“It won’t all be smooth sailing for my family now that we’re making our marriage public today, so please be on alert for trouble,” Kiowa said under his breath so only Adam could hear him.
“Already on it. And if you see or hear anything suspicious, let me know right away.”
Kiowa felt Mary’s hand reach back and touch his hand where it sat on the back of the chair, and he leaned down realizing she wanted to say something privately to him.
“Ignore other’s ignorance. I’m proud you’re my husband and my children think of you as their father now too. Let’s enjoy the day and the meal,” Mary said with a smile, one of the few Kiowa had seen in the last two weeks.
Bringing her out in public had been the right thing to do, for her to get a little normalcy back in her life, and for him to be by her side in support.
Kiowa would prove to the community their marriage was strong, and he was worthy of this wonderful woman’s love.
Chapter 10
“I’m so sick of this chair!” Mary screamed in frustration. “Why isn’t my leg working by now!”
Mary pounded her fists against the wooden arms of the rolling chair even though she could feel the pain clear up into her shoulders. She switched tactics and slammed her fists into her knees. Her left leg jumped in surprise, but her right didn’t have a clue of the damage she wanted to inflict on it.
No, that wasn’t true Mary thought, as she vigorously scrubbed her hands over her cheeks to wipe away her tears. She took several deep breaths to calm herself. Feeling was starting to return to her right hip and her right foot had involuntarily twitched a few times.
But it had been four weeks since her fall and she wanted to return to normal life!
This may be your normal for the rest of your life.
Mary broke down, sobbing at the hand she’d be dealt. Why? Why? She’d dealt with the loss of her first husband’s death with ease compared to this blow.
She wanted to walk, dance…run beside Kiowa and her children. Now they had to push or carry her everywhere.
“Mary, what’s upset you now?” Kiowa knelt down beside her chair and captured her pounding fists to stop her movement.
She wanted to slug him for doing that! “Don’t hold my hands! It’s bad enough I can’t kick my legs!”
Kiowa sat back on his heels, swinging his hands in the air in surprise.
“Mary—”
“I can’t walk, and I never will again! Don’t you understand why I’m upset?!”
Kiowa bit his lip before hanging his head. Mary was spoiling for a fight and he wouldn’t participate, which made her even madder.
“We never should have married!” Mary leaned forward to yell into his face. “Ready for a divorce? We should have done that right away when I fell so no one had to know our secret marriage.” Mary fumed, wanting to hit something, anything.
When Kiowa kept his eyes on the floor, she started hitting her fists again on the chair. “God, I want out of this chair!”
“Stand up then!” Kiowa yelled back. “Get out of the chair, and walk, or hop, or—I don’t care—crawl out of here. You don’t want to be with me, then don’t! Move out! Crawl back up to your apartment!”
Mary stopped her rant, shocked by Kiowa’s words as he stood up and walked out of the bedroom. She heard the outside door slam as he left her alone, listening to the utter silence of the place.
He’d never spoken to her like that in all the years they’d known each other.
Kiowa had been the strong one, especially these past weeks caring for her without a hint of resentment. He dropped everything, from his blacksmith work to time with friends, to take care of her every need.
Mary buried her face in her hands, embarrassed she’d spoken like that to him. But she wasn’t surprised that they’d blown up at each other. They hadn’t had a normal marriage before her accident to build a strong union between them.
What if he took her suggestion and sought a divorce? She panicked, but not for the obvious reasons. She had money and could hire someone to take care of her, but she loved Kiowa.
And how often had she said that to him this past month? She’d been so wrapped up in her misery she hadn’t thanked him for his devotion let alone told him how much she loved him.
Willing her upper arm strength to cooperate, Mary grabbed the wheels of the chair and propelled them forward, slowly making her way out of the bedroom, the front room and toward the front door. She needed to find Kiowa to apologize for her outburst.
Mary struggled to lean forward to turn the door knob and then reverse the chair to pull the door open. Luckily the threshold to the old section of the quarters were low enough she could maneuver the chair over it while pushing her hands against the doorframe.
Kiowa, his arms crossed over his broad chest, stood in the next open doorway overlooking the cold forge, not looking back at her even though he knew she’d just struggled to open the door.
“I’m sorry, Kiowa.”
“To have and to hold. From this day forward. In sickness and in health. This is my solemn vow,” Kiowa replied without turning toward her.
“And you’ve kept your vows to me. I’m so sorry I’ve been the one who hasn’t remembered our vows.
“And I’m so sorry I suggested a divorce. I don’t want one, but if you need it…” Mary’s hoarse voice trailed off to a whisper.
“What we both need is to get out of here for a while. I’ll be back with a buggy in a little bit. Get your hat and shawl.”
Mary blinked in surprise when Kiowa made his announcement, not bothering to look back when he told her his plans either.
“Okay. Be that way,” Mary talked back although Kiowa was already through the blacksmith shop and couldn’t hear her.
Taking a deep breath, Mary pushed the chair back through the doorway, turned it around and headed back to the hall tree to retrieve her hat and shawl. And shoot…the items were out of her reach on the hooks above her head.
