Second Chance Suitor Read online

  Maddie nodded and reached down for the bags, then glanced down at Tess. “Come on, honey,” she murmured, then looked back to Bill. “It was nice to meet you. Thanks for the directions.”

  “You know, you might not want to stay there, though.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Why is that?”

  Bill swallowed hard as his gaze dropped to the ground and he drove a pebble into the dirt with the toe of his boot. It seemed that his pulse had become a bass drum pounding in his head. “Maybe you have another opportunity,” he murmured.

  She snorted. “My last opportunity threw my picture on the ground just before he left me standing here,” she said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “Is there anything else you wanted to say? These bags aren’t getting any lighter.”

  He stopped kicking the dirt and finally looked her in the eye.“Yeah, there is something I wanted to say,” he said. “You know, you never answered the question from my letter. Will you marry me?”

  Chapter 4

  Maddie studied Bill through narrowed eyes. He knows that I came here for another man, and now he’s asking me to marry him? Must be something wrong with him. She dropped the bags and took Tess by the hand, just to be safe. “Did I hear you right? You want to get married?”

  “Look, I know this sounds crazy. I can hardly believe I’m saying this myself,” he said. “But I was over there and I thought…well, I thought, since you’re not getting married to him now, and I still need a wife….”

  “Hold on a minute. Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely. Like I said, I already asked you in my letter, so I’m really just waiting on your answer. What do you say?”

  I don’t even know, she thought. I’ve never been in a situation even remotely like this one. She glanced down the street in the direction that Lawrence and the others had gone. Everything Lawrence had written had been true, from what she had seen. He had been tall and slim, with lively eyes that she could still picture, and his wealth had been apparent from his shoes to his suit coat. There had been reasons she’d picked him in the first place; any woman would have.

  Bill, on the other hand, was…well, not Lawrence. She took a moment to give him a good look. He was barely taller than she was, perhaps only by an inch or so, and he seemed a little thickset. The hair that was haphazardly poking out from under his hat was light brown, as were his eyes, and his denim pants were stained and wearing through in the knees. In short, he looked like any other man that she might have found wandering the streets of Lancaster, or Sanford, or pretty much anywhere. He was unexceptional. Except for the scar. She couldn’t keep from wrinkling her nose as she looked at it. On the right side of his face was a bumpy red line running from his jaw to the middle of his cheek, and when he noticed her gaze he brushed his hand against it as if to wipe it away.

  “Well, Maddie? Will you marry me?” he repeated.

  Maddie looked down at Tess, who was watching Bill with a certain fascination, and she let out a long sigh. She had to admit, she’d pinned a lot of hopes on Lawrence, but now that those hopes had been entirely dashed, there was no use wasting time worrying about it. The most important thing was that she secured a safe and stable home, and there was no way she’d be able to do that here by herself. Nor could they return home to Maine. The farm had sold cheap, giving them barely enough to pay their debts, so they didn’t even have a home to return to.

  Tess looked up at her. “Mama, no mustache,” she said, smiling.

  “No mustache,” Maddie said quietly, and squeezed her hand. She could barely remember anything about Bill’s letters—except for the proposal, which had a way of sticking in one’s mind—but she was sure that he was no wealthy rancher. Her gaze flitted to Bill’s scuffed work boots. Nope, he’s no Lawrence. But what’s that phrase? Any port in a storm? Well, I guess you could say we’re caught in a heck of a storm right now.

  “Yeah, I’ll marry you,” she said.

  ~

  An hour later, she was Madeline Parker. Maddie to friends, Mrs. Parker to strangers. They had gone directly to the justice of the peace and, after a bit of explanation from Bill, she found herself reciting vows in front of one man she’d never seen before, next to another one she barely knew.

