They pulled into a parking space in front of a large department store with its plate-glass windows filled with displays of cornucopia and fall leaves, with dummies dressed in warm, winter coats and tableware decked across a table that included crystal and fine china in anticipation of the upcoming holiday.
Judd placed his hand on the door handle and hesitated when Bess didn’t do the same. “Is something wrong?” he asked.
She bit her lip. “This store looks expensive,” she blurted before she lost her nerve. “I don’t need such new things.”
“It doesn’t cost anything to look.”
“Did Daniel learn that from you?” she asked, keeping her eyes fixed on the large pumpkin sitting in the corner of the window display. “He was always dragging me to the most outrageous places we couldn’t afford, just to look at them. It made me feel like a tresspasser.”
“Is that because you’ve never really belonged anywhere?”
The question, though said in his usual, quiet voice, boomed like a gunshot between them. She wanted to tell him to go to Hades. Instead, she took a deep breath and cleared her throat. “Can you just take me to the nearest fabric store? And if we pass a flea market along the way, you’ll be amazed at the nice things I can find.”
He studied her with those black eyes for several long moments. “You don’t give an inch, do you?”
She whirled her head and glared at him. “Look who’s talking!”
One, long finger tapped against the steering wheel as he kept her pinned with his level stare. “I suppose that’s fair enough. What do you want to know? Ask me, and I’ll tell you, but only if you agree to answer one of my questions too.”
She leaned forward and felt the familiar grip of panic that always came when someone wanted to know anything about her past. Daniel certainly hadn’t cared about her parents or background. He took her as she was without asking where she came from. Why couldn’t his brother be the same?
She looked at Judd’s impassive face and tried to convince herself that whatever he knew or thought he knew about her really didn’t matter. Bess didn’t need ties to family, and she didn’t need a man. Hadn’t giving in to the impulse to cling to another person landed her in this situation in the first place?
No, once her baby was born, Bess would be her own person again, and she was confident she could make her way in the world for herself and her baby without the help of a man like Judd. He didn’t need to know a single thing about the memories she carried. They were burdens tucked in secret places even she’d forgotten were hidden away. Let them lay in peace.
She glanced at Judd again, who sat absolutely still, the same expression on his face. He could out wait anything. She would not think about how broad his shoulders were or how he was strong enough to raise his brother and hold down two full-time jobs, law enforcement and running the family’s farm. If she gave that piercing, black stare an inch, she’d end up running out a mile’s worth of woe on him. He didn’t deserve the burden, no matter that he was practically begging for it.
That last thought decided her. She pushed herself back into the seat, arcing her back, her palms stretched wide across her thighs. “Just the fabric store, please,” she managed through tight lips.
He made a guttural sound and cranked the engine, pulling out of the parking space with such speed that his tires squealed and they just managed not to slam into an oncoming car. Bess gripped the door panel and gritted her teeth.
A few, tense minutes later, he pulled into a strip center. The car came to a jerky stop in a space, and he stepped out of it without any hesitation this time. When Bess got out of the car, he was propped against the hood, lighting a cigarette.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” she exclaimed in her surprise.
He chuckled without mirth and gave her a lopsided grin. “I didn’t, cupcake, until you came along.”
He made the term of endearment sound like an insult. She spun on her heel without saying another word and headed into the fabric store at the end of the strip. The whole time she was looking through the selection of fabrics, her mind was busy thinking first of ways to make Judd pay for ever being born, and then, when she thought of Agnes and the guilt kicked in, on ways to be nicer to her brother-in-law for the other woman’s sake.
She purchased some soft cotton for making baby clothes and the cheapest polyester she could find on the sales rack to whip herself up a few more maternity dresses to see her though the remainder of her pregnancy. On impulse, she bought the yardage necessary to make Judd a new chambray shirt because the one he wore when he was working around the farm had been mended beyond any further repair.
