Silver Lining (25 page)

"You must be close. Max departed for the mountains on May 30, and as I understand it, you and he …"Livvy coughed into her hand. "I'm counting from May 29." Now she frowned. "My dear, you really should stop lacing so tightly. I realize you didn't want anyone to guess, but you're safely married now, and it isn't good for the baby to lace so tightly. I'd recommend that you stop wearing a corset entirely."

"Perhaps." Again she cast her eyes toward her lap and fidgeted with her fingers.

"Meanwhile, we can begin letting out the waists on some of your dresses and ensembles and sewing up anything new you need. Gilly and I are doing some sewing for Louise; we can work on your requirements as well."

"I wouldn't dream of putting you to any trouble. Whatever alterations are necessary can be done by my seamstress." In fact, she would indeed need additional dresses, a thought that lifted her spirits somewhat.

She'd have Wally take her back to Denver for a shopping excursion.

Livvy fell silent for a full minute. "Perhaps I should remind you that Wally is not a wealthy man. Surely he's mentioned that we won't be sending many cattle to market this year."

"Oh, I'm certain we'll manage." She didn't wish to offend the famous McCord pride by mentioning that her father would pay her seamstress as he always had. And she counted on the fact that the Houser pride would ensure that her father also paid for the Denver excursion rather than subject her to the indignity of appearing in altered clothing. The Housers weren't the sort to make do.

"There's something else we need to discuss." Livvy clasped her hands in her apron lap. "I suspect you've kept to your room since you arrived because Louise has come every day to help with the cooking. Is that correct?"

"I don't wish to see or speak to that person," Philadelphia said coldly. "I won't be in the same room with an immoral creature such as she. No decent woman would."

Livvy reached across the space that separated them and took her hand. " Philadelphia . The worst thing that can happen is to have this family split down the center." She drew a deep breath. "I know everything that's happened is deeply painful to you. I certainly understand how you would focus blame on Louise.

But I beg you to rise above these feelings if you possibly can. For the sake of the family."

Withdrawing her hand, she stood abruptly and returned to the window. Staring through the lace, she watched the men striding toward the house from the barn and corrals. If she'd opened the window, she knew the air would stink of dust and scorched cowhide. Truly, she didn't know how she could endure living on a ranch. None of the outside smells were pleasant.

"The whole family will have dinner here every Sunday. For the sake of unity and harmony, I ask that you tolerate Louise for a few hours every Sunday and on holiday occasions."

After the countless concessions she had already made, expecting her to share a table with a woman no better than a whore added insult to injury. Her frown settled on Max and Wally, walking behind the cowboys toward the house. Both were flushed and tight-jawed as if they'd been arguing.

"You ask too much, Mother McCord. As a tribute to the decent women in this family, you should instruct Max to leave Low Down at home on Sundays and come to dinner alone."

"Her name is Louise," Livvy said sharply. "If I close my door to Louise, I also shut out Max, and rightly so. I would expect both of my sons to turn their backs on any person or place that does not welcome their wives. It would kill me if any of my children ever felt unwelcome in this house."

Livvy paused, clearly wanting Philadelphia to bend to her wishes. Too angry to speak, Philadelphia remained silent.

"Holding the family together depends on you. I wish that burden weren't yours to bear. I wish things were different, but they're not. If you can move ahead with your life and focus on Wally and your child instead of dwelling on past hurts and betrayals, then the McCord family has a chance to come through this intact. And if you can find it in your heart to treat Max and Louise politely if not warmly, you'll go a long way toward settling much of the gossip and scandal."

Down by the barn Max and Wally halted and turned to face each other. Philadelphia couldn't hear what they shouted, but she saw their clenched fists and braced postures. She saw the cowboys look back from the table, saw the creature and Gilly stop with bowls of food in their hands.

When she looked at the brothers again, Max and Wally were hitting and punching each other, going at it as if they were the worst of enemies.

"This breaks my heart," Livvy whispered at her side.

