The Marriage Bed (19 page)

Spencer ignored Makeridge's hand and put the glass down on the bar, signaling with his fingers for another shot.

"I had the pleasure of meeting your wife the other day," Makeridge continued.

"Shouldn't you be over at the mercantile?" Spencer asked without looking up from his glass. "I thought Miss Emma was expecting you."

Makeridge must have pruned his face, for several patrons laughed, and one claimed that he wasn't drunk enough yet to stand Emma Zephin's face.

"But Livvy Williamson, now that's another pair of shoes altogether," Frank Saugus, a farmer from the other side of town, said with a laugh.

"That is, when she's got her shoes on," Charlie Zephin said to a round of laughter.

"According to Makeridge here, she's even prettier with those shoes off!"

Spencer threw back his head and gulped down the second whiskey. It burned his throat and his lungs and set his stomach ablaze.

"She's one mighty fine-looking woman," Makeridge said admiringly. "You're a lucky man, Mr. Williamson."

"The way you tell it, Makeridge, sounded like you got lucky yourself," a voice boomed from somewhere behind Spencer.

The liquor was doing its work, but not as quickly as Spencer would have hoped. He downed another double and tried to focus on Makeridge's smiling face.

"She's got a fine pair of—Makeridge's grin widened and he threw back his shoulders and extended his chest— "boots!" he shouted, and it felt to Spencer as if the whole Lucky Clover saloon were rocking back and forth in time to the laughter around him.

Makeridge was right. Livvy did have a fine pair of breasts. Spencer had spent enough time staring at them, mooning over them, guessing at how they would feel resting in the palms of his hands. She had a fine pair of legs, too, and often enough he had imagined them encircling his waist and drawing him into her.

Then, top, she had a fine pair of feet, small, dainty, and always cold. How often he longed to take them between his thighs and warm them for her. And eyes. She had a fine pair of eyes, dark and soft and searching. And her hands, delicate boned but strong; they could make his heart beat double when she touched him.

"I tell you," Makeridge drawled, studying Spencer like he was some new garden slug the man had never seen before. "If I could be between the sheets with Olivia Williamson, I sure as hell wouldn't be here drinking myself silly. But your brother-in-law warned me you didn't have a lick of sense."

Odd that Remy should have had anything to do with the man, but then Spencer was well aware of how much Remy wanted Makeridge to buy Sacotte Farm. Carefully, deliberately, Spencer put the glass down and turned toward Makeridge. He smiled slowly, indulgently. Some men never knew just how far was too far. Some men needed a lesson. And Spencer was surely in the mood for teaching tonight. He stood, kicking the stool back and guessing someone must have caught it, since it never made a sound in the suddenly quiet room. He unbuttoned the cuff of his right sleeve. If he popped the button he might have to explain to Livvy how he'd lost it. Besides, he" didn't want any of Makeridge's blood on his nice white shirt, which, like everything else his wife washed for him, smelled of lemon.

"Now, Spence," Charlie said, one hand up to quiet his anger.

Spencer ignored him and raised his eyebrows at Makeridge as if to say
You ready
?

Makeridge jutted out his jaw and smirked as if he thought Spencer either wouldn't dare, or simply wouldn't do damage.

Spence's arm worked as well as it always had, whether it was punching a hole in a wall or relocating a man's jaw. And as always, it felt damn good. Rarely, though, did it feel as good as this.

"I guess Sacotte forgot to tell you about my right cross," he said simply. Makeridge stared up at him uncomprehend-ingly. Spencer rolled his sleeve back down and stepped over the civil engineer on his way out of the bar.

He turned at the door. "Anyone got anything else they want to say about my wife?'' He swore he could hear the ice melting in the glasses on the bar. "Fine, then. I guess that's all."

In the wagon he flexed his fist, making sure nothing was broken. He supposed that by now they'd have revived Makeridge and he was testing his jaw about the same way. If his jaw felt half as bad as Spencer's fist, it was worth it.

