by Joyce Wright
“Amen.”
Malinna, her prayer ended, raised her head in time to catch the interplay between Jesse and Aimee-Anne. “Amen,” she repeated, the smile in her voice matching the light in her eyes.
As summer deepened into early fall, the routine of their daily lives became a reassuring pattern. He found himself anticipating mealtimes in the evening. He had to admit to himself that Malinna had a woman’s knack for creating a home. Her notion to bring Aimee-Anne to the table for the evening meal had struck him as sheer nonsense, but he came to the table, after washing off the day’s dirt and donning a clean shirt, with alacrity. Aimee-Anne’s eyes followed him as he came to the table and their habit of sharing smiles during prayers had become as much a part of the pattern as Malinna’s biscuits.
In the evenings, while Malinna embroidered and sewed after she’d cleaned up the dishes from their meal, Jesse worked outside on the crib he was building for Aimee-Anne. The cradle was still big enough for her diminutive size, but Malinna expected that she would be an early walker and warned that she was likely to be adventurous. The crib that he and Sarah had slept in when they were children was still upstairs, but it was old and shabby-looking and, although he wouldn’t admit it, Jesse wanted to build a new one for his daughter. He worked until darkness fell, and when he went inside, Malinna was singing Aimee-Anne to sleep. Shortly after that, she and the baby went upstairs to the guest bedroom where they slept.
By virtue of Malinna abiding in that bedroom, Jesse recognized that it was not exactly a marriage. Her presence was no longer an intrusion into his life; he had succumbed to the wifely dominance of edicts, delivered with her bright smile and matter-of-fact tone, which had him cleaning himself before settling down to supper, shaving every Sunday before they left for church, and welcoming the ladies of the church on Saturday evenings for a sewing circle in the Greenhow parlor while Jesse and some of the men in the community met for cattlemen’s association gatherings. He found himself noticing her smooth curves as she held the baby in her arms, and as she stood at the kitchen table preparing meals, he could not help but observe that her womanly frame was curved just as the female form was designed to be, or that there were times when he felt a stirring in his loins that longed, not for Aimee’s remembered daintiness but for Malinna’s full-bosomed, round-hipped body. He pushed those thoughts away, recognizing that their nature was no credit to his first wife.
There was nothing to be done about it, he realized. He had made this situation, he would have to abide with it. Malinna herself gave no indication that anything was amiss; perhaps, Jesse wondered, she did not desire him as a husband and had come West for a home and a child, not a bedmate. He couldn’t blame her if that were the case; he had done nothing to court her or woo her. If matters proceeded in this fashion, he recognized himself as the cause. But a cold bed made for a cold home.
Chapter Five
Before the fall roundup, Malinna declared, they would host a picnic. Sarah agreed to help; the two women were friends as well as kin, each eager to contribute to whatever plans the other concocted. She and Jesse would host, Malinna told him at supper. “We’ll invite everyone who was at our wedding celebration,” she said decisively. “I’ll tell the women; will you undertake to inform the gentlemen?”
He would, and did. There was some humor at his expense about the beverages to be served; Jesse assured them that Malinna would not be restricting them to lemonade, but that he would not be imbibing. “Best not,” advised Lucas, who reminded Jesse that fiddling was thirsty work and he’d be obliged for something stronger, “or you’ll likely find the door to the marriage bed closed in your face.”
Jesse ignored the comment, not because his fall-down drunk on his wedding night was common knowledge but because no one knew that the marriage bed was occupied by the husband alone.
Sarah drove over early in the morning to help Malinna with preparations. Every article of furniture that could be used for seating was outside. Logs, barrels and stools were also brought into service. Sarah and Malinna were using a small table to house the desserts.
“None of your pies?” Jesse asked when he saw only cakes displayed.
To his surprise, Malinna blushed. “They’re cooling now,” she said.
“Good. You have some competition, Sarah. Malinna’s pies are as good as your cakes.”
“Is that so?” Sarah asked. Her smile was arch; she didn’t seem displeased at the news. “Malinna, I don’t mind at all if Greenhows’ can share the accolades. Tell me, Jesse, which of Malinna’s pies should I be sure to sample?”
“I like them all,” he said, mystified by the shared look that passed between the women. “But I’m partial to peach. That was the first pie you made,” he recalled suddenly.
“Was it?” Malinna said faintly. “Sarah, I must go inside and see to the---I will be out shortly.”
“Well?” Sarah asked after Malinna went inside.
“Well what?” he asked, moving the logs so that Lucas would have a place for his fiddle playing.
“I was right, was I not?”
