The Replacement Wife Read online

  It was hard to breathe now; it felt to Joe like the air was thicker than normal, as if it wouldn’t flow into his lungs like it should have. “I...I need to think about this,” he mumbled as he reached behind and felt for the arm of the sofa. He sat down and listened to his heartbeat, pounding within him like a cannon.

  “There’s nothing to think about. You ask her tonight and you can get married next week, same day as us,” Joss said. “That way we’ll have two parties for the price of one.”

  “Pa, I...I can’t do that.”

  “Why not? You just said she’d make a good wife, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yeah, for you!”

  He snorted. “What do I need her for? I’ve got a girl all arranged already.”

  “But Amy’s useless around the house,” Joe said. “You’ve seen how she cleans, how she cooks! Did you forget all that already? She can’t do anything!”

  “That’s what makes this all so perfect,” Joss said. “You and Esther will live here with us. Esther will run the house, and maybe Amy will even manage to learn her way around the kitchen. But in the meantime, I don’t need her in the kitchen. I just need her in my bed.”

  Joe felt a new wave of heat roll over him as he let his chin fall to his chest. The idea of Amy in his father’s bed wouldn’t have fazed him a couple of weeks earlier, but now it infuriated him. Still, he’d been through enough arguments with his father to recognize when Joss wasn’t about to change his mind.

  “You know, I shouldn’t have to explain this to you,” Joss said. “But when you see a good investment available, you take it. Esther’s available. You’ll take her.”

  Joe leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, staring at the rug while he ran his fingers through his hair. His head was pounding, he suddenly realized, and though he massaged his temples, it did nothing to erase the pain. How silly, he thought. All our plans—all my plans—and nothing to show for it. It seems obvious now. It was never going to work, and all I did was waste our time. Time that just ran out for Amy. He swallowed, but it felt like there was a hard lump in his throat that didn’t budge.

  “Pa, listen,” he said, raising his gaze to his father, who had refilled his glass again, apparently in celebration. “I want to explain something to you, and I want you to think very carefully about what I’m going to say.”

  Joss tilted his head to the side slightly, as if he were slightly interested and slightly confused. “I’m listening,” he said.

  Joe tried to clear his throat. “Look, when Amy agreed to be your wife, she was in a real hard spot. She was desperate, in fact.”

  Joss’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re saying I could only get a desperate woman?”

  “No, Pa, it’s not like that,” Joe said. “I mean that she would have done anything to get out of that situation. She felt like she had no other choice. But now that she’s here, things are different.”

  “You mean she’s having second thoughts.”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “Too bad,” Joss grunted. “She’ll get used to it, just like your mother did.”

  “But maybe she doesn’t have to,” Joe said. “I mean, maybe there’s something we could do for her.”

  Joss scrunched up his eyes as if his son had started speaking a foreign tongue. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “I just think we have a chance to help this girl, and we should do it.”

  “Do what? Can you get to the point?”

  “I don’t want you to marry Amy,” Joe blurted. The room was entirely silent for a few seconds, and Joe could almost hear his blood racing in his veins. “She doesn’t need to get married,” he added. “She just needs help. I want us to help her.”

  Joss’s gaze fell to Joe’s glass and a confused frown spread across his face, as if he couldn’t understand how his son could be speaking such nonsense when he’d hardly touched his liquor. “You want me to give up my fiancée so you can...help her?”

  Joe felt his cheeks grow warm. “I know it sounds silly when you put it like that,” he said. “But the only reason she agreed to marry in the first place was because she didn’t know what else to do. She didn’t really want to get married.”

  “That’s odd,” Joss said. “Because when she heard I was looking for a wife, she sure was in a hurry to come out and get hitched. Seems like she knew exactly what she was doing.”

  “She didn’t have time to think things through,” Joe said. “Look, she never had a father to protect her, no mother to care for her,” Joe said. “The one thing that a person needs their whole life—a family—she’s never had. It’s not right that she had to grow up like that.”

  “That doesn’t change anything. Is that my fault?”

  “Of course not. But her whole life has been harder than it needed to be,” Joe said. “We have a chance to make it easier for once.”

  Joss leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. “So you’re saying you want me to pass up this pretty young thing, all because she made a choice and didn’t like how it turned out. I told you women were flighty, didn’t I?”

  “Pa, she’s not the right person for you anyway,” he said. “She’d be miserable. Surely you can see that.”

  Joss studied his son closely, as if he were a puzzle that needed solving, and he was quiet for a long moment. “Let’s say you’re right,” he finally said. “What do you suggest we do, then?”

  “Well, to start I was thinking we could give her some money—lend, I mean lend her some money,” Joe said quickly, seeing the sudden fire in his father’s eyes, “until she can find her feet and figure out what she’s going to do.”

  Joss rubbed his chin as he considered what his son had said. “How much money would you want to lend her?”

  “I don’t know, enough for a couple of months’ rent.”

  “Two months’ rent. Plus I guess you’d want me to forget about my expenses from putting her up here for the last couple of weeks.”

  “Well, yeah, I figured we wouldn’t charge her for staying with us.”

