The Forever Man

“And you think this is the right place?” Spoken without inflection, her query reached his ears.

Tate sensed her reluctance, had made note of it from the first, when she trudged through tall grass from the orchard toward his wagon. Now it was in full bloom between them, that feminine need for self-preservation that kept her from accepting him at face value. He couldn’t begrudge her the feeling. But the urge to press his advantage, now that he was inside the house, was uppermost in his mind.

There had been a feeling of homecoming as he drove up the lane toward the farmhouse. The two-story dwelling, shabby around the edges, but nevertheless graceful in its design, had drawn him with an urgency he’d not felt in any other place. The tall maple trees, towering over the house in a protective fashion, their leaves turning color, had bidden him welcome. Not like the woman, who had greeted him with little patience for his coming.

She’d scanned him and his belongings with a wary eye, only warming a bit when the two boys came under her gaze. She’d been more than generous with them, offering milk and sugar cookies, the sight of which had made his own mouth water. She was sturdy but slender around the middle, her apron emphasizing the narrow lines of her waist. Full-breasted. Womanly, might be the right word to describe her form. Johanna Patterson. A sensible name. He could only hope the woman would be as reasonable as a female in her circumstances should be.

Bristly and faintly belligerent described her attitude toward him, he decided with a wry twist of his mouth. Perhaps she wouldn’t be the smallest bit receptive to his proposal. And that was the only word he could come up with for the bargain he was about to lay on the table before her.

“You grow apples, Miss Patterson,” he began, nodding toward the brimming bowl on her cupboard. The ruddy skin of the snow variety glistened in the sunlight that cascaded through the window.

“I pick them,” she corrected quietly. “They grow all by themselves, with a little help from the Lord.”

His mouth moved, one corner twisting again, in amusement. “I agree. Most farmers consider themselves to be in partnership with the Almighty, I’ve found. Although sometimes he doesn’t appear to tend to business, what with the dry spell we had this year.”

“Farming’s a gamble,” Johanna answered. “Apples are a pretty sure thing. Provide them with a beehive in the vicinity and they pretty much tend to themselves, once the blossoms fall and the fruit starts to grow.”

“You don’t do much with crops?”

She shrugged. “The hay is about ready for a last cutting. Mr. Jones at the mill made arrangements for shares for me, last time around. I’ll do the same this time, I expect. I’ve got eighty-six acres here, fifty acres of pasture for the cattle. I’ve been keeping some of them pretty close to the barn lately. My father fenced off a ten-acre piece, and I feel better having them close at hand, with winter coming on.”

“How many head are you running?” he asked.

“Not many left in the far pasture, besides the bull. I sold off the young steers last month.”

He shook his head. “‘Not many’ doesn’t tell me much.”

“I’m only milking six cows right now,” she said, exasperation apparent in her tone. “There are more of them dry, with calves due in the spring. Why do you ask?”

“I want to offer you a proposition, Miss Patterson.”

She waited, noting the faint furrow between his eyebrows, the twitch of his left eyelid as he leaned back in his chair. His arms folded across his chest in a gesture she sensed was automatic with him. As if he set up a guard around himself. She sat up straighter in her chair and nodded, unwilling to give him verbal encouragement.

“I’ve been on the lookout for a farm to invest in. It must be a special situation in order for it to work to my advantage, though. I’d thought to hire a woman to live in, tend to my boys and run the house for me.” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug that spoke of his lack of success thus far.

“When your minister told me of your place, I thought it would bear investigation. Then he told me you were not willing to move from here or sell out your interest in the farm.”

Johanna nodded once. Apparently she’d finally gotten it across to folks in town that she was planning on living out her life here. At least the preacher had gotten the message, she thought A chuckle rose within her, and she ducked her head, swallowing the sound before it could be born.

Tate Montgomery rose from his chair and paced to the cookstove, lifting the lid on the covered iron pan with Johanna’s pot holder to peer within. Steam billowed up, and he inhaled quickly as the succulent scent of simmering chicken tempted his nostrils. He clapped the lid down and cast her a sidelong glance.

