The Bride Backfire (20 page)

Pounding on the barn door woke Adam the next morning. Larry, of course, remained dead to the world—and the knocking.

He pulled on his pants and a shirt, leaving it half unbuttoned in his haste to see what needed attention, and threw open the door with gun at the ready to find his wife, clad in nothing but a night rail and a cloak. Adam reached out and clasped both her arms, pulling her inside. He thrust her behind him and looked to the left and right to find what disturbed her so.

“Willa's gone.” Her whisper stopped his search.

No.
He shut his eyes against the news, but nothing could shut away the truth of it. His eyes flew open once more when he felt her hands on his chest, doing up his buttons.

“We have to go after her.” Opal kept quiet, obviously trying not to wake Larry. “Maybe it isn't too late. I don't know when she left—I slept closest to the wall.”

“Put on clothes, Opal.” Adam grabbed his boots and sat down. “We'll head over to your family's place, but I'd stake everything I have they're long gone.”

She left in a whirl of cotton and cloak, muttering something about having to try.

Opal stood ready in a blue calico dress, still wearing her cloak against the coldness of the pre-morning. Dawn didn't yet lighten the sky as they left.

With Daisy and Dusty as their only draft horses, and mules or oxen notoriously slow, they made their way on foot. Adam's stride ate the distance in long stretches, but it seemed to him Opal lagged like she hadn't before.

“I'm coming,” she gasped. One arm curled protectively around her stomach, and it seemed as though hurrying cost her great effort. “Keep on, Adam.”

The baby must be moving.
Wistfulness panged through him. Any other time, and he would've asked to feel it kicking so he could share part of the joy of their child's growth.
But now ...
It was all he could do to remain thankful his wife trooped on.

When they arrived at the Speck doorstep, Adam's pounding put Opal's earlier efforts to shame. A bleary Elroy opened the door gun-first.

“Grogan.” He peered past them. “Just you and Opal, or the whole clan come for vengeance?”

“Been expecting us, I see.” Adam didn't bother to keep the anger from his words. “Only us. For now.”

“Let 'em in, boy.” Murphy's order came just as Elroy started to open the door anyway. “They're too late to stop Ben and Willa now. Might as well enjoy a visit.”

“Might be the last thing you enjoy when my pa catches wind of this.” Adam rubbed a hand over his face and sank onto a seat, mind racing.

“Tit for tat.” His father-in-law wore the broadest smile Adam could remember since their wedding. “Willa came to Ben, so Diggory's got no call to vent his spleen.”

“He will if you can't prove it.”

“Willa left a note.” Opal reached into the pocket of her cloak, retrieved it, and passed it to him.

My Beloved Family,

I love you all but am tired of living caged by past disappointments and false discord. Ma uprooted the flowers and tried to blame Opal, who's done nothing but good since she married Adam. I don't believe anymore that she put rocks in the mattress. I've gone to be with Ben. We planned to elope anyway, but Pa forbidding me to see him hurries things along. Opal doesn't know anything about this—I go as my own woman and will return as Ben's.

“Well, at least this proves she went willingly.” Adam carefully folded it and placed it in his own jacket. “Without this note, Pa would've gone after your heads for sure.”

“I've been doing some thinking.” Murphy leaned forward. “Why don't we come with you to break the news? It'll show we've got nothing to hide. Better yet, I'm willing to agree that the delta land should go to Ben and Willa for them to establish a homestead, if he's amenable. With our families bound by two marriages, it's time to bury the hatchet.”

“I'll go in first,” Adam decided. “If I think Pa won't shoot first and listen later, we'll all talk like civilized men.”

“Best anyone can hope for.” A small smile tugged at the corners of Opal's mouth as they all headed back to the Grogan farm.

Adam kept her close as they neared home, wanting to order her back to her room but certain she wouldn't abandon her family under any circumstances.
Not fair to ask her to when I wouldn't either.

By the time they got back, he found Pa and Larry in the barn. He closed the rolling door behind him, offered a prayer, and cleared his throat to get their attention. “Pa. I need you to hear me out on something. You aren't going to like it, but it's too late to do anything to change it.” He took a deep breath. “I already tried.”

“What?” Larry's eyes narrowed in that calculating way of his, but Adam simply passed Willa's note to their father.

“No.” He crushed the note in his fist, went pale white, then livid purple. “We'll get her before it's too late.”

“They left last night. By the time Opal discovered Willa gone this morning, fetched me, and we got to the Speck place, they were long gone.”

