He smiled at her modesty. “Trust me,
you don’t have anything there I haven’t seen before.”
Even though she puckered up as if
she’d been sucking a lemon, her cheeks turned a most becoming shade
of pink. “That may be, but you have not seen mine.”
He chuckled outright and she blushed
harder, apparently realizing how that had sounded.
“
No, ma’am, that’s true. I
haven’t.” He stepped closer, enjoying this softer side of her that
he’d not seen before. The day in the chicken coop didn’t
count—she’d been frightened and Cora had pulled a rotten trick on
her. This was different. This Emily was beguiling.
“
Well, please don’t let me
keep you from your intended task.” She held the chemise under the
wash water as if she were trying to drown it.
He nodded and smiled again, and began
unbuttoning his shirt.
She looked at him with wide eyes. “Mr.
Becker, you are disrobing!”
He opened the shirt and pulled it off.
She averted her gaze. “There isn’t much point in washing if I’m
going to keep this dirty shirt on.”
He went to the pump and picked up a
sliver of Cora’s acrid homemade soap where it sat on an old piece
of toweling that he kept with it. Like everything she made, the
soap was crude and not very good—this stuff could strip the hide
off a buffalo—but it got the job done. He went about his business,
pumping the cold water over his head and working up a
lather.
He felt Emily’s eyes on him and an old
spark of a long lost feeling ignited in his belly. Suddenly he
wished he could strip down to bare skin and sit in that hot washtub
in the low, golden sun, and let her scrub his back until all the
dirt and all the pain of the last few years was washed away. He
could easily imagine her strong, smooth fingers working at his
stiff shoulders, massaging his scalp as she washed his hair, and
then leaning back against her soft breasts while she hummed to him
with that sweet voice he’d heard in church.
It was such a pleasant reverie that he
forgot to rinse the soap off his face before opening his eyes. The
suds scalded them like liquid fire, and he let out a string of
curse words that he hadn’t used in mixed company in
years.
“
Mr. Becker, really!” The
daydream came to a rude and abrupt end.
He splashed vigorously, actually
worried for a moment that Cora’s lousy soap had blinded him. God
knew it was possible, even though he wasn’t sure just what she put
in it. “I’ve got soap in my eyes, damn it!”
“
Oh, no, let me help!” He
heard the pump handle work and then felt Emily’s hand, cool and
soft, on the back of his neck bending him forward, as she splashed
more water into his face with her other hand.
At last the burning lessened.
“Better?” she asked, and put the towel into his hands. She was
nothing but a blur of pale hair and black dress.
He dried his face and eyes and her
image focused. Her light brows drawn, she peered at him.
“
I think so. At least I can
see you.” And a handsome sight she was, he thought.
She took a step backward. Shaking her
head, she looked at the backs of her reddened hands. “That soap is
pretty caustic. I’ve been using it for the laundry and my skin is
burning. Does Mrs. Hayward make it herself?”
“
Yeah, she uses some secret
recipe she swears by.” He rubbed his eyes with the towel, then
dried the back of his neck.
“
Maybe we can buy ready-made
soap. It isn’t that expensive.”
“
No, it isn’t, but Cora,
well, she couldn’t see the point in buying soap when she can make
it right here.”
Emily lifted her brows delicately.
“Mrs. Hayward is rather, um, strong-willed, isn’t she?”
He flipped the towel over his shoulder
and laughed again, although he didn’t feel much humor. Emily’s
etiquette had made her an expert at either diplomacy or
understatement, he wasn’t sure which. “You mean the way a mule is
strong-willed?”
Emily ducked her head and he saw the
hint of a smile.
Luke reached for a clean, dry shirt
hanging on the line and again felt Emily’s eyes follow his
movements. “I know she’s not the easiest woman to get along
with.”
“
Yes,
well . . . ” She let the comment hang,
unfinished.
As Luke pushed his arms into the
sleeves of the clean shirt, that feeling came over him again—that
he was not the master of his own home. How must it seem to Emily,
he wondered, that he let Cora run roughshod over them all? He
sighed as he buttoned the shirt. “When we lost Belinda, I let Cora
take control, I guess. I made her the boss in the kitchen and I’m
the boss in the barn. I didn’t want Rose to be saddled with running
a house—she was only eight years old. It’s been easier to let Cora
have her way than to fight her over everything.” He glanced up at
Emily’s spring-green eyes. “But maybe I made a mistake.”
Emily reached into the washtub for her
underwear, then let it sink to the bottom of the tub, and dried her
hands on the apron tied around her slim waist. “I’m sure you did
what you thought was best at the time. It isn’t easy to make
decisions under such stressful circumstances. I know what that’s
like.”
He leaned a hip against the washtub.
“I suppose you do.”
Their eyes met and Emily looked away.
He had no doubt that they shared the same thought about her coming
west in her sister’s place. But he sensed that she’d known sorrow
in her life. He could see it in her changeable posture—when she
talked about Rose or her teaching job, or anything else she felt
strongly about, she stood tall with her chin up and her shoulders
back. She cut quite an imposing figure when she was stiff-spined.
Other times, when the conversation turned the least bit personal,
like now, she stooped a little, as if trying to hide inside
herself. Or trying to hide her whole self. That he’d even noticed
was a surprise to Luke. Then he realized that he’d begun to take
note of other little things about Emily. The way she tilted her
head a bit while she was thinking, how she ducked her chin when she
smiled, as if she were shy. He figured he had to be wrong about
that—Emily Cannon was not a shy woman. She had an opinion about
nearly everything, he could read it in her eyes. Fortunately,
unlike Cora, she didn’t yap about all of them.
Emily went to the clothesline and
inspected her black dress, the one that had suffered through the
chickens. “When I went to town today, I saw Rose at the cemetery.
