Life After Wife (4 page)

She should have already told them about Matt, but after a year, her sisters would think she was making up stories, and her mother would never believe the pretty-boy preacher could have had a fault. It hadn’t seemed right at Matt’s funeral to tell her mother and sisters what a lyin’, cheatin’, son of a bitch he’d been. Everyone was there to bury a preacher who’d had an untainted halo and wings, so she’d let them do just that. It hadn’t been difficult to let her pure, old Irish pride have its way and keep the sordid secrets hidden in her heart.

The first time she’d told anyone other than Maud the whole story had been a year before, when she and Kate had met Fancy at her grandmother’s house for a reunion. Kate mentioned an old country song entitled “80’s Ladies.” The
singer mentioned three little girls from the fifties and said that one was pretty, one was smart, and one was a borderline fool.

As sweat ran down Sophie’s neck and into her bra that summer evening at the Baird cemetery, she recalled the day that Kate had said that Fancy was the pretty one, Sophie was the smart one, and she was the borderline fool. Sophie dang sure didn’t feel so smart right then.

There had been a slight breeze to rustle the leaves in the pecan tree above Maud’s grave, but it died. Sophie ran her hand across her forehead and pushed back a few errant hairs. Summertime sweat was as sticky as superglue. Her kinky hair kept sneaking out of the ponytail and plastering itself to her neck. Come evening time, it might take acetone to get her bra peeled off her skin. Even her denim shorts were sticking to her thighs like flies on the remnants of a snow cone.

She leaned forward and ran a finger over Maud Jones’s name.

The funeral service had been exactly what Aunt Maud had told her to arrange.

“I don’t want a big church funeral with all that snot slinging. Just let everyone meet at the cemetery, sing ‘I’ll Fly Away,’ and let the preacher pray over my dead body. The song is for closure, and the praying is to make him and everyone else feel better about me going. Remember, Sophie, I’m dead. Go on with life. Enjoy it. Savor it. When the end comes, go out with a shout and slide up to the pearly gates with no regrets. That’s what I’m going to do,” she’d said that last week of her life.

It was as if Sophie could hear Maud’s voice behind her, repeating the words she’d said the day before she died. “Don’t you put me in no brand-new suit. I never wore a suit to anything in my life. Barely could abide a dress at funerals and for
church. You bury me in my jeans and shirt, and don’t forget my boots. That old pair with the scuffed heels. I’ve got some work to do up there before my friends arrive, and besides, Jesse is waiting to dance with me. I can’t dance barefoot. He loves to dance, but he steps on my toes pretty often. And I sure can’t dance in new boots. I’d have blisters for sure. Promise me.” Aunt Maud had held her hand tightly until she got the promise.

Sophie touched the tombstone. “What am I going to do? Why didn’t you just leave the whole thing to him instead of giving me your half? I’m not strong enough to do this.”

A hot wind stirred up a dust devil on top of the new grave. Sophie was mesmerized as she watched the miniature tornado in front of her. Then she recalled Aunt Maud’s speech from when Matt died. Maud had flown from Dallas to Tulsa for the funeral. She’d arrived a few hours ahead of Sophie’s parents and her two sisters. Sophie had poured out the story, and Maud had taken control.

“God has a special place reserved for men who are in the preachin’ business for the glory and the money. Matt didn’t have no calling to the ministry. He had dollar signs and power in his eyes. You are going home with me and getting over this with some good old, hard, physical work. Let him have his final minutes of glory and you play the bereaved widow for the cameras. There’s a strong woman in you, Sophie McSwain. We’re going to find her. That man might have stomped you down for a few years, but you can come back with some help and I’m here to help you.”

After the funeral she’d gone home with Aunt Maud, and the past year she thought she’d found that strong woman, until that morning when she’d squared off with Elijah. Now
she wasn’t so sure about any of it. The strong woman might only be there when there were no storms, and the first sign of a strong wind would knock her flat on her butt.

“No, I will not,” she said vehemently. She couldn’t let Aunt Maud down, not even if she was dead and gone. She had to show her that she could still be strong.

