In Want of a Wife

by Jo Goodman

  What he did instead was plan his apology. Fairly certain that one was going to be required, Morgan went through several drafts while Jane read. He also did not pretend to be sleeping when she finally closed her book and put it aside. She glanced at him before she extinguished the lamp. Morgan met her with a raised eyebrow and a question in his eyes.

  Jane slid down in bed and pulled up the covers. She did not turn on her side as he did. “I would like to go to church tomorrow,” she said. “I hope that will not be a problem.”

  Her request surprised Morgan into a longer silence.

  Jane said, “I understand that you might have objections. If you do not want to accompany me, then perhaps you’ll ask one of your men to do it.”

  “How long have you had this raspberry seed stuck in your teeth?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it most of the day, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Most of the day,” he repeated. “How about since Rabbit and Finn were here? Something’s been different since then.”

  “Are you saying that because I asked you to leave before I got out of the tub? One has nothing to do with the other. I am simply—”

  “Jane. No. You’re modest, and mostly we’re still strangers. You let me help you rinse your hair. It’s a place to start, like you said from the first about sharing space. I’m talking about how prickly you’ve been since the boys left. Little things. Now I’m wondering if you’ve spent all the time that they’ve been gone working yourself up to telling me that you want to go to church. I thought you had more on your mind than something like that.”

  “I have many things on my mind. That’s the one I want to talk about now. May I go to church tomorrow?”

  “You can’t wait until the rustlers are caught?”

  “I can wait, if you insist, but it’s been nearly a month of cat and mouse, and all there is to show for it are a few missing cows and poor Jem’s battered face. If I have been prickly since the boys left, it is because their visit made me long for different company than the company I usually keep. I was not expecting that. If you had asked me yesterday, I would have told you I was content. Today . . . I am not certain I can explain how I feel today.”

  Morgan wished he had not turned back the lamp. He wanted to see more than Jane’s shadowed profile. “Last night . . .” His voice trailed off because he didn’t know what he wanted to say.

  “Yes,” Jane said quietly. “Last night.”

  “You still have no regrets?”

  “None.” Jane turned her head toward him. “I feel more alone, Morgan. I can hardly ask you to understand something I don’t understand myself. I thought if I went to church, if I talked to someone . . .” She reached for his hand. “I am where I want to be.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes. I mean that.” She slipped her fingers through his and squeezed. “Morgan?”

  “So you’re not leaving me.”

  Jane sat up so suddenly the bed frame banged against the wall. She tore her hand out of his. “Why would you say that?” she said. “Why would you think it?”

  He did not answer. Couldn’t. He started to sit up, but Jane stopped him. She laid a hand on his shoulder and he did not resist. He figured he owed her that.

  “Don’t go,” she whispered. “I am not letting you leave me.” She slid down and lay on her side against him. Drawing up a leg, she placed it over his, and then she put an arm across his chest. “Where else do you have to be but here?”

  His voice, when he could push it past the constriction in his throat, was a little rough. “Nowhere, I guess.”

  “No guessing. Be certain.” Jane raised her face and bent toward him. She kissed his cheek, the corner of his mouth. “Where else do you have to be but here?”

  “Nowhere.”

  “That’s right.” She kissed him again, this time on the mouth. “Now show me why I should believe you.”

  Chapter Ten

  Several times during the service, Jane caught her thoughts drifting away in a direction that hardly seemed appropriate in a house of worship. She tried to stay grounded by sitting with her spine pressed rigidly against the pew, but sometimes she could still feel Morgan’s fingers walking up her back and her best efforts at attention came to nothing.

  Last night, he had loved her. She had no other word for it, but the thought that it was her vocabulary that was impoverished worried her. Perhaps he would have described it differently, but then what word would he have used?

  Jane spared a glance up and down the pew where she had been invited to sit. No one else seemed to be having difficulty attending to the sermon, but she could not recall any of the last three points Pastor Robbins had made. She could, however, distinctly recall every word Morgan had whispered to her in the dark, in the quiet.

