The Replacement Wife Read online

  Amy held it up in front of her and examined her work. The button she had reattached was nowhere near the buttonhole; when Joss next wore it, he’d have a tent of bunched-up fabric hanging from the middle of his chest. She smiled and went to hang it in the wardrobe.

  When she returned downstairs, the men were already seated in the dining room, waiting for Carol to serve the meal. Amy took a seat as well and tried to ignore the way that Joss glared at her. Lately he had been looking at her with narrowed eyes and pursed lips, as if doing calculations in his head, trying to figure out whether she was really worth his investment. Or, of course, he could have been thinking about earthly pleasures instead of business; that thought was one she tried to flush out of her mind every time it arose, however. It gave her chills even when she was seated in the kitchen next to the stove.

  Now that Carol was doing the cooking again, the past week had been routine, although with a new twist: dinner was still served precisely at six, but now Esther dropped by precisely at seven. Amy marveled at how much time—and how many recipes—Esther seemed to have; every night she arrived with a basket of goodies. Some were sweet, some were savory, all were delicious—at least, that’s what Amy assumed. Joss hadn’t yet left any to be sampled by anybody else.

  If that had been the only measure of how their plan was coming along, then Amy would have felt more assured of their eventual success. Nevertheless, with exactly seven days remaining before her wedding date—the mere thought of which was enough to make her shiver—there was little outward sign of success. Joss had given no hint that he was getting cold feet; in fact, the only change Amy had noticed was that he had gained a pound or two, no doubt due to all the pastries they’d been stuffing him with recently.

  Amy, on the other hand, had found her clothing looser than ever. It was difficult to keep up an appetite with her wedding to Joss still hanging over her head. Time was running very short now, and even if things suddenly turned out for the best, she still had no idea what she’d do on her own. It was something to wonder over: she had gotten herself into such a situation that even the best result would mean she was alone in a strange town, with Wisconsin’s legendary winter just around the corner. She tried to shoo those thoughts away as well.

  She picked at her food, more moving things around on her plate rather than actually eating, while the men discussed business; after dinner, the group moved out to the porch to enjoy the evening. Mid-September in Wisconsin could mean almost any kind of weather, and the day had been warmer than they’d seen in weeks. While Joss made himself comfortable in his rocker, Amy sat down on the porch swing and gently pushed herself with one foot. Joe paced in front of them with a pair of garden shears, snipping wayward bits from the bushes that lined the porch.

  “There shouldn’t be anything left to prune there,” Joss said. “Rufus Johnson was supposed to take care of that yesterday.”

  “It looks pretty good,” Joe said. “I’m just cleaning up a little bit here and there.”

  “Should look perfect, not pretty good. I’m paying that man perfect money, not pretty good money,” Joss said. “Either he needs to do better or I need to pay him less.”

  Joe just grinned as he clipped off another leaf, and then glanced up at Amy. His smile broadened then, and she felt a familiar lightness in her heart, same as she’d come to associate with Joe over the past several days.

  He turned his attention back to the bushes, but Amy let her gaze linger on him while he worked. Regardless of whether things worked out between Joss and Esther, Amy was going to miss spending time in Joe’s company. The last few nights in particular—ever since Esther had been joining them in the evenings—she’d come to feel much closer to him, speaking with him quietly in the background while Esther chatted up Joss and kept him full of pastry.

  By now she felt like she knew almost everything about Joe. She could name his favorite color—green, like the rolling hills of summer, and his favorite food—potatoes, fried with onions. She knew the favorite games of his childhood and the names of his friends, the books he liked and places he’d been, his onetime hopes and abandoned dreams—as well as the dreams he yet retained. Telling truth, it had hurt her to hear him talk about his plans for a family one day, though she hadn’t been able to say exactly why. Until tonight.

  Watching him there, trimming the stray leaves and twigs until the bushes looked just right—caring for them, in a way—it struck her that it had pained her because she knew that she had no place in his plans.

  Amy had needed him before and she needed him still, but it was finally dawning on her that there was more than that connecting them. Their relationship—at least in her mind—had changed from the one where she’d just been a woman in need and he was the man who’d come through for her. Joe had been a solid, true friend—perhaps the truest friend she’d ever had—but she could no longer deny that she wanted more than his friendship now.

  He hadn’t just offered help when she needed it and then been done with it. He had done more for her than she’d had a right to ask, and he had been a better man than she’d had reason to believe.

  Joe glanced up and caught her looking. In the past she would have turned her gaze away, embarrassed, but tonight she held steady. She had imagined from time to time that they were sharing thoughts when they smiled at each other; her smile sometimes meant thank you, sometimes I appreciate you, sometimes simply hello. Tonight, however, she smiled at him and she realized that she meant I love you.

  The thought nearly took her breath away, and she felt goose pimples form on her arms, in spite of the warm breeze that flowed across the porch. She’d never before felt anything like it, but as she stared at Joe it couldn’t have been clearer. It was love. It had to be.