“You enjoy cookin’?” Not waiting for a reply, he paced to the doorway, looking out at his sons on the porch, then returned to where she sat.

His lips flattened, and he pushed the lower one forward a bit, as if he were considering what he would say next. “Have you thought of getting married, Miss Patterson?”

Her eyebrows lifted, and her eyes widened. If she’d thought herself immune to surprise, he’d just this minute effectively shot that theory all to small bits. “Not lately.” It was an understatement, to say the least. Not at all might be more to the point. At least not in the past ten years.

“What I have in mind is a business arrangement,” he said quietly, stepping back to where his chair was sitting at an angle to the table. He straightened it with one quick movement and planted himself on the seat, his hands braced against his thighs. “I would be willing to pay off your mortgage—”

“What makes you think I have one?” she asked, interrupting him.

He looked at her, noting the swift color staining her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I quizzed your minister last evening at great length. When he spoke of your place here, telling me of the situation you’re in, I asked a lot of questions. Apparently, the townspeople are aware of your circumstances, the hardship caused by the death of your father and the need for help to run this place. There was no secret made of your father’s—”

Her cheeks were bright with outrage and embarrassment, and she cut him off with a wave of her hand. “You had no right to pry into my business. You don’t even know me.” She swung to face the minister, who had taken up residence in the corner of the kitchen, near the window. “And you! You had no right to tell my problems to anyone. And especially not a total stranger! How could you be so…so…”

Her voice cracked, almost wobbling with her distress as she faced the man of the cloth who had betrayed her.

“My dear Miss Johanna! I only thought to help. Mr. Montgomery comes with letters of recommendation from bankers and ministers in his hometown. He is on a legitimate quest, and my only thought was to give aid where I could.” The Reverend Hughes was distraught at her accusation, his dismay apparent on his youthful face.

“This is my fault, ma’am,” Tate Montgomery said bluntly. “I should not have revealed my knowledge of your circumstances so quickly. I only thought to present my thoughts for your consideration. I am here to propose marriage, ma’am.”

“Marriage! To you?” Johanna was aghast. The man was a stranger who in the course of fifteen minutes’ time had suggested taking over her mortgage, and marrying her to boot.

Tate nodded. “It would be a business proposition. I need someone to tend my boys and make a home for them. This would be much better in the long run than my hiring a housekeeper.”

She snorted inelegantly. “You mean I couldn’t quit the job when I’d had a bellyful, don’t you?”

He couldn’t help the grin that escaped at her phrasing. “I guess you could put it that way, if you like,” he said agreeably.

She shook her head. “This is ridiculous. I have no intention of marrying. Ever.”

“You don’t like men?” It was a simple question, he thought. And if the answer was not to his liking, he’d be on his way.

She was taken aback, her thoughts scattered. Like men? “What’s to like about them? They’re fond of making messes and being waited on and spending time in the saloon.”

“All of them?” His brow rose quizzically. “Perhaps you’ve been around the wrong breed of men, Miss Johanna.”

She backtracked a bit, silently acknowledging her haste in the judgment she’d spouted. “My father was not himself the past few years. Perhaps I had a bad example set for me in his recent behavior,” she said grudgingly.

“There are good men to be found,” Theodore Hughes ventured to say from the corner.

Johanna nodded in his direction. “I’ve met several in my time,” she admitted. And then she looked at Tate Montgomery with a guarded glance. “I’ll take the reverend’s word as to your sterling reputation, but I’m not interested in marriage.”

He nodded politely. “Perhaps if I enlarge on my idea, you might consider it. more carefully.” He cast a look at the man who had brought him to this place. “Would you leave us for a few minutes, sir? I think this discussion merits some privacy.”

Theodore Hughes nodded agreeably, stepping to the doorway and out on the porch.

Tate leaned over the table and faced Johanna from a foot away. If she was unwilling to hear him out, he’d head on out. But it was worth giving it a shot. And the memory of his first sight of this house and the capable woman who was struggling to hold things together here provided the impetus he needed to speak his mind.

