She was pushing a small handcart through the newly formed paths left by the reapers. Gloria followed, carrying Kate on one hip and Danny in a sling wrapped around her back. Her face was hidden within the tunnel of the sunbonnet, and he found himself wishing she would push it back and refresh him with one of her smiles.
Maureen broke off her song to announce “Dinner's on!” and a hearty cheer erupted from the men.
The contents of the cart were covered by a threadbare quilt that John William snapped in the air and laid in a place of newly cleared land. Then he took Kate out of Gloria's arms and lifted her to a giggly height before bringing her back down for a nuzzling nose rub.
“Men,” he said with pride, “this is my little princess Katherine Celestia MacGregan. We call her Kate.”
Big Phil removed his hat, took her tiny hand and bent low over it, planting a solemn kiss.
“And if you'll take her, sir,” John William said, handing Kate over to Big Phil, “I'll introduce you to my son.” He lifted Danny out of the sling, untangled Gloria's thick braid from his grasp, and took him through the same ritual of big lifts and soft kisses.
“And this is Danny, my son,” he said. “Think we can put him to work today?”
Baby Danny giggled, then everybody else did, too. The men took turns passing the babies from hand to hand, each offering a special greeting, except for Ron's son who busied himself pouring water from a barrel into a galvanized tub for the horses.
Meanwhile, Maureen and Gloria set out the noontime meal. There were three loaves of bread cut into hearty slices and a cool crockery bowl of butter. Half a round of cheese was given over to Lonnie to slice into chunks. A basket of apples appeared, and each man dove for one to bite into, except for Ron's son who decided he'd rather give his to the horses, if that was all right with everybody There was ajar of pickled beets and onions, and when it was empty, the men poured shallow puddles of brine to sop up with the bread. Four jugs of gingered water were passed from man to man, each drinking his fill.
Before long, every crumb was gone, and seven men and one boy lounged on the ground under the sleepy sun. Danny and Kate rolled in the available space, making tentative inching progress using their elbows and knees. Maureen and Gloria busied themselves packing the dirty dishes back into the cart.
Big Phil rubbed his substantial stomach. “Delicious as ever, Maureen.”
“Wait and see what I got in store for you this evening,” she said.
“How ‘bout you, Miz Gloria?” Lonnie's lazy voice slithered out from under the hat that fully covered his face. He propped himself up on one elbow and lifted his hat. “You cook good, too?”
John William sat up and turned his full attention to the young man. “She's learnin'.”
Lonnie tapped his boot against John William's boot and said, “I guess there's more than one way to keep a man satisfied then, ain't there?” He laughed and looked around for the other men to join in. No one did.
“I think you owe the lady an apology,” Big Phil said.
Before Lonnie had a chance to say anything, John William was on his feet. He readied down and grabbed the front of Lonnie's shirt, bringing him to an abrupt standing position.
“And I don't know if 1 want to hire a man who would say something like that about my—”
“John William MacGregan!”
Gloria's voice stayed the hand that was drawn back in a fist.
“You let him go,” she said. “Remember what happens when you lose your temper.”
Lonnie's eyes grew wide, and he looked back and forth between John William and Gloria. “What happens?”
“Guess,” John William said through his teeth.
“Darling, we don't want any trouble here, do we? Not when we're just making friends.”
“Listen to her, MacGregan,” Lonnie said. “We don't—I don't want no trouble.”
By this time all the men were on their feet. John William continued to breathe through a face of fury, but by now the expression masked his amusement at Lonnie's fear.
“You really think I should put him down?”
“Yes," Gloria said, and the others agreed. John William released his fistful of blue cotton, and Lonnie stumbled a bit regaining his balance.
“1 didn't mean nothin',” Lonnie said, straightening his shirt.
“Let's just get back to work,” Big Phil said.
