“Yes, it’s out back. Pa drags it in on bath day.”
“Bath day?”
“Yes ma’am, Sunday evenings is bath day.”
“What about church?”
“We don’t go to church since Aunt Mabel died…Well, Pa never went with us as far as I can remember. Aunt Mabel said he used to go with Ma all the time.”
“So you don’t go anymore at all?”
“No ma’am.”
“I think we’ll have to change that, which means we’ll have to change bath day as well. How does Saturday night work for you?”
“Isn’t today Saturday?”
“Yes Ma’am,” Hannah said with a grin.
Lily narrowed her eyes and said, “Did you just trick me?” Hannah laughed.
***
Luke stayed out on the ranch longer than usual that evening. It wasn’t that he didn’t have work to do, but he usually tried his best to get back in time to see Lily before she fell asleep. Tonight though, he was hoping when he came back to the house Hannah would already be in bed and he wouldn’t have to struggle with making conversation with her. He had no idea what to say to her and each time he thought about marrying a woman that he didn’t even know how to have a conversation with, his stomach clenched and he began to sweat. He couldn’t believe that he’d actually gone through with placing that ad. It had been an act of temporary insanity…a way to appease his daughter. Now that he had this woman here, he was questioning everything about it. She was pretty enough and she seemed intelligent…but she wasn’t Cassie and even after six years he couldn’t help but feel like somehow he was being unfaithful to her.
Luke put his horse away and went around to the front of the house. He cleaned off his boots and took off his hat and stepped inside. The house was really quiet…and really clean. Every surface looked as if it had been scrubbed and polished and the clutter had somehow disappeared. He looked down at the floor and saw that it had been swept and scrubbed and he was now standing on it with his dirty boots. He bent down to take them off and heard Hannah’s voice saying,
“Would you like me to take them outside and wipe them off?”
Luke looked up and time froze. Hannah was wearing a dressing gown that covered her from neck to ankles, but her red hair was in a braid now without that silly hat covering it. The braid hung down past her waist. It was thick and shiny and gorgeous and his calloused palms itched to touch it. The fiery color of it emphasized the creaminess of her skin and without that hat and veil her eyes looked even bigger and brighter. He realized she was giving him an odd look. Had she been waiting a long time for him to answer?
“Um… no, I’ll just get them dusty again. I’ll sit them out on the porch so they don’t ruin your clean floor. It looks really good in here. It smells good too.” She looks really good and smells really good…
Hannah smiled and that put him over the top. Luke felt stirrings in places that he hadn’t felt in a very long time. He continued to stare at her until she lifted one of her eyebrows and he realized once again that a long time had passed. Finally he bent down and picked up his boots. He carried them outside and came back in to find her heating his dinner on the stove. He went over to the sink and pumped water to wash his hands. Then he pumped a glass full and gulped it down. His mouth was so dry.
“Here you go,” she said, sitting the plate down in front of him. Luke picked up his fork and started to take a bite when Hannah sat down next to him. She smiled again. What was she trying to do to him? He took a bite of the cornbread and chewed it for several seconds before it dawned on him that it wasn’t hard…and it was tasty.
“Did you make the cornbread?”
“I may have helped Lily just a little bit.”
“It’s the best cornbread I’ve ever eaten…and it doesn’t crack my teeth.” Hannah laughed. Luke loved the sound of it. “How was Lily for you?”
“She’s such a delight. I gave her a bath and we braided her hair and I read her a story…”
“That’s a lot. How long was I gone?”
She laughed again. Luke wished that he was funnier. He didn’t want her to stop. “That is only scratching the surface of what we did. You were actually gone for a long time. Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t you worry, leaving Lily alone so much?”
He shrugged. “I always let her know what part of the field I’ll be in…and now it’s a moot point anyways because you’re here with her.”
“Hmm, I suppose. What time do we leave for church in the morning?”
Luke had just taken a bite of his stew. He choked on it. Hannah got up and calmly got him a glass of water. After he finished coughing she sat back down and stared at him with those pretty hazel eyes and waited for an answer. “Lily and I don’t usually go to church…”
“I would like for that to change.”
“You and Lily would be welcome to go…”
“First of all, I have no idea how to drive a wagon team. Second of all, while we’re here on the ranch you’re welcome to avoid me and even ignore me if you like, but if you expect me to be your wife, then I expect to be treated as such in public.”
Luke was looking at this woman who he’d known for less than twenty-four hours, incredulous that she was already trying to change the way he did things. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it.
“Then I’ll drive you to town and you and Lily can attend services while I pick-up our supplies. I won’t be told that I have to attend church.”
“That’ll be fine. Can I ask why you’re so opposed to church?”
“I’m not opposed to church per se…”
“Lily told me that you used to attend regularly until you lost your wife.”
