Joe's Wife (11 page)

Her head snapped up. "Are you saying if I want you to keep our agreement I have to accept this?"

"No, I'm just saying it's not too late. We can get an annul—"

"No!" She tossed the mending to the floor and sat up straight. Meg stared into Tye's eyes, unfathomably dark and blue in the lamplight. She'd vowed she would do anything, endure anything to keep Joe's ranch. She'd already married this man she barely knew. What was so unreasonable about taking in an orphan, too? What choice did she have now? "We'll work it out. Let's take care of your leg."

"You don't have to—"

"When your leg hurts too bad, you're cranky and you can't do as much work."

"And you need me to work the ranch."

"Yes." She stood, knowing it was an unkind thing to say and using it to get back at him for this—this unsettling development. She hurried into the kitchen with a swish of skirts and returned with the bowl and towels.

As though he deserved the reminder of his purpose there, he got up and followed her into the bedroom. She turned her back while he removed his pants and reclined beneath the sheet. "Where did you sleep last night?" he asked.

She turned back and placed the oilcloth beneath his thigh, mentally distancing herself from this man who now shared her life … her home. "On the floor."

"In here?"

"Yes."

"I don't want you to sleep on the floor."

"I don't want
you
to sleep on the floor."

"Can't we share the bed?"

She paused, keeping her gaze on the towel in her hands, and pulled the shawl a measure tighter around her shoulders. Her heart skipped a beat, and she didn't understand why. She'd thought out this arrangement, mentally prepared herself for each situation and development.

"I mean just share the bed. Not … any thing else."

She believed he meant that. And if he desired to make more of their sleeping arrangement, she had already determined she could do that, too. It would happen sooner or later anyway, wouldn't it? "I guess we can. This is hot."

"Go ahead."

She placed the steaming towel on his mutilated flesh and he released his breath in a hiss. She didn't derive any pleasure from knowing the remedy hurt him. After repeating the treatment several times, she opened the bottle of liniment and rubbed it into his scarred skin, hoping the oil and the massage would help to ease and stretch the taut new skin.

The lower half of his long leg, his knee and his shin, were muscled and covered with dark hair. His foot was nicely proportioned and his toes long, curly hair sprinkled there, too. She wondered if Tye had that dark dusting over all his limbs as well as his chest. Joe had been fair-haired.

She was thinking about him as a man … as a husband. The thoughts shocked her, but she couldn't help herself. "Tye?"

"Hmm?"

"Lottie. She's—she was—a prostitute?" She couldn't look at him.

"Yes."

"
Rosa
, too?"

"She was. She's getting married."

"You … you
knew
these women?"

"I knew Lottie."

"In the biblical sense."

"It was a long time ago."

"But you said there was nothing serious between the two of you. Just friends. Don't you think
that
is serious?" She had a difficult time imagining doing something so embarrassing with someone you weren't "close" to.

It took a long time for his reply. "You're right," he said finally. "That is something serious. At least it should be."

Suddenly, inexplicably, she hated the idea of him with those other women. "You don't go there anymore?"

"No!"

"I don't think it would be good if you went to see one of those women."

"I'm not going to see anyone. I told you, Lottie was a long time ago."

"Well, husbands shouldn't do that. They should … be with their wives."

"I agree."

"And you're a husband now. If you want to do that, you shouldn't go to town."

"You mean I should come to you. My wife."

Heat flared in her entire upper body, and she knew he could see her embarrassment even in the light from the lantern. Was that what she'd been getting at? No. She simply didn't want him humiliating her in an unnecessary manner. "Yes."

"And what if
you
should want to … do that?" he asked, and she imagined she heard a smile in his voice.

Why, she'd never initiated such a thing with her own husband! Surely he didn't think she'd be the one to ask him! "I am not having this conversation with you, I am simply saying you mustn't shame me by going to town for that. I already have to deal with what people think of us getting married, and now I'll have to deal with this child. I won't cope with that, too."

"I won't go."

"All right."

"But I think you should be the one to tell me when you want to. I'm a man, I can be ready anytime. You're the one who needs to adjust to the whole thing. You know, get comfortable and choose when the time is right. You were married, you know what I'm talking about."

What on earth
was
he talking about? She turned to view his face.

He was studying her with a hot look that started butterflies fluttering in her stomach. And he was serious. The situation struck her full force. He was lying in her bed, the bed she'd shared with Joe, but he seemed to take up so much more room. She'd touched him, no matter how innocently, and she'd had unseemly thoughts of his body. Images of him wife those other women had disturbed her. She'd shocked herself. "I'd better go wash my hands."

She gathered her supplies and left the room, only to wash her hands, splash cool water on her face, then stand in the kitchen with her heart beating crazily in her throat. Finally, she gathered her wits, blew out the lantern in the other room, checked the fire and returned to the dim bedroom.