There was an uncomfortable shuffling as the men dusted off their backsides and went to harness the horses to the reaping machines. The last of the dishes were packed in the cart, and when the blanket was folded and put on top of the pile, there was plenty of room to place the babies inside for a ride home.
“There you go, big man,” John William said, swooping Danny up from the ground and settling him into the cart. “I think she can ride, too.” He took Kate from Gloria's arms and sat her down beside Danny.
“Come on, MacGregan!” Big Phil called. “Kiss the little woman good-bye and let's get back to work.”
“You heard the man,” John William said.
Gloria looked up. Her face, still shielded within the generous brim of her bonnet, registered an expression of impending doom. With one hand, John William tugged the bonnet string and pulled it from her head. With the other hand, he encircled Gloria's waist, drawing her to him. Claiming her.
“My little woman,” he said.
“Little woman, my—”
But he trapped her words in his kiss.
Her lips were full and soft, softer than anything he'd ever imagined. He felt her hands braced against his chest, not pulling him closer, but not pushing him away, either. Somewhere in the background, he heard the men whooping and hollering. Encouraged, he tightened his grip around her waist and brought his other arm around to envelope her in a full embrace. He crushed any chance she'd have to pull away. His lips smiled against hers, amused at her squeaks of weak protest.
When he reluctantly released her, she staggered a little on her feet, and he felt greatly rewarded by the dazed expression on her face. She looked flushed, a little sleepy even. It didn't last, though. Almost immediately she was stone still, alert and angry. Those same lips that had been so soft seconds ago now barely moved as they spoke her command.
“Give me my bonnet.”
The whooping and hollering became a low, amused rumble. John William looked around, egged on by his comrades, and held the bonnet high, just out of Gloria's reach.
“How bad do you want it?” he asked, his voice teasing.
“What?”
“One more kiss, and it's yours.”
“That so?” Gloria held her hands behind her back and sidled up to him, as near to him now-as when she was locked in his embrace. She tilted her face high; he could feel her breath on his neck. Her eyes closed, her lips moist and ready, she smiled and said, “Keep it. I'll risk the burn.”
She stepped away, grasped the handles of the cart, and started down the path toward the house. “Come on, Maureen,” she called over her shoulder.
He still held the bonnet, and when he brought his hand up to cover his laugh, he caught the sun-warmed scent of her hair.
“Here,” he said. “Take this to her.”
Maureen had been standing, openmouthed, throughout the ordeal. Now she offered John William a wide wink, took the bonnet, and turned to follow Gloria. “See you all at supper!" she called.
John William walked the gauntlet of jeers and backslaps to take his place in the reaper's seat.
“Looks like it's gonna be a cold night tonight!”
“Whew! Anybody else feel that frost?”
John William just laughed it off. “All the more reason to get this crop in,” he said. “Looks like an early winter for this farm.”
Long after it was over, the kiss consumed her.
She thought about it all the way back, trying to ignore Maureen's amused silence. She thought about it all afternoon as she stirred pans of cornbread batter. Throughout the day, the trace of his lips, the ghost of his embrace warmed her like a fine residue until she shook it off, remembering her irritation.
But the memory came back when the men did. It rode on the sound of the reaper's blades, drifting in on the wave of masculine conversation. It wrapped around her hands as she served up supper and snaked across her cheeks as she attempted to smile and socialize. She tried to tuck it away when the men bedded down—some in the barn, some in the back of their wagons, some on a tarp under the stars—but it crackled along with the hairbrush she dragged through her curls, and it tossed on her pillow as she tried to sleep. She thought she'd leave it behind if she left her bed and settled in the parlor's rocker for a while, but it followed her there, too.
In fact, it walked right in, in lockstep with John William's bare feet.
“Gloria.”
It was the first he'd spoken to her since the kiss. She stood and walked toward him, and when she was close enough to smell his scrubbed skin, she balled up her fist and landed a resounding blow square on his jaw.
