Fight for Love (My Wounded Soldier #2)

by Diane Munier

  I was past madness myself time came for bed. I had been to the barn with Johnny, mucked stalls, milked, curried, but I could not work off the jitters gathering in me. When could I be alone with that sweet woman of mine?

  So I cleaned myself, and I washed some clothes too, Johnny’s and mine, diapers too. Whatever she told me to do I did such trying not to pant like a good dog. Johnny worked beside me. We labored for our sins.

  “Tom!” Johnny yelled for I had been scrubbing his britches with a brush, same spot and with such fury.

  “Don’t you worry about me,” I said, nodding toward his own assignment, brushing our boots. He finished and sat big and little side by side on the ground. “Take ‘em in now and I come in best be in bed.” Then when he picked them up and went loaded down toward the house I called, “Want to be rested for school tomorrow.”

  He looked over his shoulder at me, but didn’t say a word. Boy was finally getting some sense.

  I hung those clothes on the line then, hearing Ma say, “Nice and smooth.” So I did that, always the good, the loyal, the true. Not that anyone noticed less I made a mistake then oh glory…he’s not perfect? Well he ain’t God! Ain’t that what she told me, “You’re not God, Tom,” I mimicked. “Damn right I ain’t!” I said.

  “Tom?” she said and I liked to shit myself.

  “Woman, do not ever sneak up on a man been through Chickamauga,” said I, making no sense at all. But I had not heard her, and feared she’d heard me. But I would deny. That’s what. Deny, deny. Deny.

  Then I noticed she was wearing that thin gown, and she was alone. And her hair was in this long braid over her…breast. “Where are they?” I said desperate and who the hell cared where they were.

  “They are in the house. Janey is asleep and Johnny is in bed. He is watching over her while his ma helps his pa with the laundry. He is not to come out here, for if he does I will take a switch to his very rebellious backside as I should have done back in St. Louis. And if he stays put and is very good…I will bake him a cake while he’s at school tomorrow.”

  “That is just so…wrong and wonderful,” I said, throwing down the rest of the wet clothes on my arm and grabbing her like a savage, pulling her to me, and her on tiptoes her bare feet on mine, arms tied around my neck, a noose of love.

  And I had cleaned that barn myself and left that stack right where I wanted it, had to fight Johnny to do it for his pa never did it that way and I said, new pa, new way.

  And I walked her in there, my mouth locked on hers, telling her, making a speech with lips and tongue, I love you girl, I love you….

  And I laid her down on that hay, and she sat up and pulled off that gown and she was bare and flesh and soft sweet woman. “Oh Lass,” I said, peeling off my clothes right quick I tell you, and I was down beside her, this long beauty next to me and I set my eyes on her like the holy vision she was. I put my hand on her stomach, I kept it light case my skin was rough. But God, the control was barely in me as I looked above the midline my hand made on her, my dark rough flesh on her fresh cream and nipples begging to be suckled. “You are my beauty,” I whispered, for my voice had melted into this deep note.

  She had one arm bent above her head, the other flung beside her, her hands soft and open, one leg straight, the other bent and herself open to me. I’d done nothing to deserve such as this. But it was mine. “I am a rich man,” I said, my eyes filled, my hand going over her heated place that I loved, oh I loved her.

  She watched me as I took her in. She was proud and not shy. “Put your lips on me like before,” she whispered. “I have dreamed of that. Of you…that secret kiss.”

  My God. I went slow to her and started with her face, her cheeks her eyes though it was not precision, it was the beginning of wild, of me, the way I could get, but I was not afraid. There was that side…dark but necessary. She called to it, and it was me.

  Can I tell you in some orderly way how it was to be out of myself and never more myself, my mouth open on her, my tongue loving her, can I describe what was nothing a man describes but feels deep in himself and pours onto another no matter the physical part of himself that shows it, mouth or lips or hands and fingers, chest, arms, legs, feet, the body God gave me came alive to hers and there was not one part of me taking over but everything firing at once, everything I had calling to everything in her and there was not one awkward thing, not one note out of harmony, just two entwined and moving, forgetting the self, becoming the other, two of us moving into the other, all of me, all of her, that’s what. Go figure it. You can’t. I can’t. I won’t try.

