“You don't mean it?” Opal's gasp pierced something in Adam's chest.
“A fresh start,” he repeated what he'd just told her. “After the way you smoothed the path for our families to reconcile yesterdayâespecially in the face of Pa's and Larry's aggressionâI've decided to put the past away.”
“All of it?” Shrewdness sharpened her features.
“We'll forget about the cause for our wedding.”
I can afford to be generous when it saved my skin.
“And even dismiss the rocks in the mattress.”
Her sudden hug caught him off-balance. Almost literally. One minute his wife stood before him, face bright with hope, and the next instant warm woman filled his arms with softness and his breath with a tantalizing hint of honey. His arms skated around to hold her closer.
It takes little enough to make her happy.
Adam didn't even try to dredge up a protest, just savored the sensations.
I'll remember that and be sure to do it more often.
“Rank ewe.” Opal's murmur puzzled him.
“We don't keep sheep.” He lost her response when he felt the heat of her breath through the cotton of his shirt.
I'll buy her some sheep if she wants them.
“Mmffm.” Her hands pressed against his arms, pushing the realization that he'd been holding his wife too tightly.
He immediately released her, jamming his hands in his pockets as she took a great gulp of air. Oops.
“Sheep?” She looked confused. “I said thank you.”
“I misheard. It's no matter.”
“It matters.” The shiny happy look came back. “More than you know. After seeing Pa and Ben and Elroy and Pete yesterday, it made me miss them even more. Knowing I wouldn't see them again for so long made me wretched. I can't say how much it means that I can go over there tomorrow.”
“I don't want you to be wretched, Opal.”
Will she ever look like that when she says my name?
“Wouldn't have lasted. What really makes me happy is that you're letting us start afresh. Completely new.” One smile shouldn't be capable of containing such radiance.
Adam blinked to clear his mind. “Opal, there's one matter that must be laid to rest before we move forward entirely.”
“Yes?” The smile faded, though her glow remained. She reached out and clasped one of his hands in both of hers.
“Opal, I know you don't really want to discuss it, but I think we both know that he left town a while ago.” He spoke carefully, trying to upset her as little as possible as he broached the topic of the man who'd impregnated then abandoned her. He'd come to the conclusion the day before that the fellow didn't remain in town. “You must have thought he wouldn't come back?”
“There were times when even I began to doubt.” Her openness touched him. “But he's a man of his word, Adam. I knew he'd return to us.”
Us. She's known she was with child for months now. Opal will begin to show the pregnancy any time. And she still believes he's returning for her and their child?
It seemed as though all the moisture in his throat crisped to ice.
“Is he worthy?”
Will you want to leave with him if that day comes?
“I've never known a more worthy man.” The earnestness of her expression felled him. “He'll make a good provider, Adam. You don't have to worry.”
“People will talk.” He grasped at anything to keep her from slipping away. “Our families will declare war.”
“No. Another marriage will only strengthen the alliance between the Specks and Grogans.” She squeezed his hand. “Benjamin made a lot of money in the mines, Adam. He'll more than do right by Willa. Your Pa will come around.”
“Ben.” He all but shouted her brother's name.
How is she talking about Ben?
“Yes.” Opal squeezed his hand tighter, as though to make him focus. Maybe he needed it. “I know you and your family think Ben was flighty for going off to the mines, but he and Pa made the decision together. He always planned to come back. Even if he didn't write as often as I'd like, he tried. You can depend on Ben to stand by Willa, and, like I said, he has the money to keep her more than comfortable.”
Her flurry of words penetrated his confusion.
When I asked about the man who'd left awhile ago, she thought I meant her brother?
If biting back a bellow didn't take his concentration, Adam might have struggled against laughter.
I'm trying to coax my wife to confess the name of her lover, and she's trying to convince me that her brother will make a good husband for my sister!
“No.” He placed his free hand over both of hers as the consequences of what she suggested sank in.
Pa will take blood in exchange for his only daughter.
“I can't let that happen.”
“What do you mean?” Opal went ahead and asked the question but already knew the answer. As she'd spoken of Ben, she'd watched Adam's expression grow increasingly impassive.
Why did you ask about my brother if you'd already made up your mind?
She wanted to cry out but knew better than to push this new husband of hers.
Already this morning he'd rescinded the punishment for Lucinda's ploy with those rocks in her mattress. Questioning his judgment about allowing Ben to court Willa might set her back more than she could afford.