*

It was a stupid argument that should never have escalated into a fistfight. What did Max care if Wally ended with a few more beeves than he did? He didn't even know if that was the case because they hadn't yet taken a final count. Also, Dave Weaver was recording the preliminary tally and dividing the herd into fourths, not Wally.

He'd made an offhand comment about Wally ending up with more calves, and Wally had reacted as if Max had accused him of stealing. By the time Max explained that he'd simply made an observation, Wally was beyond reason and fighting mad. In Max's opinion, Wally had been spoiling for a fight ever since he'd returned from Denver .

"That's a damned lie," Wally objected, spitting the words and glaring at Max over Livvy's head. "But if I were mad, I'd say I have reason. You leave here for months, then walk in and expect to take over like you've only been gone five minutes. You don't know what it was like to watch the streams and creeks dry up this summer. You don't know how it felt to ride out and find the dead beeves by following circling buzzards. If you'd been here like you should have—"

"That's enough, both of you. Sit down, Max. You, too, Wally."

They were in the kitchen where Livvy had cleaned and doctored split lips, a couple of black eyes, and various scrapes, scratches, and bruises. Gilly had cast them a despairing look before heading to the corrals to find Dave, and Louise had given Max a long, unreadable stare before she followed Gilly. As for Philadelphia , Max guessed she was upstairs. He'd seen the curtains twitch at the window of Gilly's old bedroom, otherwise he hadn't glimpsed hide nor hair of her since the day she'd arrived.

"The two of you should be ashamed of yourselves," Livvy snapped. When they were boys, they had called the look she gave them now her fire-and-brimstone look. It began with her fists on her hips and her eyes narrowed to slits, and occasionally it had ended with a switching. "Fighting like two mad dogs, and doing it in front of your hands."

"Hell, they enjoyed it," Wally said sourly, staring at his outstretched legs.

Max agreed, remembering the cheering and hollering. "I imagine they also enjoyed watching your wife wade in and stop the carnage," Livvy stated coldly.

Max frowned down at his bruised knuckles. He'd managed to pull his punch a second before he would have laid Louise out on the ground. Jumping into the middle of a fistfight was a damned foolhardy thing for her to do, and he still could hardly believe that's what she'd done. But she had walked between them without a hint of fear or hesitation, and she'd smacked them both with the heels of her hands, knocking them backward. Curling her lip, she'd said with disgust, "You're acting like you ain't in long pants yet!

Now get your butts up to the house and apologize to your ma for shaming her in front of the hands."

"Aren't you the focus of enough gossip and talk without adding to it?" Turning her back to them, Livvy walked to the window and glared outside. "Every person who hears this tale will believe the two of you were fighting over Philadelphia . And that's the story the boys will tell in the saloons tonight."

"It was about cattle," Max insisted firmly. Wally nodded.

"You two haven't fought each other since you were in your early teens, and now you go at it over a few calves?" Turning from the window, Livvy leaned against the sideboard and folded her arms across her chest. "Well, I hope blacking each other's eyes and bruising each other's ribs got it out of your systems.

Because I don't want to see this happen again, do you hear me?"

The air went out of Max's chest, and he covered his eyes with a hand. No one would believe that he and Wally had fought over a couple of calves. Of course it was more than that.

"This can go one of two ways," Livvy said. "We can accept that things got turned around and didn't work out the way we planned. We can put the past behind us and make this situation work for everyone.

Or," she stared at them, "the two of you can destroy our family. Is that what you want? To live within shouting distance of each other and fill the space with animosity? Do you want to tear your sister in two pieces? Never mind what it will do to me if you two can't accept the decisions you made. If you want to throw away a lifetime of caring about each other because of a woman, I can't stop you. But think about it and be sure that's what you really want."

She looked like she wanted to switch them, but they were grown men so she walked outside instead, slamming the door behind her.

"Hell," Max said after a minute, touching his fingers to his cracked lower lip. "Where'd you learn to throw a punch like that?"

