Life After Wife (25 page)

“Momma,” he said before he thought. Mercy, the woman would think he was daft talking to his dead mother.

“She messin’ with your thoughts? Aunt Maud does that to me. She pops into my head like that crazy old aunt on those
Bewitched
reruns on late-night television. Remember how she used to pop in and out of Samantha’s house because she never could get her spells right?”

Elijah inhaled deeply and got another whiff of her perfume mixed with something tropical, like coconut and pineapple, that she must’ve used on her hair. He nodded and headed back to the kitchen with her right behind him.

“Aunt Maud ever fuss at you?” she asked.

“Nope,” he said.

“What was your momma tellin’ you?” she asked.

He finally found his voice. “To put the knives on the right side of the plates.”

It was a lie, but he couldn’t very well tell her what his mother was really talking to him about, now could he?

The back door opened and Hayden and Tanner came pushing into the kitchen. More Stetson. More soap smells. Just proof positive that Sophie needed her own place and soon!

Elijah paced the floor.

The week had flown by so fast that he wondered if it had sprouted wings. The new fence was coming along, and the pasture on the new property was losing a lot of mesquite trees. Hayden had found a rental place in Abilene and had a bulldozer delivered on Monday, and every day all week he’d reclaimed ground. The progress was phenomenal, and he was talking about renting the machine for another week.

Hayden and Tanner had left right at noon for Silverton to pick up a few more of their things and to see their older brothers. Randy, Frankie, and Kendall were off to visit their families. For the first time in months Elijah was alone.

And he paced the floor.

Back and forth from the living room to the kitchen, through the dining room and back to the living room, down the hall to his bedroom, then into his office where he toyed with a game on the computer for all of thirty seconds before he was up pacing again.

Sophie had gone with the girls to trailer shop. He’d known about it all week, and what it meant hadn’t hit him exactly until she waved at him from the truck. He’d been sitting in Aunt Maud’s rocking chair on the porch and, the minute she waved, it was as if she was telling him good-bye for good.

She’d bring home the deed and title to a double-wide, and in a few short weeks, she’d be out of the house. Already it was as quiet as a tomb and just as cold, even though the thermometer on the porch post said it was eighty-five degrees. It was another hot one for the last week in September.

Two months before he would have given Sophie his entire paycheck to get off the Double Bar M; now he wondered how he’d survive in the house without her. What had annoyed
him to the point of homicide a few weeks ago was suddenly endearing and cute.

He checked the time on a pass-through of the kitchen. Barely one o’clock. They’d just be reaching Abilene about now, and she’d be looking over the first of the double-wide homes. Sophie didn’t belong in a trailer. What if a tornado hit the area? Everyone knew those things weren’t safe in a tornado.

He picked up his phone from the cabinet and sent her a text:
Have you thought about tornadoes?

One came back immediately:
They said they tie these down so they’re safe. Guaranteed!

He wanted to stomp the phone, but instead he tucked it into his pocket and headed for the tack room in the barn. Time would pass far quicker if he didn’t have a clock to keep checking and if he kept his hands busy. There was always tack to be polished, and, last time he checked the room, it looked like a real tornado had wound its way through there.

Determined to make it spotless and get everything organized, he dove into the work with the gusto of a hunting hound on the trail of a coyote. But as is often the case when the hands are busy, the mind takes off on a trip of its own. At two o’clock Elijah sent another text message:
Found one yet?

One came back:
You in a hurry to get me out of the house?

He sat down and propped his feet up on the worktable and typed with his thumbs:
No, I am not.

She sent one back:
Gathering brochures. You can help me choose when I get home. We’re off to the mall, but Fancy has to be back at five.

“Three hours,” he moaned.

He led Wild Bill, the big black horse that Maud bought just before she died, out of his stall and saddled him up. Maybe a ride around all three sections of land would take three hours and clear his mind.

Fightin’ with your heart is always a tough battle
, his mother said as he cinched up the saddle.

“Yes, but maybe my heart shouldn’t win,” he said.

Sophie arrived at the ranch to find everything eerily quiet. The stillness was even more pronounced by the fact that she’d just left her friends where they were talking and giggling all at once about her new home options.

Kate thought she should build a mansion on the southernmost part of the new property. Fancy’s idea was that she should abandon it all and kick Elijah out to the bunkhouse. Sophie dropped her purse and the brochures on the kitchen table, made a hurried trip to the bathroom, and noticed that both Elijah’s bedroom door and his office door were open.

She’d looked forward to getting his input on the new double-wide, and she’d brought home a whole stack of brochures. She’d told him that, so where was he?

She meandered out to the back porch, shaded her eyes with the back of her hand, and noticed the barn door was open so she headed that way, expecting him to see her walking across the pasture and come meet her.