“We could have a good arrangement, Miss Johanna. I am willing to assume any financial burden you have, in return for a half ownership of the farm. You would take my boys in hand and tend to the house and whatever chores you want to assume outdoors. I’ll make the place run. I’ll make it run better than it’s ever run before, and I’ll do it well. You won’t have cause to be ashamed of me. I don’t drink and I don’t chase women. I won’t be expecting you to sleep in my bed, and I won’t lay a hand on you in anger.”

Her blue eyes blinked, widened, and blinked again. “Well!” Spoken with emphasis, the word was vibrant with meaning. Her thoughts were jumbled, stunned as she was by his list of rules and regulations regarding the marriage he proposed.

“What would you expect of a wife, Mr. Montgomery?” she asked finally. If the man didn’t want a woman to take to his bed, he must be willing to settle for little more than a housekeeper, when all was said and done.

“I have sons, ma’am. I don’t need more children. I just need these two fed and clothed and schooled properly.”

“And nothing for yourself?”

A faint ridge of color rode his cheekbones, accenting the scar on the side of his face. “I’ll need to have my meals provided and my clothes washed and ironed. I’m already well schooled.”

She ducked her head. “You don’t need a woman?”

“Not an unwilling one.”

She lifted her gaze slowly, as if it pained her to face him but she recognized that she must. “I’m not willing. I don’t think I’d ever be willing. I never intended to. marry.”

He nodded slowly. “All right. I can deal with that.”

A vision of the apples awaiting her in the orchard, crates overflowing and needing to be carried, burst into her mind. She thought of the cows, impatient to be milked, morning and night. The hay field, awaiting the mowing machine, and the assessing looks she received from the men in town, recognizing her as a woman alone.

Images of Tate Montgomery, tall and robust, working the orchard, planting and sowing and dealing with the storekeeper and the mill owner cascaded through her mind in rapid profusion. Her gaze rested on his hands—heavily veined, broad and capable, fingernails clean, fingers long and straight. She would need to check out his letters of recommendation, but instinctively she knew him to be a man of honor. Why it should be so, she couldn’t have said. But something about him, his innate dignity, his gentlemanly ways, his prideful look, his way with the small boys he’d handled with gentle touches, spoke of a man to be trusted.

“I’ll give you my answer tomorrow.”

It was more than he had bargained for. He’d been warned by the preacher that she was a hardheaded woman, that she’d turned down offers aplenty for her place, that she was considered to be a spinster by the townsfolk. He’d thought to find a dried-up specimen of womanhood. He’d been prepared to look her over and leave if the years of hard living she’d endured here had made her unappealing for his purposes.

Neither of those two things had come about. Instead, he’d found a slender, stalwart female who’d been bowed low by life’s burdens and yet managed to rise above the problems she’d faced after her father’s death. He’d found a woman of strength and courage, willing to work herself to a frazzle to keep her farm running. A woman who deserved better than what she’d been handed by fate.

“Tomorrow,” he said firmly. “And in the meantime, can I make a bed for my boys and myself in your barn? It will save me taking the wagon back to town overnight.”

She considered him for a moment, taking in the dark eyes that hid his emotions, allowing only a faint approval to shine forth as he met her gaze. His chestnut-colored hair was swept back from a broad forehead bronzed by the sun. Apparently the man didn’t wear his hat all the time. His jaw was square and firm, his nose a bit crooked and prominent, but no larger than it should be, for such a big man. He could be considered handsome. Or at least appealing, she decided. If a woman was in the market for a husband, she supposed, he’d be a likely specimen.

“All right,” she agreed. “The barn is available for the night. I’ll tell you tomorrow what I decide.”

His breath released on a silent sigh. “Thank you for your consideration,” he said simply. “I’ll tend to my boys now.”

He rose from his chair, and she followed suit, standing across from the table from him, aware once again of his size, at least three inches over six foot, she’d venture to say. “I don’t mind sharing my supper with you and your sons,” she offered. He hesitated in the doorway, then turned to face her.

“That’s kind of you, Miss Johanna. I’d be much obliged for the favor.” He clapped his hat on his head and nodded abruptly. “I’ll be in the barn.”

