The Marriage Bed (24 page)

"I'll get them," she said, hurrying to the kitchen, where she tried to shove her hot, sticky feet into leather boots that fought her every inch of the way.

"Appreciate it if you'd hurry," Charlie shouted after she'd been gone a few minutes. "Emma's waiting dinner for us

"Coming," she called back in response, and was surprised when she looked up and found Waylon Makeridge in the doorway. He put a finger to his lips to quiet her.

"No hurry," he said in a whisper. "I'm not too anxious to get back. Especially now."

She followed the line of his eyes and realized just how far up her dress he must have been able to see as she sat in the chair, skirts hiked to force her foot into her boot. "Oh, my!" she said, quickly dropping the fabric and rising, one foot all the way into a boot, the other at a ridiculous point halfway in, halfway out.

Dragging that foot, she hobbled across to her pies and handed two to Makeridge, who seemed to be amused by the entire situation.

"Haven't you some sort of basket?" he asked, unable to keep the laughter out of his voice. "We wouldn't want them to get ruined by road dust."

She had handed him the pies as if he were supposed to hold them in his lap back to town. There was no doubt about it.

She'd left more than her husband back at the farm. She'd left her mind.

Chapter Seventeen

Why was it, Spencer wondered, as he headed Curly George back toward Sacotte Farm, a wagonload of sleepy children surrounding him, that when he was miserable all Livvy wanted was to make him happy, and now that he was happy, all she wanted was to make him miserable? And she hadn't even taken aim on hitting him with her best shot. He knew Livvy Sacotte Williamson inside and out . . . the thought made him smile . . . and she wasn't about to let him off easy. But, dammit it, she'd loved him her whole life.

Could it really be that she'd finally stopped?

Now?

Now when he was finally ready to give her all the love a woman like Livvy deserved? To build a life with her that included children and whatever else she might want? A life that allowed for hopes and dreams and memories? Would she deny both of them that?

Somewhere an owl hooted and he realized it was later than he thought. Why shouldn't she deny him? The irony was too much for him. Hadn't all those things he was offering her, hoping to share with her, been just the things he himself had denied her?

The truth was, he missed her in his life almost as much as he missed her in his bed, and he rejoiced at the feeling despite the pain. He was alive. And he was in love.

Sacotte Farm, its lamps lit, appeared in the distance. He glanced over his shoulder to find four children sprawled out in the bed of the wagon, all sleeping peacefully under the pale night canopy. He longed to take them back to his own farm, lay them in beds of their own, and crawl in next to his wife.

Instead he slowed George's pace to a crawl and drank in the sight of his wife on the porch glider, rocking slowly, the glass in her hand pressed against her chest.

Her hair was piled loosely on her head, and it glistened in the yellow light of the lantern, telling him she had washed it and it was still wet and no doubt smelled like lilacs. How many nights had he cursed that smell and its ability to draw him in? How many nights had he run from it to the Lucky Clover or anywhere else he could raise a bottle and down a wish?

And what would he give now, just to be allowed to smell that freshly washed hair, let it slip through his fingers, suck the moistness from its ends?

"Evening, Liv," he said quietly after George had come to a halt by the steps.

Her brows came down. "Where are—-"

He gestured behind him and put a finger to his lips. "All asleep. Amazing what some fresh air and a little food'll do."

She came to the wagon and looked over the wooden slats at her charges. The stiff shoulders softened, the tight line of her mouth eased into a smile. "Louisa, too, I see."

He nodded. Miss Louisa had been standoffish to start, but he'd given her enough room to come to her own conclusions about joining the fun, and eventually she had become part of the circle on the blanket listening to his ghost stories, Josie on her lap. She'd even accepted a hand-up when the time had come to get back into the wagon.

"Can we talk a minute?" he asked, leading Livvy back up to the porch and standing near her as she resumed her seat on the glider. "Farm's quiet," he said, looking around. "Where is everyone?"

"Remy and Bess turned in early," she said, and even in the dim light he could see a blush paint her cheeks. "Henry's off with Jenny Watchell somewheres, and Philip promised he'd be home before dark, so I expect he'll be here in another minute or two if he knows what's good for him."

"Bess all right?" he asked, wondering what the blush was all about and surprised to see it return.

"I'd say so," she said, craning her neck to look up toward the bedroom window that sat just above the glider seat. "Yes."

