“Chad Walker, how good it is to see you,” a woman kindly greeted from behind him.
He jerked, startled. He didn’t need to see Georgia’s mother to know who spoke to him. He forced himself to smile and turned to her. “Hello, Mrs. Montgomery.”
“Oh, you can still call me ‘Mother.’ Just because Georgia passed on, it doesn’t mean we aren’t still family.”
He didn’t really feel like doing that but decided it was the least he could do for the one person who made his life bearable while he was married to Georgia. “Alright, Mother.”
“It is such a lovely day. Georgia would have liked it.”
“Yes, she would have.”
“I remember when she was six and she caught a yellow butterfly. She showed it to me and called it Flutters because of the way his wings went up and down.”
Then she took him to her room and pulled those wings off to see what would happen to him. He recalled Georgia’s version of that story. She thought it was a riot to watch the creature scramble around without wings.
When Wilma returned, he said, “I change my mind about the ring. I think the rose with the diamond in it will be better.”
He couldn’t get the ring now. It would remind him of this discussion every time he looked at it.
Wilma simply nodded and exchanged the rings.
“Who is the ring for?” Mrs. Montgomery asked.
He really didn’t want to answer that question. He knew she would have a difficult time with the thought of him marrying anyone but Lacy. “It’s just a ring for a friend.” He paid for the items she placed in a bag and turned to leave.
Since Mrs. Montgomery followed him, he held the door open for her.
“I heard that you were in town last week,” the woman said as she walked through the doorway. “I met Billy Ingram and showed him Georgia’s old bedroom. He seemed quite captivated by her. I think we can all understand why. She had a certain charm about her that inspired the best in others.”
Or worst, depending on how one looked at it. He followed her outside after nodding his good-bye to Wilma.
She stopped and put her hand on his arm. “Would you like to see Georgia’s old room again?”
No, he didn’t. The room brought back too many memories of things he wanted to forget. “I’m afraid it would be rude for me to stay from the farm for too long since there are guests out there waiting for my return.” Well, they weren’t exactly waiting for him. They would have a good time whether he was there or not.
She sighed. “I understand.”
The sad expression on her face made him stop from running over to Reliable. If the least I can do is see the room again so she can be happy, then I owe her that much. “I suppose they will survive without me for a little longer.”
A big smile formed on her lips and her eyes lit up like the noonday sun. “You have always been a good man, Chad. If my little girl had to be with anyone, you would have been my first choice. I’m glad she found you.”
“Yes, she was one of a kind.” That was the nicest possible way he could put it. He walked with her towards her home.
“Of course, I shouldn’t exclude Lacy from that list of nice young women. She has turned into a beautiful young woman too. I would not be opposed to keeping you as a son-in-law, should you find her to your liking.”
He inwardly cringed.
“How are you holding up without Georgia? I haven’t seen you for ten months.”
“I am much better.”
“Good. I worry about you on the farm all by yourself. Georgia wouldn’t have wanted you to hold onto the pain of losing her. She was full of warmth and life. She would want you to move on. Perhaps Lacy could help ease your heartache.”
“I hear that Tim and Sam have introduced her to Billy.” Not that he wanted to encourage that match, but he desperately wanted to steer the older woman’s thoughts from any matchmaking.
“I met him. He’s a nice man, of course. I was quite fond of him, but I like you better.”
They reached the house and she led him inside. He felt his dread increase as he entered the house. His feet numbly followed her past the many pictures of Georgia. She was beautiful to look at but what good was that beauty if he couldn’t touch it? I should have known when I couldn’t even touch her hand or kiss her on the cheek while we were courting that she was cold.
By the time they reached the bedroom, he felt sick to his stomach. It wasn’t Georgia who haunted his thoughts this time. It was Lacy. He recalled that night with disturbing clarity:
He and Georgia had gone to one of the many potlucks the town enjoyed, and, as usual, he sat by himself while everyone around him played games, raced horses, danced, talked and had a good time. He silently drank his punch. He didn’t dare touch the alcohol since he had been sober for two years. It hadn’t been easy to recover from the addiction to the stuff. Even as he watched the men around him drinking it, he had to fight the urge to take one sip. But he knew that one sip would lead to another and another until he was drunk. However, Lacy had been putting shots of whiskey into his drink when he wasn’t paying attention.
He thought the punch tasted funny and even asked Mrs. Conner if she put anything alcoholic in it, but she assured him that she hadn’t. “It’s a new recipe, so it tastes a little different.”
He decided that had to be it, so he kept drinking the stuff. When he was bored with nothing else to do, he absentmindedly accepted more glasses of punch from Lacy. Lacy had always been unusually interested in him, but he shrugged it off as a silly schoolgirl crush. He figured she was harmless, so he would talk to her on occasion. That night was one of those times.
“Isn’t it a nice evening?” she asked him as she sat in the seat next to him.
He nodded. “It is. Soon it will be harvest time.” He liked that time of year the best since he was so busy in the fields, he didn’t have time to go to social events where he would be ignored by almost everyone. He was aware that the people around him seemed strange. They almost looked as if they doubled. He rubbed his eyes, hoping his focus would return.