As she was standing in line to pay for her purchases, she saw a colorful tabloid on the magazine rack by the register. She grabbed it on impulse, figuring that she could read it on the way home and avoid any further confrontations with Judd.
He met her at the door to the shop as she exited, taking her packages from her, walking back to the car with his spine ram-rod straight. When they were on the road again a moment later, he asked her, “Do you want me to empty out a dresser drawer to use for the baby’s bed too? If we’re making do, we might as well go full hill billy with it.”
It had not occurred to her that he would consider her economy, which was a way of life born out of necessity, as an insult to his ability to take care of her, especially since Bess did not consider Judd financially responsible for her baby. It made her feel that much worse about having to come to the Taylors for a temporary roof over her head in the first place.
“Buy what you like,” she forced herself to say. “It’s just that I’ve never lived on charity, and I don’t want to start now.”
He pulled into the parking lot of a small cafe. She shook her head when he glanced over at her, but Judd opened his car door anyway. “I know you’re not hungry, but I am. You can watch me eat.”
He walked around the car, opened her side door and stood there until she was forced to exit the vehicle and follow him into the restaurant. He ordered them each a burger, shake and fries and sat studying Bess over the cup of coffee the pretty waitress had poured for him. The fingers of his right hand made a rhythm against the Formica top of the booth’s table.
“They teach you double-entry bookkeeping at that laundromat you ran in Galveston?” he asked.
The question startled her. “I kept all the books for the owner, yes,” she said. “He still figured all the taxes and analyzed the balance sheets, though.”
“He wouldn’t be much of a business man if he didn’t.” The waitress arrived with the food then, and Judd took several bites of his burger before speaking again. “If you are so determined not to live on charity as you put it, you could start doing some bookkeeping for me. Goodness knows, I can use all the help I can get.”
“Really?”
He gave her a funny look before answering her. “I could show you around the office when we get home. You could start tomorrow.”
“All right.”
Bess forced herself to take a bite of the hamburger then, only to discover that she was hungry. The waitress came to check on them later, giving Bess a warm smile as she asked Judd, “Would you and your wife like some dessert?”
Judd gave Bess a wicked grin. “What do you think, honey?”
Bess kicked him lightly under the table. “Not today, thanks,” she told the woman.
When they were back in the car, she turned to Judd and sighed. “So, does this mean we can live in the same house without risking Agnes turning a hose on us?”
“If you agree to let Mama do the heavy cleaning until after my niece or nephew is born, I don’t see why not.”
Bess grimaced. “It relaxes me, cleaning. I like bringing order to things.”
“Well, it doesn’t relax me. So, do you think you could organize without crawling around on your hands and knees or lifting heavy appliances? I promise you there is plenty to organize right on top of my desk.”
She wanted to refuse. She hadn’t had to answer to anyone since she was 16-years-old. But this reasonable Judd was different than the scowling man who’d been barking orders at her since she’d crossed his threshold weeks before. Maybe, he deserved a chance.
“I promise not to lift more than a dust cloth and to stay off the floor,” she said, crossing her heart and holding up her fingers in the boy scout’s pledge.
Judd allowed a triumphant smirk to flit across his lips before turning his attention back on the road. He turned on the radio, which was playing a Bob Wills’ song that seemed to calm the big man even more. In a few moments, he was even humming very quietly so that Bess wondered if that was what she was hearing.
Before long, Bess felt her eyes growing heavy, and she gave in to the desire to sleep. When she woke, they were back in the drive with Jethro barking just outside the car. Agnes met them at the front door, shooing them into the kitchen, where she poured them all coffee and ordered everyone to sit.
“So, how did it go?” she asked.
“We didn’t kill each other,” Bess said.
“Bess has agreed to help with the office and to quit scrubbing the kitchen floor with a toothbrush,” Judd added.
Agnes smiled. “That makes me so happy. We’re family here, Bess, and you belong here just as much as Judd and me. Don’t you ever doubt it.”
They were kind words, and Bess was sure they were sincere. What she didn’t know was exactly what the words really meant.
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