She touched the tombstone once more and got to her feet. She squared her shoulders and headed for her truck. The storm that hit after Matt died was an emotional hurricane, and she’d survived it. She would come out on the other end of the one ahead of her with a ranch and even more strength. If it don’t kill you, it’ll make you stronger. She forgot who said those famous words but she’d live by them, and when it was all said and done Elijah Jones would be riding out of Callahan County with his pride hanging from his handlebars.

He’d said the moving company would be there by evening, but she was shocked to see the big truck sitting in front of the house when she got back to the ranch. Elijah and two other men were busy taking things in and bringing other things out. A bed, along with the mattress and box spring, was sitting on the porch. A dresser stood like a lonely sentinel in the yard, and they were bringing out another bed.

“What in the devil are you doing?” Her voice squeaked like a little girl’s on the playground at recess.

“I’m moving in. I told you this morning the movers would be here. I decided my two bedrooms could be across the hall from each other. That way you can have the one you occupy now and Aunt Maud’s. I have an ulterior motive. I don’t want to deal with cleaning her things out,” he said.

“Why do you need two?” she asked.

“One for the bedroom, and one for my personal office. We can share the ranch office. If you want a personal one, then you can put it in Aunt Maud’s old room,” he said.

“Have you no shame? She’s barely in the grave.”

“Her last letter said to get on with business after the funeral. Today I’m moving in. Tomorrow we’re walking over as much of the ranch as we can, or we can ride four-wheelers to make it easier. The next day you are showing me the accounts. That’s called getting on with business,” he said.

She glared at him.

He shrugged as if her dirty looks weren’t even as important as a gnat buzzing around his ears. “I’m going out on a limb here and being nice. It’s not easy and it’s not part of my personality, so don’t expect it again. What do you want done with what I’m taking out of here?”

“That’s not nice. That’s business,” she protested.

“Yes, it is nice. Is anything out here your personal property, or is it ours jointly because it belongs to the estate? Tell me or the movers will put it in the truck and take it to the nearest shelter for the homeless.” He crossed his arms over his chest and waited.

“They’re not my personal things, but I don’t want them given away. Store them in the bunkhouse for now,” she said.

“You heard the lady. Put them on the truck and take them around back and down the lane. You’ll see a long, skinny house back there. I left the door open when I checked it out a few minutes ago. Just stack them up anyway you can, and she can have the hired help do whatever she wants with them,” he said.

She continued to glare at him. Why did someone that handsome have to be such a pain? If he chopped off the little
sissy ponytail and had his hair cut in a feathered-back style, he’d be close to movie-star good-looking. The cameras would love those high cheekbones and that chiseled face. He could use a little more in the lip area, but the slight cleft in his chin and those blue eyes made up for the thin, firm, no-nonsense mouth.

“Might as well stop giving me your meanest looks. I’ve been hated by professionals, lady, and you are just an amateur. I don’t care if you like me. I don’t care if you hate me. We’ll have to work together until this is settled. All the rest is small stuff, and I don’t sweat the small stuff,” he said.

From behind his dark sunglasses, he scanned Sophie in her tight jean shorts and bright green, stretchy tank top without her knowing it. She’d grown up to be a beauty, no doubt about that. She’d been a skinny kid that reminded him of a newborn colt trying to grow into a set of long legs. Well, she’d done the job very well. Her unruly curly hair begged a man to tangle his hands into it, her lips were made for kissing, her legs reached halfway to heaven, and her gray eyes saw straight into his soul. How on earth that man she was married to could cheat on something that gorgeous had to be a total mystery. He had to be an idiot, but Aunt Maud said he was a well-respected preacher. It only went to prove again that you can’t judge a book by its cover or a man by his lies.

She sighed when he didn’t say anything else. “It’s a necessary evil, but I don’t have to like it.”

“No one said either of us had to like it. You want to empty those drawers before they load that dresser?” He tossed her a box he no longer needed.

“No, I don’t but I will,” she mumbled.

What she found barely filled half the box. All the drawers were empty except one, and it held a few dresser scarves and hand-crocheted doilies. Maud might have used them when she and Jesse first took up housekeeping, but in the years Sophie had known her there hadn’t been any “foo-rah,” as Maud called it, in the house. Her tables held basic items: lamps, ashtrayst from when Jesse was alive, candy dishes that were always full, coasters, and magazines.

