Author: Ramona Levacy Billingslea

The band in the corner played Western swing as the tables around the banquet hall began filling up with people. Bess, her blond hair pulled into a coiffure of her natural curls, leaned just a little more than she liked into the crook of Judd’s arm as they made their way to a seat.

She had on more makeup than usual to disguise the dark circles under her eyes. After calming herself enough the day before to finally leave her room, she had only managed to disguise her panic for the rest of the evening from Agnes and Judd due to her years of practice at showing no emotion in order to survive her challenging living arrangements. She’d gone to bed early, claiming to be tired because of all the paperwork she’d done earlier in the day. But instead of sleeping, she’d sat up in bed all night afraid that sleep would bring nightmares.

It was a credit to her ability to wear a mask that neither Judd nor Agnes seemed to sense any change in her. They were talking about the band, how the stand-up bass player was an M.I.T. graduate and that the violinist also played in a string quartet that toured the country. Bess gratefully took the seat Judd pulled out for her and closed her eyes to listen more closely to the music.

“There she is,” Michelle’s voice exclaimed. Bess opened her eyes to see the pastor’s wife standing right beside her, tugging along a handsome, tall man with black, straight hair and twin dimples when he smiled. “This is my brother, Samuel Miller,” she told Bess. “Samuel, this is Bess Taylor, the woman who made this great outfit.”

Samuel took Bess’ hand in his own, engulfing her cold fingers, infusing them with warmth. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said, holding onto her hand a little longer than necessary. “Is this seat taken?”

He didn’t wait for Bess to answer, but gracefully pulled out the chair and eased himself next to her, so that his long thigh just grazed her knee.

“Oh, don’t mind me, brother dear,” Michelle laughed. “I’ll just be over there with Michael. You know where to find us.” She waved at Bess over her brother’s head and winked before leaving them on their own.

Samuel gave Bess the full treatment of his dimples. She noticed the length of his thick lashes and the depth of his brown eyes. Wherever he was from, he must be devastating to the female population, she thought.  “My sister said you were talented,” he said, “but she didn’t mention that you were also really beautiful.”

Bess smiled politely. “And also really pregnant,” she replied bluntly.

To his credit, Samuel didn’t flinch. “I’m sorry about your husband,” he said. “I met him once years ago. He was a really nice guy.”

“He was indeed,” Judd’s deep voice said from over Bess’ head. He sat down in the chair on the other side of her, draping his arm across her back, settling his hand on her shoulder.

“Sheriff Taylor,” Samuel said, winking at Bess, who had to bite her lip to keep from laughing out loud.

The hand on Bess’ shoulder tightened. Normally, she would have been irritated with his presumptive attitude, but the contact felt comfortingly protective. She turned to Judd. “Samuel is Michelle’s brother,” she said. “Have you met him before?”

“Only in a purely social way,” Samuel answered, laughing at his own joke.

An uneasy silence settled on the table. Bess gripped her hands in her lap and stared at the tablecloth, wishing that Agnes had not volunteered to help with the serving line. Judd leaned toward her, so that she could feel his warm breath against her forehead.  “Would you like me to fill you a plate?” he asked.

Before Bess could answer, a purely feminine voice shot across the table. “Judd, I’ve been looking all over for you,” Lillian draped herself over his other shoulder, her perfume filling Bess’ nostrils so that she had to hold back a sneeze.

Judd’s arm left Bess’ shoulder, leaving her feeling strangely disappointed. She watched as Lillian purred in Judd’s ear, as they left the table to go to the buffet line. She watched knowing Lillian wouldn’t let Judd return to her table.

“She sure doesn’t like you,” Samuel remarked.

Bess gave Samuel a bland smile. “We might as well eat.”

Samuel stood up and helped Bess out of her chair. “Your brother-in-law is pretty possessive,” he said.

He was right, but the comment rubbed Bess the wrong way. “He’s already lost his brother to the war,” she said. “I think that gives him the right to be protective of his brother’s child.”

“Of course.” Samuel wrapped his hand around her elbow and felt her shake. “Hey,” he said, “you feel a little wobbly. You want me to bring you a plate?”

It was a kind offer. She looked up to catch Judd’s black glare from across the room. “Thank you,” she agreed, turning her face up to Samuel’s and offering him a brilliant smile that made his dimples deepen. Let Judd glare at that.

She sat back down, realizing with a start that for a few minutes at least she had forgotten about the danger she was in. It didn’t help that she’d discovered the tattoo shop James Ruben had opened was in Texas, just a few hours away from where the Taylors lived.

