An Unwilling Husband

by Tera Shanley

  “Sorry, so sorry,” she mumbled as she made for where she thought Garret had been. She fought her way out of the oversized, overcrowded ball room. As her shoulders grazed body after body, she stumbled, and then ran when space allowed.

  “Garret!” she yelled at the figure of a man walking away from the house.

  As she fled down the stairs, the man stopped. He turned slowly but she already knew she was right. It was Garret. Her Garret. Dressed in his best and still looking every bit as if he didn’t belong. Unbridled happiness surged. He didn’t belong, and neither did she.

  She flew into his arms, nearly knocking them both to the ground. Why she was crying, she didn’t know, only that she couldn’t stop. She clung to him, and the passersby staring as they headed to or from the party could go hang.

  The solidity of his strong body, the smell of him, the safety she felt with his arms around her threatened to overwhelm her. She’d needed him so much in the last weeks and hadn’t realized how much until then. She didn’t care what happened between them before she left. Only that they were together again. It was everything; all that mattered.

  “Maggie. Maggie,” Garret repeated quietly.

  His deep voice rumbled against her tearstained cheek. Confusion blanketed her as he pushed her away gently.

  The sadness in his voice was heart wrenching. “Maggie, people are staring.”

  “Well hang them all and let them stare then! What do I care?” She smiled at him in encouragement. Everything would be all right.

  “You should care,” he said. “These are your people.”

  Maggie shook her head in confusion. “These aren’t my people, you are my people. You and Lenny, and Cookie, and Burke, and Wells, everyone back in Rockdale.”

  His eyes swam with emotion. “I saw you in there, Maggie. I watched you. You fit right in, talking to everyone. I saw you dancing with him.”

  “Well, I didn’t want to, if you would just let me explain.”

  “That’s just it. You don’t have to explain. This is where you belong.”

  Before she could argue, Garret flagged down a servant and sent for her coach. As he advanced toward the front of the estate, she followed, holding onto his arm. “You are wrong. You are so wrong and don’t even know it. I don’t belong here, I hate it here. I am miserable, counting the minutes until I can come back home.”

  “Then why haven’t you?” He rounded on her. “Why are you still here, if it makes you so miserable? I saw you in there. People here live like kings. Why would you ever come back to a dusty old cattle ranch in the middle of the wilderness when you can live like this?”

  “Because you are there, you ridiculous man!”

  “Well then you’ll just have to move on. I’ll let go. I could, if it meant you could be happy. The way you were dancing with that man in there,” he stopped and shook his head. “I saw the way he was lookin’ at you. I could let you go and you could be happy with him. Raise a family and never have to worry about fetching a doctor or feeding your babies, or falling off a damned horse and getting kidnapped or shot. You could be safe and comfortable.”

  “But I don’t want to be safe and comfortable! I want to be with you.”

  Garret rubbed the scruff on his face in agitation, the water in his eyes remaining unshed, but just barely. “Maggie. I can’t do that to you, don’t you understand? I love you and you’ll hate me.” There was leaving in his voice.

  “Please, come with me to my aunt’s house. I’ll explain everything that has happened. All will be right. We can be together.”

  The only reason she climbed into her carriage was because Garret seemed to follow behind her. When she’d settled, he shut the door behind her and stood near the window. His tall frame put him at eye level. “I love you, Maggie. Always will.”

  “Garret, please!” she cried as the coach took off at a fast clip for the Hall estate. “Don’t do this!”

  In desperation, she begged the driver to slow the team and turn around. He ignored her. The streets were nearly empty at such a late hour and the carriage never slowed enough for her to jump out.

  * * * *

  The days that followed were unforgiving and unbearable. Her heart had been torn from her chest, and instead of healing, the void only grew deeper with time.

  Garret had boarded the first train to start his journey to Rockdale. She knew this because Berta had inquired after his whereabouts. The knowledge didn’t stop Maggie from looking for him around every corner, at each freshly opened door, every time she turned around. Silly, inconvenient wants.

