One Bright Morning (45 page)

His words somehow managed to slither through
tiny cracks in Maggie’s wall of loneliness. They were propelled by
infinite love; maybe that was why they succeeded in penetrating her
barriers. Whatever the reason, it occurred to her all at once that
perhaps she wasn’t as alone as she had at first felt herself to be.
She gave him the tiniest of tiny smiles.

“
It’s not your fault,
Jubal,” she whispered again.

He looked positively angry at that. “It is,
too, Maggie. If it weren’t for me, you’d still have your pretty
little farm. You saved my life and I got you burned out.”

Maggie actually gave him a real, albeit
lopsided, smile. “But if you hadn’t come to my door, I’d never have
loved you, Jubal,” she said softly. Then she patted the bed next to
her.

Jubal’s eyes squeezed shut once and his
heart breathed a prayer of gratitude before he slowly covered the
space between them and sat down next to her. Very carefully, he
wrapped his arms around her and felt her slump into his embrace. He
couldn’t remember the last time he cried, but tears stung his eyes
now.

“
Will you marry me, Maggie?
Will you marry me today, right now? I swear to God, Maggie, I’ll
never let anything else ever happen to you.”

“
Thank you,
Jubal.”

That didn’t sound like a “yes” to him, and
he glanced at her sharply. His heart was still doing crazy things
in his chest and a sudden horrifying thought that she was going to
tell him no surged through him. She couldn’t leave him now. He
wouldn’t let her.

“
Well?” he asked. It came
out as a demand.

Maggie took a deep, shuddering breath. “You
don’t have to marry me, Jubal.”

Astonishment made his eyes widen. “What?” He
was sure he’d misunderstood her.

With another deep sigh, Maggie said, “You
don’t have to marry me.”

He drew away from her a little bit so that
he could look at her face. He couldn’t quite believe she’d said
what he’d just heard. “What do you mean?” This didn’t make any
sense to him. None at all.

“
Oh, Jubal, please don’t
feel guilty. You couldn’t help what happened any more than I could.
It’s not your fault, and I’m not going to marry you just because
you feel guilty. I—I couldn’t do that.”

“
What
?” The word was sharp and ricocheted in the room like a
bullet. Maggie winced, and he squeezed her again and tried to calm
down.

Very carefully, he composed himself so that
he wouldn’t yell and said, softly, “I don’t want to marry you
because I feel guilty, Maggie. I want to marry you because I love
you. I can’t even stand to think about living without you.” Upon
another deep, calming breath, he said, “Please marry me, Maggie.
Please marry me because I love you and you love me.” He was very
proud of himself that he sounded so calm. He wanted to shake her
until her teeth rattled and then holler at her.

She thinks I asked her to
marry me because I feel guilty. Jesus Christ
.

Maggie drew back a little bit and gazed up
at him, doubt clouding her expression. He looked sincere. In fact,
he looked very sincere. He also looked as though he wanted to
strangle her. The combination actually made her want to
chuckle.

She thought about questioning him and asking
if he meant it, then she remembered how touchy he was and decided
that for once in her life, and in spite of her aunt’s many lessons
to the contrary, she’d believe something nice that somebody said to
her. The good Lord knew, she wanted to believe Jubal Green right
now.

“
All right, Jubal. I’ll
marry you. I’d love to marry you. Thank you.”

She had begun to stroke his chest lightly,
sending bolts of heat through him, and he lectured his manhood
severely for its uncivilized reaction to her touch. It didn’t
matter. He was hard as an oak log in a second.

Her words did make him feel better though,
and he no longer felt like shaking her. “Good,” he breathed.

“
But I want my baby to be
there, Jubal, and Dan and Four Toes and Sadie Phillips, and Beula.
I want to marry you in your pretty patio after it’s fixed up. I—I
never had a pretty wedding before. I always sort of dreamed about
it.”

Jubal was frowning at her now, and she got a
little worried.

“
Do you mind?” she asked in
a tiny voice.

Jubal didn’t answer her for a minute. When
he did, his voice was rough with emotion. It was a voice Maggie had
never heard before.