She glanced around the banquet hall, at the women in their shirtwaist dresses holding hands with husbands dressed in suits and bolo ties, their pointy-toed cowboy boots gleaming.  A little boy in a cowboy hat with pressed jeans and a striped shirt danced in tight circles around his mother’s legs, clapping in rhythm to the stand-up bass. The teenagers gathered at a table in the corner by the band, pairing off in couples, holding hands surreptitiously under the tablecloth.

It was a good place to have a family, a good place to learn about love. It would be a good place for her child to become the person Daniel would have raised. But it would have to be a place without her. She was used to watching life happen from the outside, so why did the thought hurt so much?

Samuel returned with two plates, sitting even closer beside Bess at the table. He talked to her about his job as an insurance salesmen in Dallas, about his glory days playing baseball in high school and college, about the Mustang he drove.  He didn’t seem to notice that Bess wasn’t talking at all.

When she had finally heard enough, she excused herself to go to the restroom. She had only taken a few steps away from the table before a couple of women came up to her, complimenting her on Michelle’s dress and asking if she could do some sewing for them as well. She was thinking about the possibilities when she made it to the line waiting to use the facilities, so that she didn’t notice who was around her until a familiar voice dripped from behind her.

“You certainly play the widow card well,” Lillian spoke so that only Bess could hear her. “You know all those women look on it as charity, complimenting you on that rudimentary design and asking you to sew. And Judd will see right through you, too.”

Bess forced her body not to react to the viscous words. “Jealous much?” she whispered, then whirled out of the line, the pressure on her bladder forgotten. She returned to her table, surprised to see Judd in her former seat, making Samuel look all kinds of uncomfortable sitting beside him.

When she had seated herself next to Judd, Samuel gave her a lazy smile and excused himself to visit with his sister. Judd made no comment, but shot Bess such a look from his knowing eyes that she almost laughed out loud. The smile died on her lips when Lillian sauntered up to Samuel’s vacated seat and poured herself next to Judd, sitting so close that she was practically in his lap. The sudden realization that her leaving would give Lillian full access to her child caused a spasm in Bess’ lower back.

She winced, catching Judd’s attention. He saw her hand reaching to where the pain was worst and replaced her fingers with his own, rubbing her back gently with his big, work-tough palm until the spasm had subsided.

“Is that better?” he asked, looking into Bess’ eyes so that he missed the venomous glare Lillian was shooting in her direction.

Bess ignored the other woman and gave Judd a grateful smile. “Thanks,” she whispered, allowing her hand to reach up and cup his craggy face momentarily.

It was like lightening striking. He held his breath until her hand slipped back to the tablecloth. “We can’t have you overdoing it,” he told her, his voice unusually husky.

Lillian’s red-tipped fingers snaked around his neck, effectively turning his head and breaking the spell. “Pastor Jones is getting ready to speak, Judd,” she purred. “You don’t want to miss this.”

Bess, shell-shocked and feeling every bit of her pregnancy, leaned hard against the back of her chair and just concentrated on the next breath. She couldn’t even look at Judd’s muscular, broad back without seeing that woman’s possessive arm snaked around it, so she closed her eyes.

Men. Stupid, silly creatures.

Or brutal and deadly.

When Judd had told her his desk was in need of some organizing, she had not pictured the piles of papers strewn in every direction. A few had perfectly round coffee rings on top of them, as if they had been used as coasters rather than paperwork. Two piles were fanned out like playing cards.

“I suppose you know exactly what is in each of these piles,” Bess told Judd, who was standing in the doorway watching her as she surveyed the task in front of her.

“Sure I do,” he assured her, walking into the room and stopping just behind her. “Don’t worry, several of them just need filed. I have some letters you could type up for me this morning, and I’ll show you what we do with the invoices and sales records.”

Within the next few hours, Bess learned more about the operations on the Taylor homestead. They worked crops to help them feed their livestock as well as growing a hectare of cotton. The cattle they ran in part to qualify for certain government subsidies and tax breaks. Looking at the books, she also understood why Judd’s job as sheriff was so important to help keep the family’s head above water.

As he leaned over her, pointing to the feed records and birth weights that needed to be typed up into specific tables, Bess noted the missing stitches in the hem of the otherwise immaculate collar of his uniform shirt. Not for the first time, she thought how much he needed a wife, someone to see to the little things for him, like the nick right behind his ear where he had cut himself shaving.

