Carolyn Davidson (23 page)

Turning, she looked back, but the farm was too far away to be seen, and somehow it didn’t even matter. For the first time in months, Johanna found herself thinking only of the pleasure of the moment. A somewhat selfish, exceedingly satisfying sensation of hedonism made her giggle, and she heard herself as if listening to another person. Johanna Patterson never in her life had giggled. She’d never walked into town just to spend a few minutes with a friend either.

“But I’m not Johanna Patterson any more,” she reminded herself aloud. “And I’m going visiting.”

Her stride lengthened as she walked back to the road, heading for Belle Haven, violets in hand.

“Pa, Miss Johanna isn’t in the house, and the stove’s gone pretty near cold.” Pete stood in the barn door, watching as his father rubbed down the bay mare. Timmy was curled up in the corner, weary from his long ride, perched in front of his father on one of the old mares.

“Is she upstairs, son?” Tate asked, intent on drying the mare thoroughly before he put her in her stall. “Maybe she’s taking a nap in the bedroom.”

Pete shook his head. “No, I called her, and I even went
up and looked in your room. She’s not in the attic either. I climbed the stairs and looked around.”

Tate thought a moment. “Could be she’s in the springhouse. She might have decided to churn today, instead of in the morning.”

Pete looked disbelievingly at his father. “It’s Sunday, Pa. Miss Johanna says it’s a day of rest.”

Bessie laughed, sitting on a milking stool, near the tack room door. “Maybe she ran off, Tate. You don’t seem to have much luck with your wives, do you?”

“That wasn’t funny, Bessie.” He shot her a look guaranteed to give her pause. “Johanna doesn’t bear any resemblance to your sister, and you know it Besides, we have an audience, and I’d just as soon not discuss the past.”

“They’ll know one of these days, anyway,” she said, shrugging off his remark with a smile.

Somehow Bessie’s company had become cloying of late, Tate decided, his gaze sweeping over her slender form. True, she was wonderful with his sons, always had been, for that matter. But she didn’t wear well. Belinda had called her shallow, and he hadn’t tended to agree back then. Now he was beginning to see for himself that the woman was all surface.

His strokes across the flank of the bay mare slowed as he thought of the female who shared his life these days. Where on earth could Johanna have gone to? It wasn’t like her to abandon her kitchen in the middle of the afternoon.

Pete’s voice called from beyond the barn door. “She’s not in the springhouse, either, Pa.” Skidding to a stop in the wide doorway, his small face darkened by concern, the boy faced his father. “You don’t think she left us, do you, Pa?”

“No! You know better than that, Pete.” Tate shook his head at the idea.

Timmy sat up abruptly, horror painting his features. “We need to find her, Pa. She’s gotta cook my supper.”

Tate frowned in his direction. “Miss Johanna doesn’t gotta do any such thing, Timmy. She takes care of us because she wants to.”

“’Cause she loves us, Timmy,” Pete chimed in.

Bessie stood, stretching and easing her shoulders forward. “My, my, what a testimony to Miss Johanna’s virtues. I don’t know about you, Tate, but I’m tired from that ride. I believe I’ll go and take a nap myself, while you round up your wayward wife.”

“Throw some wood in the kitchen stove, Pete,” Tate instructed, leading the mare to the barn door. “Timmy, you go with your brother. I’m going to take a ride and see if I can scout up Johanna before that rain cloud moves any closer.”

“You’ll hafta saddle up again, Pa,” Pete told him.

Tate slid the bridle back on the mare. “No, I’ll ride bareback, son. I won’t be gone long. How about puttin’ off your nap for a while, Bessie, and keepin’ an eye on the boys for me till I come back?”

“I wonder sometimes if Tate and the boys wouldn’t have been better off staying in Ohio, Selena.” Johanna lifted the teacup to her lips and sipped the sweet brew. It was the second cup she’d accepted, and from the looks of the sky to the west, it had better be the last.

Selena pushed the porch swing into motion again, the bouquet of violets brushing her nose as she sniffed their fragrance. “I think Tate’s better off right where he is, Johanna. He’s a man in a million, you know. And I think he’s aware of how fortunate he was to find you.”

“We get along all right,” Johanna said, placing the teacup carefully on its saucer.

Selena laughed aloud. “If the way he looks at you is any indication, I’d say you get along just fine.”

Johanna’s smile was wistful. “I didn’t think I’d ever be
so head over heels. I thought—” She stopped, biting her lip.

