by Lois Richer
“I’m sorry, Maggie. I’m not usually so lily livered. But that…thing scared the wits out of me.”
“Don’t worry, Henny.” Maggie patted the clenched hand. “I felt pretty scared myself.” She stood up carefully. “I’ll go get her,” she murmured, praying her legs would carry her down the stairs. “Katy got it here. She can get rid of it.”
“I’ll go with you,” Henny blurted, scurrying behind. “The girls probably need help downstairs anyway.”
Maggie let her go, knowing the woman needed to calm down. She needed that herself, but first she needed to talk to Katy. She found her daughter behind the barn with Grady, cutting up some of the dead trees they had removed from around the garden.
“But why does the Bible say God is jealous?” the chirpy voice demanded. “God has everything, and if He hasn’t got it, He can just make it, can’t He? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Neither does having a six-foot-long snake in your bedroom,” Maggie murmured, her jaw tense. “But you’ve got one, Katy. And after I told you no more pets in the house.”
“A snake?” Grady glanced from mother to child. “What kind of a snake?”
“A very long, fat, slithery one,” Maggie informed him. “It nearly gave Henrietta Higglesby a heart attack, not to mention me.”
“Oh, that’s Bowie,” Katy exclaimed, as if that told them everything they needed to know. She glanced at her mother and hastily added some more information. “You know, our classroom pet. It’s a boa constrictor, Mom. I have to look after him this weekend. It’s my turn.”
“It was here last night? Uncaged?” Maggie sat down on the nearby bale before she fell down. “But I was walking around barefoot!”
“It’s not poisonous, Mom!” Katy sounded aggrieved. “It gets things by squeezing them. Bowie caught a rabbit once and swallowed it whole.”
Maggie shuddered, glancing up at Grady with her best pleading expression. “Please go with Katy and get that thing out of my house, Grady,” she whispered. “Now!”
Maggie could see Grady’s mouth twitch and guessed that he probably found the whole thing hilarious. But the thought of that slithering, slippery skin wiggling around through her home gave Maggie the creeps. She lowered her eyebrows and frowned. “Now, please!”
“But Mom!” Katy launched into her attack. “Bowie doesn’t like it outside. He gets cold.”
“Too bad. I want that reptile out of my home. Now.”
They all turned as a series of shocked screams issued forth from the big old farmhouse. Seconds later a group of excited women poured out of the doors, pushing and shoving their way down the steps.
Grady and Katy headed toward the house at a fast clip, gathering male helpers as they went. Heaving a sigh of resignation, Maggie headed for the madly chattering ladies’ group standing on her lawn.
“Slid right through the grate it did,” Gloria Stampford gasped, her face white with fear. “I was just dusting Maggie’s dresser when it slithered down in front of me.”
“It’s okay, Gloria. It’s relatively harmless. Grady and Katy are going to get rid of it.”
“Do you like snakes in the house?” Bonnie stared at her strangely, eyes wide and accusing. “I mean, how can you sleep, knowing that thing could slide up beside you and squeeze you to death?”
“Believe me,” Maggie muttered, closing her eyes to relieve the throb at her temples, “if I’d known that snake was there, no one would have slept for a thirty-mile radius.”
They all stood silent, watching as Katy emerged from the house with Bowie calmly curling over her shoulders and down her arms.
“We’ll put Bowie in my truck until I can get a cage,” Grady called. “Then I’ll keep the snake in the trailer until Katy takes him back to school on Monday.”
They watched as Grady tried to close the door of the truck. But the snake kept slithering out one crack or the other, obviously not thrilled with Grady’s accommodations.
“If that isn’t just like the tempter,” Minnie declared, wiping her hands on her big checked apron. “Sneaking in when folks aren’t looking. Just like a nasty thought or a hasty word.” She beckoned to the others and stepped gingerly up the stairs. “I’m going to use that for my lesson on Sunday morning.”
“See,” Grady murmured in Maggie’s ear as the rest of the ladies went slowly back to work. “There’s some good to come out of even this.”
