Lifting his chin in the general direction of the parlor, Riley said, “He’s a handful, I imagine.”
“Your imagination can’t begin to do justice to the reality,” she replied tartly.
When the coffee was on the stove, he came to the table and sat down with her. “I was wondering—I know it sounds like an odd question—”
“What?”
“How did we meet?” he asked, not looking at her.
“Oh.” She was pulled back in time to a part of her life that was not the happiest. At least not until she met him. “It was at the grange dance in town. I was serving punch. You kept hanging around me and finally convinced me to step out on the floor with you.”
“I wouldn’t be able to do that now, would I? The lame amnesiac.” He drummed his fingers on the table and flexed his hand, once.
Susannah watched that hand and held her breath, hoping she hadn’t said the wrong thing. That was a danger with Riley—it was so easy to say the wrong thing and suddenly his temper would erupt. Or he would sink into melancholia or have one of his spells. “It doesn’t matter. I haven’t danced in years.”
The moment passed. “What about your family? Do they live nearby?”
This time it was Susannah who retreated. He’d once known all of this. She wasn’t eager to return to those years and dredge up those memories. “No, I don’t have any family left. And I grew up in Corbett.” She pointed in an easterly direction.
“How long did I court you?”
She got up to pull the coffee off the burner and bring cups to the table. “About six months after we met, you proposed, and we were married before the year was out. You brought me to here to live with Cole and your father.”
“And we were happy?”
She gave him a wistful smile. It was so different then. “Oh, yes, we were very happy. If not for the war…”
“Did we share the room I have now?”
Still on her feet, Susannah felt her cheeks burn. Since returning, he had not once been subjected to the kind of badgering he was putting her through. At least her conscience made it feel like badgering. She would have refused to answer, but the problem was she couldn’t think of a reason that wouldn’t reveal more than she wanted to. “Yes.”
“But not now.”
Oh, God, this was too much. She clenched her back teeth before responding, and lied. “I just thought that it might be better if we—if you have your room to yourself until you get your bearings.”
“Maybe.” He stood and reached into his pocket for the geode. He held it up to the light, then brought it close to her face. “It goes with your coloring.” He took her wrist to put the rock in her hand, but didn’t release her. She lifted her eyes to his and looked into those hazel depths. His tilted his head and leaned closer to her. Before she realized what was happening, his kiss, soft, urgent, warm, was on her lips and tasted of coffee. He pulled her closer and pressed the length of her body to his own. His arousal was unmistakable against her belly.
A ghost of what they’d once been crossed her mind here in his arms, his lips on hers. But it wasn’t the same.
Pulling back, he murmured, “Maybe you should move back to your husband’s bed and let us get to know each other again.”
Automatically, she looked out the dark windows to the bunkhouse across the yard until she realized all that he meant, and she panicked. If only Tanner hadn’t left her alone with this. And yet, she wasn’t sure what he could say to Riley to make things better. If anything, his involvement might only create more problems for the troubled Riley. She could use his support—but he had withdrawn from her. “Riley, I don’t think that would be a good idea yet. Even though we were—are husband and wife, you were gone for three years. That’s longer than we were mar—longer than we lived together. You’re a different man than I remember and you said yourself you know even less about me.”
He withdrew as if she’d thrown a bucket of cold well water on him, and he sighed. “I suppose you might be right. We need to approach this differently. It’s just that…”
“What? What is it?”
He sat down again, heavily this time. “The nightmares. It’s strange—I didn’t have them while I was living in France. They started when I got here.”
“Nightmares about the war?”
“I’m not sure. I guess so. They don’t make any sense, but,” his voice dropped to a low mumble, “they’re horrible.”
Once again, hearing the trials of this poor man made Susannah’s heart clench. She didn’t know much about shell shock and it occurred to her that she’d better learn—fast. There must be something they could do to ease Riley’s suffering. It was the humane thing to do at the very least. She’d have to check with Jessica and see if she’d learned anything about the doctor in Portland.