“Willa ran off with that Speck boy?” His brother surmised the situation. “That girl doesn't have the sense God gave a goose. When we catch up to them, she'll regret the day she ever—”

“We won't catch up.” Pa smoothed the note. “By the time we reach them, they'll have reached Ft. Laramie and be hitched right and legal. It's over, Larry.”

“Murphy, Elroy, and Pete would like a word about the matter.” Adam cautiously laid the groundwork for a meeting. “If you want to discuss it, Pa.”

“What's to discuss?” The light of battle gleamed once more. “If those feckless Specks think I'll agree to give Willa a dowry, they've gone mad.”

“No, Pa. Actually, they've offered to give Ben and Willa their claim to the delta land, if you'll agree.”

“Well, now.” Pa stroked his beard. “That might merit conversation.”

“You've forgotten how to walk.” Midge tsked as she watched Opal's stiff movements. “In less than three days, you've lost everything I taught you. If anything, it's gotten worse!”

“I tried your walk; you didn't warn me of the time limit.”

“Time limit?”

“Apparently I can only be graceful for so long before I topple like poorly stacked sacks of grain.” The grim tone, coupled with Opal's stiff walk, left no room for doubts.

“Not ... not in front of Adam, surely?” Her mind started whirring ahead to how far that would set them back.

“Oh no. Nothing so humdrum as falling in front of my husband.” Opal waved a hand. “I, of course, fell beside him in such a way I knocked him over as well.”

“Wait, this could be good.” Midge switched gears. “Did he fall right beside you, or maybe even on top of you?”

“Kind of perpendicular to me. His chest knocked the wind out of mine.” The nonchalant tone stayed, but now Opal didn't meet her eyes.

“I hope you made the most of it!”
Well, really, at that point it's Adam who should make the most of it.

“He kissed me.”

“And?” The abruptness of the admission told of things left unsaid.

“Ran his fingers through my hair.”

“Good. And?”

“Suddenly stopped and acted like he couldn't stand the idea of being within ten feet of me.”

“Wait. What?” This didn't make much sense. At this point, Midge fully expected to hear that Adam wouldn't be able to annul the marriage. Once a man got that carried away, Nancy had told her, he didn't stop.

“He called me baby then just froze.” Misery painted the words. “Pulled away, told me it didn't matter, and implied I did such things with other men.”

“That's it!” Midge stopped even pretending to pull weeds around the hives. “Baby! It made him think of the one you're supposedly carrying and made him think about the real father, and it didn't sit well.”

“You think?” Hope brightened Opal's countenance for a moment then faded. “But I can't fix that until after he beds me, and he doesn't want to.”

“He wants to. In fact”—she reached out and grabbed her friend's hand to share the momentous realization—“Adam's in love with you. Otherwise he wouldn't care about the ‘father.'”

“No man likes to be cuckolded—even before his wedding.”

“Bah. He married you, he wants you, it's time to raise the stakes. I even know how to do it ... according to the Bible.”

“Really?” Her friend stopped working to sit back on her heels and eye her askance. “You found somewhere in the Bible where it explains how to seduce the man you tricked into becoming your husband for the sake of your family?”

“Almost the same thing.” Midge held her pause until she could see Opal squirm then still kept quiet.

“Midge, don't make me do something rash!”

“Well, Opal, what do you know about the book of Ruth?”

“The Moabite whose husband died, but she followed God even after his death and stayed with her mother-in-law when Naomi returned to the land of her family?”

“Yes, that one. What
else
do you know?”
The important stuff!

“She went to glean in the fields to provide for herself and Naomi and caught the eye of Boaz, who owned the field.” Opal obviously had a good memory, as she recited the story. “And Naomi told her that Boaz stood as her next relation, which in biblical times meant he could be her kinsman redeemer and wed her. Which he did when she asked, because she had impressed him with her faithfulness and loyalty to Naomi.”

“What about the most interesting part?” Midge didn't bother holding back any longer. Folks always tried to hold back the scandalous bits, and they were the best ones! “The part about
how
Ruth asked Boaz to be her husband?”

“She lay at his feet while he slept after the harvest.” Opal didn't exactly blush, but a pink tinge crept up her cheeks. “So she could speak to him alone.”

“What you mean is she went to his bed.”

“He slept on the floor, probably on a pallet....” Opal's protest sounded feeble.

“I used to sleep on a pallet, and I called it my bed. Lots of people have and still do, Opal. When Naomi told Ruth it was God's will for her to seek Boaz as her husband, she went to him in bed.”

“You aren't suggesting I go to Adam's bed...” The pink turned to crimson. “I couldn't.”