“You sound like Malinna. Were not right about what?” He was feeling cheerful which surprised him; he was not a social man. But since his involvement with the other ranchers in the formation of a cattlemen’s association, and his inclusion in the activities which Malinna involved herself in, he found himself less solitary of spirit. It was commonplace to have callers at the ranch and to accept invitations to the homes of others. With Malinna at his side, there was no need to be talkative or gregarious because her conversation included everyone from the chattering old man to the shyest of girls. Malinna’s maternal nurturing of Aimee-Anne had won the respect of the women in the community and they complimented her on the child’s advances as if she had given birth. Occasionally this perturbed Jesse but the fault was not Malinna’s. She could not have been more loving, protective, or proud of a child that had been borne of her own body.
“About getting a mail order bride,” she said smugly.
“I’d better go help Malinna bring out the pies,” he answered, smiling as he turned away.
Malinna was not in the kitchen. The pies were on the window sills to cool; he grinned as he spied two peach pies. “Malinna?” he called. “Malinna?”
He went up the stairs. She was probably dressing Aimee-Anne, he realized; she did like to see the little girl showing to her best advantage. The door was slightly ajar and he heard Aimee-Anne’s baby chatter, occasionally dotted by syllables which intonated words that were understood only by Jesse and Malinna.
“Malinna, I—“
Malinna turned. She was only in her petticoats, her shoulders exposed and her hair fell loose past her shoulders in rich, burnished abundance. Aimee-Anne, seated on the floor in a bright yellow calico dress that Malinna had sewn, chortled with joy as Jesse entered the room.
“I—“ He knew he intruded, this was not a sight to which he was entitled, but he stared at her as longing rushed over him. “Malinna—“
Malinna smiled at him. She was not abashed to be seen in her state of undress, she was not disturbed at his presence. “You have come most opportunely,” she told him. “I was debating what to wear. Now that you’re here, I have decided that I will wear one of my favorite summer dresses. It has a number of buttons to fasten.”
He saw the dress, a yellow calico that was, he realized, the model for what Aimee-Anne wore, hanging from the clothes rack, placed before the numerous others arrayed. She certainly had a lot of dresses.
“Will you bring it to me?”
Numbly, he obeyed. She drew the dress over her shoulders, making him impatient to see her face and hair and bare flesh again. When the dress fell into place, her back was exposed, waiting for the buttons to be fastened.
“Mr. Greenhow?” she prompted.
With trepidation, he reached forward. Her skin was soft and smooth as cream, but fiery; as his fingers brushed against her flesh with each button, he felt singed. Her shoulders were magnifi
cent, the gliding angle of her neck inviting kisses. “Malinna,” he whispered, abandoning the buttons as he pressed his lips against the back of her neck where tendrils of her auburn hair danced like sirens against her skin.
She placed her hand on his. “Mr. Greenhow,” she said in that low-pitched musical voice that he heard alone in his bed when Aimee-Anne woke in the night, mingling the words of hymns with thoughts that cast sleep away and sent him from his bed to stand at the open window, ashamed of himself for his lustful wakening. “I cannot show up in front of our guests with my dress undone.”
He was aware of her throughout the day. She was the consummate hostess, always attending to her guests’ needs, her presence an inclusive one that shared confidences, recipes and sewing tips while she heaped food upon the plates of her guests. Jesse, standing with the other men, this time with a mug of coffee in his hands, agreed with the goals of the cattlemen’s association but his eyes followed his wife as she moved with her swaying grace through the gatherings of her guests, bright and brilliant in her yellow dress, the reddish hues of her hair more noticeable now because of the sun striking light beneath her sunbonnet. But occasionally, she caught sight of him watching her and her smile was solely for him, a bride’s smile, pregnant with promise and hope.
When Lucas was sufficiently lubricated and the eating was done and the fiddling had begun, Malinna was suddenly at Jesse’s side. “Will you dance with me, Mr. Greenhow?” she asked him.
“I’m not much—“
She had taken his hand and pulled him forward into the circle of couples and before he quite realized it, he was moving to the steps as Lucas played. Malinna was as graceful in the country jigs as he imagined she was in a Virginia waltz back in her home state. Nonetheless, she appeared to be enjoying herself without any indication that this entertainment suffered in comparison. Every time their hands clasped or he took her by the waist to swing her around, his hunger for her grew. He realized that he knew very little about women, despite his previous marriage. Malinna was not Aimee. It was possible, even if he didn’t understand how, to love two women. Two very different women. But one was with God, and the other was here, and perhaps that was also part of the message that old Mrs. Kleiger had meant when she had said, “Now you know.” Death came and could not be prorogued. But life resurged and could not be held back.
The dancing and eating went on past dusk. Jesse stood by Malinna’s side as the guests took their leave, thanking them for coming and accepting their compliments while inside, he wished they would all go and leave him to his wife. Then Aimee-Anne, tired from her full day in the company of so many, began to cry and Malinna went inside to prepare her for bed. Sarah took her place and as the last guest left, he helped her up into the wagon.
“You were right,” he said.