Of course, in the morning when the effects of the liquor had worn off, he wasn't sure he'd feel quite the same. He was going to have to remember he was getting older. Pains ran deeper, lasted longer, left more scars.

The house was quiet when he and Curly George arrived. He took his time settling the horse for the night, still trying to get his breathing anywhere near normal enough to lay down next to his wife without scaring the hell out of her. He sounded like an asthmatic bear with a hive of bees chasing him.

He tried to tell himself
he'd
embarrassed
her
often enough, drinking, brawling, making a general ass of himself. Wasn't she entitled to one slip in three years of marriage? Hell, one slip in a whole lifetime? It wasn't as if she'd really done anything with Makebreath. . .

Clearly, he wasn't drunk enough. The railroad dandy's words still mattered, the niggling thought that maybe there could be something to them still mattered, and the fact that she was lying, soft and warm and available in his bed, still mattered.

He ought to make up his damn mind. If he didn't want her, then what difference did it make if Makeridge did?

He slammed the barn door hard enough to wake the ghosts of Curly George's ancestors and stormed toward the house. A house that teemed with children. He made a detour to the privy and then stopped at the pump to wash up. The night was hot and muggy. Or maybe it was the whiskey.

He washed up and studied his house from the outside. Only one light glowed. Was she still awake? Well, let her say one word about his drinking, just one, and he'd tell her a thing or two about hearing his wife's name and her attributes bandied about the Lucky Clover. His hand was getting stiff. He flexed it and winced. It could have been worse. Makeridge could have hit him back.

He took off his boots on the porch. If there was a chance that Livvy was asleep, he wasn't going to risk waking her and having to look her disappointment in the eyes yet again. He ought to consider carving a sign to hang over the front door:
Hangover House
. But not tonight. Tonight he was too tired to do anything but crawl into bed and sleep off his anger.

On the couch a lump shifted at the close of the front door. The boy was no farmer yet, but he had a good shot at being a watchdog, should all else fail.

"Go back to sleep," Spencer said in a whisper, and watched the covers smooth down without a word.

The door to his bedroom was open, the soft light calling to him, and like a moth, he followed it.

She was asleep on the bed. He could tell from the rise and fall of her back, so even, the seams of her dress straining with each intake of breath. She was still fully clothed, from the tight bun of her hair to the tips of her still-stockinged toes. And she wasn't alone.

Josie lay in the curve of her body, the book Livvy had been reading to her covering a portion of her cheek. He lifted it quietly, closed it, and put it on the mghtstand. With the knowledge that comes with years of fatherhood, he slipped his arms beneath the sleeping little girl and lifted her from the bed without rousing her.

The warm baby in his arms squirmed closer to him, her ragged sigh hot against his freshly washed chest, her lips searching for her thumb. On the bed beneath his gaze, Livvy stirred but settled once again. Watching her, but carrying the child, he smashed his shin on the corner of the bed.

"Spence?" It was that raspy whispery night voice, and it crawled up his arms and burrowed in his neck. "I'm glad you're home."

Four words and his anger was gone. Four words and his jaw slacked and his shoulders eased. "Get out of your dress, Liv. You fell asleep. I'll put Josie in her bed."

She nodded, her head riot rising from the pillow, and fumbled with her top button.

He didn't stay to see the rest, but carried Josie into the room she shared with Louisa and settled her into her bed.

There was no sound coming from Louisa, and he figured she was pretending to be asleep. She was stiller than a corpse.

"Night, Miss Louisa," he said softly, tweaking her toes through the covers on his way out. She jerked her foot away, and he chuckled almost soundlessly. At least he could be sure she wasn't dead. Damn disagreeable girl, though.

He'd given Livvy too little time and too much credit, if he thought that she'd be undressed and under the covers by the time he got back to their room. She was just where he'd left her, three buttons undone and snoring softly.

"Come on, Liv," he said, sitting on the edge of the bed and shaking her gently. "You don't want to sleep in your clothes, do you?''

