Redemption (13 page)

“At least I haven’t accused you of throwing a tantrum,” he said.

“That’s because I haven’t managed to commit that particular sin.”

“Sin?”
He laughed harshly. “You don’t know what sin is, Alicia. Sin is resenting a nine-year-old boy who will one day be on the concert stage while I’ll still be sitting here in this house, mourning the loss of my career.”

“No, Jake,” she said, correcting him quietly. “Sin is a man hiding his talent from the community around him and the world at large because he’s suffered a tremendous loss in his life. It’s my understanding that you can still play that piano, that only your stubborn pride keeps you from the keyboard.”

“Do you think I’d get up on stage again and feel like an exhibit in a circus? Let folks cluck their tongues at the poor legless man who can’t use the pedals but must make do with an assortment of wires and levers?”

“Don’t you consider yourself fortunate that such an invention was perfected for your use? Or hasn’t that fact occurred to you?” she asked.

“What has
occurred
to me is that it was a mistake to take on the task of giving piano lessons to those two children. Catherine will never be more than competent. Toby will be past the need for my limited help within two years. He should go to a conservatory, and I doubt if his parents will send him. They have no concept of his talent. If the boy makes it to a concert stage, it will be because of his own ambition.”

“Don’t you think your influence might be the deciding factor at the end of two more years of lessons? Don’t you think his folks would listen to you? In fact, did you realize that his mother is scrimping and saving her pennies to pay for his lessons? Does that sound like a woman who has no concept of her son’s talent?”

Jake looked at her in silence, his face set in hard lines, his jaw thrust forward. “It’s easy for you to come up with these pat phrases, isn’t it? You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She shrugged. “Maybe not. Maybe I’m ignorant about such things, but I do know that we’re each put on this earth for a purpose. You could have just as easily died the night you were wounded. Instead you came home with a long life ahead of you.”

“You call this living?” he asked, looking down at his
lap. “I call it merely existing, getting up and going to bed, providing a subject of gossip for the townspeople, and allowing you to vent your spleen on me.”

She laughed aloud, his words so patently ridiculous she could barely give them credence. “‘Vent my spleen’? What a thing to say.” She picked up the freshly washed kettles and carried them to the pantry and then reentered the kitchen to face him.

“You’ll have your supper in thirty minutes, Mr. McPherson. Now, get out of my sight while I cook. I can’t abide looking at you.”

H
E
’
D NEVER SEEN HER
so upset. In all the months they’d shared, she’d never lost her temper as she had during the past few minutes. Jake rolled backward from the kitchen door and let it close behind him. Spinning the chair in a half circle, he went back to the parlor. The late afternoon sun shone in the windows, the lacy curtains creating a pattern on the floor. The windows gleamed with the application of vinegar and water Alicia used on their surface every couple of weeks; fly specks were a thing of the past.

He’d been nasty. Downright rotten, taking out his mood on the one person who had put up with him without complaint for the whole livelong summer. She seemed, sometimes, to bring out the worst in him, and he had a sneaking suspicion that his own foul mood was due in good part to one thing.

The fear that she might not see him as a man.

True, he was not physically fit, but Rena had thought him worthy of her love. His arms and chest were muscular, his body not gone to fat. Yet Alicia looked at him as though he were a neutral being, neither male nor female.

He wanted her to see him as a man, needed to know that she felt some spark of desire in his direction. Since the night she’d asked him to kiss her, and he’d so readily obliged, she’d backed away. She seldom touched him, only when she trimmed his hair or helped him wash it in the kitchen basin. Except for the tender touch of her lips against his cheek, once. A touch he’d cherished.

She carried hot water to his room in the evening, waited on him at the table, took care to keep his clothing in order, putting it away in his dresser drawers when the washer lady brought it back in the big basket. As far as her duties were concerned, Alicia had done all she’d bargained for, and more, too, he admitted to himself.

They sat on the porch of an evening, speaking of various topics. She kept him on his toes, gave him food for thought. First and foremost, she did her best to keep Jason in line. That the boy refused to cooperate at times was frustrating, but it would all work out eventually.