She hadn't expected him to laugh. She didn't know just what reaction she did expect, but the wry smile and low chuckle never figured into it.
“I guess I deserved that.”
“I guess you do,” she said, her anger tempered a bit.
He brought one hand up to rub the spot where Gloria's fist connected.
“You've got a good right hook there.”
“So I've been told.”
He laughed again and settled his large frame on the parlor sofa.
“Let me see,” he said, taking her hand and drawing her down to sit next to him. She uncurled her fingers, and he rah his thumb softly along the reddened knuckles. “You're probably going to bruise.”
Gloria brought her other hand up and ran a finger along his jaw.
“So are you.”
They both laughed at that, and Gloria drew her hands away to fold them gingerly in her lap.
“You had no right to…to do that to me,” she said, combing her fingers through the fringe of the shawl she'd thrown over her nightgown.
“I'm sorry" John William said. “It was just a kiss. I didn't think—”
“I'd mind?”
He said nothing.
“You think I've been kissed so much it wouldn't matter?”
“I didn't think anythmV”
“Because it does matter.”
She wanted to say that his kiss bothered her in a way that no man's touch ever had. She who had earned thousands of dollars with hundreds of men, whose body had been wagered and won at gambling tables, felt violated by a simple kiss under a blazing noonday sun. The paradox drew a bitter laugh from deep within her.
“It matters,” she repeated.
“I didn't mean to hurt you,” he said.
Another bitter laugh. “You didn't hurt me. You disappointed me. I thought you were different.”
“Different," he said, blowing the word out in disgust. He stormed up from the sofa and walked to the window, turning his back to her. “I'm a man, Gloria. Flesh and blood. And you're a beautiful woman.”
“You didn't kiss me because I'm beautiful. And 1 wouldn't care if you did. In fact," she leaned back against the arm of the sofa, “you could kiss me again right now. You could come on over and take me right here, and I wouldn't care. Because at least I'd know you were doing it to please yourself.”
He turned, took in her pose, and averted his eyes. “What's that supposed to mean?”
“You weren't acting out of lust this afternoon. You were acting out of pride.” Gloria got up from the sofa and stalked over to where John William stood. “You were kissing me for them. The more they cheered, the better it was for you.”
She leaned closer and closer with each word, trying and failing to trap him into looking at her. She needed to see his eyes, needed to know that this was the man to whom she could entrust her life and the life of her son. But the more he evaded her gaze, the more he looked like every man who had ever used, raped, beaten, and sometimes even kissed her. She paused, silent, waiting for the kind word that would reassure that she was safe and wanted. Instead she got a downcast, shuffling mumbling mass of man. Just like all the others.
“I'm just tired of the lies.”
“Lies?" Gloria said. “You've handed me nothing but lies since you met me.”
He took her arm in a grip that sent waves of bruising comfort. “What lie have I ever told you?”
“You told me it didn't matter.” His grip demanded more. “You've always told me that it didn't matter who I was or what I did. You've said that I could be a new person, that God could make me a new person. That I didn't have to feel ashamed. That you didn't see me that way”
“I don't.”
“Yes you do!” She tore her arm from his grasp and stepped back, out of his reach. “And even if you didn't, it wouldn't matter. Because nobody will ever see me as anything different. I can put on a bonnet and play the little farmer's wife, but there will always be a Lonnie who will remind me of what I am.”
“Who cares what Lonnie thinks?”
“You care!” Gloria said, her voice too loud for the sleeping family. She hazarded a glance toward the doors leading off the parlor, then continued in a thick whisper. “You care, and don't try to deny it. You weren't defending my honor today you were defending your own.”
John William's head snapped back more violently than it had when she hit him, his face registering first anger, then something else. He stepped past her, sat down in the willow rocker, and buried his face in his hands.
“You'll never really be able to forgive me for what I've been,” Gloria said, gently now, following John William and placing her aching hand on his shoulder.