She shook her head, tried to lift it off the pillow, failed, and turned onto her side, away from him. He fumbled in her hair for the pins that held her bun, his fingers tangling in the curls. So much hair, and all of it so soft.

Warmth spread inside him like another glass of whiskey, suffusing his face, burning his belly, moving lower still.

Damn! He should have had a couple drinks less or several more. Now he had both the desire and the capacity. And a distinct lack of will to control either.

Easing the pins out of her hair, pulling it to its full length to free them, he found the smell of lilacs dizzying. He bent his head and burrowed his face in the chestnut locks. The smell, the feel . . . He rolled her onto her back and worked the buttons on her shirtwaist easily.

"Oh, Liv," he whispered as he spread her blouse and lifted her slightly from the mattress to ease it off her shoulders and down her arms, where it was stopped by tightly buttoned cuffs.

"Help me, Liv," he begged as he fumbled with the buttons at her waist, then stood and eased her skirt down over her hips and passed the ruffled edge of her drawers until he could free her feet and toss the skirt toward her screen.

She fought him in her sleep, anxious to get comfortable once again, and her stretch revealed not only a swell of breast but the very slight darkening at the edge of her nipple.

That would have been enough. More than enough. But he lay her back down and she turned quickly onto her side, revealing the slit in her drawers and most of what should have remained hidden from his eyes.

And then there was that hair of hers. Long silky hair everywhere. Hair, and skin, and the scent of lilacs and lemon, and the sound of deep breathing, and only the faint glow of the oil lamp to make him see clearly what he already knew.

Olivia Williamson was irresistible.

"Dammit!" He kicked the bed and spun blindly toward the door, fumbling for the handle. It swung back on its hinges and hit the wall with a thud. But he no longer cared if he woke up everyone in Maple Stand. For sure, he'd never sleep tonight. . .

How long had he been on the porch? A minute? Two? Was a little privacy too much to ask for at two o'clock in the morning on a hot night in June?

"Spencer? Are you all right?"

There was only the moonlight on her white cotton nightdress, clutched tightly at the neck to prevent him from seeing what had already done its damage.

"Go to bed," he said, turning away from her and moving to the far end of the porch.

"What's the matter?" She crept up behind him despite how clear he was making it that he didn't want her anywhere near him. Not on the same porch, not in the same bedroom, not even in the same house. Heck, the same state might be too close for him to keep the promises he'd made.

"The matter? The matter is I married you, Olivia, and now I'm stuck with you."

"Yes," she agreed, her voice surprisingly steady. "I suppose you are. Can't you make the best of it? I know I'm not Kirsten, but I'm not Emma Zephin, either."

"I'd have been a lot smarter to marry her," he said. "I bet she'd know to stay out of a man's way."

There was only silence and he fought the urge to turn around and see what she was doing, if she was even there. At least she wasn't sobbing.

He ached, his blue jeans cutting his privates in two, his hand throbbing with only a fraction of the intensity of his manhood.

"Go inside, dammit," he swore at her. "And let me regret marrying you in peace. Why can't you just go away and leave me alone?"

They could probably hear the sharp intake of her breath in Sturgeon Bay, or even in Milwaukee, but only he could hear the faint creak of the door as she opened it to go into the house. And with his heart he knew she was biting on the back of her hand, holding back her tears.

He smashed his wounded hand against the side of the house. As always, he thought, they were both in pain.

Chapter Thirteen

By five in the morning Olivia had cried the last of her tears and had accepted the fact that Spencer did not love her and nothing she did or would ever do was ever going to change that. Nor did she even want to anymore.
Couldn't she go away and leave him alone?

Oh, yes, she could.

She threw off the covers, wrinkled and balled from her sleepless night, and reached under the bed for the suitcase she had taken to Milwaukee.
Go away?
She opened her underwear drawer and pulled out her two best pairs of drawers and her favorite chemise.