Lillian wanted to do those things for Judd. That thought made her straighten in the chair so that Judd had to ask her what was wrong. She shook her head and asked him a lame question to distract herself from her wavering emotions. Was she concerned for Judd because he was currently keeping a roof over her head, or was there something more to her fluctuating interest and anger when it came to her brother-in-law?

She tried to imagine Daniel doing this paperwork or working on the tractor in the fields just past Agnes’ dog pens as she’d seen Judd doing on more than one occasion in the past weeks. The man worked twelve or more hours at the police station every day after beginning his chores well before sunrise. When he finally came into the house most nights, his jeans and chambray shirt covered in dust, she wondered at his ability to eat without falling asleep in his dinner plate.

“Did you ever get to be a kid?” she asked him.

He stood back on his heels. “As much as the next fella in this part of the world, I suppose.”

“We used to pick pecans and shell them to sell to the grocer. Sometimes, when the nuts were scarce on the ground, we’d root out the pack rats’ nests for more.” She saw an error in the debit column in front of her and corrected it absently. “We wound up using the money for things like canned peaches and thread for mending, but sometimes we’d splurge on a matinee.”

It took her a few moments to realize that Judd was standing stark still, as if he thought she might tell him more as long as he didn’t move or make a sound to remind her she had an audience. But she had just told him one of the few happy memories of the time when she had most belonged, before her grandfather, already too old for a toddler when he’d been saddled with her, fell to the tilled earth at the back of his property with eyes that would never close again.

The room settled into an uncomfortable silence that was only broken by the shuffle of papers as Bess clamped her lips together and concentrated on the task in front of her. She could hear Judd breathing behind her. Finally, she said without turning to look at him, “I think I understand enough to keep me busy for a while, if you have to get to work.”

He sighed. “Such a tough shell,” he said enigmatically. “All right. If you need any help, ask Mama or give me a call, yes?”

Bess nodded, not trusting her voice, and kept her eyes glued to the papers on the desk. Only when she was sure that Judd had left the room did she allow her hands to shake. She tamped down the images of her tiny bed on the dirt floor of the one-room rock building where she had lived with her grandfather, of the tepid smell of the water in the old coffee cans where the legs of the bed were placed to keep the ants from crawling over her arms and legs while she slept.

She worked in the study until Agnes called her to lunch, and then she began to work on the rest of her sewing project for the pastor’s wife, who was due to come by for a fitting later that evening. She had just completed the bottom hem of the jacket when Agnes called her into the kitchen.

Bess took the re-created outfit into the kitchen with nervous fingers. She had streamlined the black skirt, making equidistant slits all the way around that provided a peek-a-boo view of the golden material she also used to create a waist-length, tailored jacket with long sleeves to wear over the scoop-neck black and gold top she’d made.

“Well?” she asked Michelle, holding her breath.

“I’ll look like Jackie Kennedy,” the other woman breathed. “May I try it on?”

Bess sighed out in relief. “Please. I want to see if I need to make any adjustments for you.”

While Michelle stepped into the bathroom to change, Agnes handed Bess a steaming cup of herbal tea. “I like a woman who keeps herself busy, goodness knows, but Bess, darling, you’ve got to give yourself some time to rest for the baby’s sake.”

“I love to sew,” Bess defended herself.

Agnes nodded, “And clean, and be Judd’s secretary. You know you get to eat even if all you did all day was read in bed?”

Agnes’ mild scolding was making Bess uncomfortable. She walked over to the kitchen table, laying her steaming mug down, and pulled out a chair. “I don’t notice you sitting around eating bonbons all day.” She glanced out the window, at the overcast sky and the wind blowing tumbleweeds across the open fields. “We’re born, we work, we die–isn’t that how life works?”

Agnes laid a warm hand on Bess’ shoulder and squeezed. “I hope you know you’re loved here, Bess, not because of what you do but because of who you are.”

Bess jerked, knocking the cup of steaming liquid onto the floor, barely missing her legs. She used the accident as an excuse to ignore Agnes’ proclamation, which touched something deep inside herself she had never felt before. Even Daniel had only loved her because she was beautiful.  How could anyone feel an emotion for her that she was not sure she felt for herself?

Michelle came back into the kitchen then, her face beaming until she saw Agnes wiping up the spill on the floor. “Is everything all right?”

“Just fine,” Agnes told her. “You look incredible, Michelle!”