  She understood now what people meant when they used the word bittersweet. One way or another, her life would change drastically in a week—or even less—and that would be the end of her evenings with Joe. That was one more thought that she swept from her mind immediately, however. For now, she simply let herself be flooded with the warmth that had built up inside her. Before she was forced to swallow the bitter, she was determined to enjoy the sweet.

  ~ ~ ~

  His father had been right; there wasn’t much trimming that needed to be done. In fact, the bushes did look perfect just the way they were, and every bit Joe snipped off detracted from that. Still, he had no other excuse to set himself right in front of Amy like that, so he was prepared to prune all evening if he had to.

  “Good evening, everybody! Joss, how are you doing tonight?”

  Joe turned to see Esther already heading up the walk, her habitual basket in hand. He nodded at her and then turned to see his father’s reaction. The smile on Joss’s face was genuine—real smiles from his father were so rare that they stood out—but it wasn’t clear whether it was because of Esther’s arrival or the basket’s.

  His father stood up as Esther climbed the porch steps. “I’m fine, fine,” he said, reaching to briefly take her hand. “Here, let me take that for you. What’d you bring us tonight?”

  “Something special. You like apple cobbler?”

  “No, I don’t,” Joss said. “I love it.”

  Esther laughed and playfully slapped his wrist. “You almost had me going there,” she said as she settled into her normal chair.

  “I had you going? Going to get some more cobbler, maybe.”

  Esther laughed again, and Joe couldn’t help chuckling a little bit himself. Esther had either a wonderful talent for acting or a horrible sense of humor. Whichever it was, she had been putting her all into the last few days, and if things didn’t come to fruition, it wouldn’t have been for Esther’s lack of trying. Nor for Amy’s, for that matter. Ever since they had launched their plan, Amy had shown real creativity in making daily life in the house unpleasant. Between the two of them, they’d done everything that they could to make Joss think twice about taking up with Amy and passing over Esther. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that things a
re going to go our way, he thought. The world is full of people who tried their hardest and still didn’t get what they wanted.

  That was a truth that was difficult to accept, but which loomed larger with every passing day. Time was slipping through their fingers, and there was certainly nothing that they could do about that. It made him remember a decorative hourglass that had spooked him as a child. It was a huge thing, nearly as big as he was then, made of wrought iron and thick, shimmering glass, and when they had explained what it was, Joe had sat and watched the sand pour into the lower chamber with horror in his heart. A clock, well, that wasn’t scary at all. The hands just kept going around and around; you could never really run out of time. But the hourglass left him with no such illusion. The sand spilled away and all he could do was sit there and watch as all his time ran out. His pulse raced even thinking about it, remembering how he had watched the last few grains slip down to the bottom, leaving no earthly trace behind. It was terribly final, and it felt like that now.

  He frowned as he clipped back a twig, letting the leaves fall to the ground. We still have a shot, he told himself. It’s a small chance, but we’ve still got it. Miracles happen. He tried not to think about the fact that there were a lot more days without miracles than with them.

  “What’s on your mind?” Amy asked.

  “Oh, you know, just the normal stuff,” he said.

  She nodded, but her expression revealed neither worry nor fear. The setting sun had given her a beautiful glow, though she hardly needed it; in fact, her smile this evening seemed to light her up just fine all by itself. Joe let his eyes linger on her a bit longer than he might have otherwise. Ordinarily he’d have never been so forward as to openly stare at her like that, but these were anything but ordinary times.

  It was hard to remember that, though. Life had a way of making a man grow accustomed to the good things too easily. He’d only had a few days like this, with Amy essentially all to himself, but Joe knew that when the next week was over, he’d feel the pain acutely, sure and sharp. You didn’t need to taste much sugar to know that there was nothing else as sweet.

  “Well, now, that is fascinating,” Esther said, drawing Joe out of his reverie as she directed her comment toward them. “I didn’t know Joss had other properties too.”

  “Yeah, Pa’s got a couple here and there,” Joe said.

  “Eight’s more than a couple,” Joss snorted. “Going to be nine in a few weeks.”

  “Really? You’re buying another place?”

  “The Carter Mining building,” Joss said. “Sale goes through next month.”

  “That old place? It’s been empty for years. What are you going to do with it?”

  “Nothing, yet,” Joss said. “But it’s a good site and it’s going cheap. That’s how you build a business, you know. Take the good deals when you find them. Somebody will want that place sooner or later, and when they do, they’ll have to pay me nicely for it.”

  Esther shook her head with a broad grin on her face. “Now that’s something,” she murmured. “Tell me more.”

  Joe snipped off another pair of leaves and watched as they twirled in the air, slowly spinning to the ground. It was a beautiful sight, until they hit the dirt.

  “Joe, don’t worry too much,” Amy said in a low voice.

  “What’s that?”

  “The look on your face,” she said. “It’s as plain as day that you’re worried. I don’t want you to.”

  “I’m trying not to. But I just don’t know if things are going to go your way,” he said quietly, throwing a glance toward Esther and his father.

  “Everything is going to work out, one way or another.” She stopped the swing and got to her feet, then leaned against the porch rail. “You said you would help me, and you came up with the best plan I could have imagined. I believe in you.”