The only thing she didn’t do was look at him as Rena had, with soft smiles and warm glances. He hadn’t asked for that. To be honest, he’d told her there would be no intimacy in this relationship. So why was he critical now because she was living up to the rules he’d set in place?

He rolled to the piano. The lid was still up, neither he nor Toby thinking to close it down. He reached for it and his hand slipped, one finger brushing a key. The hammer touched the string and the single tone resounded in the room. D above middle C.

He forced down the lid with a thud and he glared at the inanimate object. To be angry at a piano was an exercise in futility indeed. The piano couldn’t even give him a good argument in return. As had Alicia. As she’d done for the past months of their marriage. His anger vanished as quickly at it had sprung into being.

Again, he owed her an apology, though his frown belied his willingness to perform the task. He rolled from the parlor and found Jason sitting on the bottom step of the long staircase.

“Are you done fightin’ with Miss Alicia?” the boy asked. “She sure was mad at you, wasn’t she?”

“She had good reason,” Jake told him. “If you want to hear me make amends, come along to the kitchen. I might need some moral support.”

Jason rose from his spot and meandered ahead of
the rolling chair. “What’s moral support?” he asked, pushing open the kitchen door for his father to pass through.

“It’s you standing next to me and smiling a lot when I tell her what an idiot I was a few minutes ago.”

Jason looked at him and whispered words of rebuke. “Pa, you’re not ever supposed to call anybody an idiot. Miss Alicia told us in school that it was the height of ignorance to belittle another person’s shortcomings.” He spit the words out as if he had memorized them and stored them in his mind for just this moment.

“She was right, Jason,” Jake said quietly, watching Alicia across the room, her back stiff, her head held high as she stirred something in a kettle on the stove. “But in this case,
I’m
the idiot, and I don’t think that rule applies.

“I need to talk to you,” he said, raising his voice to get Alicia’s attention.

“Go ahead,” she said. “I can hear you from here.”

“I think I could do this more easily if you’d look at me.”

“Then you’ll have to wait until I dish up your supper.”

The woman was still fuming. Even though she’d laughed aloud at his remark about her venting her spleen, it had not been the sound of merriment, but rather bitter sarcasm.

“All right. I’ll wait.” He rolled to the table and motioned
toward the sink. “Wash up, Jason, and get out the plates and silverware.”

“Yes, sir,” the boy answered, doing as he was bid. He slanted a long look at Alicia as he sorted through the forks and knives, found three napkins in the drawer, and placed them on top of the plates before he carried the stack to the table.

“Fork on the left,” Alicia said automatically.

“What’s the difference?” Jason asked with a sigh of patience gone awry. “Who cares where the fork is?”

“I care,” Alicia said from the stove. “If you’re going to do a job, do it right.”

Jason rolled his eyes, and Alicia turned to him. “You will not be disrespectful to me, young man. I will not tolerate it.”

As if inviting Jake to step in and soothe Alicia’s ruffled feathers, Jason sent him a pleading look. His father only shook his head and lifted an eyebrow in response.

Alicia dished up the food—an assortment of leftover chicken from the night before, with noodles and broth added to make a thick stew of sorts. Carrots and fresh peas from the garden were in another bowl, and small whole potatoes were buttered and sprinkled with parsley in a third. Rather a sumptuous feast for a woman to put together in thirty minutes’ time, Jake thought. No one had ever said Alicia was not efficient in the kitchen.

She put the food on the table and sat down, placing her napkin on her lap. Jake waited, as she bowed her head and gave thanks. “I’ll fix your plate, Jason,” his father said, and noted that the boy was agreeable in the extreme.

“Yes, sir,” he said politely. “May I get some bread, ma’am?” he asked Alicia, and at her nod, he went to the buffet and brought back the loaf and a knife to slice it with.

Alicia made short work of the task, and Jason carried the wrapped bread back to where it was kept.

