Daisy (Suitors of Seattle) (13 page)

Daisy nodded.  “You remember meeting Higgins?  He came out here and asked questions about you.”  Had she never mentioned that to him?  She couldn’t remember.

Eli was stunned.  “What would have happened if I’d been deemed unacceptable by Higgins?”

Daisy and Jasmine exchanged glances.  “I wouldn’t have been allowed to marry you.  You saw how Mama was even with Higgins agreeing that you were fine.”

“So you would have just given up on the idea of marrying me if I hadn’t lived up to your mother’s expectations?”
 

Daisy wasn’t certain what the problem was.  “Well, I hadn’t met you yet, so yes, I would have.  If I’d met you first, I’m sure it would be a different story.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”  His eyes flashed with anger.  How could she have kept something like that from him?

Daisy shrugged.  “I didn’t deliberately keep it from you.  It just never occurred to me that you would care.”

“Of course I care!  I hate the idea of someone prying into my past.”  Eli stood.  “I need to take a walk.”

Daisy got to her feet slowly, putting her hand on his arm.  “I’ll go with you.”
  She didn’t feel up to a walk, but something was wrong, and she thought they should talk it out.

He shook his head, obviously angry.  “I need to think, and there’s no way you could keep up.”

She watched him as he stormed out the door and turned her attention to Jasmine.  “I guess I should have told him.”

Jasmine just nodded.  “Maybe so.”  She stared at the door for a moment and looked back at Daisy.  “Do you think I can start courting now that I’m eighteen?”

Daisy shook her head slowly.  “Not without Mama’s approval.  I’m sure Higgins will need to come out here once you decide who you want to be courted by.”

Jasmine made a face.  “I’ve already decided.”

Daisy closed her eyes. 
Please don’t let it be James.
  “Who’s that?”

“There’s just a man at church that I think would be a good husband for me.  He’s asked me to go for buggy rides a few times, but I keep telling him I can’t yet.  How can I let him know I’m interested if I keep telling him ‘no?’”
  Jasmine didn’t want to have to explain that her Mama and Papa didn’t want her to court anyone without their approval.

Daisy thought about that for a moment.  “Well, what I would do is tell him that your parents are very particular about who courts you.  You would love to get to know him better, but you’ve promised your mother that you’ll have anyone who is interested investigated.”

“Should I admit to having him investigated?”  Jasmine gestured to the chair Eli had just abandoned. 

“Well, you don’t want a scene like that when you’re eight months pregnant, do you?” Daisy asked wryly.

Jasmine laughed.  “Probably not.  I’ll talk to him on Sunday.”

*****

By the time Eli got home that night, Daisy was already asleep.  She’d tried to wait up, but the pregnancy was weighing heavily on her, and she just couldn’t stay awake.  She tossed and turned through the long night, knowing that Eli was angry with her.  It was their first real fight, and it bothered her.

He was cold but cordial the following morning.  He ate his breakfast silently.  “What will you be doing today?”
Daisy asked.

He shrugged.  “Working.”

She shook her head.  “Fine.”  She took a bite of the eggs Jasmine had made for them.  “I think we’re going into town for more flour today.  We’re down to the bottom of the barrel, and we need to bake some bread.”

“You’re too far along to go into town without me,” he argued, “and I’m going to be too busy on the range today to play nursemaid to you and your sister.”

Daisy felt herself bristling at his words.  “No one is asking you to play nursemaid.  She can’t go without me, because she doesn’t know how to shoot yet, and we need flour.  Either let us go without you or assign someone to guard us.  I don’t care which.”  She stood and carried her plate to the scrap bin, scraping the food she hadn’t eaten into it to feed to the chickens later. 

“Don’t take that attitude with me.”

Daisy set the plate into the sink and turned back to him, her face flushed with anger.  “I’m not your child to be ordered about.  I’m your wife.  If you don’t want to go with me, then I’ll go with just my sister, but I
will
be buying flour today.  I’m an adult woman who is married, and I’m about to give birth.  I will not be treated like a child ever again.”