Luke put down his fork and pushed back from the table. “I’ll be in from the field in time to take you and Lily. I won’t discuss my wife or my reasons for not going to church. I hope you sleep well.” He left Hannah sitting there looking after him and stormed into his room. He closed the door and picked up Cassie’s picture off of his chest of drawers. “Am I doing the right thing here Cassie? Is having her here wrong? I’m so confused Cass. I wasn’t supposed to be attracted to her…she was just for Lily…I wish you were here. I wish you could tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
True to his word, the next morning Luke came in out of the field in time to pick up Hannah and Lily for church. He was shocked when he saw his daughter. She was in a dress for one thing. He hadn’t seen her in a dress since her aunt Mabel passed away. He wasn’t sure, but he suspected that Hannah must have done something to it to make it still fit. Lily’s hair was in two neat braids on either side of her pretty face and for the first time in a long time, she looked like a girl.
“Well look at you Lily bug! My girl is going to be the prettiest one in church.”
“Thank you, Pa. Wait until you see Hannah.” As if on cue, Hannah stepped out of her room. She was wearing a light green dress with a dark green bustle and a matching hat. She had her hair braided to the side again and she was wearing something shiny on her lips that made Luke think about kissing them. “Isn’t she pretty, Pa? Won’t she be the prettiest lady there?” Luke’s mouth was dry as a bone. She was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen and he was speechless. “Pa?”
“Yeah Lily bug…” he cleared his throat, “She looks real pretty.”
Hannah’s face colored. “Thank you,” she said. “We made breakfast, would you like to eat before we go?” Luke’s stomach was on fire. There was no way that he would be able to eat.
“Nah, I’ll eat later. Let’s get you ladies to church.”
On the ride to town Lily talked non-stop. Luke and Hannah sat silently side by side without saying a word. Luke was caught up in his own thoughts about what he was going to do. He wondered what Hannah was thinking. When they got to town, Luke dropped them at the church and told them he would be back in an hour. He said hello to a few of his neighbors that he hadn’t seen in a while. When Aunt Mabel was
alive, he used to drop off her and Lily every week. Since she passed, even that small bit of socialization had gone by the wayside.
Luke watched them go inside, hand in hand and for the first time in a long time, he had the urge to go inside with them. He suddenly felt like he wanted to be a part of something. He wanted to feel alive again. He hesitated, thinking it over long enough for the doubts to creep back in. This was the church he married Cassie in. The people inside were worshipping the very God that took her away. In his mind, going inside without her would be evidence of him doing the same thing. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. He clicked his tongue at the horses and led them down the street towards the feed lot.
***
Time never stands still, and while Luke and Hannah both struggled to figure out what they were doing with their lives and what they wanted to do…weeks passed, and they were quickly turning into months. Hannah adjusted to her life with Lily, but as the time passed the silences between her and Luke got longer and more awkward. Sometimes when she and Lily were laughing or playing she would catch him looking at her like he wanted to join in. As soon as he realized she was looking at him, he would turn away. It was a game of push/pull and Hannah wasn’t sure how much more of it she could take.
He wasn’t mean to her, ever. As a matter of fact, exactly the opposite was true. He was excruciatingly polite. He thanked her for everything she did for him and noticed and complimented everything she did in the house or the garden. He took her and Lily to church every week. He took her shopping for supplies or went to town with a list of things she needed. All the while when he was with his daughter he was that warm, funny man she’d caught just a glimpse of. But that was it. He didn’t talk to her about anything of any substance. He’d closed himself off to her that first night she came here…the night she mentioned his wife. Yet somehow along the way, Hannah had managed to fall in love with him.
“Hannah, are we going for our walk today?” Lily brought her out of her thoughts. Hannah looked at the girl and smiled. She’d fallen as hard for this little miniature version of Luke as she had for him. Sometimes at night when she lay in her lumpy little bed, she thought about packing her things and going home, most of the time the only thing stopping her was Lily. She had no idea how to leave her.
“Of course we’re going for our walk. I’ve been waiting for you.” Lily giggled.
“Let’s go then,” she told her. “Then we can do our lessons before I muck out those stalls that Pa asked me to get to today.”
Hannah took the girls’ hand and followed her out the door. “You like those lessons, don’t you?”
“I love them!” Lily told her with enthusiasm. Hannah had begun schooling her a few hours each day. They got up early to tend to their chores and then they had their walk and they studied the trees and bushes and any plants or animals they saw. If Lily didn’t know the proper term for something, they would take a “sample” and have it “analyzed” when Luke came in from the fields at night. Luke knew every plant, flower and tree within a hundred miles it seemed. After their walk, they did their lessons. In the evening if Lily was still awake when her Pa came in, she would talk incessantly, telling him everything she learned how to do that day, and sometimes showing him her work in the workbook that Hannah bought for her. Those were the times when Luke would smile his most genuine smile, and Hannah would melt. She had to get out of here before the heartbreak that was inevitable ended up tearing her apart.