“I mean that we've more than enough difficulties surrounding our marriage to even consider assisting another one.” His hands beneath and atop hers put forth an astonishing amount of heat. “We can't waste our time or energy trying to keep track of Ben and Willa when there's so much riding on our relationship.”
“Our relationship.” She liked the sound of that far too much, but he said it as though they made a team.
I've always been a Speck but didn't really fit in as the only woman and the one trying to keep everyone from fighting. But Adam's talking as though I could belong.
“Keeping everyone believing we chose each other ... it takes a lot of work.” His flat comment squashed her silliness.
“Of course it does.” She tugged her hands away but only managed to free one.
It's obvious a man like you would never choose a nothing like me unless forced into it. You speak of fresh starts, but really you're just making the best of a bad situation.
Her eyes stung at the thought.
“Especially when we aren't in it together.” His grip tightened, as though trapping her.
“What do you mean?” A welcome wave of anger rolled away the loneliness for a moment. “I've stood alongside you to help avert bloodshed from the very beginning. No, even before the beginning. Back before our wedding day. How can you imply anything less?”
The same way Pa figures I'm not loyal to the Specks.
The idea floored her.
It doesn't matter how much I do or how many times I prove that I'll sacrifice my own needs for the best interests of others, in the end I'll still be the outsider.
Sorrow crashed over her, dousing the flames of her indignation. But only for a moment, when she realized Adam was talking about unanswered questions and an uncertain future.
“When you won't tell me who the father is?” he finished as though he'd built up to this last question, though Opal hadn't caught most of what he said.
“You're asking me why you should move forward with this marriage when I can't tell you who is going to be the father of my child?”
“Exactly.”
“Perhaps because this marriage saved your life.” Opal jerked her hand from his when another light tug didn't immediately free her. “And therefore the lives of your entire family.”
“Yours, too.” His jaw hardened.
“That's why I'm ready to go ahead.” She jumped on the opportunity. “If I'm able to, why aren't you?”
“I'm not the one who would be seen as unfit for society when my babe entered the world without a father.” Adam's usual use of diplomacy vanished right along with hers. “You're the one who only wants to go forward so she can leave secrets buried in the past.”
“You, you...” Opal clenched her teeth together to keep the words from escaping.
I can't tell him I'm a virgin. I can't tell him my secret is that I have no secrets. If he knows before the marriage is consummated, he'll annul the marriage and get us all killed.
She reminded herself of the facts over and over again.
He only thinks you're carrying a child out of wedlock because you allow him to believe so.
“I what?” He folded his arms across his chest. “I deserve to know the name of the man whose child I'll be raising?”
“You're a hypocrite!” The accusation bled from her thoughts before she could staunch the flow. “No one forced you to claim me or my future child. You could just as easily have denied me to my family, admitted Larry's guilt in writing the note you should have burned, and taken the penalty. You may even have lived long enough to seek vengeance for the punishment my father dealt your brother. The secrets of which you speak aren't mine, husband.” She took a deep breath. “They're
ours.
”
“True.” Adam closed the space between them. “I don't like it but won't deny it. At least we can share our secrets and the common purpose of safeguarding those we love, Opal.”
“Yes.” She kept her gaze fixed on his shoulder, knowing somehow that if her eyes met his she'd be undone. “We share those things, if not a bed or a life.”
His hissed intake of breath let her know the remark hit home.
“Marriages are based on trust, and trust on truth. There will be truth between us, wife.” His forefinger crooked beneath her chin, tilting it upward until she faced him fully. “Tell me his name.”
“You're wrong.”
She tried to back away, but he held her fast, his thumb coming to rest almost tenderly on her chin.
“How so?”
“Trust is based in honesty, not truth.”
“Two branches of the same tree. I'll take either one.” The slightly rough pad of his thumb traced her lower lip. “We'll start our marriage in full when you answer. Tell me.”
“So be it. Honestly,” she closed her eyes against the hot pinpricks of tears as she gave him the only answer she had, “there's nothing to tell.”
“Tell me everything.” Midge barely waited until they reached the edge of the apiary before demanding information. Opal wore the look of a woman with too much on her mind.
With a fake illicit pregnancy, a hidden shotgun wedding, a pending family feud, and an evil mother-in-law, there's plenty to keep her busy. Even without me asking if I'm right about Larry making a pest of himself and somehow bringing that farce of a wedding on her and Adam...