Spencer couldn't help laughing at her discomfort. "But I thought the doctor told her—"

Her face shut down like an old house preparing for a storm, her eyes shuttered, her mouth tight. "We found out in Milwaukee that there are ways," she said, more an accusation than an explanation.

"Not for a good Catholic, Liv," he said, looking up at the window of the room where a lucky Remy was lying next to the woman he loved.

"What about you?" she asked. "What about what you did?" There had been a time when he was almost as religious as Bess, a time when God's opinion had mattered to him.

"I was already in hell, Liv. I didn't have to worry about earning my way in."

Her eyes widened, but she said nothing.

"We'll put it behind us," he assured her, ignoring the slight shake of her head that sent droplets of water out from her hair in all directions only to be caught in the lamplight and look like fireflies surrounding her face. "You're very beautiful," he said, not even meaning to put voice to his thoughts.

She had the beauty of the southern Belgians, the Walloons, they were called, who traced their roots back to the Celts and Romans. It was a beauty that seemed to increase with age, unlike the Flemings, whose fair blond locks faded to gray early like their German ancestors.

She grimaced at the compliment, doubting his sincerity, and he couldn't fault her. After all, if he'd ever told her before, it had been in the throes of their passion, such as it was. He didn't think he'd ever been speaking of her face.

And what a face it was. Soft, dark eyes rimmed with long black lashes studied him while he examined, as if for the first time, the beauty that had lain beside him every night, eaten across from him every day, and worked beside him week after week for three long years. Her skin was silky smooth, like a child's, her cheeks held a touch of color that made him think of secrets that she kept inside with just a telltale blush to let him know the secrets were about him. Her nose was strong, straight, no-nonsense. But her lips. Her lips were full and no matter how she seemed to set her mouth, he read a smile there.

"Really beautiful," he said, more to himself than her. He moved closer and pulled the pick from her hair, setting it tumbling down in a rush, its weight bringing it to her waist. "It'll never dry all tied up," he explained, running his fingers through it as if he cared whether it ever dried at all, inhaling the lilac scent he was counting on.

"I'd better get the children in," she said, reaching to fasten up the hair once again, twisting it and then realizing that he still held the pick in his hands. She turned her palm up, waiting patiently for him to place the fastener in it.

"What will you give me for it?" he asked. "Is it worth a kiss?"

She let the hair fall once again and shook her head. "I've other clips," she said as she brushed past him to the porch steps.

"Wait." He followed her. While she didn't turn around to face him, she did stand still, one arm on the column that rose to the porch overhang. He lifted the wet hair off her back and twisted it, not well, perhaps, but carefully, and tried to anchor it with the pin. He bent slightly to reach her shorter frame and felt his knees weaken with the nearness of her.

After several moments of fumbling, she reached back and guided his hand until they had, together, fastened the hair off her neck. "Your dress is damp," he said, touching the moist fabric that clung to her back.

Slowly she turned in his arms and her eyes glistened in the lamplight as she stared at him. "Why now?" she asked, one tear escaping and running alone down her cheek.

"Because I almost lost you," he admitted, reaching out to wipe the tear but stopping when she shook her head.

"Not
almost
, Spencer."

"Mama?" A soft voice, thick with sleep, came from the darkness of the wagon.

"Louisa," Spencer told Livvy in a whisper. "She must be dreaming."

"Mama?" she cried again, louder this time.

"I'm here," Livvy said, rushing to the side of the buck-board and reaching out a hand to rub the child's back. "I'm here."

She stiffened as he came up behind her, the starch back in her stance, her anger strengthening her resolve.

"I'll carry them in for you," he offered. "Just tell me where you want them to go."

Her answer was a long time in coming. Long enough to give Spencer hope. But then she lifted Josie in her arms and cradled the child against her. "Louisa and Josie are sharing my old room," she whispered.

Stupid as it was, he was glad Livvy hadn't moved back in there herself. It made him think that maybe all this was only temporary and someday, someday soon, he'd have his family back.

He slipped his arms beneath Louisa and lifted her easily from the wagon. She was surprisingly light for a child that seemed so heavily burdened.

"I don't know, Olivia. I just don't know," Bess said as they prepared breakfast the next morning. "The Good Book says that a woman should cleave to her husband. That Dr. Napheys's book says that lying with your husband without the prospect of children is a sinful act worthy only of paid-for women. The doctor says if I don't take precautions, I'm gonna have three motherless boys."

"I thought," Livvy said as quietly as she could, not knowing who might burst through the kitchen door at any moment, "that the matter was settled last night. And Remy surely looked like cock-of-the-walk this morning . . ."