Leave him alone?
She shoved them in the suitcase and reached for her cotton stockings, which she rolled into two balls and jammed into the corners of the leather bag.

She'd have to find some way to pay back Bess and Remy for taking her in. She could take over the cooking and cleaning and give Bess the rest she needed. She could make cherry pies and preserves and sell them at Zephin's. Neil could help in the field.

She ran a brush through her hair and pulled it back, watching herself in the mirror as if the determined woman she saw there was someone she'd never seen before. Maybe she'd try a new hairstyle, like the one the women in Milwaukee were wearing. Maybe she'd even move to Milwaukee when the children were older.

She pushed her hair forward some, making it softer around her face, and tried to give herself a smile at the results. If only her eyes weren't red, her cheeks weren't splotchy, and her lips weren't puffy, she might almost be attractive.

She put two pins in her bun and then threw the brush into the suitcase to join the other things. Maybe he should have married Emma Zephin. At least someone would be happy, then.

That was his problem. He didn't want to be happy. And he didn't want anyone around him to be happy. Lord, one only had to look at the way he treated those poor children. Working Neil to death in the fields, teasing Louisa unmercifully, threatening to hit Josie at every turn . . . Of course, in all fairness, Neil did seem to love the work, coming in all red-cheeked and excited about a new discovery every day. And Louisa surely needed to get off that uppity high horse of hers, and if someone didn't take Josie in hand . . .

She could hear Josie now out in the main room babbling something about chicken lips. As soon as Livvy was finished getting herself together, she'd go out there and get the kids organized. Neil wasn't going to like moving to Sacdtte Farm, despite how close he'd grown to his cousins. Although he'd been given very little encouragement from Spencer, as far as she could see, Neil truly loved his uncle.

Louisa wasn't likely to hate living at Sacotte Farm any more or less than she hated living with Spencer. Oh, but the two of them were alike. Two miserable souls committed to making sure no one was any happier than they were.

"Get down, Jo," Neil said, so loudly that it stood out from all the other childish banter that was going on beyond her bedroom door. "You're not supposed to go up there."

Livvy let out a big breath and the hair around her face flew out in several directions. No wonder she usually kept it more tightly bunned.

"Josephina," Louisa said sharply. "Don't move!"

Livvy, slipperless, still in her nightdress, put down the toiletries she was about to pack and opened the door to her room to see what new disaster was about to strike.

Louisa and Neil were both staring up into the loft at the little girl who stood too precariously close to the edge.

"Oh, Lord," Livvy said, putting up her hands to keep everyone calm as she closed in on the rickety ladder. She had to keep Josie away from the edge. "Josie, honey, I want you to go see if there's a doll on the far bed."

The little girl turned and looked toward the back wall, which was as far as Livvy could send her from the open rim of the loft. "Yes, honey, that one."

Louisa already had one foot on the ladder when Livvy got there.

"No," Livvy said. "I'll get her. Just hold the ladder steady, will you?"

"I can get her," Louisa argued, but Livvy made,it clear she was having none of it.

"
I
will get her, young lady," she repeated, this time through gritted teeth. Louisa backed away, her head cocked at Olivia's unusual tone, and Livvy lifted her nightgown and climbed up several steps until her eyes were above the level of the loft's floor and she could see Josie rising from the bed and coming toward her.

"No!" she shouted at her. "You just wait there. I'll come and get you."

She put one hand on the loft floor and lifted her foot in search of the next rung. Instead, she found only nightgown.

"Watch it, Aunt Liv!" Neil shouted as she fought desperately to free her foot from the yards of fabric in which it was tangled.

Someone yelled, "No!" before her hand slipped across the wooden floor of the loft and the end of the ladder smacked her cheek.

There was another scream as her upper body swung back while her feet still fought to stay where they were.

There was a shout of warning, but it was no use. Her left foot rested on air.

She tried to yell to Josie to stay where she was, but she wasn't sure if anyone heard her before she hit the floor.