  She repeated the vows—richer and poorer, sickness and health, faithful until parted by death alone—slowly and carefully, like they were words from a foreign language. They seemed more just a collection of sounds coming out of her mouth, rather than phrases that actually meant anything to her. Time and again she found her mind wandering during the ceremony; time and again she reminded herself why she was doing all of this in the first place. If this means that Tess grows up happy and healthy, free of any want at all, then this will all be worth it. Her eyes closed briefly, as if in prayer. Please let this be worth it.

  “You two got rings?”

  Maddie opened her eyes. Bill’s grin, which had barely changed since she’d said yes, faded away. “Uh, no, not right now. This was all a bit last-minute,” he said, then turned to Maddie. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she murmured.

  The justice of the peace cleared his throat. “Well, in that case, I guess we can skip right to the end. By the power vested in me as an officer of the court, I pronounce you man and wife,” he said. “You can go ahead and kiss now.”

  Her heart skipped, and she couldn’t prevent her eyes from growing wide. Kind of forgot about that, she thought, as Bill stepped close and took her hands. His kiss was thankfully brief, which she guessed was due to the audience they had of the justice of the peace and his assistant. Even without onlookers, however, she wouldn’t have wanted anything more from this man she’d only met an hour earlier. A quick peck to seal the deal is fine with me.

  She stepped back to the bench at the rear of the room, where Tess was waiting, and took a seat to wait while they prepared the marriage license.

  Tess leaned close and loudly whispered “Mama kiss.”

  “You saw Mama kissing Bill, huh?” Maddie said, pulling Tess close and giving her a squeeze, then lowering her voice. “Actually, I guess it was Bill kissing Mama.”

  “Ready to go?”

  Maddie glanced up to see Bill already in front of them, an envelope in his hand. “Guess so,” she said, then turned to her daughter. “Should we go see our new home?”

  Tess clapped and jumped down from the bench. “Home, home!”

  Bill put on his hat and led them from the office, holding the door open wide for the two of them. “Your carriage awaits, my lady,” he said as they stepped outside.

  Her carriage, in fact, was a flatbed wagon parked outside the mercantile, hooked up to a nag that seemed none too pleased to see three passengers arrive instead of one. Bill stowed their bags and then helped each of them up to the driver’s seat, where Maddie caught a good view of the wagon bed. It was strewn with feathers and bird droppings, empty burlap sacks and bits of straw. She turned to him as he climbed aboard the wagon, again studying his grubby pants and scuffed-up boots.

  “Bill, remind me what you do for a living,” she said as the wagon began to move. “I’m sure you already wrote about it, but I don’t remember.”

  He snapped the reins sharply, though Maddie was fairly certain that the nag only had one speed left in her. “I have a poultry farm,” he said.

  “Poultry. You mean chickens?”

  “Yep. Lots of ‘em. Hope you like eggs.”

  As they rolled down the street, Maddie caught sight of the clock tower above the town hall. It was only ten minutes after eleven. An hour ago I was going to marry a cattleman, she thought. Now I’m married to a chicken farmer. Lord, how quick things can change.

  ~

  “Have you ever been in a sod house before?”

  Maddie had to think for a moment before she even understood what Bill had said. They had spent most of the ride so far discussing her travel west, and now all of a sudden he’d asked her this very oddly phrased question.

 
“What do you mean? Sawed wood?”

  “Not sawed,” he said. “Sod. You know, like grass. Ever been in one?”

  “Not that I know of. Actually, I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, it sounded strange when I first came out here too,” he said. “Look at the land here.” He waved his arm toward the open prairie. “Did you notice how few trees there are?”

  Maddie glanced around. The fields were wide open and mostly flat, with only small hills here and there blocking one’s view of the horizon. Bill was right; there were hardly any trees to be seen. There was hardly anything to be seen, in fact, aside from the tall grass waving in the wind. The land appeared to be almost entirely empty, and it seemed like they really were on the edge of a frontier that went on and on forever.

  “Where’d all the trees go?”

  Bill laughed. “There weren’t any. The prairie has more grass than anything else,” he said. “Unless it’s alongside a river or something, you won’t find many out here. You see those?”