“It’s ready to go,” Sophie said when she finished.

“The guys in the bunkhouse going to mind all this extra stuff?” Elijah asked.

“There are no guys in the bunkhouse. We hired on extra help for the summer, but they come and go every day. No one lives in the bunkhouse anymore.”

Elijah raised an eyebrow. “Foreman?”

She shook her head. “Aunt Maud and I managed it on our own. Better equipment these days than when Uncle Jesse was alive. The ranch has moved into technology. We keep things on the computers, back them up on flash drives at the end of each week, and only hire outside help for seasonal work. We’ll need extra in three weeks for the cattle sale. Why? You want to change your mind? You don’t get to boss around a whole bunkhouse full of men. We had six that came every day during the summer months. Three of those are back in high school. Two went back to college.”

“Gus?”

“He’s the full time, but he got married last year.”

Elijah stammered. “But he’s got to be sixty years old. No, he’s older than that, isn’t he?”

“So does that mean he can’t fall in love?”

“My hero has bitten the dust,” Elijah said.

“Is that a whine I hear coming from the big, old he-man?” Sophie asked.

“It could be, but it’ll only last a minute. Who’d he marry?”

“Lady over in Clyde. She’s a retired schoolteacher. Never married. No kids, of course. Thinks Gus hung the moon.”

Elijah mopped sweat from his forehead and shoved the red bandanna back into his hip pocket. “He did at one time. I’m not so sure anymore since he let a woman brand him. But at least he still comes to work every morning, right?”

“He was at the funeral with his wife. Didn’t you see him? Her name is Alma Grace.”

“Guess I didn’t. But I will tomorrow. We’ll wait until then to talk business. Do you want these men to take Aunt Maud’s things out of her room and store them in the bunkhouse?”

“I. Do. Not! I want to keep her spirit in there a while longer,” Sophie smarted off at him.

“It’s
your
other room. Do with it whatever you want, but don’t be begging me to help carry things to the bunkhouse when you get a wild hair and want that room for a sewing room,” he quipped right back at her.

She took two steps toward him and tiptoed until her face was just inches from his. “I don’t sew. I’ll do my share of the housework, but you will help. I’ll help work cattle, put up hay, drive a tractor. Anything you can do, big boy, I can do better, so don’t be thinking I’m a little stay-in-the-house woman. If you’ve got a problem with helping to cook or washing dishes, don’t let those men leave until they’ve reloaded
your
things.”

He leaned down until his nose came so close that it became two when she tried to focus on it.

“I bet I’m a sight better housekeeper than you are, and I hate things out of order, so put that in your big-girl pipe and
smoke it, sister. And I can sew when I want to, so add that to my list of accomplishments.”

“Honeymoon must be over,” one of the movers laughed.

“Honeymoon ain’t even started,” Elijah growled.

“Honeymoon ain’t never startin’,” Sophie hissed.

The movers all chuckled as they went back to the truck for another piece of expensive furniture, this time a leather recliner that had seen lots and lots of wear.

“Where do you want this?” two of them asked at the same time.

“In the den and take out all the furniture in there,” Elijah answered.

Sophie turned around abruptly and stomped into the house, slamming the screen door behind her. She watched the men as they placed the recliner where the old, brown, plaid one had sat as long as she could remember. In that moment she realized how badly she hated change. That’s what had kept her head buried in the sand all those years with Matt. To acknowledge that the only time her marriage was happy was when he was in front of the cameras on Sunday morning would mean she’d have to change things.

“That’s good. Right in front of the big-screen television,” Elijah said right behind her.

She pointed. “You see that little burgundy recliner over there by the bookcase? You move it one inch, and I’ll spend the rest of my life in jail for killing you. That’s not a threat. It’s a promise that you can take to the bank. I mean it. That one is mine.”

He narrowed those cool blue eyes until they were little more than slits. “The living room is yours. The den is mine. Take it to the living room.”

“That was
your
idea, not mine. I love this den. It’s where I spend my evenings, and I’m not budging. Get out the duct tape, and we’ll mark off half the room. You can have half the formal living room, but you are not moving the sofa either,” she said.