“It's not my forgiveness you're needin',” he said, looking up. His face was an expression of desperation, a pleading that Gloria couldn't understand. He looked stricken, vulnerable, and she found herself so entranced that she forgot her anger. She felt his hands grasp her waist and allowed this embrace to guide her until she was kneeling on the floor, her face level with his.
“I've got no reason to forgive you,” he said. His hands were now on her shoulders, his thumbs fairly digging into soft flesh. “I've got no reason and I've got no right. You've never done me any wrong, you see? Since I've known you, you've never done no thin’ against me.”
“But before I knew you—”
“I don't care what you were before. It's a new life you have with me. You need to put your past behind you.”
“It's not that easy,” Gloria said. “I can't just forget what I've been.”
“No, you can't. And neither can I. But God will, Gloria, if you'll let Him.” He softened his grip but did not let her go, and she found herself unable to look away. “You can't imagine what it feels like to allow God to forgive you, to know that there's no price left to pay for what you've done.”
“Price?”
“Yeah,” he said, releasing his grip entirely. “We pay for our sins. Shame, guilt.”
“That's just it,” Gloria said. “I've never felt ashamed of myself before. Not really”
“And you don't have to again.” John William's face broke into a smile of pure joy. “Because when Jesus died, He took all of that shame on Himself, you see? So God can take it away from you. So all that's left for you, darlin', is to ask Him to. Tell God you know you've done wrong. Tell Him you believe that Jesus died for your sins. Accept that forgiveness that He offers you.”
“It can't be that easy.”
“But it is, Gloria, it is. I spent so long hatin’ myself for what I done. Not just the men I killed—yes,” he stopped her protest, “killed. But when I think of the ones I hurt, humiliated. When I think of how many men took money meant to feed their families and used it to bet on the fact that I'd beat the other guy. There's no way I could go to each of them and say ‘Forgive me. I've changed now.’ The only way to have any peace with my past was to let God grant it for me. And He did, but not until I asked Him to. So you see,” he concluded with a shrug, “you don't need any-thin’ from me.”
Oh, but I do." She reached up to take his face in her hands. “I need you to take care of my son. To raise him right, so he'll be as good a man as you are.”
“You know I will.”
“And I need to know that you'll protect Kate, keep her safe from men like Lonnie.”
“Did you not hear anythin’ I just said?”
“I heard you,” Gloria said, standing. “I heard you say that God can make me a new person, but you and I both will always know what I really am.”
He closed his eyes. “God help me.” He opened his eyes and looked up at her. “If only you could see. If only you could see what God has to offer you. How He loves you. Then maybe you could see how much…”
The little mantel clock ticked. And ticked. And ticked.
“How much?”
And ticked. He stood up, holding Gloria's full gaze. “I'm only goin’ to ask this,” he said. His voice no longer had the pleading passion from earlier. It now had an edge she recognized—the one that told her his patience had run out. “I'm askin’ you to stay With me. To be my wife.”
“I can't. Not as your wife. That wasn't our agreement.”
“Gloria—”
“I'll never forget us in my little cabin and you telling me plain as day that you didn't want me for a—”
“Enough about th—”
“Good enough for that baby of yours,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper, “but not quite good enough for you.”
Gloria felt a pounding in her throat and eyes. She folded her arms tightly across her chest and turned her back to John William. When she felt the slight touch on her shoulder, she took a step closer to the window and rested her head against the cool pane.
“That must have hurt you,” he said.
Gloria concentrated on the feeling of her face against the glass.
“But my wife had just died. I didn't want to be—”
“Stuck with me?”
“What's that?" She felt a tug on her arm and allowed John William to gently turn her around. “1 can't hear if I can't see your face.”
“I said you didn't want to be stuck with me.”
John William tossed his head back and laughed. “No avoidin’ that, now was there?” He brought his hands up to cradle her face and bent her head forward to place a tiny, almost imperceptible kiss on the blond curls at the top of her head. “But if you're not my wife,” he spoke into her hair, “I got no claim to you.”