"From you." Leaning back in the chair, Wally gingerly placed a hand against his ribs. "Damn. I'm not going to be able to take a deep breath for a week."

They sat in silence taking inventory of minor injuries.

"I guess this had to happen," Max said in a low voice. He hated it that Wally had married Philadelphia , hated that Wally was falling in love with her, and hated it that Wally would make her a good and devoted husband. Hated to think that Philadelphia might return Wally's love someday. He hated it that he couldn't place his hand on her stomach and feel his child kicking inside. Hated it that he would never know his son or daughter the way a father should. For a few violent moments he had needed to punish Wally for all of his own mistakes.

"I've been wanting to knock you into next Sunday, waiting for a chance to do it," Wally admitted, considering the hole in his pants above his knee.

Max nodded. Wally hated it that he'd saved the family honor at the cost of choosing his own bride and his own future. He hated it that Philadelphia had loved Max and Max had been there first. He had to hate it that his wife was carrying his brother's child.

"I'm through," Max said firmly. "As far as I'm concerned, it's finished."

"Same here."

"Have we talked about this enough, or is there anything more you want to say?"

"We've covered it," Wally said. "We know where we stand and what we're going to do about it."

They stood, gazed hard into each other's eyes, then shook hands, holding the grip longer than was necessary.

It occurred to Max that if he repeated this conversation to Louise, she would blink and claim they hadn't talked at all. But she would be wrong. They had said it all with their fists, and Livvy had added the postscript. Now the air was clear, and they could go on. They slapped each other on the back and returned to the corral to wrap up the branding and ear notching.

While he worked, Max decided that Livvy was right. There was no woman worth losing his brother over. His feelings wouldn't change overnight, but for the first time since he had looked down and found the scratched marble in his palm, he understood that he'd only paid lip service to the fact that he had to let Philadelphia go. On some level he had stubbornly believed that eventually, somehow and someway, everything would work out as it should have. But it wasn't going to. He had to accept that, completely and finally, or lose his brother.

*

They didn't discuss the dreamlike evening on the kitchen floor or the fight between Max and his brother.

There was no need because Louise understood that Philadelphia stood squarely at the center of both events. To state it mildly, Philadelphia was not her favorite topic despite the amount of time she wasted thinking about the woman. Half a dozen times a day she recalled her meeting with Philadelphia and thought about all the things she might have said in response to Philadelphia 's remarks.

The only reason she'd taken Philadelphia 's comments lying down was because she felt sorry for her, and because she knew Livvy McCord desperately did not want an open breech within the family. For Livvy's sake, Louise had decided that she would do whatever it took not to cause further trouble. If that meant letting Philadelphia walk all over her, well, so be it. There was nothing Philadelphia could say to her that she hadn't heard before.

Besides, if she ever let herself cut loose, she could outdo Philadelphia any day of the week when it came to insults. If living in a man's world had done nothing else, it had taught her how to cuss and hurl insults alongside the best of them.

There was another, less noble reason why she hadn't given Philadelphia a hard verbal slap. A little matter of the truth.

Pausing with her dust rag on the piano keys, Louise reluctantly conceded that Philadelphia was right.

Louise hadn't been choosy about who drew the scratched marble. To get a baby she would have slept with just about any of the prospectors.

But she wasn't a whore as Philadelphia believed. She wasn't promiscuous either. At age twenty-eight, she'd been with two men, and one of them she'd married. If that made her an affront to decent women—if wanting a baby to love and raise wasn't something respectable folks could understand—then she didn't want to be decent or respectable.

Be who you seem to be. That was one of the proverbs she tried to live by. She didn't put on airs, didn't gussy up her background, didn't apologize for who she was or how she lived. She tried to do right and stay out of trouble. She lived what she considered a decent life, though it might not seem so to someone like Philadelphia .

There were about a million rules in the Good Book and in society, and she tried to obey those that made sense. But it never should have been a rule that a woman became indecent if she was willing to accept just about any man in order to make a baby. Some women were never going to catch a husband or didn't want one. That didn't make them in-damn-decent.