But she could reach her parasol in the built-in bin on the hall tree. She used the parasol to push her items off the hooks and within her reach. There! That felt good to do it herself. She wrapped the shawl around her shoulders, arranged her hat on her head and turned around to push the chair back to the door leading to the blacksmith shop. She’d be ready and waiting whenever Kiowa showed up.
***
Kiowa was still peeved when he pulled the horse and buggy up to the blacksmith shop. He jumped off and stomped into the shop, not surprised Mary had gotten her things by herself and was back at the door. Maybe it had been a mistake to help her with everything. Well, from now on, things were going to be different.
But a divorce? Not in his lifetime. And they wouldn’t come back to town until her mind was changed.
Kiowa picked Mary out of the chair and walked back to the buggy. “Catch yourself after I sit you down,” Kiowa growled as he tried to carefully set her on the buggy seat instead of tossing her on it.
Then he walked around the buggy, jumped up to sit beside Mary, leaving as much space as possible between them on the buggy seat, and flicked the reins to start the horse out of town…without saying a word to his lovely bride who was sitting beside him, with a pinched mouth and staring straight ahead.
Kiowa started to relax as the cottonwood trees along the river came into view. By the time he’d parked the buggy under the shade of a tree, he was ready to talk, but not look at her yet.
For a moment he listened to the rustle of the leaves overhead and the chirps of the birds noting the horse and buggy had invaded their sanctuary. He turned to watch the slow flow of the muddy river water below them and felt anchored to nature again. Kiowa had missed his trips out to the prairie this past month while caring for Mary.
And Mary had missed everything from her normal life to her apartment, let alone take a single step by herself. But it was time they reconnected as husband and wife, not caregiver and patient.
“I did not say ‘for better, for worse, until de
ath do us part’ out loud—in front of God and a preacher—without meaning it, Mary,” Kiowa said to break their silence.
“I know. And I meant my vows too, Kiowa. But because of my fall—and my fears…”
Kiowa turned to her then. “I think you can add frustration for the situation too. It’s been on the top of my list while I’ve tried to remain strong for you and the children.”
He wrapped his arms around Mary and pulled her to his chest. She looked up at him and sighed.
Kiowa kissed her tenderly on the lips and forehead before pulling away slightly, so he could meet her eyes. “I love you, Mary, and I want to be your husband forever, no matter which one of us is injured, ill, or…insane.”
Mary tried to contain her surprised laugh by biting her smiling lips. “Insane? I know people think we’re insane for marrying, but I’m still glad we did. I love you too, Kiowa, and in some ways, my fall has been a blessing.”
“How in the world can you say that?” Kiowa asked, although he knew what she meant. It had forced them to publicly acknowledge their marriage.
“Now we get to be together all the time, instead of secret rendezvous to each other’s bedrooms,” Mary grinned and wiggled an eyebrow.
“That added a little spice to our honeymoon phase though,” Kiowa said as he tucked a ring of curls behind her ear which had escaped her bun. “It’s so good to see your humor coming back, Mrs. Jones.”
“And I think we need to escape to the country more often. Just feeling the breeze on my face and viewing the horizon makes me feel…” Mary trailed off while lifting her shoulders.
“At peace. Balanced for me, to get back to my native roots,” Kiowa sighed as he stared out across the prairie with Mary.
“I love driving out into the countryside,” Mary commented.
Kiowa let the silence settle over them for several minutes. They needed time to soak in the peace the view gave them. They both sighed, almost in unison, when they felt better.
Mary laid her head on his shoulder and squeezed his forearm. “I can’t imagine how heartbreaking it was for you to be pulled off this land and stuck in a school when you were young,” Mary lamented, pulling Kiowa back in his memories.
“Although I hate to admit it, my father sending me to a school near my grandfather saved me from a worse life, and maybe even death. He knew the wave of soldiers dismissed after the Civil War and immigrants coming to claim land, would push the Indian tribes off the Kansas prairie.”
“But you came back later, when you could have stayed in New York,” Mary said.
“The visions of the open land of my childhood filled my dreams, until I had the way to return as an adult.”
“Even though it’s different from when you left? There are established towns marring the prairie now, instead of the teepee villages I’ve seen photographs of.”
“But this area of Kansas still feels like it was part of my past—once I drive out of town a ways. Who knows, maybe my Indian family camped out in this very spot when they roamed the plains while following the buffalo.”
“Why didn’t your parents marry and live together? You’ve never talked about that.”
“My father said it was because of his military commitments, but I sense my mother refused to leave her family, knowing what was going to happen when the government invaded the land.
“And shortly after I was entrusted to my grandfather’s care, my father sent a letter stating that my mother and her family had died in a conflict.”
That was hard for a ten-year-old boy to come to grips with, that his native family was gone. And a half year later, Kiowa’s grandfather received a notice that his own son, Kiowa’s father, had perished as well.
On a whim almost a decade ago, Kiowa traveled back to Kansas to find the sites where his parents had died. There had been a grave marker in the fort cemetery for his father, but none for his mother, who would have been buried in a mass grave at the attack site.