  “Plus the money I paid to bring her out here, all the way from New Hampshire,” Joss said, his voice rising. “You want me to forgive that debt too, I suppose?”

  Joe felt the acid rising in his stomach, but he nodded. “Yes, we’d forgive that.”

  “And my time and trouble, all that’s forgiven, is that it?” Joss had come closer now, and although he was more round than tall, he loomed over Joe, who remained sitting on the sofa.

  “We’d forgive everything,” Joe said softly.

  “Idiot boy!” Joss snarled as he began to pace back and forth like a caged wildcat. “Do you think I got where I am today by just ignoring other people’s obligations?”

  “No, but—”

  “Do you think I just forget about contracts and let everybody do as they please? Do you think I ignore it if somebody owes me?”

  “Of course not, but—”

  “Well, Amy owes me now,” Joss said. “She made her choice. It was her decision.”

  “She made the best choice out of nothing but bad options,” Joe said. “If she’d had a real family supporting her, she never would have even come out here. You can’t blame her for having a hard life.”

  “And you can’t blame me for wanting the wife I paid for,” Joss said. “I’m finished talking about this. She either marries me or she can go back East for all I care. But I’m certainly not paying for her cold feet. If she wants to leave, she does it on her own.” And with that, he again drained his glass and set it down hard on the sideboard, like a judge banging a gavel to close a trial.

  Joe could feel his father’s eyes still on him, waiting to see what he would do. It’s over, he thought. It’s really, truly over. It was impossible to believe, but impossible to deny. Joe felt a great hollow spot where his insides should have been. It didn’t even hurt to think about how he’d failed; he only felt numb. Joe stood and walked out of the parlor, not even bothering to look at his father as he h
eaded for the front door.

  “You remember what I said,” Joss called. “When you come back in here, you better be engaged.”

  Joe stopped to take a deep breath, then continued down the hall, each step taking him closer to the horrible moment when he would have to break the news to Amy. He would have done anything to avoid that, but there was no way around it. The hourglass was empty.

  ~ ~ ~

  As soon as Joe stepped out onto the porch, she could tell. It may have been from his posture—his shoulders slumped, like a broken man—or the way he averted his eyes from hers; regardless, Amy knew that something had gone very, very wrong.

  Esther, on the other hand, was a bit less perceptive. “How’d it go?” she chirped. “You about ready to help me move in here?”

  Joe stood there silently, his gaze drilling a hole in the porch floor.

  “Did Joss, uh...did he say anything about me?”

  Joe ignored her and instead turned toward Amy. The pain that filled his eyes flowed through her as well, chilling her like an icy stream. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. I should have been expecting this, she thought. All this time, I’ve had nothing but silly hopes and childish dreams. There aren’t any happy endings in this world. At least, not for me.

  She sat up straighter and clenched her jaw, determined to act stronger than she felt, but as soon as she heard the creak of the floorboards in front of her, her eyes began to burn. Joe had knelt in front of her, taking her hands in his, and she held on as tightly as she could, like he might still pull her out of the mess she’d made.

  “I’m sorry, Amy.” His voice didn’t seem like his own; it was only a thin whisper, coming from an empty shell of the man she knew. “Things aren’t going to work out like we planned.”

  Amy felt her strength—what little she had left—drain away as she began to cry. When she looked at him he was blurry through the tears, but she could clearly see the despair on his face.

  “Amy, please don’t cry,” he murmured. “I know I let you down something awful, but I can’t take seeing you cry. It’s like a knife in my gut.”

  She shook her head as she wiped her tears from her cheeks. “You didn’t let me down,” she said. “Our plan didn’t work, but you’re the only person who ever came through for me.”

  “I didn’t do a whole lot of good.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Amy said. “You did your best.”

  Joe let out a breath through gritted teeth, as if her words had hurt him. “My best,” he whispered, shaking his head. Suddenly his eyes widened and he squeezed her hands as he stood up. “That’s just the thing,” he said. “I didn’t do my best. Not yet, not by a long shot. Come on.” He pulled Amy to her feet and toward the door.

  “Where are we going? What are you doing?”

  “You’re not going to end up out on the street, I swear to God.” he said. “I won’t let that happen.” His voice was strong and smooth again, just like she was accustomed to. “And you’re not getting married. Not to him, anyway.” Joe paused at the door, pulling it open and standing aside. “You come too, Esther.”

  The three of them entered the parlor to find Joss seated in his usual chair, brandy snifter again in hand, facing them with a smirk on his face. For all the world, he looked to Amy like a king sullying himself to meet with the peasants.

  Joss fixed his son with his watery eyes and raised his eyebrows. “Did you do what I told you? Are you engaged?”

  “I don’t know,” Joe said. “I haven’t asked her yet.” Then he turned and took Amy’s hands as he dropped to one knee in front of her. “Amy, will you marry me?”

  “What?” Joss shouted.

  “What?” Amy whispered.

  “Amy, I can remember the first moment I saw you,” Joe said. “I looked at your reflection in the town hall window and I thought to myself, this has got to be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. And then I realized your reflection wasn’t half as beautiful as the real thing.”