  He was pointing off to the distance ahead of them, where a thin line of trees snaked along at the base of a slight rise. “That’s my land, where the Salt Creek goes by. Aside from those, you’d have to go quite a ways before you found any more.”

  “So nobody has wooden houses here?”

  “Some do, but lumber’s expensive. They have to ship it from up north, or back east, or pretty much anywhere but here,” he said. “Most folks make do with soddies. Basically, you cut up the earth, grass and all, and use it like bricks.”

  “You’re telling me the houses here are made of dirt?”

  “Yep.”

  Maddie felt her stomach go sour. They hadn’t exactly lived in luxury back home in Maine, but at least they’d had a proper home, where one could lean against the wall without having to bathe afterwards. And if they build the walls out of dirt, they can’t possibly be too worried about the rest of it.

  “So I’m guessing your house has a dirt floor?”

  “Our house, now,” he said. “And yes, it does. Dirt ceiling, too.”

  She threw him a quick glance, sure that he was joking, but Bill’s face showed nothing of the sort. Unconsciously, she clutched her daughter’s hand. Maddie could already imagine what it would be like inside her new home. There are probably roots and things hanging from the ceiling. Pebbles that fall down on you while you’re sleeping. Worms that drop down on you while you’re eating. Oh, Lord. For the next several minutes, her mind ran through all the other possible things that might rain down upon her and Tess. Her frightful reverie was only broken when Bill raised his arm and spoke.

  “There it is.”

  Maddie looked to where he was pointing, though all she saw was another small hill, no different than any other she’d seen on the way out of Lancaster. Except, she realized as she looked more closely, this hill had oddly straight angles. And a door.

  “I didn’t expect the grass on the roof would still be growing,” she said. “I would have missed it if you hadn’t pointed the place out.”

  “Yeah, next year we can throw some flower seeds up there and pretty it up a bit,” he said. “How does that sound, Tess? You like flowers?”

  Tess looked around and then gave Bill a quizzical look. “Flowers?”

  “Not now, honey,” he said. “Next year.”

  The wagon slowed slightly as the horse started up the next rise. Maddie could see the worn path separating from the main trail, leading to the house, but Bill kept the horse on track straight ahead. They passed directly by the house and continued up the hill.

  “Aren’t we going in?”

  “Oh, we’ll go in there later,” Bill said. He had an odd grin, but Maddie only had a moment to wonder about that before she was distracted by another sight as they topped the rise. There ahead of them, just over the hill from the soddie, was a wood frame home. It wasn’t huge and it wasn’t fancy, but it was an honest-to-God house with white paint that gleamed in the morning sun.

  “What is that?”

  “That place? Oh, that’s the new house,” Bill said. “Didn’t I mention that I built that last year?”

  Maddie slapped him on the arm. “You had me thinking I was going to live in that sod house with the dirt, when you had this new house all the time?”

  “I was just teasing you a little bit,” he said. “I’m impressed. You didn’t seem bothered at all.”

  “You’d say different if you knew what I was thinking,” she said. “How much did it cost to build the new place?”

  “More than I wanted to pay, that’s for sure,” he said. “But it was worth it. Especially now that you two are here.” He steered the wagon onto a pair of ruts that led them to the house, and as they approached, Maddie took a closer look at the property. Next to the house there was a good sized garden patch, and directly across there was a pen encircled with a short wire fence. The pen was quite large—about the size the small field back home had been—and dotted with lean-tos where she could see pans of water and feed scattered on the ground. At the far end of the pen, there was a long sod henhouse. But what really caught her eye was the constant movement filling the pen from end to end. She had never seen so many chickens together in one spot. Must be scores, or even hundreds, just right here.

  “Pichin!” Tess said, jumping up and pointing toward the pen. Maddie grabbed her and pulled her back down to the seat, holding her tight to make sure that she wouldn’t go leaping off the wagon.

  “Those are chickens, honey, not pigeons,” she said. “She calls every bird a pigeon right now.”