And when the train was at a rest stop in Clear Creek, Kansas, Kiowa had eaten at the Clancy Café and heard there was a blacksmith shop for sale in town. That chance conversation with Dan Clancy made him settle in Kansas again.
Kiowa paid cash for the blacksmith shop, then returned to New York to set up managers in his business. A few months later he settled in Clear Creek, only traveling to New York about twice a year for business.
He kept a low profile his first years here, blacksmithing during the day, making jewelry at night. The Clancy’s and Reagan’s were his first friends pulling him into their circle of friends.
And then Mary and her children moved back to Clear Creek when her banker husband, Abram Jenkins died. Why he was smitten with Mary at first sight still puzzled him. And that the attraction was mutual startled them both.
When Nolan Clancy left the military and traveled from Montana back home to take over Dan and Edna’s café, the older couple tried to push Nolan and Mary back together, as they’d been sweethearts in their youth. But Nolan brought Holly, his future wife, home with him, and he wasn’t interested in reconnecting with Mary.
Slowly over time, Kiowa and Mary spent time together, unbeknown to the townspeople, until Mary and Burdette’s accident.
The accident. Oh, yes. The reason for this ride.
“Now that the scenery has calmed us down, we need a frank talk about our future, Mary. First, I do not want a divorce,” Kiowa stated and held his breath until Mary answered.
“I don’t want a divorce, nor do I want to live apart either,” Mary affirmed, causing a considerable weight to lift off Kiowa’s shoulders.
“Thank you, Mary. So now we need to face the fact you might not get the full use of your leg back, next week or next year. I hate to think it, let alone say it out loud, but we have to face the truth.”
Chapter 11
Tears slowly trailed down Mary’s cheeks at Kiowa’s statement. She wanted to protest, but she knew they both had to face it.
Kiowa handed her his handkerchief and wrapped his arm around her shoulder when she started to sniff back her tears.
“But why me? Why, Kiowa?” Mary sobbed as she turned to him and let all her sorrows release in his arms.
“I’m sorry, Mary. There’s no rhyme or reason for accidents. I’m just thankful you didn’t die…”
Kiowa’s arms squeezed her chest against his as he sniffed back his own tears.
He lost his home and his family growing up. Thank God she was spared for his sake as well as her children’s.
“I know I’ve been balking about talking about our living arrangements. I hated to let go of our apartment, but I need to.”
“You still might regain your leg strength, Mary,” Kiowa suggested as he gently wiped her cheeks.
“Maybe, or maybe not. Either way, I can’t have you or the children helping me climb those steep steps every day. I’m ready to look at the houses you mentioned which could be added on to.”
Kiowa and Mack had looked at the two houses in town that were for sale, but Mary had refused to look at them up to this point.
“I’m glad to hear that. I dreaded the thought that you might fall again…”
“Then let’s talk about the possibilities, because we need a bedroom and a bathroom on the first floor for me,” Mary said, determined to make a new home for the four of them.
“And we have the option of building a brand new house too, if you prefer,” Kiowa suggested again.
“But that will take more time than just building an addition onto the home. I want all of us to be living under the same roof,” Mary said impatiently. Apparently, now that she’d made the decision, she wanted to combine their households into one home.
“Right now, there are only two houses for you to look at. The Marsh’s house on Second Street, and the Goodman’s house on the end of First Street.”
“I haven’t been in the Marsh’s house, but I have been in the Goodman’s years ago, because their daughter was a classmate.”
“Either lot has
enough room to add on to the back of the house. The Goodman’s house would be just two houses down and across the street from your parents though. In the long run it might be better for us to live close to them,” Kiowa said, but held up his hand to stop her protesting.
“Not only so your parents can help you, but also so we can help them when they age.”
“I hadn’t thought of that, but Clancy’s had to add on to their house for Dan and Edna’s limitations. And here I have to think of it for me now, instead of forty or fifty years down the road,” Mary muttered, trying not to let herself get mired down in her depression again.
Kiowa pulled Mary close again and kissed her temple.
“And I’m just happy we’ll be growing old together, instead of me putting flowers on your grave now.”
“I’m sorry. I forget I gave you a scare, since I was the unconscious one,” Mary apologized.
“It’s not something I’ll forget soon,” Kiowa replied. The scene of Mary unconscious and Burdette screaming in pain still flashed as nightmares in his mind.
“Too bad we can’t build a house by the river here. I’ve always enjoyed this spot.”
He didn’t comment that Mary had changed the subject, because his mind was already flashing back to Mary’s accident.
“Would you prefer to build out of town?” Kiowa hadn’t thought Mary would want to give up the conveniences of living in Clear Creek.
“No, although you might want the peace of the country. Away from the crowds of people,” Mary said.
“Clear Creek is not crowded compared to where I lived in Buffalo, New York. Besides, it’s better to be in town for our businesses, and the children.” Although looking across the waving grass to the distant horizon was tugging at his soul.
Grooms with Honor Series, Books 10-12 Page 21