“I have an apology to make,” Jake said quietly. He heard Jason’s indrawn breath at his words and shot the boy a silencing look.

“Really?” She was not going to make this easy, and he couldn’t blame her, he decided.

“Yes. I was rude and nasty, and I said some foul things to you. And I’m truly sorry.”

“Which things exactly are you apologizing for?”

“Well—” Jake began spooning the stew onto his plate and then serving some to Jason “—probably we should start with the ‘venting your spleen’ remark. That was pretty harsh. Then I said you didn’t know what you were talking about. I’ll have to admit, ma’am, that you generally don’t speak your mind until you’ve got things all sorted out.”

He reached for the bowl of vegetables. Jason made
a face, but his father ladled a heaping spoonful onto his plate. “If there’s anything else I’m forgetting, I guess I’ll have to include it in a general blanket apology.” He looked up at Alicia and took note of the pain she didn’t bother to conceal from him.

“All around, I’ve been a first-class grouch today. You were handy, so I took it out on you.” His words were softly spoken and he watched her closely for a reaction of some sort. She only nodded and bent her head to the food on her plate.

Jake ate silently, making quick work of the meal Alicia had prepared, then he looked at Jason and pointed at the back door. “Out with you, son. You’re excused from the table.”

“I didn’t finish my peas, Pa,” Jason said.

“You can eat twice as many next time,” Jake said briskly. “You’re excused.”

“Yes, sir.” With an agile movement, Jason slid from his chair and placed his napkin beside his plate. Shooting a glance at Alicia, he ducked and headed for the back door.

“Now, let’s talk.” Jake leaned his elbows on the table, aware that he was breaking one of Alicia’s cardinal rules of table manners. In response to her disapproving look, he leaned his chin on his folded hands and frowned.

“I’m not sure what you want from me, Alicia. What-ever
it is, I’m apparently not capable of giving it. I have a nasty temper. I warned you before you married me that I was hard to live with, but you assured me you could handle it. Some days I feel like a man on a tread-mill, the only difference being that I couldn’t walk on a treadmill if I wanted to. My days begin and end with a struggle to get in and out of bed, and in between times I work to keep my body clean and presentable.

“I know I’m not easy to live with, but I’m trying. You have to believe that.”

“I’d be happy to help you get in and out of bed, if you’d just ask me,” she said, biting at her lower lip after the offer had left her lips. “I can help you wash every morning if you like. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make your life easier, Jake.”

“You’re too damn good to me, and I feel guilty and then I act like a bas—”

She held up a hand and halted him midway through the word. “Don’t say it,” she said. “You’re not a child born out of wedlock. It’s my understanding that your parents were married before your birth. As to my being ‘too damn good’ to you, I hardly think that’s reason enough for you to be ornery with me. If you like, I can start behaving like a shrew and see if that will help things.”

He laughed aloud. Alicia knew exactly how to put him in his place, and moreover knew how to keep him there.

“If you won’t accept my apology, I’ll just have to repeat it in the morning, I suppose,” he said, his humor greatly restored. “As to helping me in and out of bed, I won’t ask that of you, Alicia. I won’t subject you to the sight of my body.”

She shrugged. “That’s fine with me. I won’t have to let you laugh at mine, then.”

I wouldn’t laugh
, he wanted to say aloud. The words stuck in his throat, and he swallowed them whole. Right now, he’d give just about anything to have Alicia in his bed.

Just when he had become so fixed on the woman was beyond him.

T
HERE WAS DELAY
in school starting. The harvest was late and the children from the surrounding farms and ranches were needed to help in the fields. Older boys from town were in demand and most of them were willing to pitch in, especially when it would pay them so well.

But September was school time and she chafed at having to put all her plans in abeyance. Still, there was certainly enough to do around the big house to keep her busy. She arose on a Monday, looked out the window and noted the last of her crop of red tomatoes still hanging on the vines. Enough to make chili sauce, she decided. She had onions aplenty and green peppers in abundance.