She sat across from him. “Maybe a night-light would help. I could leave the lamp burning in the upstairs hall and you could leave your door open. There’s no one here but the three of us. At least that way you’d have something tangible to focus on instead of the black of a moonless night. And you aren’t alone. I’m right in the next room.”
He gave her a long, steady look and then added a slight smile. “Thank you, Susannah.” He leaned forward and pecked her on the cheek.
• • •
The memory of that kiss and being in Riley’s arms again, however briefly, tortured Susannah for the rest of the night. She tossed and turned, feeling trapped between Riley, who’d once had the right to her heart and body, and Tanner, who now had neither, even though she was married to him. Finally, after what was more like a series of short naps than a full night’s sleep, she gave up and got dressed. There was always work to do around here, and she plunged into it, hoping it would distract her from this odd purgatory.
Riley and Shaw came downstairs, and she gave them a breakfast of ham, eggs, and toast. She felt Riley’s eyes on her, and whenever she glanced at him he smiled.
She washed dishes, made beds, dusted, and pushed the carpet sweeper through the parlor.
She was in the kitchen when Cole came in a few hours later with Riley behind him.
“I need to stop at the blacksmith shop and see how Jeremy is doing. Pop was in there the other day, meddling with the jobs I’d given him to do, and the kid was stuck between dealing with a cranky old bastard and me, the soul of courtesy and understanding.”
“Oh, heavens, I think I’d better find my waders and a shovel,” she laughed while she put up two apple pies at the table. She was tired and smudged with flour, but the whole kitchen smelled wonderful.
“Anyway I thought we’d drop by Tilly’s after that. The boys will be glad to see Riley again.”
Susannah’s smile faded and her expression turned sour for a moment. “That Tilly’s—sometimes I wish a lightning bolt would hit the place.”
“Now Susannah, I don’t remember you being a teetotaler.”
She huffed out an irritated sigh. “You know I’m not, and in fact, I think Prohibition has made more trouble than it’s cured. But that slop Virgil Tilly sells is hardly better than straight poison. He’s going to kill someone with it.”
“Pop is the one who drinks Virgil’s brew. Sometimes Virgil mixes good whiskey with Jamaican ginger to stretch it out. That’s not dangerous, but I don’t like that medicinal taste. Of course, I don’t know what else he’s got behind the bar. I just buy plain Canadian Club from him. It’s expensive, but at least I know what it is.”
“Riley, are you sure it’s a good idea,” she addressed him, but bent a hard look on Cole, “to go into town and see all those people who knew you before the war, before things…changed?”
“I’d like to see the place I’m from and—”
“Don’t worry,” Cole interrupted meaningfully. “I won’t leave him somewhere with no way to get home. Stop fretting, Susannah.” She had her doubts but she knew they couldn’t keep Riley sequestered out here forever.
After they’d ridden off, Susannah made sure that
everyone was busy with something—Riley and Cole gone into town, Shaw at Mae’s, and the boys in school—before she went to talk to Tanner.
She found him in the tack room mending a stirrup with a big curved needle. Sitting on a length of upended log, he glanced up at her but didn’t say anything. She watched him work for a while, trying to think of a way to open the conversation. At last, she said, “Are you still speaking to me?”
He pulled the wicked-looking needle through the leather with a pair of pliers. “Yeah. I just haven’t had anything to say.”
“Why did you stop coming to supper? You told me you’d be at the table every night. I barely even see Josh and Wade anymore either. They were going to eat with us and sleep in the house. It was what you wanted.” She looked down at her lap, afraid of the answer she might see in his eyes. “Are you so angry with me that you can’t bear to be around me?”
He put aside the stirrup and sighed. Pushing some tools off a rough-hewn bench across from him, he patted the seat. “Susannah, come here and sit down.” She hesitated, then finally went to the bench. “I’ve stayed away because it’s hard for me to pretend I’m not your husband and, well, to see all the fuss you make over a man whose ‘death’ I didn’t mourn.”
