Mail Order Misfortune (10 page)

She smiled, squeezing his hand, before changing the subject.  "I made you a pair of pants and a new shirt.  I used old ones as patterns.  Would you be willing to try it on for me, so I can see how well it fits?"

He nodded reluctantly.  "I promise you, you'll wish you had Ernie trying things on again, because I just don't like it."

She smiled.  "Let me get them."  Rushing to her sewing pile, she picked through the things there until she found the pants and shirt she'd mentioned.  Her face was flushed and her heart was beating a bit faster than it should.  She felt like something special had just transpired between them, but for the life of her, she couldn't put her fingers on exactly what it was.

*****

On Monday afternoon, Anna begged and begged until Ace finally agreed to let her ride around the corral on her own.  He'd led the horse every single time afraid that her fear would get her thrown. 

Anna felt triumphant as
she used her knees to guide the horse around the small corral, but she was shaking at the same time.  She felt like she was so high up, and she knew she could be seriously injured if she fell.  She couldn't imagine sweet Chili throwing her, but she just didn't feel like she was able to keep herself in the saddle well.

She was making her way around the corral slowly for the third time on her own when she saw something speeding toward her out of the corner of her eye.  She gasped and lost her grip, falling to the ground and landing in the muddy corral.  It had rained the day before and she found herself covered in mud. 

*****

Jesse put Ernie on the back of his horse, and made up a reason to have to return to the house.  That morning he'd 'forgotten' his nails, and this time he'd 'forgotten' his water.  He carried fresh water out to work with him every day, knowing that even in October, the unforgiving Texas sun could cause dehydration. 

They rode back to the house, and as he got closer, he spotted something that scared him.  His tiny little bride was on top of a horse in the corral, with no one close enough to catch the reins.  He knew she couldn't ride.  She'd admitted to him that she'd never even touched a horse.  What was she thinking?

He spurred the horse on faster, determined to get to her before she fell and hurt herself.  He was less than one hundred yards away when she started and fell to the side, falling into the mud covering the ground of the corral. 

He jumped down off his stallion and rushed to the corral, jumping over the fence and hurrying to her side.  "Are you hurt?" he asked, carefully picking her up.

"I'm fine.  Jesse, put me down!  I'm filthy.  I'm going to have to wash both of our clothes now!"

Jesse ignored her squeals and carried her into the house, straight to her bedroom.  He carefully set her on her feet, undressing her down to her petticoat and putting her into her bed.  He sat at the edge of her bed, ignoring her blushes.  He didn't know whether they were because he'd seen her fall or because he'd undressed her, but he really didn't care.  She had no business riding a horse without him there to help her.  What was she thinking?  "What were you doing, exactly?"

She blushed, looking at the wall.  "Well, I know you like to ride, so I thought I should learn."

"Why didn't you ask me to help you?  Ace is a good cowboy, but he's not the man I would have chosen to teach you to ride."  He wouldn't have let anyone teach her to ride.  She was too small.  Her bones were so slight, he was surprised she didn't snap them in half sweeping.  She had no business atop a horse.

Anna frowned.  "He's been a good teacher for me.  I was doing just fine until you appeared out of nowhere riding so fast."  She was angry now that he'd ruined her surprise, and she knew it was petty, but she'd wanted him to see her ride well, not fall off the first time he saw her atop a horse.

He shook his head.  "You sure you're not hurt?"

She nodded.  "I'm fine.  I've been hurt much worse stabbing myself with a needle sewing."

He got to his feet looking down at her.  "Well, I want you to stay in bed for the rest of the day just to make sure."

She stared at him in shock.  "I can't stay in bed!  Who do you think is going to cook and clean?  Who's going to make your clothes?"

He shrugged.  "All that can wait until tomorrow.  For today, I want to be sure you're not hurt.  Stay there until I get home."  He strode from the room, closing the door softly behind him, not giving a thought to her disobeying him.  What was Ace thinking?  He'd go give the cowboy a piece of his mind before he went back to work.

Anna watche
d him as he left the room, and laid there for just a minute, confused.  After a moment, she got to her feet.  She had landed on her behind, and she knew she'd be sore for a day or two, but the ignominy was much worse than the injury.  She would be fine, and she'd show him. 