  Undeniably, Garret was far away, but the space between them seemed even farther than just the physical. It was as if he’d become unattainable, after she’d held his heart for one brilliant moment in time.

  He had come for her, and the thought warmed her until she realized what her attendance at such a party must have looked like to him. Surely he’d expected to find her near her ailing aunt, and instead had discovered the Hall house, where an all-too-willing Jacques had been ready to show him to the party. Jacques had also driven her coach and refused to stop so she’d missed her chance to throw herself in Garret’s path and demand he listen to her explanation.

  Jacques, Hall house’s drollest and most loyal servant, must have happily told her aunt of his doings and un-doings that night. Aunt Margaret boasted a smug smile and demeanor, adding fuel to Maggie’s already darkened disposition.

  Aunt Margaret was fading. Today would likely be her last on this earth, and Maggie was a mass of feeling. She couldn’t seem to manage settling on one emotion, so on she tumbled from one surge of feeling to the next, which continued through the morning. Regret at the lack of a genuine relationship. Sadness at the woman’s bitter life. And her least favorite, for she hated that it even be included, was a small tingling of relief that no one would ever speak to her in such a manner again.

  The doctor shook her gently awake in the dark before dawn. Aunt Margaret would pass soon and had asked for her. Maggie dressed hurriedly and plodded straight to Aunt Margaret’s room, where she sat for the next seven hours. Her aunt labored to breathe and the shallow rise and fall of her chest said she struggled for every inhalation. She didn’t rouse enough to speak, so Maggie filled the void with stories, both true and made-up. The time passed slowly and her voice grew raw from the one sided conversation. Eventually she stopped and fingered the button on the couch. Her aunt grew weaker still.

  “I was engaged in London. Did your mother ever tell you that?” Aunt Margaret whispered, barely conscious.

  “No. She never did,” Maggie replied, scooting the small couch closer to her aunt’s bed to better hear.

  “I loved a man, and he, me. And you came along to ruin everything.”

  “But what about Uncle William? You were happy with him.” It had been true. She’d seen their gentle way with each other.

  “Yes, we were happy. But he wasn’t my true love. My fiancé wasn’t able to marry me because of our fall from Society. Within months of your mother’s scandal, my Michael was engaged to a woman with hair as bright red and offensive as yours. It was the first reason I hated you so.”

  It was as close to an apology as she would get. Aunt Margaret fell silent and passed within the hour.

  She had never looked so at peace. Perhaps sharing her secret had lifted a weight off the woman in her last moments.

  The bustle of servants and friends paying their last respects seemed to quicken as Maggie sat alone on the couch. She let Aunt Margaret’s confession sink in. Let her passing blanket her. Uncle William had known what he was doing, finagling them into this situation with his will. He’d been attempting to give the warring women in his life some sort of closure with each other. Even if small and anti-climactic, any closure was all he had hoped for them.

  Roy had taken Maggie’s decision in a husband from her by assuming he knew best what her true wants were. Uncle William had surely altered her views with his last wishes. What was it that had made both fa
ther figures in her life so confident they could change her stars for the better?

  Loneliness set in, and it became hard to catch her breath. Her entire family had been wiped out in the span of a year. The weight of it threatened to crush her. As horrid as Aunt Margaret had been to her, the woman was family and now she had none. She was alone.

  Berta saw her crying and ushered her out of Aunt Margaret’s room, down the hall to her bedroom and shut the door behind them. Berta held her while she mourned her loss, and then left to gather refreshments, none of which she had any appetite for. She spent the rest of the day in her room as the rest of the house scurried about in preparation for her aunt’s burial.

  Funeral arrangements had long been in place, as her aunt had been critically specific on her wants. Besides a few minor questions to be fielded, nearly everyone left her alone to cope. While the shadows lengthened across the floorboards of her room, her painful past and uncertain future collided.