The thought of the aroma of spices and vinegar turning the tomatoes into a savory mix made her hurry into her clothing, preparing for the day. Coffee was the first order of business and she put it on the stove. By the time she had the oatmeal cooked and the sausage
fried, she knew Jake would be enticed and heading toward the kitchen.

My days begin and end with a struggle to get in and out of bed
. He had sounded so bitter when he’d made the statement. Now she stood at the stove and wondered if he were grasping at the trapeze that hung over his bed, aiming for the rolling chair, or if he were already sitting at his dry sink, washing in fits and starts in the basin. He was making do with cold water this morning. But she was comforted by the fact that she’d provided him with a hot pitcherful last evening.

She’d empty his slop pail later on, when he was elsewhere in the house. It bothered him that she waited on him in that way, but his waste water and the rest of the contents of the covered bucket were simple enough to carry out back to the outhouse and dispose of.

She poured a cup of coffee for herself after ten minutes, keeping an ear out for his chair. In another ten minutes the food was on the back of the stove, keeping warm, and she began to worry. He’d never been this late rising. The door to his room was closed and she rapped on it twice.

“Jake? Are you up yet?”

There was no answer and she frowned, rapping again; surely he could hear her.

“Jake? Can you hear me? Are you awake?” She waited another few seconds and turned the handle. It
opened readily and she looked into the room. The curtains were drawn, a new practice, Jason had told her, since Jake had lived day and night in the gloom before Alicia’s arrival.

Now the sunlight shone across the floor and she scanned the room quickly. His chair sat beside the bed, empty. Jake was still beneath the sheet and she called his name again, then walked toward the bed. As she approached, he stirred, mumbled under his breath and rolled to face her. His face was flushed, his hair matted and the sheet was tangled around him as if he’d fought with it all night. Her palm on his forehead proved her to be on target, for his skin radiated heat.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, aware even as she spoke that he did not hear her. Jake was sick, feverish it seemed, and she was hard put to know what to do about it. He would resent it if she took charge the way she was prone to do in every circumstance.

Yet, she really had no choice. First, though, the doctor must be called. Backing from the room, she went to the staircase and called for Jason. He appeared in moments, rubbing his eyes, his hair sticking up at all angles, looking so much like his father, it took her breath.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, peering down at her.

“I need you to get dressed and go for the doctor, Jason. Your father is sick, I’m afraid. He seems to be running a fever and I’m not certain what to do.”

The boy’s face turned pale, his freckles standing out like so many specks of paint. “I’ll hurry, Miss Alicia,” he said, moving back into his room. Within a few seconds he was on his way down the stairs, buttoning his shirt and tucking it into his trousers. “I’ll run real fast,” he told her, and as he got to the front door, he turned and asked a question that sent chills down her spine.

“Is he gonna die? Like my mom?”

Alicia stiffened her spine and cast the boy a severe look, intent on making light of his fears, lest he panic. “Of course not, Jason. He’s just caught a chill. He’ll be fine in a day or so.”

He slipped out the door and was gone. The doctor lived in the center of town and, with any luck, Jason should be back with him inside half an hour. In the meantime she needed to be busy trying to get Jake’s fever under control.

The basin of cool water was simple enough to carry to the bedside. She dipped a towel in the water, then wrung it out and placed it on his head. She placed a second towel on his chest. Jake’s undershirt opened up with pearl buttons all the way down the front and Alicia had no qualms about opening it wide to apply the cool wet cloth to his chest.

She lifted the towel from his forehead and felt the heat it had collected. A quick rinsing and wringing out made it ready for another application, and by the time
Doc Hayes had arrived, she had managed a system that kept her changing towels at a regular pace.

“What seems to be wrong, Mrs. McPherson?” the doctor asked. He approached the bed, bent over Jake and gently raised one of his eyelids to take a look. “He’s got quite a fever, hasn’t he?”

Since he didn’t seem to expect a reply, Alicia didn’t bother offering one, but kept on with the task she’d set for herself. The doctor opened his bag and took his stethoscope from its depths and positioned it on Jake’s chest to listen to his heart.