“You can.”

“No. For now, Adam shares a room with Larry. And you know I can't change that—the man is the head of the house.”

“You're forgetting what women do best.” Midge allowed herself a wide grin. If Opal spouted particulars, it meant she considered going through with it.

“What do women do best?”

“Men may be the heads of households, but women turn heads.”

“Adam.” Lucinda stopped her eldest before he left for the fields. With Willa gone, it was more important than ever that she roust the Speck chit and restore order at home. After nights of thinking, she'd found a way to destroy Opal's hold.

“Yes, Ma?”

“Son, there's something we need to discuss.” She looked around as though afraid of being interrupted. In truth, she knew Larry left for an overnight hunting trip, and Diggory had gone to look over the delta land he held even more dear now that their daughter would settle upon it. Even Opal made herself scarce on the pretext of weeding around her beehives—as though such a ridiculous thing could possibly be necessary!

“What is it?”

“Come inside.” She led him back to the table, where she poured him a cup of coffee and set it before him with a deep breath, as though certain he'd need the strength of it. “A suspicion has plagued me for quite some time, though I feared to give voice to it.” She sank down opposite him and lowered her voice. “Now, I'm more afraid not to.”

“Suspicion regarding what?”

“Opal's babe.” She watched her son square his jaw and knew finding a hole in the wall he'd built around this issue wouldn't be easy. But knowing the particulars of the past paved her way. “Adam, there's no way for you to be certain it belongs to you.”

“We've already discussed this.” He put down the coffee and started to rise. “Opal's child belongs to me, and that's the end to it.”

“But son—” She reached out a trembling hand to stay him. She didn't even have to fake the tremble, anxiety so overwhelmed her. “What if the babe isn't yours but should still bear the name Grogan?”

“I don't know what you mean.” Adam's eyes warred with his words.

“Son, think.” She shut her eyes as though in horror at the prospect. “We both know Larry skulked around the Speck place—we both saw what he wrote on that note. He's never said a word against her since she arrived but has been terse and tense with you the whole time. What if Opal played you false with your own brother, and he blames you for taking her away?”

Silence stretched beyond her carefully scripted speech. Lucinda waited. If she tried too hard to convince Adam, he'd see it as a ploy. As it was, even she couldn't say she hadn't hit upon the truth. She watched as Adam's eyes darkened, his fingers clamped around the mug.

In spite of what Adam said to her, she considered her work accomplished. She'd sown the seeds of doubt, and it wouldn't be long before they took root.

Kinsman Redeemer.
The phrase wouldn't leave her throughout the day.
Ruth had Boaz, I have Adam.
Midge even missed one of the key reasons why Boaz stood in the position to become Ruth's husband. Why, really, Ruth
needed
Boaz enough to creep into his sleeping place and pursue him.

A child. Ruth's husband died without giving her a child, leaving her and Naomi destitute. Her lack of child spelled disaster.
And back in Old Testament days, the nearest male relative could be recruited if he met the requirements.

For here and now, Adam is my husband. And my lack of a child threatens to destroy my family, too. Do I have the courage to crawl into my husband's bed?

She pondered this as she made her way to the shielded grove on her family's farm, where she used to bathe on hot summer days. There, in a little crock on a rope, she found the supplies she'd placed long ago. Some of the honey-scented soap she always made, a lump of fired beeswax, and a comb.

She checked to make certain no one loitered nearby or had followed her—though she'd been confident no one would. Midge sent her off to bathe as soon as she'd learned of the possibility, and everyone else expected her to be with Midge.

Opal set the beeswax on a rock to warm while she washed then stripped down to her shift. First, she lathered her hair, luxuriating in the bubbles and rinsing it clean before everything else. It would take longest to dry. Then she made short work of bathing before clambering onto the flat rock where the sun would warm the moisture away from her skin while she worked the comb through her hair.

As a final touch, she took the beeswax and lightly rubbed it over her skin, smoothing it in for extra softness the way her mama taught her so many years ago. By the time she finished, and dressed, and walked back to Midge, her hair dried enough for her to put it back up.

“Ready, then?” Her friend's grin did nothing to calm her nerves.

“As ready as I can get.”

With Larry gone on an overnight hunting trip, it took Adam extra time to complete the evening chores. He didn't mind.

Not only did it give him time to think without going mad for lack of something to do, it meant Larry wasn't around. Because when Adam thought about it, really thought back on his conversation with his brother about whether or not Larry'd been with Opal, he couldn't come up with a single solid statement to reassure him.