  She wished fervently Garret were there with her. After Roy’s passing, though her unwilling husband couldn’t hide his contempt, he’d still managed in some beautiful moments to be gentle with her. To be understanding in his way, and she yearned for that rare kindness. It had patched a hole inside her she hadn’t known to fix. His absence at this new loss made her despair sharper. Deeper, somehow.

  She smiled slightly and wiped her reddened eyes and tear stained cheeks. Holding an elaborately embroidered handkerchief to her mouth, she stifled a giggle and shook her head.

  Surely, she had known her place all along. Hadn’t that been why she’d gone to Roy in the first place? She’d drifted, as the dandelion seed, to where the wind thought she would best grow.

  Rockdale was her safety and chance at happiness. Her escape and hope. And the dusty cow town could only be those things because Garret existed there. Lenny was there, family as much as friend in so many ways already. Even Cookie and the hands had taken her into their lives with humor and ease.

  Garret’s betrayal had hurt deeply, but he’d kept the news of her uncle to himself because he’d desired her to stay. To insure she remained nestled beside him, he’d gone to desperate measures. Garret Shaw wanted her.

  How could any one person care so much about Society, wealth, modern amenities and comfort if they meant the complete lack of true happiness and fulfillment? Hang it. For acceptance and companionship, she’d throw away this pampered life. To question her fit into the world was fruitless. Despite the dangers, her heart belonged to a wild little Texas town in the heart of cattle country.

  Chapter 25

  Garret was burning up under the merciless sun. The weather was impossibly hot for so late in the season. He took his hat off and wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve, giving a look of disdain to the unrelenting offender. About two o’clock, he reckoned. He put his hat back on and set to work, shaking off the remembrance of his missed lunch as a minor annoyance. He forgot a lot of meals these days.

  Lenny had come to him this morning and let him know the potatoes were ready to harvest. When Lenny said something was ready to harvest, he’d learned never to question and to do as she instructed. He hadn’t a natural affinity for growing things, but Lenny could make anything flourish. He discovered at a young age, she had an uncanny ability to sense when the crops and the garden vegetables for their winter rations were ready to be cut down, dug up, and stored. She had impressive timing with harvests and her determination to keep them fed on a variety of greens with their meats in the long winter months encouraged the boys to dig when she told them to.

  Garret tossed a couple of the dirty brown vegetables into the cotton sack slung over his shoulder. As he squatted by the next yellowing plant to dig up the spuds under it, he glanced at the rest of the group, working in proximity to each other a ways off. With a little luck, they would have the field cleaned by the end of the day.

  The list of things to do around the ranch had grown to an overwhelming amount after he’d skipped out on them to chase down Maggie. Guilt over leaving his people short-handed in his absence still pulled at him, even if they had encouraged him to go and get her. Maggie’s loss was deeply burrowed into the hearts of every last one of them.

  Something had gone quiet in the Lazy S since she’d left, and putting his finger on it meant admitting how much she meant to the place, and to him. He dug harder, gouging a potato in the process of trying to avoid thoughts of her. Thinking of her didn’t help him. It sent him reeling.

  He glanced up, caught Lenny glaring at him, shrugged in apology and stuck the cut potato into his pocket. It would have to go into their dinner before it ruined.

  Damn, it was hot. The work was strenuous and he debated taking his shirt off. He didn’t often do it in front of Lenny. She might not act like it but she was still a lady, and he tried to treat her as such. Most of the time.

  He decided against removing the thick cotton shirt he wore, though Lenny likely wouldn’t even give it a second thought. These days, her glance didn’t stray too far from Burke. A new, unsettling fact. Lenny was like his little tomboyish sister, and he still didn’t know how he felt about her interest in Burke, or his in her. Maggie, with her insight and intuition, had managed to pick up on Lenny’s feelings immediately.

  There it was again. Maggie.

  “You all right, boss?” Burke asked, startling him.

  He hadn’t eaten much the whole day and had been doing intense labor since the early morning hours. The sway in his stance when he stood must have tipped Burke off that all was not well.