“Yeah.” Maggie rolled her eyes. “Now the entire congregation will be talking about the McCarthy snake house. Just what I need!” She stalked back up the stairs, conscious of the group of men who stood nearby, huge grins splitting their faces as they joked with Grady about women’s squeamishness when it came to snakes.
“Why me, Lord?” she asked for the hundredth time.
“’This is the assurance we have in approaching God,’” she repeated to herself. “’That if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.’
“Okay, Lord. I’m asking. Please don’t let that snake escape,” she begged, fervently scrubbing the bathroom floor. “You promised that if I’d ask, You’d hear me, and I’m really asking You now. I’m holding You to Your promise.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust God, Maggie told herself later that afternoon as she peeked inside Grady’s truck. It was just that she couldn’t help checking to make sure that repulsive reptile hadn’t somehow slid out. Satisfied that Bowie was still trapped inside the vehicle with the window open just a crack, she tried to slip away, only to find Grady planted in her path, grinning for all he was worth. She ignored his knowing grin and stepped around him.
“You have to have faith, Maggie,” he chided quietly. “When you ask for something, you have to trust that it will be done.”
Chastened, Maggie went back to work. “I know what faith is,” she muttered to herself as she tugged clothes out of her closet and organized them into piles. “I do!”
“Who are you talking to?” Gloria asked from the doorway, wiping down the woodwork as she spoke.
“God, I guess,” Maggie answered and then corrected herself. “Actually, I think I reminded myself of something.” She glanced at Gloria and then smiled. “’Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’ I think I’d forgotten how to believe. Thanks, friend.”
Gloria grinned and waved her cloth. “You’re welcome, friend. Now, you want to tell me about that tall, handsome guy in the cowboy boots?”
Chapter Six
“Mom? How many kids can we have to the party?” Katy peered up at her mother with a pleading expression she reserved for very special occasions. “It is our tenth birthday, you know, so how about ten each?”
“Twenty girls! Are you kidding? I’m not crazy yet!” Maggie poured herself and Grady another cup of coffee and stared at her daughters. “Although, if I fell for that line, I might just require the white-coated men.” She noticed the glimmer of amusement in Grady’s glowing eyes, and her guard immediately went up.
“Some people might even say this latest idea of yours qualifies you,” he said meaningfully. “Taking on a whole pile of kids for two hours every evening? Nuts!”
“I happen to like kids,” she told him sanctimoniously. “And they need to go to vacation Bible school. It’s a rite of summer.”
“Oh, I’m not debating that! But couldn’t you have chosen a class to teach?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye. “Or taught a craft? Did you have to take on the directing of it?”
Maggie felt herself bristling and tried to control her temper. Over the past few weeks Grady had perfected the knack of getting her dander up, and lately he’d been doing it just for sport. Conscious of the girls, peering from one to the other, Maggie sipped her coffee slowly and counted to ten.
“I wasn’t planning on directing the whole thing,” she told him defensively. “Last winter, I told Nettie I’d help out. But with her in the hospital and Mrs. Enns getting that company from overseas, there doesn’t seem to be anybody else to fill in. Besi
des—” she fixed him with a cooly sarcastic glance “—you should know how persuasive Minnie can be. She got you to take her to the Sunday school barbecue, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, and she spilled ketchup all over his shirt!” Katy burst into a fit of the giggles as she remembered Grady’s stunned face and pristine white shirt splattered with bloodred splotches. “It was so funny when she smacked that bottle and ketchup flew all over the place.”
“Miss Hugenot did try to clean it up,” Keeley reminded them, the beginnings of a grin tugging at her outer lips as she petted the kitten in her arms.
“Yes, I remember.” Maggie blinked innocently up at Grady who had straightened from his lounging position at the far end of the table. “She almost had it off him and he was still wiping his face. That’s when she knocked the bottle down and it dripped on his pants.”
Katy and Keeley burst into peals of laughter at the look of disgust contorting Grady’s handsome features.