“His heart’s beating like a trip-hammer,” he said quietly. “We need to get that fever under control.” He rolled Jake to his side and pulled the shirt from his back. “Wonder what in the world brought it on.” He looked up at Alicia. “I surely hope you’re not excessively bashful, ma’am. We’re going to have to strip him down for this.”

“That’s fine,” Alicia said quietly.

“Lend a hand here,” the doctor said, stripping the sheet back and bending to remove the drawers that were buttoned at Jake’s waist. He moved them quickly down the muscular thighs and then took up a towel and placed it in a strategic spot to protect the unconscious man’s modesty.

Careful to keep her gaze from Jake’s legs, Alicia picked up the drawers and placed them with the pile
of clothing Jake had removed last evening. It seemed an intrusion to gape at his scars, when he couldn’t deny her the sight of his wounded legs. “What can I do?” she asked, anxious to help.

Doc Hayes rummaged in his bag and drew forth a bottle. “Make him some tea with this. Six drops in a cup of hot water and add some sugar. It doesn’t taste like anything you’d want to guzzle down, but he won’t care at this stage. We’ll give it to him in sips with a spoon.”

Alicia hurried to the kitchen, where Jason sat at the table, trying valiantly to eat a bowl of oatmeal. “Is he gonna be all right?” he asked, clearly worried. He was a child, Alicia reminded herself. Only a boy. And so she knelt beside him and put her arms around the narrow shoulders and drew him against her.

“Of course he’s going to be all right,” she said, wishing she could cross her fingers to take away the lie. She didn’t know that Jake would be all right. In fact, right now he didn’t look anything like the man she’d fought with just two days since.

“I have to make some tea for your father,” she told Jason. “Would you clear up the kitchen as best you can while I help the doctor?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jason said obediently, the most docile she’d seen him in the months since school let out.

The tea was ready in moments, the big kettle holding hot water at the ready, the six drops measured carefully.
Carrying the cup back into the bedroom, she stirred the sugar in and prepared to dose him.

“Try to get a few drops down him,” the doctor said. “Sit down right there beside him and talk to him. See if you can persuade him to open his mouth.”

“Jake?” She leaned over him, her hand against his forehead, then bent to whisper in his ear. “Jake? Can you hear me? I need you to take some of this tea. Open your mouth for me, will you?”

His eyes opened, shiny with fever, his pupils shrinking to pinpoints as he looked toward the sunlight pouring in the window. “Rena?” he asked, his voice hoarse as he spoke the name.

“Yes, Jake. Just open your mouth and take some of this tea.”

Alicia felt the doctor’s gaze touch her as she coaxed the sick man to respond, knew his eyes held pity for the hurt she must feel. That Jake should call Rena’s name was enough to make her howl with anguish.

The teaspoon trembled in her hand and half the tea dribbled down his chin. “Open your mouth,” she repeated, attempting to pour a scant teaspoonful at a time between his lips. She feared him choking on the liquid, yet he seemed to swallow automatically.

“We need to keep that up,” the doctor said. “I’ll work at the towels if you’ll keep up with the tea.”

“Whatever it takes,” she told him, concentrating on
Jake. His big body radiated heat, and it seemed the towels were having little effect on him.

“Let’s try some rubbing alcohol,” the doctor murmured. “Dilute it half-and-half with water, ma’am, and we’ll douse him good with it.”

Alicia rose and did as she was bidden, then settled back down to bathe Jake with the alcohol mix. The moisture lay against his skin and evaporated quickly. Then his eyes opened, and he looked up at her, his expression dazed, his brow furrowed.

“Alicia? What’s wrong?” he asked hoarsely. He tossed his head from one side to the other. “I’m hot. Can you open the window?”

“You have a fever, Jake. Just lie still and let me bathe you.”

His mouth twitched and he laughed, a rusty sound that held not a shred of genuine humor. “I didn’t think to get you in my bedroom this way.”