She knew what he meant. “I’m glad. Come to lunch after church,” she said, as she always did.
He nodded. Sarah smiled as she watched her brother turn around and race up the steps of the front porch and head into the house instead of waiting, as he usually did, until her wagon had left.
“Uncle Jesse sure seems to like Aunt Malinna,” Matthias said innocently.
Sarah smiled.
In the bedroom across from his, Aimee-Anne continued to cry, so tired and cranky that she resisted falling asleep. Malinna’s soothing voice and hymn singing did not give any sign of impatience. Listening, Jesse fretted. Was he wrong in his thinking? He was restless and hungry, a man starving for a woman he’d denied himself for too long. And yet she tended to his child as if this evening were no different from all the others since she’d come to Montana as a bride, but not truly a wife.
Finally, he went to bed, the heady euphoria of the day fading. He was in his bed alone while outside his window, the full moon lent its light to the dark room. A lover’s moon, people called it.
He was asleep and the house in silent repose when his bedroom door opened. Jesse sat up in bed, both startled and groggy.
“Mr. Greenhow,” Malinna, her voice hushed so that Aimee-Anne’s sleep across the hall would not be broken, approached the bed. She carried a candlestick that cast a warm light on her face, revealing that she was not wearing her spectacles. She was clad in a white nightgown that concealed the lush curves he longed to see and touch. “Mr. Greenhow, I would like to have children and we are man and wife. I wish to be your wife in fact as well as name.”
He started to tell her that it was time to call him by his given name, but after she put the candlestick down on the windowsill and entered his bed, he had no words to spare.
“Malinna, I’m so sorry,” he breathed, lifting his head so that he could look at her face and make his apologies.
Her hand pressed against his lips. “I am your wife, Jesse Greenhow, and you are more beautiful in body than any statue.”
“What?”
“I have been to Italy and France, and none of the sculptures by the greatest artists the world has ever known matches what I see in you every day and what I have seen tonight. Michelangelo himself could not do you justice. I did not think to desire a man as I desire you. It is not seemly, I know, for a maiden to think such things but I’m a maiden no longer and I hope to be a mother.”
“Malinna—“
“I have more to say.”
“Not now,” he said firmly. “For now, just be silent.” He covered her mouth with kisses that prevented any more words.
Later, his bare leg crossed over her legs in what was both spent ardor and the staking of a claim, his hand at her hip, he returned to the topic that he had interrupted earlier.
“You’ve been to Italy and France?”
“When I was 18, after my coming out. My aunt and uncle took me.”
“Why would someone as beautiful as you, who could marry anyone, come out here to live?” It was a question that had plagued him since she’d first arrived in Montana. “Your family must have wealth, you don’t need to do without.”
“But I can if I have to,” she responded, calling to mind the words of his original advertisement.
Must know how to do without. Foolish words; while she had been acclimating to her new home, her new daughter, and her new neighbors, he was the one who had done without.
“Never mind that. Why did you come here?”
Strange for someone whose answers seemed to always be ready for utterance, she didn’t reply quickly. “The War continues in Virginia. It has been over for more than two decades, but yet it continues. I was a very young child when it ended, I don’t remember it, and yet to live in Virginia, or perhaps anywhere in the South, means to continue to fight the War. We do not like to lose, we Southerners. If I stayed, I would need to remember the loss every day of my life. Out here, the War is not being fought.”
“We’re fighting real battles here,” he said.
“I know. There is weather and the grazing rights and the absence of schools and doctors. But we will fight them and we will win them.”
“You’re very sure of that.”
Her hand reached up to circle his jaw. “Any of us may die, Jesse Greenhow. We have no command over death. But we who are living make room for those who are gone. There is room for Aimee in our lives. You and I will have children. I know you fear that. But I do not.”
“I don’t want to lose you.”
“And I don’t want to lose you,” she said, perhaps realizing that for a silent, laconic man, the admission that he didn’t want to lose her was the equivalent of a declaration of love. “The love of a man and woman brings life. Would you deny us that?”
“I’ve denied you far too much already, but—“
“Not tonight. Tonight you have given of yourself and I have taken. I want children from you, Jesse Greenhow. I am strong.”
She picked up his hand and placed it on her heart. Her heartbeat was firm and steady, but calm. “Do you doubt my strength, Mr. Greenhow?”
“I do not,” he said in a rough-edged voice.
“But if I’m
going to sire children upon you, It’s time for you to call me Jesse”.
**THE END**
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About Author
Joyce Wright grew up in the midwest and was quite fond of classic Western films. She always excelled in English classes and decided to become a writer during her sophomore year of high school. After many attempts at being a successful writer she finally found her love for writing Historical Western Romances. She especially loves writing about courageous women in her Mail Order Bride books. She is also a wife and mother to a beautiful daughter.