“We were discussing vacation Bible school,” he reminded them dourly. “And the fact that your mother doesn’t have time to be running it. She’s worn to a frazzle as it is.”
“Well, thank you very much, Grady O’Toole!” Maggie stomped to the counter with her cup and plopped it into the dishwater, sending suds everywhere. “It’s nice to know that I haven’t lost that certain something every woman wants a man to notice—frazzle!” She stifled the ridiculous tears that begged release and scrubbed furiously at the cup.
Behind her there was the whisper of conspiratorial voices, but she resolutely ignored them, piling the lunch dishes in the sink with blatant disregard for their rims and edges.
“I’m sorry, Maggie,” he murmured softly, his voice near the region of her left ear. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Besides, you already know how lovely you are.”
“I don’t know anything of the kind,” she replied, intent on keeping her face averted from him. “And I wasn’t fishing for compliments. Weeding in the garden all morning is hardly the way to look alluring.” She heard his quick indrawn breath and waited, but Grady merely picked up a tea towel and started drying.
“You don’t need to try,” he muttered after a few minutes. “You always look beautiful.”
She twisted to stare at him and found his warm brown eyes fixed on her. There was a look on his face that told Maggie he wasn’t lying and she held her breath as one tanned, work-roughened hand reached out to touch her cheek.
“You always look beautiful,” he repeated softly. “It doesn’t matter what you’re doing. It’s a beauty that shines through the field dust and the garden soil and the paint speckles.”
He touched the tip of her nose where Maggie knew she had some remnants of the light blue wash she’d given her bedroom walls. And leaning down, he brushed his lips across hers.
Maggie was stunned at the reaction she felt from her toes upward. Her knees went weak and her hands moved of their own volition to tangle in the soft, worn denim of his shirt.
Grady pulled back a fraction to stare at her and then wrapped her in his big strong arms, his lips firmly on hers as he kissed her properly, his mouth warm and demanding.
Maggie kissed him back. There was something, some part of her that demanded she experience his kiss. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t wondered about him for weeks now, she told herself, as his arms pulled her even closer, his hands caressing her back in a soothing touch.
She had wondered exactly how it would feel to kiss him. And now she knew. It felt…wonderful!
“Mom, Mrs. Stone is here…” Katy’s voice drained away as she took in the spectacle of her mother being kissed by Grady. “Uh, never mind. I’ll keep her busy.” Katy backed out the door and closed it carefully behind her.
“Well, that was embarrassing.” Maggie laughed nervously as she pulled away from Grady and looked anywhere but at his eyes.
“I’m not sorry,” he said gruffly. One finger tipped her chin up so his brown eyes looked directly into hers. “Although I probably should have waited until a more appropriate time. But Maggie, can’t you see that you are a beautiful woman who deserves better than Brian Dalgleish?”
Maggie stared at the disgust on his face and in his tone, but not a word would come out of her mouth.
“You’re not in love with him,” Grady gritted through clenched teeth, swishing the towel over the rest of the dishes before he tossed it onto the counter and turned to face her. “I think you’re blinded by the life you think he can give you.”
“It’s not such a bad life, Grady,” she murmured, hanging the towel up and putting the dishes into their appropriate places. “It would mean opportunities for the girls.”
“And you?”
“Of course me. I’d be able to work regular hours and be there when they needed me. We’d have a steady income, but most of all, Katy and Keeley would have some constancy in their lives.” There was nothing more to do and she had to face him, but instead of finding his glance cool and condemning, his brown eyes were warm like liquid chocolate.
“Don’t you have constancy here?” he asked quietly, his eyes penetrating the shell she tried to draw around herself.
“No! I have debts here. I have a lot of work. Sure, sometimes I even have some fun.” She felt dread crawling up her spine again and finally, in a rush to have it out between them, spoke the word that haunted her. “But I have far too much fear to keep on living here.”
“Fear?” His voice was shocked. “What in the world are you afraid of?”