She stared at him. “You always got along with Riley before he left. You worked well together.”
He shook his head. “I’m not saying he wasn’t a good man or a good boss. He was. But he had something I wanted so bad, it ate me up every single day that I knew I could never have it. So much did I want it that I had plans in place to take the boys and go to Texas before that war business got started and Riley enlisted. I couldn’t stand to be here one more day. Then he left and I stayed because I knew you and Cole would need help to get those horses overseas. I wasn’t at all happy about sending them—I hated the idea of it. But they weren’t my horses, and I couldn’t change that so I kept it to myself.”
Susannah closed her hand around an awl that was stuck in the end of the bench and pulled it out of the wood. Idly, she jammed it back in. Trying to make sense of what he was talking about, she asked, “What could have been so important that you’d go all that way and take the boys?”
He took up the stirrup again and turned it in his large, capable hands. He gave her a rueful, exasperated smile that carried no humor. “I was in love with his wife. I had been since the first day I came to work here.”
Now she downright gaped at him. “I—I didn’t—I had no—”
“No, you didn’t know. Because I kept that to myself, like I did everything else. What good would have come of telling you, even after he left? He was still your husband and you were married. Most of the time I felt like a rotten bastard for loving you, wanting you. Especially after he went to war. The day that telegram came…I felt bad for you because I knew you were heartsick. Still, I couldn’t help but be glad for myself because I saw my chance. And I took it.”
“But you never told me, even after we began courting.”
“I thought that would have been bad-mannered, a low-down dirty thing to do. And I swear, I didn’t wish for anything to happen to him. I didn’t want to take advantage of you because you were hurting and lonely. I wanted to win you with what I had to offer.” He chuckled. “I admit it wasn’t a lot. Still isn’t.” He’d never revealed so much about himself to her. Ever. “You know about my life…I lost my family early on. I kind of felt like I had one here.”
“Oh, Tanner.” Tears ran down her cheeks and she felt a twisting pain in her chest that reached all the way down into her stomach. Was there anything about this miserable situation that didn’t involve heartache? Where was the happiness she’d finally known, the contentment? First it had been ripped away from her when Riley went off to that damned war and she thought he was dead. Now he was back, and she was put in the middle of the worst dilemma she could imagine.
“When I won you, I thought I was the luckiest man on the face of the earth. All the waiting and hopelessness, and me never able to speak my heart because my conscience held me back—all that was over. We were married and nothing would change it. Or so I thought. Then Riley came back, rose from the dead, the last person I wanted to see.” In frustration, he punched the wall beside him, scraping his knuckles badly enough to make them bleed. “If the circumstances were any different, I’d fight for you—and win—without thinking twice. But how am I supposed to battle a man who doesn’t remember who he is? A man who isn’t legally your husband, who doesn’t remember what it was like being married to you, or from what I can tell, doesn’t remember you or anything about his life here except what he’s been told.” He looked down at the floor. “You might come home to me, and you might not.”
This was as frank and honest as he had ever been with her.
“You assume that I’ll choose Riley over you?”
He shook his head and laughed, but it was a bitter, anguished sound. “Well, you’re my wife, but I’m back where I started. Oh, fate must be laughing at me now.”
• • •
Virgil Tilly was polishing glasses behind the bar when Cole pushed open the swinging doors with Riley dragging up behind him. It had sounded like a good idea when Cole suggested it, but now Riley was feeling overwhelmed. Encountering more strangers who knew him while he remained ignorant of them seemed daunting. Some had known him since he was a boy, and they meant nothing to him.