Eli stalked across the room toward her, towering over his small wife.  “You will not be going to town unless I have time to ride with you.”

Daisy shook her head.  “Then you’d better give up on working today, because you’re going to have to sit here and watch the house.  You can’t stop me otherwise.”  She poked him in the chest to emphasize her words.

“What happened to the sweet little girl I married?” he bellowed, the anger vibrating off him.

“She grew up!  Now help me or get out of my way.  I need to go to town today.”  She looked at Jasmine who was seated at the table watching the exchange with wide eyes.  “We’ll go after we finish the dishes.”

Jasmine nodded, not certain what to say, but she could see that her sister was not backing down.  She wanted to cheer, but she didn’t think either of them would appreciate it.

Daisy turned to the basin and poured the hot water she’d been warming on the stove into it.  She added a bit of soap and started scrubbing the dishes, rather than waiting for Jasmine.  They’d formed a routine during the time Jasmine was there, and she usually washed the dishes while Daisy dried them.  Daisy didn’t really care that day.  She just couldn’t keep standing there and looking at her husband.

Eli caught her arm and turned her toward him.  He was angry enough that his chest was heaving.  “Are you really going to defy
me?”

“You can bet the ranch on it.”  She jerked her arm away from him, not quite believing he was acting like that.  What was his problem?  “I have work to do, and if I remember correctly, you said you had too much work to do to go to town with us today, which must mean you have a lot of work.  Get to it.”

She turned back around and resumed washing the dishes ignoring him.  He stalked to the door and plopped his hat onto his head before heading out.  “You’d better keep your bottom on this ranch until I get home at noon for lunch.”

“No.”  Daisy worked hard to keep her voice soft and controlled as she responded to him.  She didn’t want to fight with him, but she wasn’t going to sit down and let him run all over her either.  She was a woman, and women should have rights.  She didn’t care what men had to say about it.

“No?”  He stalked toward her.  She wasn’t backing down a single inch, and he couldn’t believe this shrew was the woman he’d married less than a year before.  Where was her willingness to please him?  Her fear of doing anything wrong?

“No.”  She walked to the table and cleared off the last of the dishes, while Jasmine sat still watching the fight going on before her.  She looked as if she were watching a sporting match with the way her eyes moved from one face to the other.

“I won’t have you risking my child’s life by running off to town whenever you get the whim.”

“Whim?  I’m running off to town so that I can feed you.  So that I can feed that child.  If you don’t like it, either go for me or come with me.  I’m done with this discussion.”  She turned away from him and resumed washing the dishes, methodically and evenly.  With the mood she was in, she wanted to throw the plates across the room, not wash them meticulously, but she knew they couldn’t afford to spend money on new dishes just because she lost her temper with her hard-headed husband.

He glared at her and left the house.  Jasmine sat and stared at Daisy for a minute, wondering what on earth had just happened to her docile agreeable sister.

Eli stood outside for a moment clenching and unclenching his fists, trying to force the anger to leave him.  He couldn’t deal with a headstrong woman in the middle of round up.  It was time to take the c
attle to market, and she wouldn’t listen to him about anything. 

Was she just using this as an excuse to leave him? Maybe she’d wanted to have an argument in front of Jasmine so that she could leave him without her family saying anything to her about abandoning her responsibilities.  Yes, that was probably it.  He’d come home at the end of the day, and she’d be gone using going to town for flour as her excuse. 

He stalked away from the house.  If she left him, he’d just go get her and bring her back where she belonged.  He wasn’t going to cower away from the idea of her leaving any longer.  She was his wife, and she’d stay his wife.

As soon as they were done with the breakfast dishes, Jasmine went out to hitch up the wagon.  It was one of the first things Eli had shown her how to do, so she and Daisy would be able to freely go into town and get supplies or go to visit neighbors.  He didn’t want Daisy doing it herself during her pregnancy, but she was perfectly capable as well.

