The Forever Man(52)

"A knife?" Johanna repeated the words, unbelievingly.

"Of course, Tate's told you about their final battle, hasn't he? The  poor man was lucky to come out of it alive. And then there was all the  talk after he left about how Belinda died, falling in the river and all,  with no witnesses. And Tate with his face all cut up."

"I don't think I want to hear this, Bessie," Johanna said firmly. "Tate can-"

Bessie cut in. "Tate doesn't talk about it. Besides, I never for a  minute believed the things some people said. But for sure they'd had a  fight, and when all's said and done, Belinda was the one who ended up  dead."

Johanna shook her head. "Tate would never hurt any woman, Bessie. I can't believe you'd repeat such tales."

Bessie stepped back, allowing her to pass, and Johanna went to the sink,  rinsing a cloth to wipe her face, her hands trembling within the folds  of the fabric she pressed against her cheeks. The nausea was past, but a  weakness unlike any she'd ever known had gripped her, and she clung to  the drainboard.

"I'm sorry if I upset you, Johanna," Bessie said from the doorway. "I  thought you'd have known all about Tate's marriage. To tell you the  truth, I'd hoped he would see the light of day and quit his wandering  around and come back home where he belongs before this." She smiled with  barely concealed glee as she watched Johanna's distress. "The talk has  about died out, anyway, back home."

Stepping closer, Bessie spoke in a lower voice, as though confiding in  Johanna. "You know, I was amazed that he found it necessary to marry a  woman to get the piece of property he wanted." Her laugh was crisp and  glittering, like a glass shattering against a stone. "I'd have been glad  to buy him a hundred acres to play with. It's too bad he didn't hang  around a few more months, till Mr. Swenson passed out of the picture.  I'd have been happy to raise the boys for him."

Johanna gaped at the crass words spoken by the genteel woman before her.  "Why didn't you have children of your own, Bessie?" she asked quietly.  "You truly love Pete and Timmy."

Bessie's jaw tightened, her laughter a thing of the past, and she tilted  her chin, whispering. "If I couldn't have Tate Montgomery's children, I  didn't want any at all. Belinda snagged him first, right out from under  my nose, and I watched her make his life a misery." She sniffed,  dismissing her sister as of little account. "She never knew how to  handle him. I'd have had him working at the bank or running the hotel in  no time, if I'd married him."

"Tate's a farmer, through and through." With all her heart, Johanna  believed those words, and yet there was a niggling doubt as she  considered Bessie's words.

Tate Montgomery looked like a true gentleman in his suit. With his shoes  polished and his hair trimmed and his nails squared off, he was the  picture of elegance, and no woman in her right mind would turn her back  on him once she'd had a chance to have him as her own. Maybe Bessie  could have coaxed him into working in town. He certainly wouldn't have  the worry of crops failing and hail punishing a field of wheat or calves  freezing in a late spring sleet storm if he was working in a suit and  tie.                       
       
           



       

"Aunt Bessie! Come on out! What're you doin' in there, anyway?" Pete  called from the porch. "I hit Timmy's ball clear over by the garden, and  he says I cheated."

Bessie's eyes were dark with speculation as she looked at Johanna. "Have  you ever heard such a fuss? You'd think I was their favorite person in  the whole world, wouldn't you now?".

Johanna nodded, a sense of defeat catching her broadside. "Yes, Bessie, I guess you could say that."





Night had settled, bringing a spring rain that splattered through the  window onto the bedroom floor. Johanna roused from her sleep as the wind  blew across the room, twisting the white curtains and spraying the bed  with a fine mist.

Rolling from the mattress, she pushed the curtains to one side and  lowered the window, reluctant to lose the fresh breeze, but aware that a  west wind always blew hardest in this bedroom. The boy's room would be  dry, the window only cracked for a breath of air, and facing east as it  was.

She looked out over the yard, barely able to catch a glimpse of the  trees through the slanting rain, and her heart was filled with a strange  sadness. The hopes for happiness she'd harbored over the past months  had been scattered by Bessie's words. That the woman could be so cunning  and yet have Tate so completely enthralled by her sweetness and the  boys wrapped so securely around her little finger was a conundrum she  was not able to solve.

And to say such things about Tate-insinuating that he'd had something to  do with his wife's death. Why, anyone who knew the man, would know …

Johanna closed her eyes. If she could trust Tate in this, why couldn't  she trust him to do what was right when it came to her farm, when it  came to buying a new bull? And then, amid all of the turmoil in her  mind, she found a small kernel of truth. She did trust him. With her  farm, with her very life, with her love.

Yet she remained at the window, her thoughts turning to the niggling  notion Bessie had nudged into the forefront of her mind this morning.  This puzzle had been much easier to reason out, once she had it pointed  out to her so clearly. Bessie's words had set her thinking, and within  minutes she'd been able to sort out the solution. Her monthly flow had  not come around since December. Why she hadn't paid it any more mind  than that, she'd never know. Perhaps the newness of marriage, once Tate  had taken her to his bed, maybe the fun of Christmas and then the issue  of the bull. At any rate, she'd successfully ignored the signs that were  there to be seen, if only she paid attention. And now it could no  longer be ignored.

"Johanna?" His voice muffled, Tate called her name, and she turned back  to the bed, assured of the darkness hiding the tears she shed.

"Yes, Tate. I just had to close the window. It was raining in." Her feet  were damp from the wet floor, and she sat on the edge of the bed,  wiping them on the rug. "It's a good rain, a real soaker."

He grunted, turning to his side. "We needed it. It'll make the plowing go easier next week."

"Plowing already?" She covered her legs with the quilts and curled on her side.

"Yeah, we're having an early spring. I think I'll get the corn in before  the first of the month." He stretched his arm across to where she lay,  catching her around the waist and tugging her snugly against him.  "Sleepy, Jo?"

Ducking her head, she wiggled in his hold. "Don't, Tate. Not with Bessie right across the hall."

"For crying out loud, honey! She can't see us in here." He leaned to  nuzzle her neck. "You haven't wanted me to touch you since she got here.  What's wrong, sweetheart?"

"I'm just tired, I suppose." She closed her eyes, aggravated by the  effect his mouth was having on her. Tate Montgomery could have her in a  loving mood faster than a spark could light tinder. "Please don't,  Tate." She stiffened in his embrace, and knew a moment's regret as he  backed away.

"All right, honey. I know you've had a hard week. You're doing too much lately."

"I'm not complaining," she said, pulling the covers over her shoulder, strangely chilled as Tate turned from her.                       
       
           



       

"Go to sleep, Jo," he told her, yawning widely and reaching to pat her shoulder in a gesture of comfort.

"Yes … " She closed her eyes. But, caught between Tate's soft snores and  the certain knowledge of a child growing within her, she lay silent and  unmoving, unable to relax. Finally aware that she would not sleep again,  she watched the rain against the window, until the last sprinkling  drops were chased from the sky by the westerly wind and the rising sun.





Chapter Nineteen


"Aunt Bessie's gonna stay another week," Pete announced, the screen door  slamming behind him as he tore through the kitchen. "I gotta find my  string. We're gonna make a kite."

He was gone, his feet fairly flying up the stairs as his words sailed  back to ring ominously in Johanna's ears. The wonderful Bessie was once  more proving to be innovative and charming. Kites, indeed! Fixing pot  roast for supper was more the order of the day, as far as Johanna was  concerned.

Playing games and entertaining the children was all well and good, but  when it came right down to it, small stomachs needed nourishment three  times a day, and somebody had better be in the kitchen.