"How long has it been now?" Bess asked, her palms pressed to her knees and her body rocking in the worn gent's easy chair.

"Forty-eight minutes," Remy said, checking his pocket watch which sat on the coffee table in front of him. Neil sat beside him rubbing his hands up and down his worn brown workpants, sniffing back tears.

Spencer stood and ran his hands through his hair. Only forty-eight minutes? It seemed like a lifetime since he'd heard the screams and run in from the porch, sleep still clouding his eyes, and found her. The sight of her lying motionless on the kitchen floor, her white gown spread around her like she was already some sort of angely was branded on the back of his eyelids, perhaps forever.

"Sit, Spence," Bess said as if he were a small boy with no patience. "The doctor said he'd tell us if there was any change."

Spencer had sent Neil to Remy's with instructions to fetch a doctor and carried Livvy to their bed, only to find her suitcase there. Despite having pushed her and pushed her, he'd still been surprised at the sight of that leather bag.

But the thought that she was leaving him paled in light of her accident, and now, nearly an hour later, he knew he couldn't just sit out in his parlor while she lay unconscious on his bed.

From the doorway to their room he watched the doctor run his hands up and down Livvy's body searching for broken bones.

"Nothing?" he asked when the doctor lifted her eyelids and let them fall of their own accord.

He looked up at Spencer as he sat down, his head shaking sadly. "Nothing I can do for her," he said with a heavy sigh. "Sometimes these things just have to run their course."

He'd heard those words before, and they didn't sound any better now, despite everything he had done to make sure that this time they wouldn't matter, that she wouldn't matter, that losing her wouldn't matter.

It was hard to swallow, and he struggled around the tears in his throat. He had done a lot of foolish things in his life, most of them in the last three years, but none had been as damn stupid as thinking that he could share a life with a woman like Olivia and manage to resist loving her.

"You want a chair?" Doc LeMense asked him, rising from his seat and offering it to Spencer. "I could use, a little stretch."

Spencer pulled the chair closer to the bed and lowered himself into it, taking Livvy's hand as he sat, He waited for the doctor to leave the room and then, eyes closed, he said quietly, "So you finally gave up on me, huh, Liv? I saw the bag. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The truth is, I'm probably not worth your getting well."

Something pressed against his leg and he opened his eyes to find Josie leaning against him, the doll from Margaret's bed clutched in her hand. He lifted her onto his lap and held her close, burying his face in the mass of curls that covered her head.

"That's Winnie," Spencer said as he fingered the doll's limp arms, "Haven't seen her in a long time. Bet she needed a hug almbst as badly as you, huh?"

"Will Aunt Liv be okay?" Josie asked, rolling herself into a ball on her uncle's lap.

"There you are," Louisa said when she tipped her head into the bedroom, obviously looking for Josie. "Come out of there now.'' She extended her hand, but Josie ignored it and shook her head, burrowing deeper into his chest and belly, a foot digging beneath his thigh, an arm hanging around his neck.

"Let her be," he said, a wetness seeping through his shirt and soaking his chest.

Louisa ignored his words. "Josie," she said. "Come out of there."

Reluctantly the child crawled down from his lap and looked at him sadly. He ruffled her hair and fought the urge to grab her up against him and hold on to her forever. With a look that made him think she was wishing he would do just that, she leaned forward and placed a kiss on his knee, the closest thing to her little bow mouth. Then Louisa reached in and grabbed her hand to lead her from the room.

He wasn't going to love Livvy and he wasn't going to love these kids. That was the plan, wasn't it? So why had his heart stopped beating when he saw Livvy on the floor, and why was he so sure that until she opened those dark eyes and smiled at him, it would never beat again?

And this little one. If he lost Livvy, would the children be the next to go? His useless heart lodged in his throat. Still worse, he had very carefully seen to it that if Livvy didn't open those eyes, if she didn't fully recover, there would be nothing left of her to go on in this world. Not one child with her sweet disposition, or her beautiful long hair, or that ready smile on those full lips. And he had seen to it, all by himself. There was no one else, on earth or in heaven, for him to blame.