She was sitting on her mother’s grave, talking to her.”
He straightened away from the washtub.
“She was?”
She turned to face him, her chin up.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have repeated it—she said it’s a secret between
her and her mother. But I think Rose feels like she doesn’t have
anyone to talk to and it worries me.”
He stiffened. “She told you
that?”
“
No, but she’s dropped
little hints that give me that impression.”
Stung, Luke retorted, “Well, hell,
she’s got me and Cora.”
She pulled a clothespin from her apron
pocket and turned it in her long, slender fingers. “I’m not
criticizing you, Mr. Becker. It’s just that I’ve worked with
children long enough to know when they’re troubled. The tension in
the household is affecting her, but I believe this started long
before I got here. And you admitted that you don’t know what she’s
thinking.”
Luke’s shoulders sagged. Emily was
right. He couldn’t just turn everything over to her and expect her
to perform miracles with Rose. He had to take some kind of action,
too. And it wasn’t that he didn’t want to, exactly. But for the
life of him, he wasn’t sure which course was best. Cora was a
source of trouble in the house and he’d send her packing today if
he could, but what would it do to Rose if she were to leave? His
girl’s happiness was more important than his own.
“
I just thought you should
know,” Emily said. “She also mentioned that the other children at
school make fun of how she dresses.”
Luke winced and threw his towel over
the pump handle. Kids could be cruel. He remembered being on both
ends of their ridicule, giving and receiving. “Cora makes her
clothes.”
She tilted her head slightly and gazed
at the fields. “Hmm, I think I can help with that. I could teach
Rose to make her own clothes. She’s old enough and we could pick
out a couple of dress patterns that are more suited to a girl her
size and age.”
“
Is she
interested?”
“
I haven’t mentioned it to
her yet. I wanted to ask you first.”
“
That sounds like a fine
idea, Emily.”
She smiled again and with the low sun
highlighting her lashes and the soft curve of her cheek, she was
almost beautiful. “Good. I’ll get her started tomorrow.”
Suddenly, the back door
opened and he heard Cora bark,
“Supper!”
Emily’s gaze locked with his and he
saw understanding in her eyes.
Gratitude edged its way into Luke’s
heart for this woman who had come west to help him with his
daughter. And the prospect of easing his mother-in-law out of his
house seemed less daunting because he suspected that Emily was on
his side. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt like he had
an ally. She brushed at the tendrils of damp hair on her neck. He
tracked the graceful, feminine gesture, and then it hit him. She
wasn’t wearing her wedding ring.
He knew it didn’t fit properly and he
was sorry about that, but it seemed to him that a woman like Emily,
a stickler for proper form, would wear that ring no matter which
finger she had to put it on. Since the afternoon in Judge Clifton’s
office, he’d wondered if he’d ever be able to accept her as more
than a wife in name only.
Until now, he hadn’t thought that she
might not accept him as her husband.
~~*~*~*~~
That night after dinner, Emily slipped
down the back stairs and out to the yard with a lantern. Since the
farmhouse lacked indoor plumbing, no one would think it odd that
she was outside at this hour. She still hadn’t gotten used to
visiting the necessary here. In Chicago, even after the Cannon
family had been forced to move from the house on Washington
Boulevard to rented rooms, they’d still had bathing and toilet
facilities, although they’d been located down the hall, and shared
with a half-dozen other tenant families. The privy here was dark
and spooky, and while she’d never used one till she’d come to the
farm, she’d heard many horror stories about the spiders, snakes,
and God-knew-what-else that lurked in the depths beneath the round
hole in the plank that comprised the seat.
She glanced at the western horizon,
still faintly light. The evening was soft and balmy, with a
sprinkling of early stars scattered across sky. But it wasn’t the
call of nature that brought her out here, not the earth’s or her
own.
Sometime this afternoon while she’d
been doing laundry out here, she’d lost her wedding band, and she
had to find it. The thing fit so poorly that it hadn’t been until
she sat down at the dinner table that she’d noticed it was missing.
What would Luke think if he saw her without it? She’d kept her left
hand in her lap through the entire meal. This had been especially
challenging because the pork Cora served was just as tough and
flavorless as her other dinnertime offerings. It had really
required two hands to saw the meat into manageable bites, but she’d
speared the leathery chunks with her fork and chewed. And chewed.
Now her dinner sat in her stomach like a lump of lead.
She shuffled through the damp grass,
holding her lantern low, hoping to catch a glimpse of something
gold and shiny peeking from the blades. She held the light over the
washtub, just in case the ring remained at the bottom. But it was
empty. Setting the lantern down, she dropped to her hands and knees
and began feeling through the wet grass. Her fingers moved over the
tender spring growth as a blind person’s might, seeking their way,
seeking something metal. As the minutes ticked on, panic began to
rise into her chest. How could she have been so careless? Why
hadn’t she realized the ring might come off in the soapy
water?
She just had to find it,
she
had
to. A
married woman couldn’t go around without her wedding band. It
wasn’t proper. The ring hadn’t been bought with her in mind, it
didn’t fit, and it certainly had not been put on her finger with
love. But Luke had given it to her—her husband, Luke. The man with
the weary eyes and the great love for his daughter and the kind
heart that she longed to have just a corner of. She hated admitting
it to herself, but it was true. Tears blurred her eyes and she
brushed at them impatiently. If he would give her just a crumb of
the regard he held for Belinda—a dead woman—Emily would be content
and her own longing for him might not seem so hopeless.
Good heavens! Her head came up at the
thought. Was she falling in love with him? No, no, she wasn’t
supposed to—that hadn’t been any part of their arrangement. They’d
agreed that this was to be a marriage of convenience for the
primary purpose of giving Rose a decent upbringing.
But now she’d lost the ring he’d given
her, one that he’d paid good money for. What would he
say?