  Addie Tanner

  Chapter Eight

  When we had worked out the worst of the longing, we lie in that hay in the dark barn, the moonlight washing in. The children in the house pulled at me, but I was reluctant to rouse from my husband’s arms for I had ached for him soul deep, waiting to be unwrapped, discovered, and now that I was…I wanted it again.

  “I had shut down…the woman things…,” I said, “…but it was never like this.”

  He kissed me then.

  The way it had gotten with Richard, I had grown used to living pretty much without sporting. I had allowed myself to be shut down like an old factory, a haunted place, a woman who became a mother and put away the things one gives her lover.

  But this man, my soldier, my husband…a man with a need to match my own…well he had awakened love in me, pulled it from the cold dead place and breathed it to life. I mourned in myself when our union was over. Instead of contentment, I found myself wanting his devotion again, wondering how soon, how long before he sang to me with every touch and look and we would join like this, and be.

  What if this longing overtook me? What if I couldn’t settle it down and be respectable? What if Tom got tired of me, tired of my need, as Richard had, no longer set afire when he looked at me, no longer scheming for my touch. I would die if ever this light went out in his eyes and I did not feel that stirring when I was near. I would die if he did not carry me like his own. Poetry was breaking out in me. Lover, fill me and take. Break me open and drink from me, for I am a river now, and you will never be thirsty again.

  I stroked his hair. I touched the contours of his face. I felt the strength he gave me in his chest and shoulders, and the something I needed to always be careful of. I touched the planes of his stomach, the miles covered in his strong legs. I rubbed over his feet with my own.

  Then I went back to his face. I ran my fingers over his brow. He closed his eyes so I could kiss them and run my nose along his, touch his lips with mine.

  “I love you,” I whispered, and he was looking at me, and I could meet it, there was so much love.

  “There were times while away the longing overtook me. There were times when it became so strong I thought I’d lose my mind, so I’d grab Janey and off we would go…we walked and walked…and I couldn’t outwalk this wanting…you.”

  He tightened his arms around me, but I felt the hunger in him. He was starving for my words and bursting with his own. “You please me,” he said in that low voice just for this…for me. “And you always will.”

  Tom Tanner

  Chapter Nine

  We awoke that first morning a jumbled mass upon the one bed, stacked against one another like a batch of pups. My first notion was that I could not feel my feet, nor much in my legs now I thought about it. And here was the baby between us, so sweet, and her, her breast and the sleeping babe’s mouth so near. Such softness I had not known enough to ever get used to it, so I drank it in, a greedy soul. This married life….

  But my feet, and the lower half erased like a stick man’s legs gone from a slate. That’s how I felt.

  Johnny lie sprawled over my limbs. She had curled on her side to get away from him, but me, well I’d been tired as anything when we got back in here after we’d burned it up on that hay in the barn and my legs fit this bed tight when I sprawled, and sometime in the night this one must have come seeking his ma like the infuriating ba
by he was. But here was his sixty pounds at least cutting the blood from my limbs. Lord, God was all of masculine humanity such a mess if you took a deeper look?

  I sat a bit, trying not to jar the baby. I had to use my hands to pull my dead legs from beneath him, and he’d drooled on me, too. But now, you could not rouse him. Well, he couldn’t have slept much restless as he was, and now she owed him a cake for her trouble, and him doing nothing more than falling asleep while we took our few loving minutes to be a man and wife without a care beyond each other. Well, we were paying for it.

  I loved him. That more than anything gave me the confidence to be his pa. She knew how to handle him, and I would learn. I just needed the feeling between boy and man to be clear in my mind. If he was grown I would understand. But he was just a boy, and I did not want to crush that growing thing, just get it going in the right path so it could take off.

