Silver Lining (19 page)

She hadn't yet gotten the hang of the stove or of using an oven. The beef was overcooked, and the potatoes were undercooked, errors in timing that wouldn't have happened if she'd been cooking over a campfire. There you could see the flames on the bottom of the skillet and raise or lower it accordingly.

That the pies had come out well was something of a happy miracle.

Tonight she would have let Max throw out the dishwater, but he didn't offer. After supper he left the kitchen to sit in the parlor, which shocked her as she didn't think the parlor was for everyday use. When they went upstairs she hinted as much, talking to him while he was in the dressing room. Talking was better than silently imagining him naked behind the door.

"I needed to go over the expense figures for the house, barn, and sheds. Why are you smiling?" he added as he came into the bedroom.

"No reason." She hadn't figured him for a man who wore a nightshirt to bed. The long shirt ended at his knees and powerful calves emerged beneath the hem. "You could have spread out your papers on the kitchen table."

"Let's not start that business about not sitting on chairs. The chairs in this house are for sitting. Besides, I didn't want to disturb you."

"You wouldn't have disturbed me," she called from inside the dressing room. Now it was her turn to hide and don her nightclothes. "I was only cleaning up from supper and laying out the breakfast things." She stripped off one of the skirts and shirtwaists that Livvy had supplied, then dropped her nightgown over her head and returned to the bedroom.

When she brushed out her hair in the dark dressing room, she didn't do a good job of it. But she felt uncomfortable wandering around in her nightgown. Still, this was her bedroom, too, damn it. Studiously ignoring Max, she brushed her hair in front of the vanity mirror, then plaited it into a braid.

Tonight his habit of reading in bed didn't surprise her when she climbed in next to him. Earlier today she'd taken a minute to bring up the songbook given to her by the boys at Piney Creek so she could read, too.

"What?" Max asked after she laughed out loud. He lowered his book and looked at her.

"These are cowboy stories. Listen to this," she said, reading aloud. "Oh it's cloudy in the west and it's looking like rain and of course my old slicker's in the wagon again."

"'The Old Chisolm Trail,'" he said with a half-smile.

"Oh, you know this story. Me, too, but I hadn't read that verse before. What are you reading?"

"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.But my mind's drifting." Raising a hand, he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

There were many things that might distract him. The roundup that began tomorrow. Thoughts of Philadelphia . The papers he'd been studying in the parlor. She supposed it wasn't entirely impossible that he might be worrying about leaving her here alone, not that he needed to.

Closing the songbook, she set it aside and folded her hands on top of the ruffled spread. They sat close enough that she could feel the heat of his shoulder and inhale the good outdoors scent of him. Suddenly she realized that all day she'd been looking forward to this time with him. Even though she didn't care for the multitude of frills and ruffles, the bedroom was warm and cozy, and she could imagine the rest of the world had fallen away, leaving only them sitting against the pillows, reading together. It was a fanciful thought, but right nice.

"What's your mind drifting toward? If you don't mind my asking."

About the time she had decided he wouldn't answer, he said, "The papers I was examining show the expenses on this place were more than I figured. I'd counted on a salary at the bank to replenish any cost overruns."

"I'd forgotten about the bank position." She shook her head. "You just don't strike me as a banker type of man." Try as she might, she couldn't cast him in the role played by the fellow at the Colorado Merchant's Bank. Max belonged on the land.

"Maybe the only part of banking that I'll miss is a steady salary," he conceded. "I thought I could work in town and still keep up the ranch. Maybe it wouldn't have been as easily done as I'd hoped."

Louise agreed. "A man can't serve two masters. Eventually you would have had to choose." She was beginning to suspect that turning Max into a banker had been Philadelphia 's idea, not his.

Yes, this was the very best time of day. Sitting close beside him in bed, discussing this and that. Enjoying the warm nearness of muscle and bone and the deep smooth timbre of his voice. If she moved her foot a few inches, she could touch his foot. She didn't do it, but she could have. And she thought about it. And she wondered—just a little—when they would get to the next poke. Which reminded her…

"Max?" She gazed down at her hands. "I've got something to tell you." Keeping her head down, she twisted her wedding ring around her finger, sliding the glow of lamplight along the gold circle. "I'm not pregnant. We're going to have to do, you know—it—again."