The small saloon—now promoted as a soda fountain—didn’t look like any of the fountains he’d seen on the way out here, and he suspected it didn’t fool anyone either. He’d seen women and children in those other places, sitting at tables, sipping phosphates and spooning up sundaes. Here spittoons were placed in convenient locations around the sawdust floor, which had peanut shells mixed in. The bar was short and the air veiled in smoke and the smell of bacon. There were four or five tables in the place. The one in the corner by the woodstove was taken by a few customers who were busy with a card game. Between sips of some kind of liquor and adding to the peanut shells under their feet, they shuffled a grimy deck. Stuffed animal heads hung on the walls along with various signs advising customers In God We Trust—All Others Pay Cash, No Spitting on The Floor, and other sorts of warnings and advice.
Before Cole could say anything, Virgil Tilly spotted them.
“Flip my flap, if it ain’t Riley Braddock!” He stopped polishing the glass in his hand and whipped the bar towel over his shoulder.
Cole moved forward but Riley lingered near the doorway, fighting the urge to escape. As if sensing his discomfort, Cole reached out to put a guiding hand on his elbow and brought him closer.
The card players all crowded around. Introductions were made, but none of them really registered with Riley.
“It’s a miracle, that’s what it is!”
“Where have you been keeping yourself all this time, Riley?”
Shaking hands with these people, Riley started to sweat.
Cole eyed him. “Virgil, give us a bottle of the Canadian and two glasses. We’ll take a seat over by the window.”
“I’ve got something even better—I’ve been saving this for really special customers.” He handed Cole a bottle of Jameson Irish whiskey. “This one’s on the house,” Virgil said. “Welcome home, Riley.”
“By God, now that’s a miracle. I never heard Tilly tell anyone that,” someone put in.
Virgil waved an impatient arm at the speaker. “You come back from the grave, Wilbur, and I’ll let you drink on the house too.”
Cole led them to a table beside a flyspecked window, but everyone came along with them.
“How was it in France? We heard some pretty bad stories about them Huns. Shaw said you’re a hero—that you saved thirty-two men. Everyone in here bought him a drink that day!”
“I knew we could lick them better’n the Frenchies or those Limeys. We won that war for them. And Riley, that wound you got and the cane, they’re like medals,” Virgil said.
An ember of anger began to sizzle in Riley’s
gut. He kept his eyes on the whiskey bottle in front of him and his voice low. “I don’t want to talk about any of that.” He knocked back the drink Cole had poured in one hot swallow, then took another.
“All right, all right,” Cole said, “let’s not make Riley fight it all over again. We just came in for a drink.”
“Cole’s right. Back off, boys,” Virgil said. “Give Riley some air. Go back to your cards and drinks.” Then to Riley he added, “We don’t mean to give you a hard time. It’s just that—after what—we’re so glad to see you again—” The man broke off, red-eyed and clearing his throat, to take his place behind the bar again. A loud honk sounded as he blew his nose on the bar towel.
Cole watched him go and then raised his glass to Riley. “You mean a lot to the people around here,” he said in a low voice.
Riley took a deep breath and waited for his nerves to settle. He downed another shot, relieved by the pleasant, fuzzy blur that ran through him and dimmed the constant questions that crossed his mind. “It’s good to know that I wasn’t a jackass.”
Cole laughed. “Only sometimes.”
They sat there drinking and eating peanuts, with Cole giving Riley a rundown about the businesses on the street and who ran them, passing an afternoon that seemed removed from the anxiety he felt at the farm. Then a ratty wreck of a man shambled in, bringing with him a foul combination of odors—an unwashed body, wet and dirty clothes, manure, mildew, stale sweat, and God knew what else. As familiar to Riley as was Susannah’s scent, so was this man’s stench. So very familiar, and yet as with hers, Riley did not know why.
The man shuffled around in place, as if looking to see who might be in here today. His bloodshot eyes fell on Cole’s table and he goggled at them, open-mouthed with surprise, revealing the few rotting teeth that remained in his head.
Riley heard Cole groan under his breath.
“By God, is that Riley Braddock?” He whooped soddenly and made his way to the table. “Cole, we been wonderin’ when you’d bring him by!”
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