  “Tell me what you want, Jane.” Even now she could feel his warm breath at her ear and hear the nuanced tone in his husky voice that made what he said as much a plea as a command. He made her think she could tell him anything, so she had. You, she had said. I want you.

  Her confession emboldened him. His mouth dipped to the curve of her neck then. The touch of him against her skin was hot and humid. She had turned her head as he swept away her hair and surrendered herself to the maddeningly slow exploration of his lips and tongue.

  He suckled at her breast and made her breath come lightly. And when his lips returned to hers, there was nothing quick about his kisses. No teasing. No nibbling. His mouth mattered. The response he drew out of her was a revelation to Jane. He taught her the fine distinction between pleasure and passion.

  “Tell me what you want, Jane.” And this time she answered differently. I want to be bold, she had said.

  So he had let her. She did not have his patience, but he did not seem to mind. She wanted to know all of him at once, and so her hands were as busy as her mouth, learning the planes and angles of his body with her fingers and lips, seeking those places that made his breath hitch and his heart stutter.

  She hesitated only once. It happened when her palm rested against the curve of his inner thigh and for several moments neither of them moved. She waited, but then so did he. It was the low, rumbling, and vaguely challenging chuckle at the back of Morgan’s throat that ended her indecision. She took his cock in her hand and knew a certain satisfaction that she had also ended his laughter.

  He was hot and heavy in her hand, and she could feel the pulsing of his blood against her palm. She held him too gently until he showed her how it could be different. He guided her to stroke him more deliberately, to hold him in her fist with pressure in her fingertips. He swelled, grew harder, and she wanted nothing so much as to take him inside her.

  “Tell me what you want, Jane.” So she did. She laid her mouth against his ear and told him in words so plain and simple she could not be misunderstood.

  He rolled her onto her back and followed her with his body. He drugged her with a kiss that made her senseless to everything but his mouth on hers and the weight of him between her thighs. She knew what to do now, and it was her hand that guided him. She knew what to expect, and still she marveled in their joining. She knew how it would end, and she savored the journey.

  Jane stood with the rest of the congregation for the final hymn, although she did not join the singing until halfway through the second verse. The bent of her thoughts had made her mouth curiously dry, and she had moments of apprehension that her knees might not adequately support her. Afraid that some trace of her wandering thoughts might be stamped on her face, she did not dare look around. Cobb Bridger was on her immediate left, sharing a hymnal with his wife. On her right was Mrs. Burnside, the druggist’s wife, and between her and her husband were their children, all of them singing so enthusiastically that Jane was certain that her voice was not missed.

  The congregation began to file out after the benediction. Jane stayed where she was. The Burnsides sidled out to the right of the long pew, but Cobb and Tru Bridger did not move. Neither did Jim and Je
nny Phillips on the other side of them. Jane sensed that she was about to be engaged in conversation. She had left it to too late to follow the Burnsides.

  Jane decided to take the initiative and make the first overture her own. Smiling, she addressed Marshal Bridger. “Thank you for the pie and cookies.”

  “So you did get the cookies. With Rabbit and Finn, one never knows.”

  “Yes. And your message also.” For a moment Jane wondered if she had it all wrong, but then, because she was looking for it, she glimpsed the surprise that came and went so quickly in the marshal’s eyes. Encouraged, she said, “My husband was appreciative, even grateful, but I imagine the boys told you that.”

  “Not in those words.”

  Jane realized she had spoken for Morgan in a manner he would not have spoken for himself, and Rabbit and Finn would surely have complicated anything Morgan might have said. Cobb Bridger was suspicious. She said, “No, probably not, but the fault would lie with Mr. Longstreet. He expects people to do what they’re supposed to do, doesn’t he?”

  “Maybe,” said Cobb.

  His cryptic reply left Jane without a response. That was when he took over the reins of the conversation that she had been trying to hold on to. Jane felt her polite smile waver.

  “Where is he?”