Johanna followed him out on the porch, her hands reaching for the china cups the two boys had used. They gave them into her keeping with bashful looks and awkward murmurings of thanks at their father’s urging, and she smiled at their childish gestures.

They romped across the yard at his side, and she leaned on the post at the corner of the porch to watch. They were like two young puppies, she thought, frisky and energetic. He spoke quietly to them as they walked and then, upon reaching the barn door, bent one knee to the ground to place an arm around each of them. His words set their heads nodding, and their faces looked earnest as he spoke. Apparently instructions for their behavior, Johanna decided as they walked with dignity through the barn doors into the shadowed interior.

If she married him…The thought spun crazily in her mind. If she married him, they would be hers, those two small boys with dark hair and straight, sturdy bodies. It would be a weighty argument in favor of his suit. The joy of caring for children had been denied her. Indeed, the thought of having a child of her own had been denied her for ten years. It would never be. But now, now she could tend these two young boys, perhaps earn their love.

A bitter wash of regret filled her to overflowing, and she stepped down from the porch. Better that she not expose herself to close scrutiny. Not now, not while old memories were bursting the seams of that hidden place where she’d long ago relegated them for eternity.

“I’ll be leaving, Miss Johanna.” The soft words of the minister broke into her thoughts, and she looked up quickly to see him astride his horse, reins in hand. “I’ll be anxious to hear your decision, ma’am,” he said. With a courtly gesture, he tipped his hat in her direction and turned his horse to leave.

Johanna watched him go, her thoughts in turmoil. Would tomorrow be time enough for her to decide her whole future? She lifted her gaze to the small rise beyond the house, where a low fence enclosed the family cemetery. Lifting her skirt a few inches, holding its hem above the grass, she made her way there, climbing the hill with ease, unlatching the wooden gate and leaving it open behind her as she knelt by the grave of her mother.

She reached out to pull a milkweed that had sprung up in the past few days. Her fingers sticky from the stem, she rubbed them distractedly against her apron as she spoke. “Mama, a man wants to marry me.” The words were soft, murmured under her breath. She’d spent a lot of time in these one-way conversations with the mother she’d helped bury over ten years ago. Sometimes she wondered if she didn’t hear a faint voice within her that repeated some of her mother’s favorite small sayings.

“He won’t ever have to know, Mama. I won’t tell him, and he says he doesn’t want a real wife, just a cook and someone to keep his children clean and well fed. I can do that, can’t I?” She rubbed her eyes, unwilling that the tears should fall, those tears she held in abeyance until the times she knelt here.

It was usually a lonely place, here where she’d buried the three humans most important to her, two of the graves tended carefully, the third marked only by a small rosebush. It was to that spot that she moved, shifting on the cool ground, mindful of grass stains marring her dress. She snapped two faded roses from the bush, the final flowers of summer, touched by an early-autumn frost during the past nights.

“Baby mine, your mama…” Her voice faltered as she spoke the words no other person had ever heard fall from her lips. And then the tears she shed only in this place fell once more, as she smoothed her palm over the grass that covered the grave where her baby lay.

Chapter Three

By the time she’d soaked her eyes in cool water, changed her dress and scooped up her hair into a respectable knot on the back of her head, Johanna had run out of time. Sure enough, she’d managed to get grass stains on her work dress, and she’d scrubbed at them, then left the dress to soak in a bucket.

Supper would have to be quick. Those two little boys were guaranteed to be hungry before long, with only sugar cookies and milk in their bellies since noontime. The image of Tate Montgomery popped unbidden into her mind, and she found herself imagining his big hands holding a knife and fork, eating at her table. She closed her eyes, nurturing the vision, leaning against the pantry door.

So real was the mental picture, she could almost catch his scent, that musky outdoor aroma she’d drawn into her lungs earlier. She inhaled deeply, and opened her eyes.

“Ma’am? I didn’t mean to disturb you.” Tate Montgomery stood at her back door, one hand lifted to rest against the frame, the other plunged deep in his pocket. Less than four feet away from the pantry door, he stood watching her, that intent, dark gaze focused on her face.

“Ma’am?” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and his gaze drifted from her face to slide in a slow, lazy fashion over her person. Not in a threatening manner, but as if he needed to see that all the parts were in place, almost as if he were assessing her womanly form.