She waited until she was certain he'd left the house before getting dressed to go cook dinner for them.  She'd promised him fried chicken, and he'd wrung the neck of one of the pullets that morning so she could make it.  She was excited, because she knew her cream gravy was something he would immediately love.  As she dressed, she laughed to herself.  He'd take one bite of the gravy and fall to his knees in awe of her, begging her to stay with him forever and be his real wife.

She shook her head, wondering what her problem was.  She'd fallen off a horse and landed on her behind, not on her head.  She couldn't even say she'd been thrown.  What was wrong with her anyway?

Chapter Nine

When Jesse walked into the house at five as usual, he expected to have to fix a meal himself.  He was already thinking about frying some bacon and toasting some bread, making bacon sandwiches for everyone.  He'd take Anna hers on a tray, showing her that he cared if she was hurt or not.  He knew he was often cold to her, but she was proving to be a sweet and caring wife, if not loving. 

He stopped short just inside the door as the smell of fried chicken infiltrated his nostrils.  His eyes scanned the room and landed on his sweet wife, out of bed and putting dinner on the table.

Anna turned toward the door and smiled at Jesse.  "Everything's done.  Just wash up, and we'll be ready to eat."

Jesse said nothing as he walked to the basin, trying his best to hold his tongue and not unleash the anger that was filling him up.  What was she thinking getting out of bed when he'd c
learly told her not to?  What was wrong with that woman?  Did she think she was invincible?

Anna ignored the look on Jesse's face, knowing he was angry with her, but refusing to acknowledge it.  "How was your afternoon?  Are you done with the fences yet?"  She asked him the same question every afternoon, because she knew he was getting close to finally finishing. 

He took deep breaths, and didn't answer her, instead sitting at the head of the table as he fought to control his anger. 

Anna sighed, looking down at her plate.  Ernie sat between them
not noticing any of the friction between the parents.  He waited for a minute and finally said loudly, "Can I just pray so I can eat?  This food smells too good to just look at it."

Anna's eyes met Jesse's, hers filled with laughter, but he simply frowned at her before nodding to Ernie.  "Of course, you can.  I'm hungry as well, son."

Ernie said a quick prayer, and before the 'amen' had died from Jesse's lips, he had a chicken leg at his lips.  He took a big bite and smiled.  "Good chicken, Ma!"

Anna smiled at the name, realizing that he had only called her 'ma' for a couple of days, and had stopped calling her Anna entirely.  She couldn't be happier
with his easy acceptance of her, and genuinely wished his father would accept her just as easily.

She looked at Jesse, and though anger still filled his eyes, he was obviously enjoying her chicken.  When he took his first bite of her mashed potatoes and gravy, his eyes closed with delight.  He said nothing, but his face softened.  Maybe food was the way to a man's heart after all.  She'd certainly heard people say that often enough.

After the dinner dishes were finished, she reached for the shirt she'd been sewing for Jesse, and his hand stopped her.  He'd moved faster than she'd ever seen a man move to get to her and prevent her from lifting the shirt, so she knew there was something on his mind.  Jesse's eyes bored into hers as he said, "Ernie.  Go on upstairs now.  I need to have a talk with Anna."

Ernie looked between them before shrugging.  "Yes, Pa. 
G'night."  He hurried up the stairs without looking back, obviously either oblivious to the anger the adults were showing toward one another or uncaring that they were angry.

As soon as Ernie was in his room with the door firmly shut behind him, Jesse sat back down.  "I don't appreciate you getting out of bed today after I told you not to.  You're too little to do the kind of work you do, and you were injured when you fell."

Anna sighed.  "The only thing I injured when I fell was my pride. I've injured that before and I will again."

"I told you to stay in bed!"

Anna tilted her head to the side and studied him for a moment.  "And you expect me to obey your orders without thinking?  Like I was one of your cowboys or your son?"

Jesse's eyes narrowed, but he nodded.  "Yes, just like that.  If I say you need to spend a day in bed, then you need to spend a day in bed.  Don't you think I know what's best for you?"