  “Joe—”

  “But it’s not just that,” he said. “Ever since then, I’ve come to know you a little bit better every day, and I’ve seen that you’re just as wonderful inside as you are on the outside.”

  “That’s enough now,” Joss huffed. “You shut your mouth.”

  Joe ignored him as he got to his feet and looked Amy straight in the eye. “You told me you felt like you’ve been pushed around your whole life, without ever being able to make your own decisions,” he said. “And you know I felt the same way. It’s time for us to make our own choices. And I choose you.”

  Her eyes began to sting. She would have loved to say yes, to have him hold her close, to finally have somebody at her side and on her side, but that would extend her mistakes to him. “Joe, I can’t let you do that,” she said, though her throat ached with every word. “I know how much you believe in family, how much you said you wanted to carry on with your grandfather’s work—”

  “You can forget all about that if you don’t stop this foolishness this instant,” Joss growled.

  “It’s all right, Amy. My grandfather never would have put the business before his family, and neither will I,” Joe said. “I won’t be able to offer you much—or anything, probably,” he said, tossing a quick glance toward his father. “But I can promise you that I’ll work every day to make you happy, from now until the day I die.”

  She was looking at him through a lens of tears again. “Joe, I would love to say yes—”

  “Then say it. Tell me you’ll be my wife,” he said. “I want you to be my family now, and I’ll be yours.”

  Out of everything he had said, out of everything that he had shown her, these were the words that hit her the hardest, and in a moment she was overcome, crying like a baby in front of all of them. She had to swallow hard, like gulping down fire, before she could speak.

  “I will,” she said. Her voice was a mere whisper, but it was loud enough.

  “You can’t! You can’t do this!” Joss’s voice was unnaturally high, like more of a screech than anything else.

  Joe’s smile was as broad as the Mississippi. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, grasping Amy’s hand and leading her quickly out of the parlor.

  Joss pushed himself up to his feet, letting his glass tumble to the floor in the process. “You do this and you’ll be sorry!” he shouted. He yelled something else as well, but it wasn’t clear what he’d said since Joe so quickly closed the door behind them.

  Amy paused at the top of the porch steps for just one moment. It was a stunningly beautiful evening. The breeze was warm and gentle on her face, the sun was just beginning to dip below the horizon and the brilliantly blue sky had begun to take on shades of pink and purple. It was the strangest sensation, but she had the feeling that there would be many beautiful days ahead.

  ~ ~ ~

  It was difficult to say what was making him angrier, but then there was a lot to be angry about. It wasn’t every day that a man brought a woman out from back East and then had her walk out on him. “Might as well have just thrown that money out the window,” Joss muttered. And then to think that the man escorting her out was his own son, well, that was just beyond the pale.

  “Blasted fools!” Joss spat out. “Blasted fools, both of them! Giving up everything like that!”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Esther pursed her lips and nodded slowly.

  “She could have had the most comfortable life a woman could want! And him...I’m sorry to think of him as my son!” Joss glanced down and saw his glass still on the carpet. The brandy had spilled out, leaving a slowly spreading wet spot. “Carol!” he shouted. “Carol!”

  After a minute, there was the sound of the back door opening, and Carol appeared in the hall. She held a small traveling bag at her side.

  “Come clean this up,” Joss said, nodding toward the mess he’d made.

  “Do it yourself.”

  For the second time that evening, Joss’s jaw dropped open in surprise. “What did you j
ust say?”

  “I said you can do it yourself,” Carol said. Her voice quavered a bit, but the words were clear. “I got a new job now.”

  “What? Who’d have you?”

  “The Hall family needs a housekeeper,” she said. “I start tomorrow. So I’m leaving tonight.” And with that, Carol lifted her head high, turned on her heel, and walked away. The sound of the front door closing echoed in the empty hallway.

  Joss had seen a lot in his years, but there had never been a night like this—a night so senseless, so full of fools—in his entire life. He turned to Esther, who remained sitting on the sofa, and shook his head in disbelief. “You ever see such a ridiculous display?”

  “I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like it.” If Esther had been upset by the scene she had just witnessed, she didn’t let on. Instead, she leaned back in the corner of the sofa and let out a sigh of pleasure as she relaxed. “Nice place you got here,” she murmured, and simply smiled.

  Chapter 9

  The office, with its wilted plant in the corner and the desk piled high with books and papers, wasn’t exactly where she had imagined getting married. Still, what with the glow from the gaslights in the street and the lanterns here in the office, the room looked almost romantic. Joe’s eyes glittered like gems, his smile filled her heart near to bursting, and she felt almost dizzy with happiness. It was a bit much to believe, in fact, and in her core she felt a nervous thrill, like she was looking over a ledge into an abyss. There was always a chance she could fall—but then again, perhaps she would finally fly.

  “Martha will be your witness, I guess,” Tibbs said from his seat behind the desk. She had only met him a couple of minutes earlier, when Joe had introduced him as the justice of the peace. “Unless you had somebody else in mind. Your father isn’t coming?”

  “No, all this is kind of a surprise,” Joe said, winking at Amy.