"Livvy," he said, leaning over her and rubbing her arms as if to warm her, "Livvy-Love? You had enough rest now? It's time to wake up and see to your family."

There was only the rise and fall of her chest to indicate she was alive at all, and that seemed to him to get shallower and shallower with every breath she took. What if she just slipped away from him? What if she just simply stopped taking those tiny breaths and left him all alone?

"Dammit, Livvy," he said, shaking her madly as if she were just sleeping and he could rouse her. "Don't do this, Liv. Not now when I finally know what I'm losing."

Dr. LeMense pulled Livvy from his hands. Spencer hadn't even been aware of the old man's return. The doctor fussed over her, settling her back against the pillows, crossing her hands on her chest.

"Don't do that," Spencer said, rearranging her arms to lay at her sides, then moving them again to a more natural position, one hand on her hip, one raised near her face. "She's not dead."

"Mr. Williamson, she's not just asleep. You have to un derstand that. It's likely your wife has suffered skull fissures. There could be extensive bleeding within the skull. There could be a fracture of the skull itself. ..."

"You understand this, Doc. I'm not losing Livvy. I can't. I haven' t made her happy yet."

Neil wished Uncle Spencer would come back out of his room. Uncle Remy, who sat with his arm around Neil's shoulder, smelled like fear. It was a smell he had been trying to forget for three years, ever since his mother had left them and gone to heaven. Sometimes, in Chicago, in the dark of night when he and Louisa would Wait for their father to return, wondering if he would, and when he did, how drunk he would be, he would smell that foul air and gag on his fear.

He had already lost one mother and that had been enough. Not that he'd ever forget his mama, but he was getting pretty used to Aunt Liv and had come to count on that smile every morning and that kiss on the forehead at night when she thought he was asleep.

"You want something to eat?" Aunt Bess asked him. She was always offering food to him, slipping him little treats, giving him whatever she gave her own boys. But he wasn't one of hers, and the look she gave to Thom-Tom or Philip just wasn't the look she gave to him. But Aunt Liv . . . she gave him that look. Him, and Josie, and when Louisa wasn't looking, she even gave it to her.

"No," he said quietly. He wasn't hungry. Not for anything that could be served on a plate or in a glass. "Do you think Aunt Liv will . . ." He couldn't make the words come out of his mouth no matter how hard he tried.

"Aunt Liv'll be fine," Uncle Remy said, and patted Neil's knee. "Don't you worry." When he returned his hand to his lap, it had left sweat marks on Neil's trousers.

"I'm gonna go check," he said, unable to just sit still while his wishes dried up and blew away like a stalk of wheat in a parched field. .

"If she was better—or worse, I suppose—the doctor would tell us," Aunt Bess said, holding on to his arm to stop him from leaving.

"I'm not checking on Aunt Liv," he said, though he supposed in part he was. "I'm checking on Uncle Spence."

"Let the boy go," Uncle Remy said, and she released his sleeve.

"Quietly," Aunt Bess warned, stroking his arm as he went past her. As if his noise would wake up his aunt. And besides, wasn't that what they were all hoping for, anyway?

His uncle's eyes were red, and he was wiping at his nose with his sleeve, just the way Aunt Liv always told Neil not to. It didn't seem right, him doing that, even if Aunt Liv couldn't see him.

"You can come on in," his uncle told him, but his eyes never left his aunt's face. Neil wasn't sure Uncle Spence even knew which one of them was in the doorway until he asked if Neil's sisters were all right.

"Yes, sir," Neil answered, inching his way closer to the bed. There had been blood in his mother's room, another smell that had stayed with him, but there was none here.

"Look, Liv," Uncle Spencer said just as if she could hear him. "It's Neil. Did I tell you how he figured out that Miss Lily always licks her lips before it rains? I never noticed that, did you?"