Michelle smoothed the skirt over her hips. “Bess, you’re a wonder! I’d have you re-do my entire wardrobe, but the church ladies would think I was suddenly shopping in designer stores.”

Bess wanted to deny the compliment, but instead she forced herself to simply say thank you.  Her knees were shaking under her maternity dress. Because she didn’t want to think about how Michelle’s praise and Agnes’ affection were making her feel, Bess stood up to inspect the fit of the outfit more closely.

“I can’t believe I got this right the first time,” she said.

“I hope you had time to make yourself something equally stunning for the banquet,” Michelle told her.

Bess stammered. “I hadn’t planned on going. I’ve only been to your church a few times.”

“You have to come.” Michelle turned to Agnes. “You have to bring her. She deserves to see this dress in action.”

Agnes smiled. “Don’t worry. She’ll be there.” When Bess opened her mouth to protest, she added, “While you were in the city yesterday, I did some shopping of my own.” She left the room and returned moments later with a new dress on its hangar.

It was a black sheath dress with layers of fabric cut on a diagonal. Silver sparkles, woven throughout the fabric, shot layers of light on the linoleum floor. Bess felt tears in her eyes and batted her lashes to keep them from falling. “It’s perfect,” she finally managed.

“I’m going to get this dress back on its hangar,” Michelle said. “I can’t wait until tomorrow night.”

Michelle’s departure left an awkward silence in the kitchen. Agnes filled it. “You have that pretty pair of flats with the bow. I thought they would go perfectly with the dress.”

Bess nodded, barely. She felt the room closing in on her and knew she had to get away, to be alone for a while. Since she didn’t trust her voice, she managed to gesture with her head before turning on her heel and almost running back to her bedroom.

Sitting in the rocking chair, she felt her heart beating a rapid crescendo in her chest, even as she tried to slow her breathing. The baby tumbled around inside her, reflecting her inner turmoil. No wonder Daniel had been such a kind man. Could Bess hope to be as good a mother as Agnes obviously had been?

She picked up the tabloid she’d bought the day before and began flipping through the pages of outrageous headlines in order to distract herself. She was almost through the entire tabloid when she saw the picture. Her eyes blurred, and her breaths came in gasps so that she thought she might pass out.

It couldn’t be him. The photo was too new. He was leaning against the hood of a late-model Fairlane, his upper arms bulging muscles covered in tattoos. But those eyes, hard and slit like a snake’s, though wrinkled with crow’s feet, were the same. That thin mouth was the same that had touched her in places where her skin still crawled.

Her breath came in gasps. He was dead. She had killed him.

Her hands were shaking so badly, she couldn’t steady the paper enough to read the story that went with the picture. When she finally managed it, she was hard-pressed not to scream. The man in the picture had done hard time for killing a teenager more than a decade before, but he was out now, running a tattoo shop and getting his life back together after years of physical therapy following a serious brain injury.

At the time, the young social worker had picked Bess up at the hospital and taken her to yet another group home, promising her that she would never be threatened by that man again. Bess assumed she meant because he was dead.

Bess looked at the paper again. He definitely wasn’t dead. James Ruben, the man she’d last seen lying in a pool of his own blood, was most definitely alive.

She just managed to reach the trash can in the corner before losing the contents of her stomach. She laid her head against the closed door to her room, feeling the polished wood cooling her hot skin. Was he looking for her? Would he hurt Agnes and Judd too if he found her? Her hand gripped her stomach, and she felt a part of her die already.

Whether he was looking for her or not, Bess knew that the only way to keep her newborn baby safe was going to be to stay as far away from her child as possible.

And nobody could know about it.

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.

Bess slammed the kitchen cabinet shut and whirled to slam the coffee cup on the counter. It made a loud clack and skidded sideways before she caught it between her shaking fingers. On the other side of the kitchen, Judd made his own noises as he scraped his knife through the steak in front of him so that it crunched against the plate. They were both breathing heavily as if they had just been in the ring for ten rounds.

It had begun simply enough. Bess, who had awakened from another dream where Daniel’s kind face stared back at her from eyes that would never blink again, got up, put on her most comfortable lounging dress, and shuffled into the kitchen with the distinct purpose of cleaning out and defrosting the refrigerator for Agnes, who had mentioned needing to do the task the day before.

She was on her knees, reaching deep into the back of the bottom shelf of the refrigerator with her cleaning cloth in hand, when a familiar grip wrapped around her arms and pulled, not exactly gently. She was twirled and yanked into Judd’s wall of a body.