  He almost laughed in her face just then. “You know, up until a little while ago, even I wouldn’t have believed in myself.”

  Her eyes filled with a tenderness that made his heart ache, and her voice fell even quieter. “You said that you made some changes in yourself, that you took charge of your own life. I don’t know what you were like before, but all I see now is a man who any woman could rely on,” she said. “Any woman would be lucky to have a man like you.” She paused and took a deep breath; her gaze flickered away from his just then, as if she were gathering strength. “In fact, I don’t know quite how to say this, Joe—”

  “Esther, let me ask you a question.” Joss’s voice was unusually loud, as if he’d wanted to make sure that Joe and Amy could hear him. “Don’t take offense at the personal nature, but I’ve been wondering something about you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Have you got a fella?” Joss asked.

  As Joe’s gaze whipped over to his father, he could hear Amy taking a sharp breath.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “A fiancé,” Joss said. “Are you promised to anybody?”

  Esther let her gaze fall to her hands, crossed in her lap, though not before a quick glance at Joe. Her eyes had brightened as if they’d been lit from within. “No,” she said softly. “I don’t have a fella.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Joss nodded like that was what he’d been expecting to hear. If he were happy to hear it, it didn’t show; his expression was on the contrary entirely serious, as if he were sizing up another property to make his own. He reached for the porch railing and pulled himself to his feet. “I’ll be taking my brandy in the parlor,” he said, before turning to his son. “Joe, you’ll come with me.”

  Joe tossed the shears to the ground and looked up at Amy. She didn’t look happy; more than anything, she looked scared, as if it were too much to hope that her prayers had been answered. Truth be told, Joe felt the same way.

  “You were saying something, Amy?”

  “Joe, I just wanted to tell you, no matter what happens—”

  “Let’s go, boy! We haven’t got all night!” Joss stood in the open door, waving him over like a dawdling child.

  “We’ll talk in a bit,” Joe murmured, and headed up the porch steps. He didn’t look at Amy again before he stepped inside; the look on her face would have been too much for him. More than anything, he would have loved to go to her and take her into his arms just then, but that couldn’t be. He had work to do.

  He followed his father into the parlor, where Joss went straight for the brandy decanter, pouring each of them a snifter. “Close the door,” he said, handing one drink to his son.

  Joe shut the door and took the glass, inhaling deeply. The fumes alone were almost enough to make him tipsy. He wasn’t much of a drinker, but if there were ever a time to do so, it was tonight.

  “Here’s to women,” Joss said, raising his glass. “The good ones are rare as robins in winter.” He paused to take a long drink. “And just as flighty sometimes.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. Seems like I’ve met quite a few good women just recently. You’ve got Amy, of course...and then there’s Esther.”

  “And then there’s Esther,” Joss said, lifting his glass and tipping the rest of the brandy into his mouth. “Esther Gill,” he murmured, as if he were savoring both her name and the drink. “Speaking of good women, that’s one right there.”

  “She seems like it,” Joe said, taking a sip and trying to ignore the burning sensation as it spilled down his throat.

  “Hell of a baker,” Joss said. He reached for the decanter and poured another generous splash into his glass. “And if she knows how to bake like that, I’d guess she knows how to do the rest of a woman’s duties as well.”

  “I imagine so,” Joe said. “Not like Amy.”

  His father’s laugh was loud and sharp, like a dog’s bark. “No, not like Amy,” Joss said, though his expression almost immediately turned serious and his gaze drifted, as if he were thinking about something unpleasant. Probably remembering the roast, Joe thought.

  “Anyway, Miss Esther would make
a fine wife,” Joss said. “Don’t you think?”

  Joe couldn’t restrain the grin that leaped onto his face. He had never had a prayer answered before, but it couldn’t have felt any better than this. His chest was almost bursting—with happiness, with relief, with a whole mix of emotions that he couldn’t even identify just then. He tripped over his words as they tumbled out of his mouth. “Of course,” he said. “She’d make a terrific wife.”

  Joss nodded. “All right then,” he said. “It’s settled. You’ll ask Esther for her hand. Tonight.”

  Chapter 8

  It was almost funny. They had reached the end of the road and he’d gone and misheard his father. There was no way, after all, that he could have understood Joss correctly. It simply couldn’t be.

  “What did you say?”

  “You’ll ask Esther for her hand in marriage,” Joss said. “No reason to wait. Do it tonight.”

  “What are you talking about?” His voice had gone hoarse suddenly, and he had to fight to get the words out. “Who said I even wanted to marry her?”

  Joss turned to him and stuck out one finger, pointing at his son while the brandy swirled in the glass. “It’s time,” he said. “Past time, actually. When I was your age I’d been married for years already. You wait much longer and nobody’ll want you.”

  The room had seemed warm before, but now it was positively burning. Joe wiped his forehead and came away with a palmful of sweat. “That’s not your problem, Pa,” he said. “I’m doing fine. I’m a grown man and I’ll make my own decisions.”

  Joss drained his glass again. “You are a grown man,” he said. “A grown man living with his father, dependent on his father, waiting for his father to hand over the family business. You’ll ask her tonight.”