“Margaret McCarthy, what is this strange child trying to do to me?” Emerald Stone burst through the door with Katy hanging on her arm and Keeley following behind. “I’ve been sitting on the veranda for almost ten minutes and the child just keeps babbling about you being busy. Now, are those dishes done, or not?”
Maggie nodded, knowing very well that it would do no good to argue with Mrs. Stone. Once she’d made up her mind, the matter was settled.
“Good. He,” she nodded her head toward Grady, “has work to do, does he not?” Emerald stared at him balefully as if to say she knew very well that men had no place in the kitchen. “Then off you go! And take those two with you. Maggie and I have business to discuss and we don’t need anyone around to bother us.”
In five seconds flat, Emerald had shooed everyone but Maggie out of the house. She swiped her hands together in a dusting motion and breathed a hearty sigh before turning back toward Maggie.
“Now, Margaret, I would like to have a new outfit for my niece’s wedding two weeks from next Saturday.” And thus decreeing, Emerald pulled out ten meters of the boldest, ugliest fabric Maggie had ever seen. “If you could spare me a moment, I’d like to discuss cut and style with you.”
“Of course, Emerald. It just so happens that I’ve got a few free minutes this week. I’d be happy to sew that up for you.” Maggie tried to stifle the annoyance she desperately wanted to express. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”
“She’s a pain,” Katy announced in a grim voice as the kitchen door closed behind them. “I tried to keep her away while you were kissing Mom, Grady, but she kept insisting. Keeley couldn’t even hold her back.”
“Nobody,” Keeley said seriously, her face looking very adult, “and I mean nobody, can hold back Mrs. Stone when she wants something.” Her big blue eyes were curious as they studied Grady. “Did you ever want something really badly, Grady? Something that you didn’t get, even though you prayed and prayed for it?”
Grady thought of the tiny baby that had never had the chance to live. He thought of the years of dreaming of a family of his own. Dreams that had died in a miscarriage. “Yes,” he murmured, folding her seeking hand in his own. “I have.”
“You have? What did you wish for?” That was curious Katy, peering up at him in interest.
Grady couldn’t help himself. He reached out and patted the little girl’s bright curls, his work-roughened fingers catching on the delicate strands.
“A little girl,” he whispered, his v
oice breaking despite his attempts otherwise. “A little girl just like you and your sister.”
“Are you going to marry our mother?” Keeley stared at the two of them, her frown marring the pretty oval of her face. “She doesn’t want to stay on the farm, you know. She wants to get away.”
Grady saw her cast a look of longing around the familiar landscape and wondered, for the first time, how Keeley would fare in the city. He searched for the right words.
“I think your mother has worked for a very long time to keep everything going,” Grady said quietly. He sank down onto the lush green grass and waited for the girls to join him. “She’s been trying to do everything.”
“A farm does have a lot of work,” Keeley told him seriously. “It’s sort of like school. You can’t always take a day or week off just because you want to.”
“I know, sweetie.” He smiled at her grown-up look. “And I suspect your mom hasn’t had a day off in a very long time. She’s always got another quilt to make, or books to work on.” He cocked his head toward the house. “Or another dress to sew.”
“She used to laugh a lot,” Katy whispered, staring at her hands. “I can remember it. We’d make cookies at Christmas and Easter and stuff. I liked to put the decorations on.” She scuffed her toe on the grass. “We never make cookies anymore.”
“Katy McCarthy, that’s a lie! Granny let us help her make cookies last week.” Keeley’s face was flushed and she glared at her sister. “That was the day Mrs. Bloomquist got the colors mixed up and Granny came out of the hair-dresser’s with pink hair.”
Grady swallowed the laughter that rose in his throat. So that’s what had happened. He smiled, remembering that brilliant fuchsia hair that had covered Kayleen Davis’s head for five days. It had been the talk of the town.
“It’s not the same as having Mom though, Keeley. Mom never just cut the shapes out. She adds things and fixes them up so they’re different than all the other kids’ cookies. I took some to play school once.”