On instinct, Bess stiffened and reached her hands to his chest, pushing against him to free herself. Because the only real gentleman Bess had known was Daniel, her shove had all the force of her muscles and ingrained fear. Unfortunately, Judd had already begun to relax his grip on her, so that her push sent him off balance, and he stumbled back, only catching himself against the red stool with its pull-out steps that Agnes used to reach the high cabinets.

“Don’t ever do that again,” Bess said through tight jaws, feeling her body shake with remembered encounters that had been such a part of her growing up that they were now ingrained in her DNA.

Judd crossed his arms in front of his chest and glared at her. “Stop trying to do more than you should be doing, and I won’t have to keep trying to save you from yourself.”

Bess had taken a bold step forward then, poking her finger into the middle of his chest. “Nobody said you were in charge of me,” she told him. “Just leave me alone.”

His nostrils flared with the force of his breath. “If you live under this roof taking advantage of my mother’s hospitality, then I am going to be in charge of you. House rules.”

He was angering her out of all proportion so that all she could see was red. She grabbed the nearest thing at hand behind her, which turned out to be a large soup spoon, and jabbed it just at the base of his throat. “If I weren’t very pregnant,” she hissed, “you wouldn’t sleep so well at night. Nobody touches me, understand?”

Judd stood stock still, but a series of emotions, from rage to something almost tender, flashed across his black glare before he stepped back away from her reach. “Stay out of my way, then,” he ordered gruffly. “I came in here to fix my breakfast.” He turned away from her, paused, then looked at her across his shoulder. “No one’s going to touch you without your permission anymore.”

It was an apology after a fashion, but not nearly enough. So, instead of offering to cook for him as she might have done in the past, Bess had returned to the very task he had pulled her from to start the argument in the first place, ignoring him entirely. That stalemate raged on when Agnes entered the kitchen some time later.

She took one look at Judd brooding over a cup of coffee and Bess straining on tiptoe to reach the back of the freezer and whistled so loudly that all the dogs around the house set to with a mighty roar of accompanying howls. Judd placed one hand over an ear and glared at her. Bess yelped and leaned against the counter for support.

“Well,” Agnes told them, “now that I have your attention, can somebody please tell me why the two of you can’t seem to get along?”

Judd picked up his breakfast dishes and sauntered over to the sink, right beside Bess, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. He laid the dishes on the sparkling porcelain and leaned against the sink with his arms crossed in front of his chest. “Ask her,” he had the audacity to reply, nodding his head in Bess’ direction.

She didn’t take time to think, just slammed her foot as hard as she could on Judd’s instep, then stalked over to Agnes. The fact that the infuriating man didn’t even wince further fueled her temper. “Your son doesn’t want me here,” she told her mother-in-law. “He can’t seem to get it through his thick skull that I don’t exactly want to be here either. I can take care of myself. I have been taking care of myself since I was old enough to tie my shoes and fry eggs. The only reason I am even here is because I thought I owed it to Daniel. I’m not so sure anymore.”

“If I didn’t want her here, why would I be trying to get her to take better care of herself, for goodness’ sake?” Judd exclaimed to his mother, ignoring Bess completely.

Agnes looked as if she were trying her best not to laugh and failing. She tucked her chin into her chest and studied the linoleum for several moments before finally looking Bess and Judd in the eye again. “Well,” she said in a voice that was calm as if she were discussing the weather, “the two of you are just going to have to learn to get along. My grandchild is going to bind the three of us together for better or for worse for the rest of our lives. It might as well be for the better.”

“She purposely misunderstands everything I say,” Judd complained.

“He’s a bully,” Bess said at the same time.

Agnes looked at the two of them and did burst out laughing then. “I’m going to treat you like I would a couple of strays who can’t seem to behave. Judd, I want you to take Bess into the city today and do some shopping for my grand-baby. We don’t have a thing left in this house for newborns. I gave it all away years ago. And I know Bess could use some more maternity outfits for the remainder of her pregnancy.”

Bess would have laughed at the image of Judd standing in the middle of a department store looking for baby things except she realized with dead certainty that Agnes was not joking.

“What do you do with the strays, Agnes?” she asked. “Throw them in one of your pens together until they either come out friends or kill each other?”

The older woman smiled. “Oh, I’m usually right outside the fence with the hose, dear, just in case,” she said. “But, I can trust you two not to kill each other, can’t I? After all, Judd won’t want to have to arrest himself.”