  I was sitting here, elbows on knees staring at him. Truth was…I was going at this like his pard. Truth was…I didn’t want to come down on him. I just wanted him to see my point and behave. Then we could be friends. But there was no befriending him cause minute I turned my back he was reprobate all over again.

  Her charging him in the yard…that was what he needed, but I’d been carrying him to the house to try and set him down and reason with him, knowing that was futile. Was I a man who liked to walk the lonely halls of futile? I was not. I liked a clear straight path that accomplished something. Damn it to hell.

  Beside me Janey had roused and latched to the breast, Addie’s eyes opening to it. She looked at Janey first, pulled her in better, then she looked at me, all soft, and her hair pulled in loops from that thick braid. I was learning her flesh, and were I not just one of the puppies in this basket called our marital bed, I would show her my feelings right now, oh yes.

  I nudged Johnny with my foot. He moaned and swatted at me. “Get up, Johnny,” I said.

  He moaned and farted, and rolled onto his face, turning his head from me. I sighed and got on my feet, dragging him up and throwing him over my shoulder putting my face very near the line of fire. I took him to his bed and dumped him there. He rolled on his side all curled, barely missing a snore.

  She was beside me, baby on her arm, her gown undone for the three buttons at the throat, her smile for me like we were beholding this son of ours, darlingest thing in the world. Well that was not my mind on it. He was not as darling as she might think.

  This was a portent, this break from two minds previous in perfect harmony. For her thoughts were going one way, I expect, but mine had veered off to swim a new path.

  “He needs to get out of that bed time I’m back. He’s going to school,” I said in someways an innocent and who would have thought.

  “Oh…,” she said, looking at his little form, “I was thinking of letting him be home rest of the week, then starting him fresh come Monday.”

  Was this how it was going to be?

  “Missus…,” said I all friendly, taking the babe from her, then handing her wet self back. I went for the bucket then to do the milking, “We said he’s going and we need to stick to it. He’s had plenty time off…more than his pards…his whole life in fact. He needs to be seen less and heard less, too.”

  Well, she didn’t like it. Mayhap I’d thought about it more, I’d of put it different, if at all, but it was out there now, best prepare to defend the trench I’d dug.

  She was looking at Janey, but that was to avoid me. I knew battle enough to feel some things…like a weapon being felt for…loaded mayhap. Him and her, they’d stood together against Richard. They were forged tight, and here I came with hammer and wedge.

  Oh glory when she lifted her head and those eyes hit me, I felt the buckshot in it. “Missus…,” I said, fair warning.

  “How is it you say he’s ‘been off,’ his whole life? He has not been off…Mister Tanner. I will thank you not to come into this house and judge us wearing your righteous blindfold.”

  I felt my jaw drop. Is that what she thought? Well, I could not win this…trial…bound and gagged for the hangman’s noose before I had a chance to testify.

  I grabbed that bucket and out I went. Then I heard the door open and another bucket hit not far behind me. I had no less amazement than when a cannonball fell close, I tell you. She had thrown that at me, and the door was already slammed. So this is how it was? Make love to me, get me in the trap and next I know I’m swinging from a tree and skinned for dinner.

  Well, I didn’t know there were two buckets. Pardon me. I’d only been stepping in like the pa for how long putting up with this deviltry from what she and the other had created. Yes, I took it on and gladly, but don’t for one minute be looking at me with those eyes of fire and telling me what I did not know or understand.

  I went back for the other bucket and snatched it up, but I shook it at the house just in case she was hiding behind the window, me in the crosshairs, another husband down.

  I did the chores. I hoped it would calm me, but I had this running diatribe in my head, and I won the blue ribbon on crossing the finish line.

  Back I went carrying those buckets. She was fortunate as Croesus I was still here working like her good old boy, for I was wondering what in tarnal I’d gotten myself in for, lining up and signing up, and I’d been here before.

  I set one bucket down and hit the latch. Door flew open and I picked up the other full one and in I went.