  “At the Pennyroyal.” She thought Cobb looked relieved, but she couldn’t be certain or understand why he would be. She added, “He’s visiting Mrs. Sterling.”

  Tru Bridger leaned around her husband so she could address Jane. “That means he’s sampling one of everything she’s preparing for Sunday dinner. He will not be hungry for your cooking.”

  “I hope not. It is my intention to dine at the Pennyroyal also.”

  “Very wise.” Tru tucked a tendril of spun gold hair behind an ear and indicated the couple beside her. “You remember Jim and Jenny Phillips, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do. From the reception.” She held Jenny’s frankly inquisitive gaze. “I understand it was your pie and cookies that I had the pleasure of receiving yesterday.”

  “It sounds as if you did.” She had a disapproving look for Cobb. “You might have told me you intended to send them out to Morning Star, especially that you were sending them out with those rascals. I would have tied them up real pretty.”

  “The baked goods?” Cobb asked dryly. “Or the boys?”

  Jenny snorted while her husband and Tru laughed. Even Jane found herself smiling right up until the moment she looked around and saw that the church had all but emptied.

  “Excuse me,” she said. It was difficult to keep the sense of urgency she felt out of her voice, but she believed she was successful. “Was Dr. Kent here this morning? I wanted most particularly to meet him.”

  “Not this morning,” said Jenny. “He was at the Johnsons’ house until the wee hours. I saw him walking home as I was getting up.” She launched into an explanation of how Buster Johnson had a congestion in his lungs that was worrying his mother something terrible. Believing in the miracle of Dr. Wanamaker’s liniment and rub, Abigail used two bottles of it on Buster’s chest before she sent for Dr. Kent. Jenny shook her head in the sorrowful manner of one who is contemplating the foolishness of another.

  Jane was grateful for Jenny’s diversion. “I’d like to speak to Dr. Kent about Jem Davis’s injuries before I meet Morgan. Would someone point out his home to me?” They did better than that, of course. They escorted her to the doctor’s door and made certain he received her before they left.

  • • •

  Morgan stood as soon as Jane entered the dining room. He waited while Walt helped her with her coat, scarf, and gloves, and held out a chair for her when she approached. She returned his welcoming smile, but he could tell it was forced. He remembered what she’d said last night and tried not to be overtaken by anxiety.

  “I didn’t eat,” he said. “I was waiting for you.”

  Jane nodded. “Mrs. Bridger said you would sample one of everything in Mrs. Sterling’s kitchen.”

  “Not quite.”

  “How is she?”

  “Feisty.” He showed her the knuckles of his right hand. “Quick as ever with a spoon.” When Jane’s smile was a mere shadow of the one he expected, Morgan abandoned any hope of gently drawing her out. “What’s wrong?”

  “Not now,” she said quietly. “It can wait until we’re home. It should wait.”

  Morgan thought he should be grateful that she had not lied to him, but her answer was not enough. “People began arriving here from church a while ago. Ted Rush said he saw you talking to the marshal after services were over.”

  “Yes. I was also speaking to his wife and Mr. and Mrs. Phillips. I took the opportunity to thank Marshal Bridger for his gift and compliment Mrs. Phillips’s baking.”

  “All this time?”

  “No. Afterward, I went to visit Dr. Kent. I am surprised no one told you that.” Her tone sharpened infinitesimally. “Now, can you let it rest?”

  Morgan thought it was just as well that Renee Harrison came rushing out of the kitchen then. She made straight for their table, thanked him for getting Jem out of jail after he was set upon by the no-account strangers, and poured coffee for him and tea for Jane. She did not linger but returned to the kitchen to get their food.

  “She did not ask how he was doing,” Jane said when Renee was gone.

  “I suspect she already knows. I told Mrs. Sterling. Word like that gets around.”

  “Buster Johnson has chest congestion. And this will surprise you: Dr. Wanamaker’s Miracle Liniment and Medicinal Rub was inefficacious.”

