The Bride of Willow Creek(39)
“New clothes. Yes. I’ve been thinking about that.” She wished her voice didn’t sound so embarrassingly breathy and strange. “We can save money by cutting down a couple of my dresses for the girls.” She had enough clothing that she’d left much of it unpacked. “Then we’d only have the cost of a seamstress. And shoes. And a few incidentals.”
Turning from the sink, he frowned. “You don’t need to sacrifice your things. Buy new material.”
“I don’t mind. The dresses are just—”
“Your father dressed my wife for ten years, I don’t want my daughters dressed by him, too. Buy new material.”
Silently, she watched him grab his lunch bucket and stride toward the door. “Buying new is a waste of money we could use in a dozen other places,” she said, keeping her back to him. “It’s penny-wise and pound-foolish.”
“I don’t want them to have castoffs.”
Had she known how stubborn and prideful he was? She didn’t think so. Realizing he was about to leave, she stood and faced him, and her chin came up.
“I am still not going to wash your clothes.”
If he thought kissing her and getting her all riled up would make her welcome the drudgery of a real wife, he was wrong. In fact, instead of softening her, his kiss had demonstrated what she’d been missing all these years and the loss made her furious.
He stood with his hand on the doorknob. “I almost forgot. Who is Peter De Groot?”
Angie’s mouth dropped. This was a morning for shocks. “How on earth could you possibly know Peter’s name?” She couldn’t have been more startled if he’d begun speaking in tongues.
Reaching inside his shirt, Sam withdrew a letter, which he placed on the small table beside the door. “I’m guessing he must be your father’s attorney. Is that correct?”
Color heated her cheeks. “No,” she admitted slowly. “Mr. De Groot is a friend. A good friend.”
“I see.” Sam stared at her across the tiny parlor section, across the cooling laundry tubs. “Just how good a friend is he?”
Uncomfortable, she brushed a strand of loose hair off her forehead. “We . . . Mr. De Groot and I intend to, well, marry perhaps. After you and I obtain our divorce.”
Sam’s eyebrows soared and his stare intensified. “Are you saying right to my face that some son of a bitch is courting my wife?”
She blinked. “Well, I suppose you could say that.” Sudden fury boiled up inside. “How dare you object?” She threw out her hands, indicating the house, the curtains, the rugs, the furnishings. “You lived here with another woman! You didn’t just court someone, you moved her in with you and had children!”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“It sure isn’t!”
“I wasn’t courting a woman who’s living with her legally wedded husband! You tell that bastard not to contact you again.”
Her mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air. “I certainly will not!” This was unbelievable. “Once you and I are divorced, I hope to marry Mr. De Groot!”
“Well, we aren’t divorced yet. Until we are, you’re my wife and I won’t stand for you carrying on with another man.”
“I have every right to my future!” She was sputtering.
Sam jabbed a finger in her direction. “You tell him, Angie. He is not to write to you again. What you do once we’re divorced is your business. While you’re living in my house, it’s my business. So take care of it. I don’t want to see any more letters from this arrogant back-stabbing son of a bitch!”
Astonished and speechless, she watched him stomp through the door and outside. Needing to do something, anything, she looked around, then grabbed the salt shaker off the table and threw it at his back. The shaker bounced off the wall beside the door and crashed to the floor. Running outside after him, she hurled a vase at the curl on his neck. The vase sailed past his head and shattered in the road ahead of him.
He stopped and glared back at her. “You can be as Italian as you want, but I’m not changing my mind. No sneaky bastard is going to court my wife while she’s living in my house, eating my food, and managing my money. You tell him that.”
“I’m never going to wash your dirty underwear!” she shouted after him. “Never! Do you hear me?”
He pretended he didn’t. But all the neighbors did.
When Sam heard Cannady Johnson’s “hello,” he climbed out of the pit he was digging and knocked the dirt off his hat brim before he shook hands.