Joe's Wife

“May I give you a ride?” she asked. “I’ll be leaving now, too.”

Did she think he couldn’t walk? His neck grew uncomfortably warm.

“Please?”

He met her eyes and found no pity. Perhaps she just wanted to extend a gesture of friendship. He wouldn’t recognize the effort if it jumped up and bit him on the butt. “Thank you.”

Tye carried their mugs to the kitchen and wished Reverend Baker a good afternoon, slipping him the remainder of his half-smoked cigarette.

He assisted Meg onto the wagon seat and sat beside her. She guided the team onto Main Street. “You’re staying at Mrs. Banks’s?”

“Yes.”

“I hear she keeps a nice place.”

“It’s clean. She cooks daily meals for those who want the cost added to their room.”

She didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Perhaps he shouldn’t have mentioned the cost of meals. Maybe she thought he couldn’t afford them.

“Tye, I wish to speak with you about something,” she said at last.

He looked over at her, thinking she had more questions about Joe. Or the war. “Go ahead.”

Her cheeks were pink in the shade from her hat brim. “Is there somewhere we could talk alone?”

His mind raced. Alone? Surely she didn’t mean alone. That wouldn’t be right. She just meant where they wouldn’t be overheard. On the Sabbath the parlor at the boardinghouse was generally filled with boarders playing cribbage.

The saloon wasn’t open, but he had a key. Stupid thought.

There was a small pastry shop across the street, but it was never open on Sunday afternoons.

She seemed to be looking about with the same dilemma. She reined the horses to a halt and pulled the brake handle. She met his eyes directly. “Your room?”

Tye couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d started to disrobe on Main Street. What on earth did she have to say that she couldn’t have said on the ride here? And why did she want to say it to him? “What if someone sees you coming in?”

“I have a perfect right to visit anyone I like.” She lifted her chin defensively. “I would hardly leave my horses and wagon here in plain sight if I planned on doing something shameful. Besides, we’ll leave your door open.”

Tye glanced from her sincere face to the practically deserted street. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” She hopped down ahead of him, and he took a little longer, easing his foot to the ground without jarring his leg.

Tye stayed between Meg and the parlor door as they passed, preventing her from being seen, not that anyone looked up.

She walked ahead of him up the flight of stairs, and he struggled to keep his eyes from her shapely backside beneath the rustling ebony dress. A titillating glimpse of white eyelet petticoats caught his eye when he looked down. He concentrated on his hand on the banister, thought about placing one foot in front of the other. He was taking Meg Telford to his room.

In a million years, he’d never have even dreamed up this possibility. Unlocking his door, he pushed it open wide and ushered her in.

She glanced around. There wasn’t much to see. His other shirt and trousers were at the laundry. His saddlebags and guns were pushed under the bed. The room looked just as it had when Yetta Banks had rented it to him months ago.

Tye picked up the straight-backed chair and moved it in a direct line in front of the open door and gestured for her to be seated.

She did so, arranging her skirts and holding the reticule in her lap. What did women carry in those silly things, anyway?

Tye had little experience with women of quality, and her presence in his room doubly confounded him. He deliberately avoided sitting on the bed and stood uncomfortably by the bureau.

“I have a business proposition to offer you,” she stated.

He waited, unable to imagine any business Joe Telford’s widow would have with him, and not even willing to guess.

“I’m having a difficult time with the ranch.”

He hated that news. She’d seemed so happy when Joe was alive. “I’m sorry. Can I do something to help?”

She raised her head and looked him in the eye, unsettling him, unaccustomed as he was to having women meet his gaze. “There is. I just don’t know if you’ll be willing.”

“What is it?”

“The Telfords are putting a lot of pressure on me to sell.”

Damn! Her husband had bought a prime piece of land, and if she was offering it to him, he hadn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of coming up with enough money.

“I won’t sell, however.” Her chin rose a notch once again. “I’m determined to hang on to the ranch. Joe and I bought that place together. He sank money and time and all his dreams into making a go of it, and I’m not going to sell out just because things are a little tough. Not without a fight.”

“I admire that. I wouldn’t sell it if it was mine.”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about.”

“What?”

“I have two old men and two young boys besides myself. Last year I hired a few extra reps for roundup, but I can’t do it again. I’ve had to sell several things to keep the place going.”

She knew he didn’t have any money, so the only thing she could want from him would be labor. “Are you asking me to work for you? I’ve tried to get work everywhere, but no one will take me on.”

“I couldn’t pay you, Tye,” she said plainly. She took a deep breath and hurried on. “What I’ve decided I need is a husband. That way, you’d have a stake in the place. The work you did would be to your own benefit. As you know, when a man marries, his wife’s property becomes his.”

He stared. Deepening pink tinged her smooth cheeks.

Slowly, he worked at assimilating her words and the idea behind them. He raised a hand to knead the back of his neck and took an unconscious step or two. “I think I’m confused here. What is it you’re asking me?”

“I’m asking you to marry me.”

He looked her over for some gross mistaken identity. This was Meg Telford, no doubt about it. Meg Telford in his room. Asking him to marry her. He shook his head to clear it. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Yes, I do.”

“You can’t. Nobody in Aspen Grove will even look at me or talk to me. You’d lose the respect of everyone in town if anyone knew you were here right now. You saw how your family acted when you talked to me in the mercantile! You can’t want to marry me.”

She stood abruptly. “I don’t give a fig what anyone’s going to say about it. I don’t need this town’s approval to do what I believe is right.”