Chapter 11 #2
Her contrition seems genuine, but perhaps an unexpected visit was better. Otherwise, nerves would have gotten the better of me waiting for their arrival. A small smile forms. “It’s truly all right, Mrs. Shay.”
“Oh, no,” she tsks. “That will never do. Call me Eleanor or Momma just like the rest of my daughters do. And you can call my husband Cornelius or Pop.”
“Eleanor.” I fit Emmaline to my breast as I try the name. I don’t know either of them well enough for the more familiar term, and I likely never will. Especially not for Mr. Shay.
Eleanor settles onto the sofa. “Cornelius doesn’t know it yet, but Widow Hester is expecting us for tea later today. The poor dear hardly ever has any company, so she’s desperately lonesome.”
That name sounds familiar, except I think Warren called her… “Old Widow Hester?”
Both women fall into a fit of laughter. Dove is the first to compose herself. “Warren told you her? About her?”
“Just that she might be a visitor here sometimes. Is she really an old woman?” I’ve spurned Warren’s charms before, but now I find the thought of him offering those same charms to other women unsettling.
Dove snorts almost daintily before carefully answering me. “At least eighty years old. Perhaps more. But she never keep…can keep her hands to herself.”
“What do you mean?”
“Warren always complained she pinch him—pinched him—on his backside and tells how handsome he is. Ched says she did same to him until he married me. So you saved Warren.”
Ched? She must mean Jed.
“I did?” A thread of amusement purses my lips.
“Yes,” Dove says through a giggle. “From Old Widow Hester.”
The thought is so absurd that a short, rusty laugh—my first true one in years—slips from me. “From her pinching fingers!”
Eleanor shakes her head at our antics but laughs along with us. “Lord help, but she does have wandering hands. I imagine she needs the attention since Mr. Hester passed. The man doted on her day and night, bless his soul, so it can’t be easy for her to be alone.”
Warren dotes on me and Emmaline, as well. And the thought of being alone now isn’t as appealing as it was before. Blinking to clear my thoughts, I glance down and find two dark blue jewels staring up at me. “All done, my darling?” I kiss her forehead and adjust my clothing.
“Can I burp her?”
I stare at Dove. “You really want to?”
“I do!” She pats her belly. “I need practice.”
“If you’re sure…”
“Emmaline needs meet her Auntie Dove.” She holds out her arms, and after a brief hesitation, I relinquish my baby.
“Hello, sweet girl,” she croons, holding her close as she steps to the sofa. “I love you already.”
Another piece of the cage around my heart crumbles at the complete and utter acceptance we’ve been given, not only from Warren, but also from these two women.
Eleanor rubs my shoulder just how I imagine a loving mother would do, and when I look up, it’s through a haze of unshed tears.
“How can you receive us into your family so easily?” I ask unsteadily.
“You’re a Shay now, Mara.” Warren’s mother winks at me. “And once you’ve been claimed by one of us, you’ve been claimed by all of us. Didn’t Warren tell you about our tradition?”
“Only that his family would send workers here for the next year…” My voice fades as I ward off the warmth of a blush. “So we could learn to be a family of our own.”
“That’s certainly true, but there’s more. And there’s no other way to explain it but to come right out and say it. When a Shay gets married, it’s because he’s gone out and taken a woman he’s had a hankering for.”
Confusion is no doubt written all over my furrowed brow. “Taken how?”
Eleanor blithely waves a hand. “Whatever the situation calls for. Cornelius stole me from my bed in the early morning hours.”
“What?” I cover my mouth. “Why?”
“Because he loved me and wanted me for himself. My father refused to allow him to court me, so Cornelius took matters into his own hands. Threw me onto the back of his horse and took off, intending to take me as far away as possible.” Her face softens as if recalling a fond memory instead of the horror of a kidnapping.
“Once we stopped to relieve ourselves, I stole his gun.”
I didn’t think my eyes could open any wider, but I’m proven wrong. “You shot him?”
“Oh, I threatened to,” Eleanor says smugly.
“But he just swaggered up to me all cockylike until the barrel was pressed right up to his chest, and then he up and kissed me. Told me to aim for his heart if I really intended on shooting him because then at least the pain of living without me would stop.”
Stop it, Mara. Don’t you dare think of that as romantic.
“I could never do that, and he knew it.” Eyes uncannily similar to her son’s twinkle with mischief at me, and I can’t help but to wryly smile.
I think I like this whirlwind of a woman.