Gloria stepped out of his embrace and raised her eyes to meet his. “You can't claim me, John. I'm not a piece of land you can improve and own.”
“That's not what I meant.”
“Every place I've lived, all those houses were full of girls just waiting for some man to come along and make them a bride. Take them straight out of the whorehouse and down the aisle. But I never wanted that. It was never my dream.”
“What was your dream?”
His voice, so soft it skittered on the edge of hearing, asked a question no one had ever asked before. When she was young, she dreamt of a father who would show up at her mother's door and take Gloria to his home—a beautiful, three-story mansion with terraces and garrets sitting in the middle of a lush green meadow where a beautiful woman, his lovely wife, would throw her arms wide and welcome this battered little girl who would become her own child. Later the dream changed to an older gentleman in a quiet brick house full of lush carpets, pipe smoke and books, who relied on his long-lost daughter to provide him comfort and conversation in his old age. But never in the idle hours between men did she waste her time fantasizing about a husband. She'd spent her life in and out of beds giving men what was expected from a wife. What was her dream? To live a life free from the life she'd lived. To protect her son from the sins of his mother. To never again be a part of a man's desire; to never again be on the other end of a man's touch.
That is, until she felt lips in her hair asking about her dreams, and absolute terror at not having the right answer.
“Why did you marry Katherine?”
“What?”
“Did you want to claim her? Rescue her? Or was it mad, passionate romance?” She clasped her hands to her breast and fluttered her eyelashes, mocking the emotion. John William responded with a smile and a slight shake of his head.
“She was a good woman,” he said. “She taught me about Christ, gave me a Bible. I guess some part of me thought that mar-ryin’ a good woman would make me a better man.”
“So you think marrying me would make me a better woman?” A sly, taunting smile tugged the corner of her lip.
“Well,” John William said, shrugging, “I don’ think it could hurt the cause.”
Gloria emitted an exaggerated gasp of horror and punched his arm playfully—nothing like the blow she landed earlier. John William grasped his arm and staggered to a half-sitting, half-lying position on the sofa. Barefoot and in her nightgown, Gloria attempted to flounce past him and into her room, but his hand caught hers before she could get away, and there was something in his grip that kept her from taking another step.
“Gloria, look at me.”
She did, and as she did, their fingers intertwined.
“I've got strong feelin's for you,” he said, looking at their hands rather than her eyes. “Feelin's that just aren't right without you bein’ my wife.” He looked up at her, briefly, then looked away again.
“1 can't make you a better man,” Gloria said. “Making me a wife isn't going to erase my past. It isn't going to change me. Think about what I am, John, and tell me that it's something you want to claim.” She felt his grip loosen and let her fingers go slack, but the connection remained.
“I'm leaving, John. Just after the harvest.”
He smiled. “Now, darlin', we've been through this before.”
“That was different. I didn't know then what kind of future Danny would have. But now.
“What's changed?”
“Look around. I'll always be able to picture him in this home, growing up, going out into the fields. With you.”
“And Kate?”
“That little girl owes her life to me, but I don't owe mine to her. Or to you. Good night, John.”
She turned her back on him and padded away. She thought she heard him say her name one more time, but the rushing in her ears made her unsure if he had said “Gloria,” or “Good night.” She wouldn't acknowledge either.
She crawled into bed with Maureen, who appeared to be asleep. She lay awake, waiting for the sounds of John William's settling into the bed in the room next door, but heard nothing.
When the sky outside beckoned her to leave her bed—after an unnecessary rousing from Maureen—she half-expected to find John William still splayed out on the couch, and in her mind she reclaimed the dangling hand, brought it to her lips, and spoke to him the promises he'd asked for last night.
But he was gone. The next time she saw him he was up— dressed and scrubbed—swigging coffee and slapping backs, ready to get the harvest under way.