  Straightening, he stretched the tight muscles in his back. “Just need to eat something, is all.”

  “I don’t mean about that, boss. I mean about Maggie.”

  When he could breathe again, he exhaled loudly. The mention of her name still hit him in the gut sometimes. “I’ll do. Get back to work, and Burke?”

  Burke turned around to shuffle to another row of the dying plants. “Yeah, boss?”

  “Don’t mention her again to me, you hear? You ain’t doin’ me any favors.”

  Burke nodded, wearing the saddest look he had ever seen on his carefree friend’s face.

  Weeks had passed since he’d returned from Boston without Maggie, but her absence still had everyone reeling.

  “Sorry,” Garret grumbled, flinging his digging knife into the dirt to tell him where he left off. He needed a break. Whether from his worker’s pitying stares or his dreary thoughts, he didn’t know. He was going to break down again, and the last thing his mourning friends needed was to watch him do it. They’d seen enough in the last few weeks and his actions had them scared for him. It was in their concerned glances, but he could no better control his sorrow than the beating of his heart. It was part of him now, maybe even the biggest part.

  He cleared the potato field and headed for the woods, lengthening his stride as anger at his loss welled to uncontrollable proportions. She’d affected him so wholly. Somehow she’d managed to take up every thought he had throughout the day. How could she have imprinted herself so completely on every square foot of the entire property? Everything had a memory attached to her, and she’d been here only a short time. He was infuriated, grateful, full of regret and hurt and then elated every time he came across something changed by her abbreviated stay.

  Garret took off his hat and threw it at an old tree, and when that didn’t do the trick, took to whaling on the rough bark with his fists, desperate to feel anything besides this pain drowning him. He tired quickly and slid to the ground against the tree, panting. Fool.

  A movement through the trees caught his wavering attention. Maybe, Injuns come to put him out of his misery. He couldn’t find it in himself to care overly, and tried to figure out where he was on the property. Surely, he was close to the road. He’d traveled in that direction from the potato field.

  The movement seemed a little closer this time. A horse picked its way slowly through the well-worn dirt road’s tracks. He strained to hear. Someone sang quietly. A
ghost had come upon him in the woods. The shade sang a song of coming home.

  He stood, and tried to stay quiet so as not to lose the beautiful melody coming slowly closer. Step by quiet step, he moved forward until he followed the song through the thick brush.

  Crouched, he remained hidden from view. It was Maggie. Or his imagination’s interpretation of her as she sat a dainty white filly, dressed in full skirts of the blackest silk. She held the reins with black gloved hands. A small fashionable hat with delicate black netting covering part of her face perched on her head. Her alabaster skin seemed to shimmer and glow against the dark color of her dress, and her full lips moved to the words of the haunting song coming from her chest. Frozen in his tracks, he was unable to do more than watch her as she passed.

  Strange. Usually when he imagined her, she wore the red dress.

  The shade passed, the song and the sound of hooves on sand faded, and he relaxed. “Goodbye, Maggie.” He’d been lucky to have had a moment with her memory.

  The horse and the song halted, and the memory turned ungracefully in the saddle. “Garret?” she asked, with a wide-eyed look.

  With a vacant smile, he turned away to search for his hat.

  “Where in the bloody hell are you going?” imaginary Maggie demanded.

  He stopped and spun around. His imaginings had never been so irritable with him before.

  She dismounted and bore down on him. Maggie threw her arms around his neck and held on as his hands shot out to the sides for balance and they nearly tumbled backward.

  “Maggie?” he whispered, as he slowly put his arms around her waist. He pressed his large hands into the small of her back and indulged in the weight of real flesh under them. Not imagined, then. “Maggie?” he repeated louder.

  “Yes, yes, of course it’s me, ridiculous husband.” She refused to let go of his neck and her words tickled his ear, enticing him to lean even closer into her. “You don’t see me for a month and you forget what I look like, is that it, then?”