Today called for a tall order of talk, followed by a dose of scheming.
If God really existed, maybe He did well to get me here for Opal, like He put Dr. Reed in Baltimore to save me from Randy.
The thought caught her off guard, so Midge shoved it to the back of her mind. She had more important matters to delve into right now.
“We spoke yesterday after church.”
“That much to cover?” Midge gave a low whistle. If Opal's reluctance proved any gauge as to the level of difficulty they could expect, at least boredom wouldn't creep up on her. “And don't try to brush me off. The whole town besieged you and Adam so much the two of us didn't have a moment together.”
“Did you bring woolen gloves?”
Opal's question seemed senseless until Midge remembered that her visit bore an actual purpose. Today they had to move the apiary from Speck land to the Grogan clearing Adam marked for it. “Yes. Though leather's easier to work through.”
“Not when you're working with bees.” Her friend's expression turned serious. “If a bee feels threatened and stings, leather will trap him and he'll die. With wool, he can usually remove his stinger and survive.”
“Will you kick me out of your apiary if I say that the bees who sting me aren't my highest priority?” Midge tugged her sleeves down over her wrists.
“I won't, but only because you said âwho' when you talked about them, and that shows you think of them as individuals.” Opal passed her a misshapen brown lump. “Put this in your pocket, just in case.”
“Looks like tobacco.” Midge inspected the texture of the thing then sniffed it. “It
is
tobacco! I don't want this.”
“You will if you get stung. It's an old trick my mother taught me. Warm some tobacco in your hand until it's moist then rub it on the site of the sting until the pain and swelling lessen. It works better than even ammonia does and won't take your skin off.” Opal passed her a straw hat. “You'll be especially glad since the hotter the weather, the worse the swelling.”
“This starts to sound like you assume some bees will sting me.” Doubt niggled through her. “They never have before.”
“Before, we fed them. Today, we're going to move the hives. They'll see that as an attack.” Opal pulled out yards of netting. “It's why we take extra precautions like the gloves and netting and make sure we smoke the hives to lull the bees to sleep as best we can before we start jostling them around.”
“Is there anything else I should know?”
Now that it's too late to back out.
“Keep your ears open. One of the first alerts will be the sound the bees make. When they're making that buzzing hum, they're happy and busy. When they're agitated, it takes on a shrill pitch. That's when they're more likely to sting.”
“I've only ever heard them hum, but that's good information to have.”
Midge watched as Opal put on her straw hat and began layering netting around her head. Opal wound yards of white netting around her face, covering her head and hair completely all the way to her shoulders. Midge mimicked the motions, insulating herself with the light, gauzy fabric that made the world seem softer. Then they pulled on their gloves.
A brief tutorial on how to handle the smoker, and they cautiously approached the first hive. Movable-frame, Opal had called the 12”x12” boxes. She'd gone on about it being the ideal size and such forth for reasons that seemed too specific to Midge. Right now, though, how to secure the bottom boards and close the openings while smoking the bees definitely seemed important.
They got through the first five hives, loading them into the small wagon with Midge suffering only two stings for her trouble, before they headed toward Grogan land. The mule before themâSimonâplodded as slowly as a creature could move and still count as moving, but Opal said that was the idea. Jostling the bees would upset them and maybe wake them up.
Midge drove Simon while Opal kept the smoker ready to subdue any irritated insects. It was only hours later, when after painstakingly driving over the last of Opal's twenty hives, that Midge found an opportunity to steer the conversation back to personal matters.
With the hives in place and reopened, the contented, buzzing hum Midge found strangely soothing blanketed the new apiary. She watched as Opal unwound the netting from around her face and followed suit.
“Something like this stuff may work to keep the bees from penetrating your defenses, but we both know I see through such flimsy tactics.” Midge handed the netting back to her friend. “You haven't distracted me.”
“How do you give the impression your attention is fickle, wandering to new interests before most folks could ever guess, when really you're as single-minded as a bloodhound?”
“Maybe because my fickle attention only wanders when it's not fixed on something important.” Midge pulled the loosely woven fabric away and tucked it back in the wagon so she wouldn't have to see Opal's reaction when she said the next part. “You're important to me.”
“Oh, Midge.” The hug came almost as a tackle. “Thank you for that. I needed to hear it today.”