  For Morgan it was his first moment of real enjoyment since leaving Jane at the church. “I’ll be darned,” he said, and the fact that he tempered his language made her smile genuine at last.

  Neither of them did justice to their meal, but Morgan made a larger dent in his chicken and dumplings than Jane, who, by some sleight of hand, was able to give the illusion of eating while leaving her food almost untouched. When he suggested that they leave, her agreement was immediate.

  They spoke very little on the drive back to Morning Star. Morgan did not trust himself not to begin an interrogation, so it was easier not to initiate conversation. It seemed to him that Jane felt similarly. Restraint had made her tense. She touched her temple frequently with her fingertips and massaged the area. Sometimes she closed her eyes. Morgan wondered if she had gone to see Dr. Kent about her headaches. It had not occurred to him until now that she might have been hiding them from him. He wondered what stupid thing he had said that might make her think he wouldn’t want to know.

  When they arrived at the ranch, Morgan told Jessop to take care of the buckboard and followed Jane into the house. She went right past Jem at the kitchen table without speaking. So did Morgan, but he added a gesture that communicated to Jem that he should leave and not return until he was invited.

  Jane was already in the washroom preparing one of her powders when Morgan got there. He hovered in the doorway just long enough to see that she took all of it, and then he stepped aside and waited for her to return to the bedroom.

  He thought she might lie down, but she went to the rocking chair instead. She substituted her coat, gloves, and scarf for the quilt at the foot of the bed. The last thing she did before she sat was to remove her hat and place it on top of her scarf. Bundled in the quilt, Jane drew her legs under her.

  “I want to show you something,” she said. “Will you bring my trunk here? It is in the loft, remember?”

  Morgan did. Without asking for an explanation, Morgan brought it down and carried it into the bedroom. He started to bring it to her, but she stopped him.

  “Put it on the bed,” she said. “I want you to open it. I already know what’s in there.”

  He knew from hefting it that it was no heavier than it had been when he put it in the loft. It did not seem that Jane had added any material weight to it. He had assumed it was empty when she asked him to put it up. It didn’t matte
r whether it was or not; he would not have looked inside without her permission. Now she was giving that to him, and he was not sure he wanted to take her up on it.

  Morgan lifted the latch and raised the lid. The aromatic fragrance of cedar was strong at first, making him rear back. After a moment, he peered inside. “There’s nothing in here.” Indeed, he could see the bottom of the trunk. It was lined with cedar blocks that were connected in such a way as to resemble the wood pattern of a parquet floor. Morgan looked over at Jane and asked, “You must have left what you want me to see somewhere else.”

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t. Press down on the right side of the block in the bottom left corner. That will lift the left side and you will be able to remove it.”

  Curious, Morgan followed her instructions. The block came out with relative ease. As soon as Jane told him to press down first, not lift, he knew the blocks were a cover for some space beneath them. “How many do I need to take out?”

  “Only a third of them can be removed. I think you will see what I put there after you take out—” She stopped because Morgan had gone into the trunk with both hands and was already bringing out the envelope she had secreted away before she left New York. “Go on. Open it.”

  Morgan slid his index finger under the flap and lifted it. He knew before he looked what he would find. “There’s money here.”

  She nodded. “One hundred twenty-seven dollars. I came with one hundred thirty-one.”

  “You told me you had money. I had no idea it was this much.”

  “It should have been more. I had thought I would leave New York with two hundred fifty dollars. I had some money saved from things I made and sold, or things I just sold. Most of it is accounted for there.”

  “What happened to the rest?”

  “It was used to pay the abortionist.”

  Morgan said nothing. He closed the lid on the trunk and set it on the floor. He was still holding the envelope in one hand when he sat on the edge of the bed and angled himself so he could see Jane. Beyond the window at her back, the sky was turning gray. Morgan had seen signs that morning that made him think snow was coming soon. If it did, it would be the first since Jane’s arrival, and he found that he was not minding the prospect of it all that much. Now, watching the cold gray light leach the color from Jane’s face, he was not as certain.