***
That night after Lily was tucked safely and warmly into bed, Hannah was feeling restless. She had come to a decision…she was moving back home. Her heart was breaking for Lily and she had no idea how to tell her. She did know that she couldn’t marry a man who was never going to love her. She couldn’t live with a man who didn’t even want to get to know her. Luke had come in from the ranch, eaten his dinner and gone straight to his room. She could see the flicker of the light underneath his door and she considered going in to talk to him…but she wasn’t ready for that either. Instead, she slipped her sweater over her nightdress and walked outside.
She stood on the porch for a minute admiring the beautiful night sky. The moonlight poured down on her and the stars twinkled by the hundreds. She’d come to love it here as much as she’d come to love Luke and Lily…She started walking, taking the path along the fence line and breathing in the warm July air. There was a soft breeze blowing that would disappear in the morning when the sun came up. By noon they would be shrouded in a dry, blistering heat. Right now she could smell the scent of the hay and the cattle…she felt like she was breathing in all of Luke’s hard work.
She tried to sort out in her head why she should love a man who didn’t love her back. She tried to tell herself that she was merely infatuated with his rugged good looks. But the one person she couldn’t lie to was herself, and she knew it was so much more than that. It was the way he was willing to get up at dawn and work until dark for his dream. He never asked for a hand-out from anyone, and when he looked out across his ranch there was pride in his dark blue eyes.
It was also the way he loved his little girl. At first she’d thought he neglected Lily…leaving her alone for such long stretches of time. But she came to realize that his lifestyle was one of necessity and as much as he left Lily alone…he made it up to her in the small amounts of time they had together. She loved to watch them together laughing or singing silly songs or reading a book. He taught his daughter how to ride a horse and use a gun. He taught her how to grow a garden with her own two hands. He made sure that she had the tools she would need if anything ever happened to him and she was left truly alone.
And, as strange as it might sound, Hannah loved him for the way he loved his wife. That first night when he warned her he wouldn’t talk about Cassandra that love had been written in his eyes and on his face. It was the kind of love that didn’t need any words. It was the kind of love that would truly last forever. He loved her as much now as he had when she was alive and as much as that prevented Hannah from ever having him…it made her want him that much more. It was the kind of love that most women only dream about and although it hurt that she wasn’t the one he wanted to give it to, she felt blessed just to have witnessed it.
“Hannah?” She was standing next to the holding pens and she jumped when she heard him say her name. She turned towards him and her heart began to race out of control. He was in his thermal pants and his boots. He hadn’t even bothered to put his shirt back on. His chiseled chest and arms shone in the moonlight and Hannah’s immediate desire was to trace the outlines of them with her fingers.
“Luke, what are you doing out here half dressed? You’re going to catch a cold.”
He smiled. She melted. “It’s still hot out here, Hannah. The question is why are you out here walking around in the dark? What if you stepped in a hole and twisted your ankle, or stepped on a rattlesnake?” Hannah felt her body go tense.
“There are rattlesnakes?”
Trying to keep a straight face now he said, “There could be. Why aren’t you in bed, Hannah?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I have a lot on my mind.”
She saw his eyebrow twitch. He wanted to know what it was, but he was afraid to ask. After several beats of silence he said, “Are you unhappy here?”
She let her eyes meet his and she said, “I love it here. I love this ranch and everything about it. I love Lily. She’s the cutest, sweetest, smartest little girl in the world…but I can’t stay here, Luke. I have to go home.”
He looked like someone had punched him in the stomach. He actually winced. “Why?”
“Because as much as I thought I could do this and not care if you ever fell in love with me…I was wrong. I’m kidding myself Luke…and so are you. Neither of us will ever be happy this way.”
Hannah wasn’t sure what she expected him to say, but what came out of his mouth next was not it, “Finding out that I could want any woman as much as I wanted Cassie was a shock. I didn’t know what to
do with those feelings.”
“You want me?” she asked, confused. “You barely look at me…we hardly speak…”
“It’s easier on me that way. Every time I look at you, I want to touch you. I want to rip that braid out of your hair and run my fingers through it…I want to kiss you.”
Hannah had a tear running down her face. “Then what is the problem?”
“I feel guilty. I feel like I’m cheating on her. I feel like I’m desecrating her memory. I get so mixed up in my head with all of these feelings that I don’t know what to do with them sometimes. I don’t know how to explain it. It never comes out in words the way I feel it in my heart and think it in my head.” His breaths were ragged now, coming in big gulps all of a sudden. He took a shaky breath in and said, “I can’t tell you what it feels like to lose someone that you thought you were going to grow old with. We were supposed to raise our family together…and she was just gone like that.” He snapped his fingers. I wasn’t expecting to be a widow in my twenties with a toddler to raise alone. I was expecting her to be here with me. The fact that she’s not makes me angry and the fact that I want you to step in where she left off makes me feel all kinds of guilt.”
[2016] My True Love Page 10