“You thought Joseph Brittles had broken your heart when you were sixteen years old and you’d never get over the sorrow of it, didn’t you?”

“That was a long time ago. Sometimes I forget he ever existed,” Johanna said quietly.

“I fear he left you with a lasting remembrance of his presence in your life, though.” Selena bent forward, her eyes soft as she looked at the young woman who sat on her porch steps. “I was so fearful for you, Johanna. I thought you’d never get over the misery you lived through in those days.”

“You knew?”

Selena nodded. “I suspected you were going to have a child. I have rather a sixth sense about those things. In fact, I’d be willing to guess that you’re in the family way right now, my dear.” She laughed aloud at Johanna’s look of surprise, and then sobered as she continued. “I figured out that you’d lost your baby ten years ago, Jo, and I knew your father wouldn’t let me do a thing to help. You were so young, I wasn’t really surprised. Those things happen…but this time will be different.”

“I thought no one knew,” Johanna whispered, turning her head aside, unwilling to meet Selena’s gaze.

“I doubt anyone else did.” Selena stood, leaving the swing to rock behind her as she settled on the top step, next to the young woman. “I’m going to tell you something that only one other person in Belle Haven knows about, Jo. I was left at the altar when I was nineteen years old. The young man hauled buggy and ran off, leaving me to carry his child.”

“You had your baby all alone? Where…?”

Selena’s whisper was fraught with sadness. “I gave my little girl away, the day she was born. I’ve never seen her since. I never will.”

Johanna’s eyes filled with tears, and she reached to grasp Selena’s hands. “And you never married? He never came back?”

Selena shook her head. “No, I left Grand Rapids and moved here to live with my aunt. My parents couldn’t stand the disgrace. Then, when Aunt Millie died, I just stayed on, and when they needed a postmaster in Belle Haven, I applied for the position.” She smiled, a bittersweet movement of her lips that reflected the sorrow in her eyes. “It isn’t often that a woman like you or me can find a man willing to overlook our past.”

“Tate knows about my baby,” Johanna said. “Does August Shrader…Have you told him, Selena?”

She nodded. “Yes, and he says he loves me no matter what happened to me twenty years ago.” She squeezed Johanna’s hand. “We’re going to be married next month. It will be announced in church next Sunday.”

Johanna’s heart lightened at the news. This day had been one of discovery, one of fulfillment. One of secrets shared. “You’re right, Selena. I’m going to have a baby.” Her laughter gurgled as she reached to hug her friend. “I only figured it out myself lately. I don’t know how you could tell.”

“You have a look about you, Johanna. Sometimes I just know things about people. August says I’m perceptive. I knew the first time he walked me home from Sunday church that I would marry him one day. I think he’s my soul mate.”

“I’ve never heard that term before,” Johanna said, savoring the sound of the phrase. “You know, I worried that Tate should have married Bessie instead of me. She’s so good with the boys, and so beautiful, and the Lord knows she wants him badly enough. But I think maybe Tate and I were meant to be together—maybe we’re soul mates too.”

“Speaking of soul mates, I think I see yours coming up
the road, riding bareback on one of his new horses.” Selena stood and waved at Tate as he brought his mare to a stop by her gate.

“She’s here, Tate!” Selena called cheerfully. “I’ll bet you thought she’d played hooky, being gone so long.”

Johanna met her husband’s gaze as he sat astride the bay mare, his eyes dark, his face somber. “I’m coming,” she sang out, turning to hug Selena quickly. “I think he’s upset with me,” she whispered.

Selena returned the hug and chuckled. “Maybe, but I’ll warrant you can handle him.”

Johanna walked quickly down the path to the gate, passing through to where Tate waited. “Were you concerned about me? I should have left you a note, I suppose.”

Tate offered her his hand and stuck out his foot for her to hike up on, lifting her to sit behind him on the mare’s back, her skirts pulling taut, almost to her knees. His hand lifted in a salute to Selena, then he turned the mare in a tight circle, heading back the way he had come.

“Tate, are you angry?” Johanna hung on for dear life to his waist, wrapping her arms around him as she slid precariously on the mare’s sleek back.

“What do you think?” he asked, his voice harsh, his callused hand reaching back to grasp her leg, tugging it forward to hug his thigh. He repeated the movement on the other side. “Ride up tight behind me.”

“I think it’s going to rain,” Johanna ventured, wary of his anger.