“Pardon?” The word slid from her lips automatically as she bent closer. Fortunately the doctor was busy digging in his bag and missed the byplay, but it mattered little, for Alicia felt a blush creep over her cheeks at Jake’s words.

His eyes closed again and he groaned as a chill gripped him and his body shuddered. “Cold,” he whispered, his arms crossing over his chest as if he tried to preserve body heat.

“Doc?” Alicia raised her voice and the doctor looked in her direction. “He’s taken a chill,” she said.

“Not surprising. When a man runs so high a fever, it sometimes goes in the other direction, kind of a reaction to the strain on his body.” He looked toward the wardrobe. “Any quilts in there?”

Alicia rose from the bed. “I’ll get one.” She opened the wooden door and reached for a thickly quilted coverlet, opening it and spreading it over Jake’s body. He was trembling in earnest now, and she felt the urge to hold him against her in order to lend him her own heat.

For almost an hour, they fought the shivers, tried to stem the trembling with a second quilt and a hot water bottle Alicia found in the airing cupboard upstairs. They rolled Jake onto his side, then placed the warmth against his back and held it there with a pillow, doing their best to offset the effect of chills.

“I think he’s taken with a fever of some sort,” Doc Hayes said. “Probably something he picked up in the war. Sometimes these things hibernate and then show up years later. If that’s what it is, it shouldn’t last more than a day or two.” He sorted through his bag and brought forth another small bottle.

“Once he comes to, you’ll need to dose him with this, Mrs. McPherson. Just the same way you made the tea. Six drops or so in a cup of hot water. It’ll help with the fever. A high temperature is more dangerous to him
than the chills.” He picked up his bag and approached the bed again.

“Just do the best you can. I’ll stop by this afternoon when I’ve returned from seeing a couple of sick folks outside of town. I think you can handle it all right.”

The thought of being left with the sick man was frightening. But, unwilling to admit her fears, Alicia nodded agreeably and followed the doctor to the bedroom door.

“I can find my way out,” he said, and shot her a penetrating glance. “You seem like a capable woman, ma’am. But if you want me to, I’ll send a message out to Cord and let him know you’re needing help.”

She shook her head. “I think we’ll be fine. If Jake doesn’t perk up by evening, I’ll think about letting Cord know.”

Doc Hayes nodded and walked quickly toward the front of the house. Jason came from the kitchen and watched the man leave, then looked to Alicia, his eyes shiny with tears he refused to shed.

“Will my pa be all right?” he asked. “Can I go look at him?”

“Yes, to both questions,” Alicia said briskly. “You keep an eye on him while I fix myself a piece of bread. I’ll need something in my stomach to keep me going. Just sit beside him and call me if he stirs.”

Jason nodded and Alicia went on into the kitchen.
She’d purposely kept her gaze averted from Jake’s legs, but the sight of scarred stumps had touched her peripheral vision and she swallowed hard as she thought of the pain he must have endured while his wounds healed. It was no wonder the man was grouchy sometimes, bitter most of the time and a recluse without a desire to associate with his fellow man.

One leg was indeed longer than the other, his right knee still intact, and she closed her eyes as she recognized the cruel results of war. He had a right to be ornery, surely must be filled with anger at the limitations he lived under. She’d been able to overlook his injuries so long as she did not actually see the tortured limbs. Now they loomed before her, making her aware of the pride that had kept her from viewing the damage.

She might never be allowed admittance to his bed, although his remark had startled her into wondering just what his thoughts had been on the matter.
I didn’t think to get you in my bedroom this way
.

Well, like it or not, she was situated there now. At least for the next day or so. Long enough, anyway, to get him past the sudden illness that had struck him during the night. Maybe Cord would know if Jake had been prone to a recurring fever. It might be worthwhile to send someone out to the ranch to let him know about the situation.

She took her cup of coffee with her, carrying a plate with a slice of bread on it, and returned to the bedroom. Jason sat still beside his father, only turning his head to regard her beseechingly as she approached the bed.