“
I don’t want to wait,
Maggie. I want you to be my wife as soon as we can get it done. If
anything happens to me, I want to be damned sure you’re taken care
of.”

The sudden surge of fear that shot through
Maggie at the thought of something happening to Jubal made her
forget his wound. She squeezed his arm so tight that he grunted in
pain. Then she let him go and rubbed his sore scar gently.

“
Nothing will happen to you,
Jubal,” she whispered as though she hoped it were true.

“
You don’t know that. It’s
not an idle consideration, Maggie.” Jubal’s voice was fierce. He
wanted to quell any arguments she might come up with. “Mulrooney
burned your farm down because of me. It’s me he wants. He could
kill Dan and Four Toes and me and then you’d be left all alone with
Annie and no place to call home, no money, and nobody to take care
of you. I can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen.” He held
her to his chest as though he were afraid she’d bolt if he let her
go.

As Maggie sat next to Jubal her thoughts
whirred and stumbled over each other. She’d never lived through
such an emotionally crazy day in her life. Her fingers stroked his
cheek and she could feel the stubble of his quick-growing beard. It
felt good to her. She inhaled a deep breath and smelled him, warm
and male and wonderful.

“
All right, Jubal,” she
whispered.

She still needed to go back to her farm; but
she didn’t have the energy to deal with that problem right now.
Besides, she was absolutely certain that Jubal wouldn’t understand
this particular need of hers: to see her home, to apologize to it,
to say good-bye, to look for one last time upon the earthly resting
place of her beloved Kenny.

Jubal expelled a huge gust of breath.
“You’ll marry me? Right now?”

“
Yes.”

He held her close and rested his chin on her
head. It took him a little while to realize he was breathing a
prayer of thanks. It was the third prayer he’d uttered this
day.

“
Jubal?” Maggie’s voice was
so soft, he could barely hear her.

“
Yes, love?”

“
Even though we get married
today, can we still have a ceremony in the patio when it’s ready?
Sort of a party or something, and ask our friends?”

Our friends. Jubal smiled at that. Until
he’d met Maggie, he’d never even considered himself as having
friends. She’d made both his heart and his eyes open wide, though,
and he realized just how blessed he was, in spite of the feud that
still threatened everything he was and everything he had.

“
Yes, Maggie,” he said with
an almost painful welling of love in his chest. “We can have a
party in the patio and invite our friends.”

She snuggled up closer. “Thank you.”

“
But we’d better get this
over with right now, or we’re never going to get out of this hotel
room.”

Jubal very gently set Maggie on the floor
and stood up. She straightened her hair and pinned it back into a
knot on her head while he tucked in his shirt and tidied himself up
some. He put on a vest and a black string tie, and wished he’d
thought to bring a better-looking jacket along with him. He
consoled himself with the thought that he’d dress up properly for
his bride when she held her party in the patio.

An hour later, Maggie was Mrs. Jubal Green.
It hadn’t taken any time at all to find a judge and secure a
license. The most time-consuming detail had been the procurement of
a wedding band.

“
I can use this one, Jubal,”
Maggie said, fingering the thin gold band she’d worn for the past
five years. It was worn down from hard work, but Maggie loved it
and knew that she could never let it go completely.

“
You’re going to be my wife
now, Maggie,” Jubal told her. He was making a great effort to hold
his annoyance at bay. Maggie’s feelings were still too fragile to
contend with his anger; he knew that, but it was a struggle to
behave himself.

He sucked in a deep, calming breath and
continued. “Now, I’m not going to tell you to stop caring for Kenny
Bright. I know you loved him. But I’ll be damned if you’re going to
wear his ring on your finger after today.”

Maggie turned Kenny’s ring around and around
on her finger and stared at it for a long time. Jubal held his
breath. Finally, she looked up at him and smiled, and he let the
breath go.

“
All right, Jubal. Thank
you.”

She hugged his arm close as they strolled
along the dusty plank walkway that had been laid to protect the
ladies of El Paso from having to slog through the sloppy mud street
on rainy days.

