relishing the flesh’s tanginess and the juice’s refreshing tartness. He watched her with an unreadable expression while she ate. Only after she was finished did he pop his first slice into his mouth. His eyes glowed with amusement as the angles of his jaws worked around the tart fruit.

“What?” She felt her chin to make sure she didn’t have juice running down it or some other such embarrassment.

“Nothing.”

Silence stretched between them like the walls of a wide valley, but pushing Garret into a conversation he didn’t want wouldn’t work.

“It’s just when you eat something you really like,” he said, “you rub your hands together before you dig in. You used to do that when you were a kid, too. It’s funny that you still do it.”

She laughed, and he stuck another slice into his mouth then pushed one from his pile toward her. The urge to rub her hands together again nearly overwhelmed her. As if he’d read her mind, Garret laughed. That he’d remembered a personal habit she’d never noticed warmed her heart.

“I was thinking,” he said around a bite of tart fruit.

“Uh, oh. That sounds dooming.”

His brows lowered and his darkened eyes met hers. “I was thinking on what you said yesterday. About making the best of the situation? I know I haven’t been fair to you. Now, I can’t promise to change my ways completely. I feel the same as I did yesterday, but I should be trying harder than this—” He waved his hand around. “Making us both miserable. We know this ain’t a love match.”

She dropped her gaze to avoid him seeing the pain that was surely in it. He was finally trying to talk to her. The least she could do was make it easy for him to continue.

“I think this would be easier on us if we could be friends,” he finished.

She looked up and smiled at him. Even if a little sadly, it was the best she could do. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Mr. Shaw.”

He held out his hand, but raw and exposed to the fickle blade of his words, she hesitated to touch him. Then she pressed her hand lightly into Garret’s, amazed by the warmth of it, and shook it slowly.

“Maggie, what happened to your hand?” he said, turning it over and giving her a puzzled look.

Embarrassed, she pulled it away. Should she admit how hard she’d been working to prove him wrong? Or to impress him...maybe both? “I wasn’t used to working with my hands.”

He ignored her hesitation at his touch and took both her hands in his, examined them more closely. “These look painful. Has Lenny been putting her salve on them?”

“Every morning, though I can’t see it helping much,” she admitted.

“I guess you weren’t exaggerating when you said you were helping with the chores. Look, I think you need to take tomorrow off and let them heal up. Infection runs rampant out here, and getting the doctor to the ranch is pretty hard at best.”