Bess glanced at Judd then. His face was ruddy, his black eyes glaring at his mother. But, he slowly pushed himself off the counter and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I need to take care of a few things at the office. I can be back here in an hour to pick you up, Bess, if that will work for you?”

Bess nodded her assent, too stunned to speak. Without waiting for anymore words, she turned on her heel and exited the kitchen, wondering how she was going to survive an entire day in the company of Judd Taylor without either pummeling him or giving in to her curiosity and kissing him until she wiped that perpetual smug look from his knowing face.

—

The closest city to their small town was an hour’s drive up a highway lined with cotton gins, gnarly mesquite trees, and tilled-dirt fields with the promise of fruitful crops come spring. Bess studied the blue sky on the horizon, listening to the clop, clop of the tires on the pavement.

“Where are we headed exactly?” she asked.

Judd ignored the question. “I never mean to antagonize you,” he said, his eyes glued to the road ahead of him. “I just can’t shake the feeling that there’s something you’re not telling us that might hurt you eventually.”

“Hurt me or hurt you, Judd Taylor? Sure you aren’t just bringing work home with you?”

“No more than you trudge around with the weight of your past reflecting on everything you do.”

Bess clenched the door handle with knuckles gone white. “Just what is it you think you know about my past?”

Judd pulled over on the side of the road, where there was a rest area, a copse of trees with a couple of concrete tables and benches. He turned in his seat and faced her, draping one strong arm over the steering wheel. “I know you’ve been hurt. I know Daniel is just the latest in a long line of men who’ve abandoned you. I know it’s almost impossible for you to trust anyone.”

It bothered her that he could read her so well. Her skin literally crawled with the knowledge. “Maybe it isn’t important that we trust each other,” she said, not bothering to deny his speculations.

His eyebrow jerked up. “What do you plan to do, Bess, once the baby is born?”

“Do you think I’ll just run off and never let you see the baby again? Do you think I would have even let you know about my situation if that were the case?”

He reached across the span of the car and took a curly strand of Bess’ hair, twirling it around his finger. “We’ve lost Daniel, Bess. I don’t think we can lose you and the baby, too. Not now.”

She pulled back from the tentative contact. “You just admitted you barely know me. How do you know what it would feel like to lose me?”

His hands were back on the steering wheel.  “You’re right, of course. How could I know?” He put the car back into drive and pulled back out on the highway.

They didn’t say another word to each other for the rest of the long drive, which gave Bess ample opportunity to stew on the secrets she kept and to ponder what would happen if just for once in her life she opened up to another living soul, maybe to a taciturn sheriff with his craggy face and searing, black eyes.

The front door bell rang, and since Bess was curled on the sofa sketching some ideas for Michelle’s new dress, she was the first on hand to answer it. Rachel Bree stood outside the door, keeping a cautious eye on Jethro, who stood just behind her making a low, warning growl in his throat.

“Jethro,” Bess chided, and the bloodhound immediately lay down on his belly in the dirt, thumping his tail so that a cloud of fine sand circled the air around him.

She stepped aside to let Rachel into the house, noticing the cute capris pants and matching top tied in a knot at her waist. That’s when she remembered Rachel’s invitation to join her for a Saturday matinee. Bess glanced down at the tent-like lounger Agnes had loaned her and grimaced.

“Rachel, I totally forgot about your invitation. Can you give me a minute to change?”

Rachel gave Bess a warm hug. “We’ve got plenty of time. Do you want me to help you pick something out?” She motioned over her own outfit and wiggled her eyebrows. “I am known in some circles for my great fashion sense.” She laughed heartily.

Bess grabbed Rachel’s hand and pulled her toward the bedroom. “Two minds are always better than one, though I have to warn you that I don’t have much to choose from.”

When they entered Bess’ room, Rachel’s eyes immediately went to the beginnings of the new dress that Bess had sprawled across the bed and rocking chair. “What’s this?” she asked.

“I know you can’t tell much yet. I’m making a new dress out of a couple of old ones Michelle brought over yesterday. I’m thinking of streamlining this black skirt, with slits so that the gold sheen can peek out from them as she moves. I thought I’d make a waist-length, long-sleeved jacket out of the rest of the sheath dress and jacket there. Do you think the top of the dress should be black as well, or leave the white top for contrast?”