Jubal directed them into a jeweler’s shop
that wasn’t very far away from Garza’s mercantile establishment.
The jeweler was a Chinaman, a circumstance Maggie found
fascinating. She’d never seen an Oriental in the flesh before, and
the deep gash of sorrow in her heart was forgot momentarily in her
interest at this new phenomenon in her life.

When Jubal told the merchant the nature of
their errand, the man offered them a silky smile and brought forth
a tray of rings.

Maggie could only stare at the dazzling
display of gold before her for so long that Jubal finally had to
nudge her.

“
What do you think, Maggie?”
He picked up an elaborate model that was bedecked with diamonds.
“You like this one?”

Maggie gazed at the ring with awe. It looked
like a cluster of infinitesimal stars shimmering between Jubal’s
big brown fingers, and it was entirely too splendid for her.

“
I can’t imagine wearing
that, Jubal. It’s too fine.”

When her beloved’s forehead crinkled up and
she saw a frown blossoming, she hastened to add, “It’s not that I
don’t like it, Jubal, it’s just that I’d feel funny wearing
anything so—so big. I think I’d like something simpler. I’d be
worried to death all the time if I wore that one.”

Maggie shook her head, envisioning herself
on her hands and knees scrubbing tiles in the patio and wearing the
elaborate work of art that was presently clutched tightly in
Jubal’s fingers. That ring was meant for a princess. Not for Maggie
Bright. Maggie Green, she corrected herself with a clutch of real
pleasure in her heart.

“
I want to get you something
nice, Maggie,” Jubal told her fiercely. “I can afford it, and
you’re worth it,” he added, just in case she had any questions
about either of those circumstances.

“
Thank you, Jubal.” She gave
his arm a quick squeeze and went back to eyeballing the tray. It
was odd, she thought, how happiness and sorrow could live together
in a person’s heart, neither emotion interfering with the
other.

Her eye kept straying back to one particular
ring, and her fingers hovered over it. She felt funny about boldly
picking it up to scrutinize it. She wished she had her eyeglasses,
but Jubal wanted to get married before they did anything else in
town. The jeweler spared her the decision.

“
Very pretty ring,” he
announced, and plucked it out of its velvet sheath and held it
before her.

“
You like that one?” Jubal’s
expression was mighty dubious as he eyed the ring. It seemed
awfully plain to him. It was fashioned out of three thin, flat
bands of gold woven together. That was all. No diamonds sparkled
from its braid. No jewels glistened from its coils.

Maggie peered hard at the band, wishing she
had on her eyeglasses. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I like that one a
lot.”

“
You’re sure?”

He was a little disappointed. He’d been
hoping she’d go for something more flashy. He realized that was
silly of him even as he thought it. This was Maggie. This wasn’t
any other woman he’d ever known in his life. He decided he approved
and took the ring out of the Chinaman’s hand and slipped it onto
Maggie’s finger. It fit perfectly, so he took it right off
again.

“
Sold,” he told the
man.

Maggie almost fainted when the jeweler told
them how much the ring cost, but Jubal nonchalantly handed over the
fifty-five dollars without so much as a flinch. She found herself
wondering just how much money Jubal Green had that he could part
with so much of it without batting an eye.

Then they moseyed back to the judge’s
office. Maggie surreptitiously slipped Kenny’s ring off of her
finger, squeezed it once to her heart, and put it into her skirt
pocket. She was unprepared for the sudden aching pang she felt. But
the spirit of Kenny Bright, or her imagination, brushed gently
against her mind again and told her that everything was all right.
She wasn’t being disloyal. Maggie believed it.

Fifteen minutes later, she and Jubal were
strolling along the plank walkway to Mr. Whitney’s, the optician,
arm in arm, Mr. and Mrs. Jubal Green. All thoughts of disloyalty
fled from her heart, and Maggie stared at the beautiful new ring on
her finger until she stumbled and Jubal laughed.

“
Better watch where you’re
going, Mrs. Green,” he said. “I can only hold up one side of you on
a public street.”