"It's different for a man, Olivia. A man feels the need in his drawers, while a woman's gotta feel it in her heart. And without the possibility of a baby, I don't feel the same way." Bess flipped the pancakes on the skillet in front of her and carried it with her away from the stove and over to the doorway. "Not that it didn't feel good," she said to Livvy before opening the door with her hip and yelling for the children to mosey their bodies to the kitchen for breakfast. "I'd be lying if I said it didn't . . . and neater. Lord, Liv, so much neater, though I don't suppose Remy thought so." She giggled like a schoolgirl and covered her mouth.

Children came pounding down the stairs, running from every nook and cranny of the house at the sounds of breakfast being served, and Livvy was grateful their conversation had to end. Next thing she knew Bess would be asking her about the marriage bed she shared with Spencer.

She could still feel his breath against her neck as he'd attempted to coil her hair the night before. After they'd gotten all the children in their various beds, he had said the strangest thing. He'd lain Neil down on the couch and covered the boy with a light blanket.
Yours is the first
, he'd said.
Deep blue as the ocean. Just wait a little longer, son.

When she'd asked him what in the world he meant, he'd cupped her chin and told her that if he had to have patience, so did she. And then he'd kissed her nose and asked how she felt about bluebirds of all things.

"Lord, Thom-Tom," Philip said angrily. "I told you to leave that in my dresser. You got no business going through my things in the first place, but letting that pass, I told you I didn't want it leaving my room."

Livvy turned around to see what of Philip's many treasures Thom-Tom had brought to the table, and hoped whatever it was wasn't alive.

"Wow! Let me see it," Neil said. "Where'd you get it from, anyways?"

"That's a pistol!" Livvy said, stunned to see it passed from Philip to Thom-Tom to Neil. Her brother had owned a rifle as a boy, and she'd even used it once or twice, but a pistol? She didn't even know an adult who owned one. Even the sight of it unnerved her. "Put it down this instant," she ordered.

Neil looked up at her sheepishly and placed the gun down onto the breakfast table. Immediately Josie reached for it.

"No!" Livvy shouted while Bess's chubby hand quickly reached down and plucked the gun from Josie's grasp.

"It's not loaded," Philip said, rolling his eyes at the women. "Do you think I'd bring a loaded gun into this house? If Mama didn't shoot me with it, Papa probably would."

"What good's a gun without bullets?" Louisa asked, the usual disdain in her voice.

"It's good for trading," Philip answered as if no one ever understood what he was about, despite his many efforts to educate them. "A gun might be worth a boat to someone."

"Not without bullets," Louisa corrected.

"I could get bullets," Philip said while Livvy and Bess just stood by, eyes wide, mouths wider, and listened to him explain the fine art of bartering.

When he had finished, Bess smacked him rather soundly on the left side of his head. "You untrade this gun today, Philip Sacotte, or I'll box your other ear so as you won't be able to hear another offer for a week.'' She opened the highest cabinet in the kitchen and, standing on her toes, placed the gun on the shelf in it. "Until then, it stays up here out of anyone's reach."

"I'm trading it Saturday," Philip said.

"Today," his mother said in her don't-even-bother voice.

"I'm working at Zephin's today. And tomorrow. And Friday I'm seeing old man Yost about his boat. It's got to be Saturday, Ma."

Bess rolled her eyes. "Did you ever see such a household?" she asked Livvy.

"I still don't see who'd want a gun without bullets," Louisa said. "It's like that stupid bike you got without the tires."

"Doesn't anyone around here listen to me?" Philip asked, exasperated. "
You
don't want a bike with no wheels, and
I
don't want a bike with no wheels, but someone with two wheels sure does. And then you trade them for something you do want. Why doesn't anybody but me seem to understand that?"

Livyy checked the time and herded the children out the door. If she hurried she could have a half-dozen pies made before dinner. She could bring those to Zephin's, get a credit toward more supplies—after all, she couldn't keep using Bess's flour and lard and sugar—and get another half-dozen done before suppertime. Charlie had said he wanted as many as she could bake, and she wasn't about to give him time to change his mind.

By noon she was on her way to town, the loaded basket weighing down her arm, her troubles weighing down her heart. Josie pranced along beside her, singing, jabbering, and stopping to pick every third weed and present it to Livvy like some hothouse flower. At the rate the two of them moved, Livvy's hopes of six more pies were dwindling rapidly to three.