Rachel’s mouth was standing open. She closed it and grinned. “I don’t know how you came up with that from this. You really have a talent. I’m sure you’ll make the right decision about the rest. Now, what are you going to wear today? We’re going to see that hunky Robert Redford in a western about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, if that’s any help.”

“If you mean do I have any cowboy maternity wear, then we’re out of luck.” Bess pulled a calf-length dress with an empire waist from her closet and held it up to herself. “Will this do?”

Rachel felt the smooth material. “That’s very nice.” She sat down on the edge of the bed as Bess changed, fingering the bits of Michelle’s dresses next to her. “Is Judd around?” she finally asked.

There was something about Rachel that made Bess peel away her usual habit of suspicion so that she knew Rachel’s question was something she couldn’t help asking instead of wondering if Rachel only befriended Bess to get closer to Judd. She managed to pull the dress over her head before joining Rachel on the bed. “He took Lillian out to supper last night. I don’t know where he is today.”

Rachel’s shoulders slumped. “I’m being silly, I know. He’s twelve years older than I am, and he’s hardly ever noticed me. Besides, here you are living in the same house with him, and look how pretty you are.” She tugged on her straight, brown hair. “Maybe I could dye my hair blond like yours or black like Lillian’s.”

Bess made a face. “Look, Rachel, you seem pretty happy to me without a man. I don’t know much, but I know that changing yourself for some guy always winds up hurting you in the end. They still wind up disappointing you.”

Rachel’s eyes studied Bess with a certain squint in them. “I’m sure there are a few really interesting stories behind that wisdom, but I won’t pry. And I won’t sit around pining for your brother-in-law either.”

Bess took Rachel’s hand in hers and squeezed. “I bet we can find a half dozen men this afternoon who would love to take you out on a date. Are you game?”

“Okay. You ready?”

They walked into the living room to find Judd sitting in his recliner glancing through a magazine as if he had been waiting for them. The two women glanced at each other at the sight of him and burst out laughing. Judd threw the magazine to the table beside his chair and grimaced.

“What’s so funny?” he muttered. When they didn’t answer him but only laughed harder, he cleared his throat. “I’d like to talk to you for a minute, Bess.”

She didn’t like the gleam in his black eyes. Cocking an eyebrow at him, she crossed her arms over her chest and told him. “Whatever you have to say, Rachel can hear too.”

Judd looked a little uncomfortable as he rose to his feet, smoothing his hands on his worn jeans. “Lillian said you were rude to her yesterday.”

Bess glanced at Rachel, who rolled her eyes where Judd couldn’t see. “And she was polite?” she just managed.

He shuffled from foot to foot and glared. “I just want it to be clear that Lillian has as much right to be here as you do.”

That stung. Lillian wasn’t exactly carrying around a six-pound bowling ball with part of his genetic material inadvertently attached. She forced a bland smile on her lips. “I’ll keep that in mind. If you give me fair warning, I can manage to stay in my room whenever she visits.”

Judd shoved the fingers of his right hand through his hair. “I don’t mean you have to go that far.” He placed one large, booted foot on the hearth and leaned against the mantel. “Do you have to be purposely obtuse?”

Maybe because Rachel was there as backup, but for reasons Bess could not even later explain, she smiled sweetly and exclaimed in a Scarlet O’Hara drawl, “Only when it comes to you, dear man.”

His jaw clenched. He glared at Bess and then Rachel. And then he pushed himself away from the mantel and stalked from the room, muttering something about his brother’s dubious taste in women.

Bess turned to look at Rachel, a sense of triumph reflected in her baby-blue eyes. Rachel’s open face was pale, her mouth open in a large O.

“What?” Bess asked her.

“You actually got to him,” she answered.

Bess felt a stab of guilt. “Yeah, I tend to do that, even when I’m not trying to. What a burden I must be for him.”

Rachel shook her head. “You don’t understand, Bess,” she said. “Nobody every gets to Judd. He’s like a stone wall.”

“Even stone walls get cracks now and again.”

Rachel looped her arm in the crook of Bess’ elbow. “You’ve officially cured me of my Judd crush,” she announced. “I could never stand up to him like you do.”

Bess was confused. “What makes that so important?”

“Only a woman who could stand up to him like that stands a snowball’s chance of nabbing and keeping Judd Taylor’s attention.”

“Lucky me,” Bess scoffed.

Rachel gave her a hard look. “Yes,” she said, “lucky you.”

Bess felt a stab of shame. “Are we ready?” she said, desperate to change the subject.