He couldn’t remember much of his conversation with Lacy. Things started getting fuzzy for him.
He thought at one point she asked him, “Wouldn’t it be funny if I had your baby?”
“What?” He blinked. His ears started ringing.
She said something else but he didn’t remember what it was. Then she left, and he kept drinking.
He didn’t know how much later it was when Lacy told him that Georgia wanted to meet him in her old bedroom. He assumed that Georgia wanted to look at her old things. She did that once in awhile. She enjoyed showing him pictures of herself when she was younger. Then she would write one of her saintly journal entries for her mother to read. He stood up and felt dizzy. He stayed still for a moment. He looked around the fairgrounds. No one seemed to notice him, and since they were all blurry anyway, he stumbled away from the table and clumsily made his way to the empty house. He had been there enough that he felt comfortable walking in. He didn’t remember walking to the bedroom but he did remember falling onto Georgia’s old bed. Her mother faithfully sprayed perfume in the room every day so it smelled like Georgia at all times.
He dozed off. The next thing he knew someone was kissing him. “Georgia?” he asked as he tried to shake off his sleepiness.
“Yes, it’s me,” she whispered as she climbed on top of him.
“But I thought you didn’t like sex.” He was shocked that she was actually taking the initiative.
“There’s something in this room that inspires me.”
He didn’t bother to question his good fortune. If she was offering it, he wasn’t going to turn her down. Who knew when he’d get another chance? He eagerly responded to her kisses. He couldn’t remember her ever being an active participant in their sexual encounters, nor could he recall her allowing him to actually touch her while she was naked. He didn’t remember taking off his shirt or rolling on top of her but the sudden glare
of light in his eyes stopped him from going further.
Fortunately, he still had his pants on or he wouldn’t have remembered the fact that Sam, Tim, and Jeff had stopped him before he had sex with Lacy. He hadn’t realized Lacy was pretending to be Georgia in order to get him to have sex with her. She claimed that he was trying to take advantage of her, and they believed her despite his protests that he thought he was with Georgia. He didn’t recall much of their beating him up. He woke up the next morning in a lot of pain, lying in one of his fields, and nursing an intense hangover. When he finally walked home, Georgia was fuming. He did recall how she yelled at him because it made the ache in his head feel like a sharp knife stabbing him.
“How could you do this to me?” She demanded as he anxiously searched the cabinets for the pain medicine. “You have humiliated me!”
He winced. “I thought it was you. Lacy said you wanted to meet me in your old bedroom so I went there. When I got there, it was dark and she was whispering. I asked her if it was you and she said it was. I had no idea it was her.”
“Why would I want to have sex with you?”
That was the million dollar question and had he been sober, he would have been smart enough to ask it. He opened the last cabinet and banged it when he didn’t find the pills. He groaned and put his hands to his head.
“Are you looking for these?” She held up the opened bottle of pills he had been looking for.
He readily reached out to take them but she quickly turned the bottle upside down and let the pills fall into the sink. She laughed as he tried to dig them out of the drain. He banged his fist on the counter and glared at her. “I told you that I thought it was you!” He ignored the intense pounding in his head. “I was drunk. I wasn’t thinking straight! I’m not interested in having an affair. You know it goes against everything I believe in.”
“You’re telling me that Lacy got you drunk and seduced you?”
“Yes. She kept handing me punch yesterday and I thought it tasted funny but it never occurred to me that there was alcohol in it. I’m telling you the truth.”
She frowned. “Well, just so something like this doesn’t happen again, I will no longer allow you to have sex with me.”
“You think you’re punishing me? We don’t do it more than three times a year. Four if I’m good enough to earn it.”
“We will no longer have sex so that this little misunderstanding doesn’t happen again. This way you won’t believe another woman when she claims to be me. I can’t have people thinking that you would rather be with someone else. It makes me look bad.”
“That’s actually fine with me.” He was tired of begging for it anyway.
“And when we are in town together, you will stay by my side the entire time so I can keep an eye on you and any other woman who leads you astray.”
“Alright.” He was actually relieved since he didn’t wish to go through the pain the three men had inflicted on him the night before, nor did he wish to relive his hangover.
“You will play the devoted husband when we’re out. I need to make it clear to people that you are sorry you tried to have sex with Lacy.”
“But I didn’t.”
“That doesn’t matter. People are only going to believe what my brothers and Jeff saw. They won’t believe what a drunk man said. You’ll have to do your part to make it up to me. We must be the happily married couple.”
Do your part. Keep up the act. Pretend. Those were words she often told him ever since they got married. “I will,” he finally replied. He knew it was pointless to ask her to tell everyone what really happened. Though she believed him, she wouldn’t support him.
Now as he mindlessly listened to Georgia’s mother ramble on about all the things she missed about her firstborn child, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath to steady his thoughts so he could push the memories safely back where they belonged, in his past.
“This is my favorite journal entry she wrote,” Mrs. Montgomery continued, unaware of his lack of attention. “It was written two years before her death.”
He refused to look at the bed. Instead he stared at the wall.