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. You’d be in a bad way walking home in it, wouldn’t you?” He nudged the horse into a trot, and Johanna clung tighter. Then, as the first sprinkles fell, the horse broke into an easy lope, as if she scented the promise of hay and a handful of oats awaiting her in the barn.

By the time they rode through the barn door, Tate ducking to miss hitting his head, the rain had begun to come
down in a soft shower. Johanna slid to the floor, shaking her skirts and brushing at her hair.

Tate picked up a feed sack and rubbed at the horse, drying her quickly. “Why’s your hair hanging loose?” he asked gruffly, eyeing her over the horse’s back.

Johanna tossed her head. “I felt like taking it down.”

“The boys were worried that you’d run off, Jo.” He rubbed down one back leg and then, moving to her side of the horse, tended to the other.

She was silent, watching him. “And what did you think, Tate?” she asked finally.

He glanced up, admiring the feminine grace of her, hair flying as she shook her head, bending low to run her fingers through the long golden tresses. “I think Johanna Montgomery would never run away from me. She’d stay and give as good as she got. I married well this time, Jo.”

She stood erect, a halo of tangled locks about her head, her blue eyes dark with a passion she did not attempt to hide. “I’ll never hurt you the way Belinda did, Tate.” Her fingers lifted to trace the scar that ridged his cheek. “Bessie told me how this happened, that Belinda did it.”

“Bessie talks too much.” He shook his head, reaching up to snatch her hand, bringing it to his lips. He spoke against her palm, his words rueful. “I should have told you myself, honey. But I just couldn’t.”

“Whyever not, Tate?”

“It was going to involve a lot of explaining when I finally got around to it,” he said in a soft flurry of words, as if he must blurt out his explanations before he thought better of it. “To start with, there were some folks in town who looked at me afterwards—after Belinda died—like they thought I’d been responsible for her death. And I guess I was, when it comes right down to it.”

Johanna shook her head, then spoke, unable to remain silent in the face of his self-condemnation. “I doubt you
could have stopped her, Tate. I’ll bet she felt guilty for hurting you so badly.”

“Not nearly as guilty as I felt.”

“She was unhappy, Tate. You couldn’t be held responsible for that. We’re all accountable for our own happiness. We have to find it where we can, and from the sounds of it, Belinda didn’t bother much looking.”

“She was a far sight from happy, honey. I just don’t know how I inspired such hatred in her. And I didn’t want to admit that anyone could detest me the way she did, I suppose. The worst part of it is, I’ll never know if her drowning was an accident that day, or if she threw herself into the river on purpose. And I’ve lived with that guilt ever since it happened. I guess I’ve felt like this scar she gave me is my penance for making her life so miserable.”

“Penance? Hardly! We only do penance for sins committed, and you never set out to do anything but good for Belinda. Besides…” Johanna’s fingers escaped his grasp and ran lightly over the scar again. “I think it makes you look kind of mysterious and—oh, maybe dashing and dangerous.” Her words splintered into laughter as she caught sight of his disbelieving grimace.

And then his frown dissolved into a crooked smile as he beheld the woman he’d married. She’d shattered his gloom, and he relished her ability to lighten his darkness. “You wait right there, Mrs. Montgomery, while I put this horse away. I’ll tend to you in just a minute.” His eyes swept over her as he spoke, his agile fingers making quick work of buckling a halter on the mare.

Quickly he led the bay to her stall, his gaze barely faltering from its feminine target as he worked.

“Maybe I’d better run to the house and get some supper put together,” Johanna said, peering out the door through the spring shower.

“Maybe you’d better stay right here and deal with your husband,” Tate said, his long arm capturing her and pulling
her from view of the house. “Get on up that ladder,” he said, pushing her toward the steps leading to the hayloft.

“Whatever for, Mr. Montgomery?” she asked innocently.

“This time there’ll be no room for excuses, Johanna. There’s no Bessie across the hallway, no Timmy with a bellyache, and no supper to cook. That bunch in the house are on their own for the next little while. You and I have a score to settle.”

She laughed, glancing at him over her shoulder, a luxurious sense of security enveloping her. His dark eyes spoke a silent message, their gray depths darkening even as she watched. And then he was pressing against her as she climbed, his hands sliding beneath her skirts to clasp her calves, slipping to above her knees and then to her ankles again. She slowed her progress, enjoying the seduction of his touch, and he nudged her upward, easing her over the edge onto the wide planked floor of the loft.