But she reached the barn without seeing anything of Elijah. His pickup was in the front yard, but maybe he’d
gone off somewhere with Hart. She was so disappointed that she could have cried.

The two horses that lived at the ranch had been stabled in the barn since the fire. She checked the stalls and Wild Bill was gone. That was a mean thing for Elijah to do, go for a ride at the very time he knew she’d be home. Evidently, he didn’t want to be included in her plans and that disappointed her all over again.

She was on her way back to the house when she heard hoof beats coming from the south. She shaded her eyes again and could see a black blur with a cowboy coming at her in a dead run. Wild Bill enjoyed a good run, and so did Elijah from the way he’d let the horse have rein to go as fast as he wanted.

She kept walking. No need for her to stay in the barn while Elijah spent at least thirty minutes removing the saddle and rubbing the sweaty horse down. At least he treated Aunt Maud’s horse right when he let him run like the wind. Too bad he didn’t treat his friends the same way.

The hoof beats got closer and closer and suddenly horse and rider bypassed her. The horse jumped the yard fence and came to a halt at the back door, where Elijah slid out of the saddle and waved at her.

She took her own sweet time getting to the yard gate, opened it slowly, and locked gazes with Elijah. His eyes were dancing, so evidently he’d enjoyed his fast ride. The horse’s flanks heaved as he cooled down, but his eyes said that he’d do it again if the cowboy would just mount up and let him jump over that fence.

“Good ride?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah! Cleared my mind right up. I’ll take him out to the barn and rub him down, but I think it’s all right now to
turn him and the mare out in the pasture around the barn. What do you think?” Elijah asked breathlessly.

“If you think it’s time, then have at it,” she said.

“I’ll be back in half an hour. Would you please meet me on the porch with some sweet tea and your brochures? I’m really interested in your day, but I wasn’t expectin’ you home until five.”

She remembered that she had told him five, but that was when Fancy had to be back at her ranch. She should have been more definite as to when she’d be home. Her spirits lifted and she nodded.

She made a fresh pitcher of tea, filled two glasses with ice, put it all on a tray, and carried it to the front porch. The wind had died down to a gentle breeze picking up the fall aroma of yellow, gold, and burgundy mums blooming around the front porch and a few yellow roses still lingering at the end of the house.

The brochures showed a dozen double-wide trailers, and the man said that he could get one set up and ready to live in within a month. Plumbing, electricity, and a foundation of concrete blocks had to be taken care of before the actual moving date. That would give her time to buy furniture, curtains, and her own towels.

The first one showed her favorite. Three bedrooms, a Jacuzzi in the master bathroom, and a walk-in closet. But suddenly the future did not loom happy. Instead it looked lonely and bleak. No rough old cowboys piled up in her living room watching television in the evenings. No making Sunday supper for the “kids.”

“Hey.” Elijah came from around the end of the house.

He smelled like horse, barn, tack room, the remnants of shaving lotion, and sweat, and she loved every bit of it. His
straight black hair stuck up all over his head and there was a dirt smudge below his left eye.

“Thirsty?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She poured two glasses of tea and handed him one. He downed the whole thing before coming up for air.

“Very good.”

She took the glass from his hand and handed him a brochure. He propped a hip on the porch railing and studied it all of ten seconds before handing it back to her.

“Is this what you really want? To live alone so me and the guys won’t be a bother? Please be honest.”

She shook her head…honestly.

Elijah dropped down on one knee beside her. “I’ve been out riding for more than two hours getting my thoughts together. I didn’t plan on falling in love with you when Aunt Maud left me half of this place, but I did. I’m forty years old, and I want a family. I want it with you, Sophie McSwain.”

She was stunned speechless.

“And?” she finally whispered.

“Will you marry me? I don’t have a ring. I just figured most of this out while you were gone, and I realized that I do not want you to move out. I want you in my life, in my house forever, because you are already in my heart. I’m not romantic, but I can promise you life after wife. I will always be faithful, and I’ll never leave you. That does not mean we won’t fight and argue, but it does mean that I’ll cherish you above every other thing or person in this world.”

“When did you know?” she asked.

“The first time I kissed you, but it took me a while to figure it all out,” he said.

She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Elijah’s neck, pulling his lips to hers in a kiss. “Yes, darlin’, I will marry you, and I’ve been fightin’ it as long as you have.”

Sophie could have sworn she heard Aunt Maud sigh and then a gentle breeze carried it away.

They were married Monday morning at the Shackelford County Courthouse in Albany with a janitor and the county clerk serving as witnesses. On the way home Sophie called Fancy and told her that she didn’t need to fix her up with the youth director because she and Elijah had just gotten married.

Fancy squealed and then said, “Please let me call Kate. She’s never going to believe this. And, darlin’, there will be a reception in a few weeks right here on my ranch.”