Max tilted his head back and turned his eyes toward the darkness outside the bedroom window. Louise didn't think it would have changed anything if they'd known she wasn't pregnant before Wally married Philadelphia , but she didn't know for sure.

"I'm sorry," he said finally.

"Me, too." She'd known yesterday, but it had taken until now to push her disappointment down far enough that she could tell him. It didn't seem fair that some people could get pregnant after one poke and other people couldn't.

"We both understood it might take a while." But the way his eyebrows knit together told her that he hadn't really believed it. He'd assumed, or more likely he'd hoped, that one poke had done the job.

Naturally she had hoped that, too.

She slid a quick sidelong glance toward the crisp dark hair curling out of the collar of his silly nightshirt.

At some point she would have to force herself to submit to another poke. Heat flooded her cheeks, and her stomach rolled over in an odd way that almost felt like anticipation.

*

Max awoke before dawn and discovered himself wrapped around Louise, his legs tangled in the cursed nightgown. Paralyzed with surprise and dismay, he tried to think how this might have happened. The air in the bedroom was frigid because he liked to sleep with the window open a few inches. They must have rolled toward each other seeking warmth.

And she was indeed warm. The heat of her buttocks pressing against his groin caused an intimate stirring that grew stronger when he inhaled the warm sleepy scent of her hair and skin.

Embarrassed by his response, he carefully extricated himself and hastily slid out of bed, pulling the nightshirt over his head as he moved through the darkness to the dressing room. He dressed quickly, then carried his socks and boots downstairs to the kitchen where he discovered that Louise had brought in kindling the night before. In a moment he had the stove fired up but he didn't have to wait to shave as the water in the reservoir had stayed warm throughout the night.

As he shaved over a basin in the mudroom, he grudgingly conceded that Louise had the practical think-ahead mind that made for a good ranch wife. She'd brought in the kindling, filled the water reservoir, set the table for breakfast, laid out the skillet, and prepared the coffee-pot. And this was only her second full day. He suspected she'd be handling her duties as efficiently as Ma or Gilly within a week or two.

Lowering the razor, he stared at his lathered face in the lamplit mirror.

She wasn't pregnant.

They would continue together, building habits, reaching small accommodations, learning to understand each other's foibles and strengths. It would happen merely by virtue of living together, regardless how either of them felt about creating a relationship.

The same process would occur with Wally and Philadelphia .

Placing his hands on either side of the basin, he dropped his head and leaned forward.

It would be Wally who sat down to supper with Philadelphia and praised her piecrust. Wally who watched her draw on her stockings and slide the garters into place. Wally who saw her with her hair down, who took the brush from her hand. Wally would learn her habits and mannerisms, would discover what pained or delighted her.

Not him.

By the time Louise passed through the mudroom on her way to collect eggs, he had finished shaving and had temporarily accepted what he could not change. He had tucked Philadelphia behind a mental door labeled: Forbidden.

The trick would be to keep that door shut.

*

Louise stood on the front porch, wiping her hands on her apron, and watched Marva Lee trot down the ruts that served as a road, heading toward the main house where the roundup would begin. In her opinion, no banker had ever ridden a horse the way Max did, as if he and Marva Lee were extensions of each other. Watching his straight back and broad shoulders was a pleasure that warmed her inside.

She was glad he was going.

Maybe some hard riding and hard work would knock the thoughts of Philadelphia out of his hard head.

She knew when Max was thinking about that saintly paragon of womanly virtues, Miss Philadelphia Wonderful Houser, now Missus Wally McCord. A distracted look appeared in his eyes, and he turned cool and distant as he'd been at breakfast this morning.

Turning on her heels, she entered the house and returned to the kitchen. After pouring herself another cup of coffee, she reached in her pocket and removed her copy of the letter Max had written Philadelphia , then smoothed out the pages on the kitchen table.