He'd finished undressing and lay against the pillow, one arm over his head, exposing a thatch of dark hair beneath. His chest, above the sheet, was covered with thick black curls, just as she'd wondered. He lay with his eyes closed, so she studied him, her knees weak, her heart racing as though she were preparing to jump off a cliff.

This new husband was so much older than Joe had been—so much more of a man. But then Joe would be older, too, if he were still alive. That had been years ago. Intimacy with Joe had been
… comfortable.
Thinking of Tye in that way was anything but comfortable.

He opened his eyes and caught her staring. "I won't look while you undress," he said.

Meg turned away and fumbled in a drawer for her nightgown. Locating it, she blew out the lantern before removing her dress and underclothing.

"You didn't have your corset on under that dress, did you?" he said, his voice a husky suggestion in the darkness.

"How did you know that?"

"Just did."

"You were thinking about my undergarments?"

"Yeah."

She'd never known anyone so embarrassingly frank.

"Don't tell me you didn't think about me. Especially when you got me out of my pants and into your bed. Something crossed your mind."

Meg gasped and pulled her nightgown on quickly, buttoning it up to her throat.

"Get in."

She stood there trembling, though the room was warm and her body temperature even warmer.

"Told you we were just going to sleep together," he said. "Nothing else."

She calmed herself with a deep breath and eased onto the mattress, careful not to inch too close or make a move to tilt him toward her. He did take up more room than Joe ever had. She lay flat on her back, the sheet tucked snugly beneath her armpits, and stared at the darkened ceiling, afraid of herself, afraid of the way her head and her body reacted to this man.

"Until you're ready," he added.

Oh, Lord. She would never sleep again.

Tye had fueled the stove and heated water, and now carried a pitcher back to the bowl on the bureau. Meg mustn't have slept well, and he saw no reason to wake her now. She lay on her side with one hand curled daintily beneath her cheek, the other on his pillow.

The sheet had pulled loose from the end of the bed, exposing a delicate foot and a length of silky calf. Tye's belly ached with the desire to place his face against her morning skin and inhale her. Taste her.
His wife.
He'd start at her foot and make his way up her leg…

Don't you think
that
is serious?
she'd asked. He'd never looked at intimate relations from her perspective before, so he'd never considered just how serious they could be. He'd never thought of sex as right or wrong, serious or not. In his experience it had been merely a fact of life. Sometimes pleasant, sometimes manipulative, sometimes a service, sex had never taken on the serious aspects he could see it having with someone like Meg.

Yes. With Meg, it would be serious.

He forced himself to face the mirror and lather his whiskers, tamping down the unruly thoughts that would have him in a state of arousal all day. He smiled, remembering her gentle and flustered request that he not visit a whore.

As if there were a whore in the entire state with more appeal than Meg. As if there were a woman in the world with more appeal. He'd admired her from the first time he'd seen her.

She'd been nine—ten, maybe—and sitting on the school lawn with the other girls. They'd been braiding one another's hair, and Jacky Mabley's sister—he couldn't remember her name … Joanie? Janie?—sat behind Meg, separating Meg's tawny tresses. Sunlight had glinted like golden fire in her hair, and Tye had wanted to tell Jacky's sister not to spoil that spectacular display by hiding Meg's hair in braids. But he hadn't, of course. He hadn't even spoken. He'd just walked around them as if he were going somewhere, and stopped to take a longer look at Meg. She'd smiled at him, her new adult teeth pearly white.

He'd looked away and run into the schoolroom to study his times tables. None of the kids played with him, and Mr. Brickey let him come in early from lunch so he didn't have to endure the humiliation of their childish cruelty.

Meg had always had a smile for him. Even when they grew older, when the other girls and their mothers refused to look him in the eye, Meg had met his eyes and smiled.

He guessed he'd always loved her.

Tye stared hard at his reflection, shocked that there were words to go with what he'd felt. She'd always been untouchable. A town girl. Joe's girl. Joe's wife. He'd never allowed himself to analyze his feelings; that would have been disastrous. Futile.

But now. Now. She was … his wife.

Tye made the last stroke across his jaw, slowly wiped away the lather with his damp towel and turned.

She studied him, those tawny eyes shot with golden sparks like the morning sun. "Morning," he said.

She drew her seductive foot up beneath the sheet. "Morning."

"I'll bring you some water."

"I slept so late."

"Not really. I woke up early." He dumped the water outside and returned with a fresh pitcher for her. She was sitting, holding the sheet to her breast. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders in becoming disarray and tempted a man's fingers. "Thank you."

He curled his fingertips into his palms. "You do a lot of thoughtful things for me."

"I do? Like what?"

"Like bringing me water, pouring my coffee, nursing my leg."

"Those are just ordinary things."

"Are they?"

She studied him, her eyes pretty with sleep.

"I wouldn't know." He'd never had a wife. Never had a father to know how married people behaved around each another. "Did your mother do all those things for your father?"