  Bill stopped the wagon in front of the house and set the brake, then helped Maddie and Tess down from the seat. Tess immediately took off running for the pen and attached herself to the fence, staring wide-eyed at all the chickens.

  Maddie turned her attention to her new home. The house was a single story but fairly good sized, with perhaps four rooms within, and it showed little sign of wear. The siding was clean, the glass was clear, and the tin chimney was shiny in the sunlight.

  “That’s funny,” she said, staring at the chimney. “If there’s no wood around, what do you burn in the stove, then?”

  He was quiet for a long moment, so long that Maddie wasn’t sure he’d heard her. Then he took a deep breath, as if steeling himself for what he was about to say. “Have you ever heard of a buffalo chip?” he asked.

  ~

  “Maddie, this looks terrific,” Bill said as he walked up to the table and eyed the dinner Maddie had prepared. Atop the rough-hewn table that sat just outside the front door, there was a platter of fried potatoes and eggs, a plate of johnnycakes and a dish of pickles.

  “I don’t know about terrific, but I did the best I could with what I found,” she said. “You can tell that a bachelor was living here; you’ve hardly got any food in the house at all.”

  He grinned. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting company today. Especially not permanently.”

  “Anyway, I thought it would be nice to eat outside while we can. Why don’t you go wash up?” she asked as she looked at Bill more closely. She wasn’t sure whether his hands or his pants were dirtier. Practically as soon as they’d arrived, Bill had apologized for having to run out and catch up on his chores, leaving Maddie and Tess alone for the afternoon.

  In a way, she’d been happy to do a bit of exploration alone, and she had taken time to closely inspect the house and garden. The garden contained what she would have expected for mid-September: a few late tomatoes, some carrots and squash. The house, however, surprised her a bit, and not only because it was unexpectedly neat and clean. There were actually five rooms, not the four she had guessed: the kitchen, the dining room, two bedrooms and a sitting room. He must have been planning for a family when he built it. Plenty of room for us all, she thought. It’ll be strange to have Tess in her own room like that…but then again, not as strange as me sharing Bill’s bed. Her stomach had clenched anxiously at the t
hought, and did so now again as she watched Bill at the pump, washing his hands. The hands that will be on me tonight.

  “Eat, mama?” Tess had appeared at her side.

  “You’re hungry, honey?”

  Tess nodded and climbed up onto the bench, reaching for a pickle. Maddie made plates for the three of them and they ate there while the sky slowly took on shades of pink and orange. It was an odd sensation, sitting there in front of a home that was now hers, eating food that she had prepared, talking with a stranger who was now her husband. The trip to Nebraska had seemed like it would never finish, but now it seemed odd that their journey had ended, and that this was their place. For better or worse, as they say.

  As soon as she finished eating, Tess was off to look at the chickens again. She had spent much of the afternoon leaning on the fence wire, watching the birds scratching in the dirt, and she wasn’t tired of it yet.

  “Pichin, pichin,” she called, holding out a blade of grass, but none of the birds took her up on her offer.

  “She’s a sweet girl,” Bill said. He was squatting in front of a small ring of stones, tending a fire he had started after they’d finished eating. The sun was on its way down, and an evening breeze had come up. “How old is she? Two?”

  “She’s three. Does she seem younger?”

  “I was just wondering about it,” Bill said. “She doesn’t talk much for a three-year-old. In fact—”

  “She’s talking just fine,” Maddie said, unable to keep an edge out of her voice. I’m so sick of this conversation, she thought. All these people imagining something wrong with Tess, when none of them know a damn thing about her. “If you had kids, you’d know that not every child learns to talk at the exact same time. She’s a girl, not a machine.”

  Bill turned toward the pen. “Is that true, Tess? You’re a little girl?”

  “No mustache!” Tess squealed, and clapped her hands.

  Bill laughed and turned back to Maddie. “I was just going to say, she reminds me of me,” he said as he returned to the table and sat down on the bench across from Maddie.