Jasmine helped Daisy into the wagon, because she was moving so slowly these days.  Neither sister had said anything about the fight she’d had with Eli until they were driving toward town.  “Do you want to tell me what happened this morning?” Jasmine asked, wondering if Daisy would open up to her and talk about the madness she’d witnessed.

Daisy turned to Jasmine, sparks flying out of her eyes.  “You mean why did I turn into a crazed lunatic this morning when my husband acted like an idiot?”

“I guess that’s one way to put it.”  Jasmine didn’t want to make her sister any angrier than she was.  She’d been around the three oldest sisters during their pregnancies, and they’d turned into crazy women one after the other.  She was afraid of pregnant women.  How she’d convinced herself Daisy would be different was beyond her.

“He doesn’t trust me, and it makes me furious.”  She pointed to the pistol she carried on her lap every time they went to town.  “I’m perfectly capable of shooting while I’m pregnant, and I’m accurate!  I could probably outshoot Lily at this point, but he thinks that I need to stay home and lock myself in the house so I don’t break.  The man would wrap me in cotton batting if I’d let him.”

Jasmine grinned.  “He only does it because he loves you so much.”

Daisy snorted.  “Love?  Ha!  He doesn’t know the meaning of the word!”  She shook her head.  “That man wouldn’t know love if it bit him on the neck.”

“So, let me ask you this…how did you turn into Crazy Daisy so quickly? I’ve never seen you stand up to anyone that way.  I thought you were going to kick him you looked so mad.”

“He makes me crazy!  If I turned into Crazy Daisy then it’s all his fault.”  She sighed.  “I have a feeling we’re going to have a nice repeat of that fight when he goes home for lunch and we’re not there.”

Jasmine looked at Daisy.  “It won’t take us that long in town.  Why won’t we be there at lunch time?”

“Because we’re mad at him, that’s why!  We’re going to shop, and then we’re going to have a nice lunch in the hotel.  I need to eat something that neither of us cooked for a change.”

Jasmine shrugged.  “I can go along with that.”

Daisy was still fuming when Jasmine had to help her down out of the wagon.  “This baby is going to be the death of me,” she groaned, putting her hand to her back.  “I feel like I’ve been pregnant for six years.”

“I think that’s what Eli’s afraid of,” Jasmine mumbled.

Daisy ignored her sister and walked across the street to the mercantile where she looked for the things she needed.  She found some yarn to make a small cap and booties for the baby, and she purchased some fabric to make some sleepers.  Then she got down to the business of buying food.  She slammed everything she wanted on the counter, making the merchant eye her skeptically.  “You doing well today, Mrs. King?  Feeling all right?”

Daisy turned her angry eyes on him.  “I feel like I’m eleven months pregnant with triplets.  How do you
think
I feel?”

The merchant wisely didn’t say another word as he carefully gathered what she needed from the list she’d handed him and placed everything on the counter. 

Daisy was startled as she felt a hand on her arm, and she turned, her eyes flashing with anger.  When she saw it was Clara, she sagged and hugged the other woman tightly, crying on her shoulder. 

Clara had watched Daisy and the anger that accompanied her every movement.  She knew something was wrong with her friend.  “Let’s have lunch after we finish our shopping,” she whispered as she patted Daisy’s back. 
“I don’t have anyone with me except Natalie, and we’ll have her and Jasmine eat together so we can talk.”

Daisy nodded as she stood and wiped the tears from her eyes.  She felt like there was a tiny being inside her head causing her to have crazy moods and do things that were unlike her normal self.  “I need that.”

Daisy meekly finished her shopping while Clara quickly hurried around the store and purchased what she needed.  Daisy could see Natalie and Jasmine talking in a corner of the store.  No doubt it was about how she’d turned into “Crazy Daisy” that morning.

After she’d purchased everything,
the merchant carefully loaded everything into the back of her wagon.  She wandered over to Jasmine and Natalie.  “I’m going to have lunch with Clara.  You two eat together, but don’t sit close to us.  I need to talk to my friend.”