She had memorized every sentence, but she read the letter anyway, feeling each word like a pin prick against her heart.

It was a happy letter, written by a man to a woman he deeply cared about. After describing parts of the house, Max gently chided Philadelphia for promising that he'd be sorry for abandoning her for the summer. He teased her about her pleasure in the wedding gifts that had begun to arrive. He called her dearest and said he was counting the days until she would be his.

When Louise had first read this letter, it hadn't affected her personally. She had simply liked the way the words flowed together and had wished someone would write her such a fine letter and call her dearest.

Then, after she and Max married, the letter had seemed sad, evidence of fate's capriciousness. Now, it made her angry, although she couldn't have explained why.

Of course Max still thought about Philadelphia . He cared for her and he'd planned to share his life with her. Plus, a person couldn't turn his feelings on and off at will. He would probably grieve Philadelphia 's loss for a long time, maybe forever.

She sipped her coffee, leaning back from the table to see out the window. This morning frost had sparkled on the range grass, and each day the leaves on the cotton-woods seemed a paler green, edging toward yellow. When she had visited the barn, she'd noticed the horses' hair was growing thick and long for winter.

Frowning, she gazed down at the letter. Keeping it didn't make her feel good anymore. Without considering what she was about to do, she crumpled the pages, then dropped them in the firebox of the stove and watched the paper curl to ash. And she fervently wished Philadelphia would disappear as easily.

There was another reason why she was glad to see Max leave for the fall roundup. Since marrying him, she hadn't had a single blamed minute to herself. She'd led a solitary life—she wouldn't exactly call it lonely—and she needed solitude to chew though the things that troubled her, to recall the items that gave her pleasure, and to make plans for tomorrow.

Standing, she gazed around her kitchen and decided the dirty dishes could wait. So could her other chores. What she needed now was a reminder that she was more than Max McCord's wife, she was still herself and she meant to stay herself.

Determined, she marched upstairs, threw off the too-short skirt and her shirtwaist. Then, because her prospector clothing had vanished, she chose a pair of Max's denims, rolled up the cuffs, and pulled them on. The waist was large enough that, without suspenders, the denims would have fallen around her ankles, so she borrowed a pair of suspenders, too. And a warm flannel shirt. And a hat and some riding gloves.

Feeling better than she'd felt in days, she strode down to the barn and corrals and looked over the horses that Max and the boys had left behind. Rebecca ambled over to the log rails, followed by a black gelding that was no longer young. She fussed over Rebecca a little then ran a hand along the gelding's winter-fuzzy neck.

"You don't like being left behind, huh?" she murmured before she climbed over the rails and dropped down beside him. "At your age you ought to know enough about cattle to teach me a little something."

The black quivered as she saddled and cinched him, as eager to go as she was. Once Louise was mounted, she let the gelding run off excess energy, laughing as he soared over the stone fence north of the barn.

For the next hour she rode aimlessly, enjoying the sunlight sparkling through brisk, chill air, getting a feel for the lay of the land, discovering draws and creek beds, wooded areas and open range. Occasionally she spotted a steer or cow and then the gelding's ears pointed sharply forward and she felt him tense beneath her, awaiting her signal.

"We'll get to that," she said, leaning to pat his neck.

Max would never approve of what she was doing, she knew. But she'd never been submissive, had never been afraid to take a risk, and she wasn't going to begin now. If she ended up injured… she'd deal with the situation if and when it happened. Just as she had dealt with unpleasant situations during all the years when she hadn't had a husband who thought he could tell her what to do.

"All right," she said to the gelding. "The next time we see a beeve, you do whatever it is you do, and I'll sit up here and observe and learn."

Almost at once the gelding leapt forward, galloping after a cow and calf that he spotted before Louise did. There was no sitting and reflectively observing. It was all she could do to hang on as the gelding cut sharply in one direction, then whirled in another as the cow and calf tried to evade capture. If capture was indeed the objective, something Louise wasn't sure of at all. The gelding chased the cow at full gallop then cut directly in front of her and stopped hard, his head down, his front legs plowing out in front of him.