“Why today?” She didn't see any reason to bother with repeating mushy sentiments. Unearthing information so she could make plans, on the other hand, registered high on her list.
“My progress with Adam seems more going backward than anything else.” The admission made her friend seem more fragile somehow.
“Of course.” Midge snorted. Aunt Doreen's lady lessons sank in deeper than she expected, but sometimes even a lady needed to indulge in a solid, dismissive snort. Quickest way to let someone know she sounded ridiculous. “That's exactly what the whole town will buzz about all weekâhow you and Adam can't get along.”
“We made a good team yesterday.”
“You two have made a good team for much longer than that, from what I can tell.” Midge scooted her rump back until she perched on the back of the wagon. “It went unnoticed on account of your families, but you've worked in tandem to keep the Specks and Grogans away from the others' throats for years.”
“Holding a common cause doesn't make two people a team.”
“Call me crazy, but I think doing something alongside each other is exactly what makes two people a team. Some teams are temporary and dissolve after a short task. Some last a lot longer. You and Adam share a burden neither one could pull alone and have for so long you take each other for granted.”
“No one wants to marry a horse.” Opal sounded positively moroseâwhich meant deep down she wanted Adam to want her. Good.
“Except another horse.” Midge gave her shoulder a friendly nudge. “Especially since you two have been hitched together since long before your wedding.”
“Maybe you're right.” A small laugh burbled from her throat as Opal envisioned her and Adam tied together, each pulling in opposite directions. The laugh died abruptly, as the thought of her husband trying to escape their binds grew more prominent.
“What's wrong?” Midge sensed the change in her mood.
“Hitched together in desperation and driven apart by lies. That's me and Adam.” The dark pit of her situation yawned before her, inescapable and bottomless. “How long before the whole thing gets destroyed?”
“Stop it!” Her friend nudged her into the back of the wagon, where Opal sat with little grace. “You're both heading for the same goal, and that's keeping everyone together. So I don't see how you can be torn asunder so long as you keep on that way.”
“Lucinda's suspicions and little games, for one.” Opal didn't want to think about what her mother-in-law might be hatching next. “Though this morning Adam rescinded his decree that I can't visit home.”
“That'll give the biddy more to cluck about.” The glee in Midge's voice livened Opal's spirits a little. “And shows Adam's more alongside you than ever. Why so gloomy?”
“Adam asked about two other things this morning, and those didn't go well at all. Since you seem to have all the answers today, you can probably guess.” She raised a brow in challenge.
“Ben and Willa?”
“You're downright spooky.”
“Nah.” Midge made an abrupt gesture with one hand. “That one's obvious. Anyone who went to church yesterday would've come up with it, which means every blessed soul in all of Buttonwood knew the answer.”
“Adam says he can't allow it.”
As though it's for him to allow.
Opal barely kept the disloyal thought to herself.
Wait. Disloyal? Since when is wanting happiness for my brother disloyal?
Foolish question.
Since I pledged my life to Adam.
“Who made him king of Buttonwood?” Midge's huff made Opal grin.
It may be wrong for me to voice such things, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate another person's perspective!
“No one governs the heart, save God.”
“Not to argue, but I think we choose who we love. Some people make poor choices is all.” Midge shrugged. “Hearts can be won, but they have to be given. If Willa wants to give hers to Ben, nothing Adam can do will stop it.”
“He and his family would keep them apart, a big mistake. Even if Ben hadn't returned from the mines with a handsome sum, he bears half of Speck land. The Grogans would have to go far to find another who works half as hard or would do so much for those he calls family. He'll be a good husband and even better father someday.” The more she thought about it, the more insulted she became. “Willa would never regret choosing my brother, but the Grogans act as though he isn't good enough.”
“They treat you as though you aren't good enough.” Midge's interruption stopped Opal in mid-stew.
“I know.”
“You accept that.”
“Because I can't change it, and we're supposed to forgive when others wrong us.” Opal needed the reminder as much as Midge did. “Turn the other cheek.”
“I read that.” Her friend absently rubbed her now much smaller lump of tobacco on a small red bump that marked her fourth and final sting of the day. “It makes me wonder, though....”
“Wonder what?”
“How many times?” Past pain shadowed Midge's normally avid gaze, turning it fierce. “How many times do you turn your cheek before it turns you into someone you don't even recognize?”