She read the entry to him. “Dear Diary, I greatly rejoice when something good happens to those I love. So many good things are happening. First, Chad had a productive year with his crops. He’s done an excellent job, and I’m proud of him.”
Chad sighed. The truth was she criticized him for not planting more crops since she wanted more money for the furniture set she wanted.
“Second, my mother and father celebrated their thirty-seventh anniversary. They are as much in love as they were on the day they were married. Their love has been an inspiration to me and Chad.”
Whether or not her parents had a good marriage, Chad didn’t know, but he did know that it didn’t inspire her at all. She had wanted to portray her marriage as a great success, and early on Chad tried to make it that way. He tried to please her and be her friend, but she wasn’t happy with anything he did. He had also hoped if he looked for ways to satisfy her sexually, then she would be interested in sex, but she didn’t even want him touching or kissing her, so that was pointless as well.
“Third, Sam and Tim have been coming out to help Chad with the farm work. This has enabled Chad to expand from solely working with crops to including animals. Sam and Tim also recommended cutting the sheep’s wool and setting up an account with the butcher when it’s time to take some of the cattle and make steaks out of them. Sam and Tim have been such a blessing to us.”
She often snickered that Sam and Tim had poor business sense and took credit for the ideas herself. She said that she was generous to let them take the credit. The truth was, Sam, Tim and Chad came up with the ideas while she listened.
“Fourth, Lacy has become a beautiful woman. She has nicely recovered from her ordeal with Chad, who has more than made up for his drunken mistake. Lacy is attracting the attention of a couple of notable bachelors in town. I hope she will find someone who will love her the way Chad loves me. She should be as fortunate as I have been.”
Georgia saw every man who took an interest in Lacy as a threat and was greatly relieved when those courtships didn’t last. Despite Sam, Tim, and Jeff’s account of what happened the night Lacy got Chad drunk, some men in town believed Chad’s version of events and stayed away from Lacy for that reason. Georgia used that to her advantage. “I can’t have Lacy showing me up by giving my parents a grandchild. That just won’t do at all,” Georgia often told Chad. Surprisingly, she didn’t see her brothers having children as a threat to her since she was in direct competition with Lacy.
Chad wished that Georgia was the person she portrayed herself to be in her journal. It would have been a good marriage if her fantasy world overlapped into reality.
Her mother smiled and set down the diary. She looked over at him.
He turned his attention to her.
“I’m sorry I kept you for so long,” she said. “I fear that I get carried away when I talk about her. It’s all I have left of her.”
He sighed. He couldn’t blame her. Wouldn’t he want to believe the best about his child if he had one? “I don’t mind, Mother.”
He was relieved when she finally let him leave. After he picked up more newspapers, he went to Reliable. Several people said they were happy to see him venturing into town again and expressed their sorrow of not seeing him with Georgia.
“We know you loved her,” one woman commented. “She adored you too. At least, you have good memories.”
“It’s good to see you,” a man said. “Georgia would have wanted you to live your life again.”
“We haven’t forgotten Georgia,” two women told him. “The church choir isn’t the same without her. But I’m sure she’s singing wonderful hymns to God now.”
It was those kinds of statements that prompted him to stay out of town ten months ago. He didn’t want to be reminded of her. He was relieved to get to his horse and get out of town.
; Chapter Fifteen
Kate was so mad at Chad that she had to stop herself from screaming at him as he left the farm. She had no idea where he was going and was upset that he thought so little of her that he didn’t care that five men were trying to win her heart. She really thought he was falling in love with her. How could she have been so wrong? She had never misjudged a man’s heart so poorly before. Maybe I just wanted to believe he cared for me because I care for him. What is wrong with me? Am I not desirable enough? She considered her options. She could pretend to go back to Virginia and go back to being Billy full time, but that option didn’t appeal to her at all. She could turn her attention to other men and hope she found someone else who caught her attention, but she knew no one could replace Chad. So that left her with the only thing she could realistically try. She would have to make Chad jealous. Maybe if he saw her with other men, he would discover that she was worth pursuing after all. It was worth a shot. As much as she hated to encourage their attention, she hated the thought of losing Chad because she wouldn’t take the risk even more. But feigning interest in the men was pointless unless he was around, so she made up an excuse about having to rest from menstrual cramps so she could be assured they wouldn’t come looking for her and changed into her Billy disguise. When Chad showed up, if he showed up before the men left, she would change back into her normal Kate appearance.
As Billy, she definitely didn’t want to encourage the women, especially Lacy. Therefore, she resumed her ploy to be disgusting. If it worked, she wouldn’t need to go with her plan to dress up as the crazy redhead who was looking for Billy, but that plan was to be used as a last resort. She hoped that she could dissuade the raven haired young woman from pursuing “Billy” before she had to resort to that particular plan.
“Sam, Tim, Jeff, Todd and newbie Chris,” she called out to the men. “What did you think of Kate? I told you she wasn’t feeling well this morning but once she rests up, she’ll be good to go for entertaining.” And hopefully Chad will be back to see it.
An Unlikely Place for Love Page 25