  Well, they were at the table, her and Johnny, the baby on her knee. Johnny was eating mush and his hair was slicked. He looked at me, no protest in him I could see. When I set the buckets on the table, she kept her head down nibbling on some bread and butter. I saw my bowl, and heaps of buttered bread beside and coffee steaming. She looked up a little. “Thank you for the milking, Tom,” she said.

  I looked at her. Thank you for the bucket aimed at my backside, but I did not say it.

  “I…I’m sorry,” she said, then she looked at me bold. Was it an apology or a dare?

  I wanted to say I liked to see what was coming and could she please charge me head on in future so I could at least cover my breads, but I did not say this either. Damn. She looked so beautiful, the morning light from the window sparkling against her. How was I gonna stand against such beauty?

  “Johnny,” I said, “you finish, need to get those eggs gathered. I done hitched Pa’s horse to the carriage. We’ll tie my horse on back, and I’ll kill two birds.” I meant I’d return the carriage to Pa after I took Johnny to school.

  “Well now, dear husband, we need to speak of such,” she said, and she was biting her lip.

  Well, it took the hope right out of me to see her so. I was trying not to be the ornery one could put fear in hardened men. I was trying to be that open door. I sat easy, before the food she’d laid out for me. I picked up my spoon hoping she’d see my good intentions, me about to eat the peace offering.

  “Fact is…Tom…Quinton saw us home.”

  “Cousin,” I whispered like she’d told me we lost the farm.

  “Yes…but…he wishes an audience with you….”

  Was I a performer on the stage now?

  “He wishes to explain the…provision,” she said.

  Provision to me meant bedrolls and rifles, hardtack and boots. I had to work hard to leap to Cousin and provision. What could he provide me but some peace by staying in St. Louis and never crossing that river again?

  “So when I return that buggy…,” I said.

  “Yes. He’ll be there. He feels he owes you the respect as the man of our family….”

  I put up my hand. “Johnny,” I said, “take the basket and your ears on out and get the eggs.” I could see he was finished, just twirling that spoon in his empty bowl. He got up then, his boots scraping as he did what he was told with the enthusiasm of a prisoner on death march. “Sprinkle some of that mash,” I added before he closed the door.

  Then to her, I swallowed first and told myself to keep it slow. “Darling wife, I did not
appreciate that bucket thunking behind me. Might as well hit me for I got the message loud and clear. Mayhap YOU could respect me as the man of the family and Cousin can kiss my behind.”

  I worried I’d see tears, but wrong yet again. Her soft little lips I loved to kiss lined up flat again each other. Her eyes out sparked the morning light.

  “Are you sorry?” I asked for I did not believe it.

  “Sorry I missed,” she said, her eyes holding me like a double-barrel again.

  “I cannot believe….” I stood then. I’d sooner eat that mash than what she offered. I had jarred the table and things rattled, but that was purely mishap.

  I went for my hat, the emptiness in my belly nothing compared to the knife wound in my heart. She wished she’d hit me with that bucket, well we would see.

  I stopped at the door but there was no back-up in this woman…just like the boy. Well she did not know stubborn, but she had met him now.

  “I am taking your son to school,” I said. “And you can just ponder yourself.”

  I went out. Soon as I did, mad as I was, I wanted to turn around and run in there and fall at her feet and make her take it all back. She didn’t mean it…least ways she shouldn’t…but I had to play the big man now. So I went to that carriage, and here he came, the eggs in his hat for some unknown reason of misplaced responsibility again.

  “Get them inside and get yourself in this carriage pronto,” I said.

  Well, he stepped quick then, in he went to conspire with her, no doubt. She came out with him, all the sorrow in the world on her face now, and mayhap tears but I couldn’t be falling for that on top of it all. So he had him some dinner in a bucket and his slate and pencil, and the two McGuffey’s and he climbed in like we were fixing to get all his teeth pulled.

  I shot her one look, my face looking incensed for sure after all that sweetness last night. Give me the Rebs anyday, give me Monroe and all those son of bitches in Springfield, ain’t I always said it?