Only a bark of laughter and his brother's taunt,
“What do you think?”

Back then, he'd thought Larry'd never gotten to Opal. Now, when he considered his original suspicions, the fact that no other man in town showed any signs of anger or shame at his marriage, that Ma cottoned on to Larry's behavior, he couldn't remember why he'd decided his brother didn't count as a concern.

Tiredness tugged at him by the time he made it to his room, lit a tin-covered safety lantern, and disrobed down to his drawers. But when Adam turned back his covers, he found far more than his pillow.

There, resplendent in nothing but a thin night rail, lay his wife. Her hair flowed down her back and around to cover the curves of her chest like a blanket of fiery silk. Her skin seemed to take on the glow of the scant lantern, a siren's call to make him lean closer. Opal's eyes stayed closed, long ginger lashes giving her an innocence he wished with all his heart she actually possessed as she drew the deep, even breaths of one completely asleep.

She came to my bed.
The finality of it staggered him. Everything inside him demanded he slide beside her. That he pull her close, cover her mouth with his, and watch her lashes flutter with awareness at her sweet awakening.

Everything but the warning that his wife might, in reality, belong to his brother.
I should wake her up and send her back to her room.
But all the reason and logic in the world couldn't alter the truth—if he touched her, he'd be lost. If he watched her wake up, stretch, walk to the door in so little, he'd be lost.

So Adam sank onto his brother's bed, wound the covers tight around him, and tried to forget about the woman dreaming only feet away. The woman he'd been dreaming about longer than he'd any right to. The woman who—

The woman who is sliding into Larry's bed alongside me this very moment.
Adam didn't move a muscle as his wife snuggled up to him and tugged at the blankets. Didn't so much as breathe when she leaned over and dropped a featherlight kiss on his cheek, sending soft strands of her hair to tickle his neck.

“Adam?” When she couldn't free the blankets or elicit a response, she spoke. “I know you're awake.”

“Can't be.”

“You are, my husband.” Her breath warmed his ear. “And I am your wife.”

One man should only be asked to withstand so much temptation, Lord.
Adam turned, keeping the covers whipcord tight around himself. “What else are you, Opal?”

He almost would have sworn he saw a flash of uncertainty in her eyes, but she recovered quickly.

“In your bed.”

“Wrong.” It came out curt, but that suited him just fine. “You're in Larry's bed. Question is, have you been here before?”

“Never.” She moved as though to push away from him, but he caught one wrist and kept her connected to him. “Let me go.”

“No. You came to my room, you'll answer my questions.” He kept his grip loose enough not to hurt. “When Larry kept trespassing onto Speck lands, did he go to see you?”

She swallowed, hard. “I'm afraid so.”

Suddenly it seemed as the air turned to lead. Adam fought to keep going. “Do you want to be with my brother?”

“No!” Opal didn't struggle, just stared up at him with pleading eyes. “I'm here to be with you, Adam.”

The air thinned slightly, but not enough. He still had one more question. “Has my brother touched you since you married me?”

“Don't ask.” A broken sob escaped her lips, one arm curling around her middle as though to protect the babe his brother sired within her.

“Then go.” He flung her arm from him and turned his back. “I don't want you.”

Opal stumbled back to the room she used to share with Willa and sank down onto the bed.

Lord, what am I to do now?
She relived the time she'd spent with Adam that night and saw no ways left to make their marriage work.
There's nothing. If a man won't take a woman who climbs into his bed, he doesn't want her. I should have known that even before he said it.

After all, Adam didn't choose to marry her. Adam never said he wanted to be with her. Adam didn't arrange for them to room together after Willa left. Nowhere along the way had her “husband” done anything to demonstrate the slightest interest.

She wrapped her arms around herself in a bid to hold herself together and ward away the rejection but found herself wincing once more. Opal lifted her nightgown and peered at the purples and blues smearing her stomach.

At least that's one thing I don't have to worry about—his seeing the bruises and asking what happened.
She couldn't work up a smile. Truth be told, Adam might not even care what happened.
But
I care.
She blinked back tears that owed nothing to the soreness in her stomach and everything to the ache in her heart.
I care.

Adam doesn't want me as a woman, doesn't want me as his wife. He deserves better than to be trapped this way. Now I know Pa will forgive me—he'll forgive me more readily for not having betrayed him the original way. Ben and Willa can be the ones to unite the Specks and Grogans.

Opal rose to her feet and slid her satchel from beneath the bed to start packing.

Tomorrow, I'll see Parson Carter about that annulment.