“So I poked him with the gun and told him I wasn’t traveling all over God knows where as an unmarried woman alone with a man.
That he’d better find a judge to marry us before sunrise so my father wouldn’t kill him. ”
“And he found one?”
“A drunk one that he had to hold up.” Eleanor laughs. “But by the time dawn broke, I was Mrs. Cornelius Shay.”
Good Lord. I turn to Dove. “And you?” Her husband seems so protective of her that I can’t imagine him doing something like that. “Did your husband do anything to you?”
Dove blushes and looks away sheepishly. “Ched bought me.”
“Bought you?” Immediately, my lips curl in disgust. How could she want to be with a man who did that?
“To rescue me from my father.”
Oh. My shoulders deflate. “Crowley.” The name of the last man to rape me feels like gritty sand in my throat. Don’t think about that. “I suppose I’m different. Warren didn’t do anything like that with me.”
“Oh, but I think he did,” Eleanor interjects smoothly. “How else do you explain being married to him the same day he met you?”
“He…” I think back on all the events and collapse back into the rocking chair. Well, damn. She’s right. “He said I needed a husband. I told him no.”
“And then what happened?” Now it’s his mother’s turn to ask the questions.
“He left and brought back a judge,” I answer with hesitation, “to marry us.”
“See? Not so different.”
I look up at her. “But he didn’t even know me. I was filthy. I stunk to high heaven and was expecting another man’s baby.” No surprise shows on either of their faces that Warren didn’t father the baby now cradled in the embrace of a woman who calls herself her aunt.
Eleanor takes hold of my hand with her paler one. “When a Shay knows, he knows. And now you and Emmaline are his and part of us.”
“I…I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything. Just accept it, my dear, because it’s the truth. Now, come. Since Dove has the most important task of holding the wee one, we’ll have to make do without her.”
Flustered with everything I’ve learned today, I follow her and watch as she rummages through the trunk. “Yes,” she mutters to herself, pulling out a pale yellow and white gingham dress. “The perfect color. Be a dear and put this on.”
I accept it but frown in confusion. “You need someone to wear the dress just to mend the hems?”
“Did I say we were mending hems?” she returns with a lilt. “Silly me. No, dear, I need you to wear it so I can alter it to fit you. And when we’re finished with that one, then we’ll move on to the next.”
Stunned, I almost drop the dress. How many more surprises can one day hold? “To borrow?”
“To keep. They’ve hardly been worn, and I already have plenty of my own. These are all for you.”
“No, I couldn’t possibly accept. Surely—”
Eleanor cups my shoulders. “We take care of our own, Mara. You need dresses that fit, and no daughter of mine will go without.”
“But I…” I whisper brokenly. Is this what a real family does? Mrs. Overstreet’s harsh words and actions couldn’t be more opposite from this woman and her caring ways. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, sweet child.”
And that’s how I find myself standing on a chair and trying on dress after dress as Eleanor tucks and pins and measures.
“I just don’t understand it.” She taps her bottom lip and runs a sharp gaze over my form. “Every one of these hangs off of you. You should have filled out more since I last saw you. Is Warren feeding you enough?”
Guilt slashes through me. “Yes,” I squeak.
“Hmm…” Eleanor tightens the fabric to highlight my hipbones and glances behind me. “But are you eating it?”
“No…? Not all of it.” Nothing I think of is a good enough excuse.
My stomach tangles in knots as I spill the truth in a rush of words.
Surely she can understand. “But it’s not his fault.
I…I didn’t want to gain too much weight and then not fit into any of my dresses because then Warren would have to spend money on me, and how could I ask him to do that when he’s already brought me into his house?
I’m used to being hungry all the time, so it’s really not all that difficult. ”
“What the hell?” At the masculine voice, I freeze.
Oh no. Of all times to check in on me, why did Warren have to choose now?
He stands in the doorway, hurt plastered all over his face. “You’ve been going hungry with me?”
I try to hide my wince, but the turmoil in his soulful gaze tells me I failed. And there’s no use denying it. Not when he’s clearly overheard me. “I…I’ve eaten more with you than I have in the last few years.”
“That’s not what I asked.” He crosses the room, each step adding to the shame burning deep inside my ribcage until he’s mere inches away.
Both hands reach out to collect the excess material at my hips and pull it taut.
Taut enough to see how his fingertips almost meet around my waist. He stares through the dress as if the act alone could reveal how empty my stomach is.