She felt the flush rise from her breasts, up the length of her long neck, to settle deeply beneath the flesh covering her cheeks. “Do I suit you, Mr. Montgomery?” she asked tartly. “Do I look sturdy enough to be a housekeeper and cook and child-tender?”

His eyes focused once more on her face, the face she’d spent fifteen minutes bathing in order to hide the signs of her bout of tears earlier. She raised her left hand, brushing at a tendril of pale hair that had escaped her severe hairdo, allowing the pad of her index finger to sweep beneath her eye. There was no telltale swelling to be felt there, no evidence of her brief but shattering lapse. The relief inherent in that discovery put a measure of starch into her backbone, and she turned from his presence.

Her largest bowl in hand, she opened the pantry door and stepped within. On three sides, the shelves surrounded her, with their burden of food close at hand. The large bags of flour, sugar, coffee and salt were at waist level, easily reached for daily use. Above, where she must stretch a bit for a good handhold, were the glass quart jars she’d filled with the harvest from her kitchen garden during the past weeks. And to her right she’d arranged more canning jars, these filled with the boiled-up stewing hens she’d culled from the chicken yard once the young pullets began laying, come summer.

She grasped the bag of flour, bringing it to the edge of the shelf, where she opened it, tipping a good measure into the bowl she held. A scoop of lard came next, the dollop landing in a cloud of flour. Chicken potpie would be quick, once she rolled out a crust and put some vegetables on to parboil. She turned to leave the pantry, the familiar sense of satisfaction she found within its confines uplifting her spirits. There was something about seeing the work of your hands surrounding you, knowing you’d not have to worry about setting a table through the long months of winter. It was a pleasurable thing to be a woman, she decided.

“Can I help with something?” He was there, almost blocking her exit, and she blinked rapidly as her heart missed a beat.

“I didn’t mean to insult you a few minutes ago,” he said quietly. “And to answer your question, yes, you do look more than capable of doing all I’ve asked. You’re a fine-looking woman, Miss Johanna.”

For the first time, she saw a softening of his features, an easing of his closely held emotions, as he offered his apology. She nodded in acceptance of his words and carried the bowl to the table. Her fingers left it reluctantly. He’d said she was a fine-looking woman. She knew her teeth were straight and even. She brushed them every day with tooth powder. Her hair was a good color, golden from the summer sun, and thick, and her eyes were far apart, blue, like her mother’s. If all that added up to fine-looking, then she could accept the small compliment as her due.

“Do you need the fire built up in the stove?” He’d stayed near the door, and she saw his glance out into the yard when a childish shriek sounded from near the barn. “Is the dog good with children?” he asked, his gaze leveled beyond her field of vision.

She turned quickly. “Sheba won’t put up with any foolishness, but she doesn’t bite. She’s a herd dog, Mr. Montgomery, not a pet.”

His smile was unexpected, and she savored its warmth for a moment. “Apparently she doesn’t know that, ma’am. She’s chasing a stick for Timmy.”

Her lips tightened. They’d better get things squared away right off. “Animals are only as useful as you make them. I can’t afford to feed a dog that doesn’t serve a purpose. Sheba’s no good to me if she attaches to the boys and forgets her duties.”

His smile faded, and his eyes became guarded, the momentary pleasure she’d seen there replaced by a forbidding darkness. “I’ll see to it.” Abruptly the man who’d been at ease in her kitchen was transformed into the chilly stranger she’d first met earlier in the day.

“I’ll tend the stove, Mr. Montgomery. If it’s not too much trouble, you can open the back door of the barn. The cows will be wanting to come in to be milked before long.” When she turned once more he was gone, and she watched surreptitiously from one side of the kitchen door as he made his way across her yard.

A pang of regret touched her, and not for the first time she rued her quick tongue. The boys weren’t hurting anything, playing with Sheba. The dog was old enough to know her job, and even a dumb animal deserved a little attention once in a while. Almost, she called out to rescind her harsh words, hesitating but a few seconds. No, she might as well start out as she meant to continue.