Anna shook her head.  "Actually, no, I don't think that.  I'm a strong woman, and I have a brain of my own.  I knew how I was feeling after my fall.  You didn't.  I didn't hit my head, only my bottom."

"I want you to promise me that the next time you injure yourself, or you're sick, if I tell you to stay in bed, that you'll stay in bed."

Anna glared.  "If it doesn't make sense for me to stay in bed, then I won't stay in bed.  Who would fix dinner if I just spent the day in bed pretending to be hurt when I wasn't?  How is my work going to be done if
I
don't do it?"

"It's women's work.  It can wait 'til tomorrow."

"And you would have cooked for yourself, I suppose?"  Why couldn't he see that she'd done the logical thing?  Why did he care anyway?  It's not like she was his precious Deborah.

"I would have!  I can cook eggs!"  Very rubbery inedible eggs, but he didn't tell her that.  He wasn't about to admit that he was a terrible cook and have her ridicule him for it.  That wasn't the issue at hand anyway.  "Next time I want you to do as you're told."

Anna shrugged.  "I'm finding that I don't particularly like doing as I'm told.  I prefer to do what seems reasonable to me.  Now, if you ask me to cook something special for supper, that would be no problem.  You wanting me to spend a day when I feel perfectly fine, in bed?  That's not logical, and I won't do it.  Ever.  You don't care about me except as a housekeeper anyway, so what do you care that I didn't stay in bed?  You'd think you'd use your brain and be happy that I disobeyed you and you got something decent to eat!"  Her voice had risen to a level that she'd never heard from herself.  Was she really the one shouting at him as if he'd lost his mind?

"You promised to 'love, honor and obey' me, woman!"
  He pounded his fist on the table to emphasize his words.

"And you promised to 'love, honor and cherish me.'  I feel no love from you!  You've told me love will never happen between us.  At least I married you intending to fulfill my obligations!"  She got to her feet and ignored the sewing she'd planned to do.  She was so angry she didn't want to have to look at him for another minute.

He grabbed her arm as she made to pass him, easily overpowering her and keeping her in place.  "Why can't you just do things the easy way?  Do you always have to fight me?"

"I'm fighting you?  I got up so I could make you a good dinner, and you're yelling at me about it.  I don't think I'm the one starting a fight here."

He sighed, pulling her to him and kissing her.  At first his lips crushed hers as he kissed her angrily, but the kiss quickly turned into something else.  His hands stroked down her sides and to the back of her waist, pulling her more tightly against him.  He wanted her in a way he hadn't wanted a woman since Deborah died, and he hated himself for it.

For a moment, he contemplated picking her up and carrying her to his bed, but he couldn't do it.  He couldn't betray his love for his late wife that way.  Finally, he pulled away and stood looking down at her, his chest heaving.  "Go to bed, Anna."

Before she could say another word, he'd turned away and left the room, and Anna stood watching him with her hand over her bruised lips.  Why did he never kiss her except when he was angry?

*****

They moved along more calmly together for the next week, neither of them willing to discuss the kiss they'd shared or do anything to rock the boat.  He knew that despite his growing feelings for her, he needed to have her around to cook and clean.  More importantly, she needed his help parenting Ernie. 

Ernie had changed a great deal in the time she'd lived with them.  Part of it was physical, because he now wore clothing in good repair that actually fit him, and his hair had been cut short as it always should have been.  The other part was emotional
, though.  He truly liked Anna, and he worked hard to please her.  He would never have admitted to liking her, but a couple of times he'd picked flowers on their way home from working on the ranch.  He'd worked on his manners, because she'd asked him to. 

Jesse was content with the changes in his son, because he knew they were changes Deborah would have approved of.  The more he thought about his late wife, the more he realized that she would have loved Anna.  If she could have chosen a woman to marry her husband and help raise her son, Anna would have been that woman.  She would have liked her for a friend, and she would have been thrilled with how she treated their boy.

Every day his feelings for Anna grew a little more, as he watched her in the kitchen washing the dishes or when she took time to read with Ernie at the end of the day.  Everything she did told him that she truly cared for him and his son and made him realize that she was a good wife to him. 

Finally, late on Friday of the following week, he sent Ernie home an hour early so he could take some time to think.  He walked among the cattle looking
over them, thinking about his Deborah.  "I tried not to like her.  She's a good woman, though.  I think the two of you would have been friends.  I feel like I'm betraying you, but then I realize that Anna was right.  You'd have wanted me to love again.  You wouldn't have asked me to stay single and try to raise Ernie alone.  You'd have been happy with this situation, so I'm going to do my best to be the same."  He took a deep breath, feeling the tears streaming down his cheeks.  "I'll take things slowly, and court her like I should have to begin with.  My poor Anna has never had a man act like a lovesick fool over her, and she deserves it as much as any woman would.  Forgive me for moving on, Deborah, but it's the best thing for our son and for me.  I'll never stop loving you."

He felt as if the words had released him somehow.  A burden was suddenly off his shoulders.  There were few flowers left on the ranch this late in the year, but he looked until he found some.  They were red flowers that bloomed big, and he picked a few
, taking them to her.  He wasn't sure of their name, but hopefully she would know.  He wasn't certain it would matter to her.

When he got to the house, she was putting supper on the table, and Ernie was washing his hands, chattering nonstop about the day they'd had.  He spoke of the work he was doing to help on the ranch, which pleased Jesse. 

"Did you bring back the lunch pail?" Anna asked Ernie.  "I need to wash it out so I can send you more cookies tomorrow.  I baked a cake for supper tonight, and while I was at it, I baked some cookies for the two of you to snack on during the day."

Ernie grinned.  "I left it in the barn.  I'll run and get it."  He turned to Anna and threw his arms around her before running from the house without saying a word.

Anna stood staring at the spot where he'd been, a tear in her eye, and that's when Jesse realized that Anna truly loved Ernie.  She wasn't just doing her best by him because she was supposed to.  She genuinely cared for the boy.

He walked across the kitchen and held out the bouquet of flowers he'd picked, watching her take it warily.  "I'm not sure what they're called, but they're pretty, and I thought you'd like them."

Anna bit her lip, staring at the flowers.  "They're lovely.  Thank you."  But why was he picking her flowers?  Did he think they would look good in the house, so he wanted them for decoration?  Or did he finally decide she was good enough to be his wife?

She put them in a vase and moved them to the center of the table without asking.  "They'll make a nice centerpiece for dinner tonight."

Jesse stood watching her, wishing he knew what to say to make things better between them.  "Dinner smells good," he told her awkwardly, suddenly feeling shy as he realized he wanted her to be his real wife, and not just someone who cooked and cleaned and sewed for them.

"Should taste good too, I hope."  He was acting odd, and she was concerned by it, but she was afraid to ask what was going on in his head.  She knew she probably wouldn't like the answer.

After supper that night, Jesse offered to wipe the dishes dry, and Anna gave him a startled look.  "No, thank you.  I'll see to them.  You work too hard all day to come home and help with my work as well."

Jesse sighed, taking a seat at the table and pulling out his knife and a block of wood.  He'd been working on making a toy train for Ernie, although he wasn't entirely certain Ernie would appreciate it.  He may feel like he was too old to have something that childish.

Once Anna finished the dishes, she sat down at the table opposite him, and worked on the scarf she was knitting for Ernie for Christmas.  "Do you think he'll like it?" she asked, spreading it out across the table ad showing Jesse.

Jesse nodded with a smile.  "He's going to love it.  No one has ever taken the time to make
him something like that before. Well, except me, of course, but I usually just got him something from the store.  I think he's going to be a very happy boy come Christmas this year."

Anna smiled, hoping Jesse liked it as well, because he was getting an identical scarf, only a bit bigger.  She hoped it would get cold enough to wear them, because so far, they hadn't seen any extremely cold temperatures yet, which was probably why Texas was such a good place to raise beef cattle.  "I sure hope so."

"Oh, he will.  I think he realizes just how much you care about him, and he feels very secure with you around."

Anna smiled, her knitting needles flying.  She worked on Jesse's gift while the two were on the range all day, and she worked on Ernie's after supper when Ernie was upstairs in his room.