They went to the movie, where they met up with another group of women from the church, young singles and newly married girls, all of whom had grown up together in the small town. Somehow, they managed to include Bess in their conversations, even when they were discussing events that happened years before.

At the tea room, the light conversation became serious when a willowy red-head named Cynthia brought up Daniel to Bess. “Aren’t you angry?” she said. “There’s a group of us going up to Washington to protest the war in a few months. You should join us.”

Bess, whose only concern with politics had ever been the bureaucracy of the foster care system, shook her head. “I’m afraid I’m not the type of person to protest anything. And besides, it would seem like betraying Daniel somehow, don’t you think?”

Cynthia’s voice rose as she warmed to her theme. “It’s betraying all of the soldiers if we continue to let our government lie to us.”

Bess’ hand went to her belly, where the baby shifted in its own protest. “Daniel didn’t think he was being lied to. He loved this country.”

“I love this country,” Cynthia practically shouted.

Rachel laid a hand on the other woman’s arm. “Cynthia, you’re yelling at a pregnant woman, whom, I might add, you’ve just met.”

She blushed. “I’m sorry, Bess,” she gushed. “I get really worked up about this. My brother is a medic on his second tour over there. My parents think I’m crazy.”

“Frustrated,” Bess told her, “frightened for your brother, but not crazy.”

“Can we talk about something else?” one of the other girls asked. “It was bad enough that the movie ended with the heroes dying.”

“That’s what you get for not knowing your history,” someone else accused.

The rest of the table laughed at that, breaking the tension. Bess settled back into her chair and sighed her relief. These women knew more about Daniel than she did, the woman who was carrying his child. For someone who thought she was past feeling useless emotions like guilt, she certainly was wallowing in it enough lately.

Funny how the weight of that emotion seemed even heavier than the baby she had growing under her flawed and sealed-up heart.

“Well, what do you think?” Michelle stood in front of Bess with two dresses that could not be more different. One was a sheath dress with a square neckline that also had a thigh-length jacket with cap sleeves. The satin material was an iridescent gold that shimmered with the light. The second was an a-line dress with a crinoline underskirt. The bodice had a scoop neck and quarter-length sleeves. The dress was a contrast with its black skirt and white top.

“They’re both beautiful,” Bess told her. “Are you sure you want me to take them apart?”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Michelle assured her. “You don’t know how many times I’ve worn these things.”

“Okay then,” Bess agreed, taking the dresses out of Michelle’s hands and laying them aside. “I should get your measurements.”

She finished with the task just as Agnes came into the kitchen. She exclaimed over the dresses and then offered to make some herbal tea. As the women sat around the table drinking it, Michelle turned to Bess and asked her again where she had learned to sew.

Bess swallowed back the emotions the memories caused. “She was the first person to really care about me,” she managed.

“One of those lifetime friends,” Michelle said. “My best friend and I have been exchanging birthday and Christmas cards since the third grade. She always makes me smile.”

“Unfortunately,” Bess told the table top, “she hasn’t been around for a very long time.”

“I’m sorry. That must hurt.”

Bess shrugged. “Like anyone else, I learned a long time ago that life is one, long series of hurt. Making the best of bad situations is the only thing that gets you through most of the time.”

Agnes sighed. “I don’t know. I find that leaning on Jesus is what gets me through.”

“Amen to that,” Michelle agreed. “You know Michael has a really great sermon about how this life is all about our becoming our best selves in light of our heavenly home. And a big part of that sermon concentrates on how walking with Jesus each and every day, about the little things and the big things, is so important to keeping ourselves close to God and His purpose for us.”

Bess felt her spine stiffen. In her experience, Jesus, like her absent parents, had never been around when she needed Him most. Looking at Agnes and Michelle, she wondered if these women had ever had to fight off the unwanted advances of a foster brother or been beaten within an inch of their lives by a man who claimed to be their protector. She forced a smile to her lips. “I enjoy your husband’s sermons,” she said.

Luckily, this seemed to satisfy Michelle, who launched into the story of how she met Michael and what their married life in service had been like. Before long, more than an hour had passed, and it was time for Michelle to leave for a meeting at the church.

Agnes walked Michelle to the door while Bess began ripping out seams, eager to get started. Agnes came back into the kitchen whistling a tune lightly and sat down at the table to watch Bess work. For several minutes, the only sound in the room was the threads Bess carefully pulled from the fabric.

Then, Agnes sighed out a long breath. “So, what do you want to know about Jesus?” she asked, striking straight into the heart of the matter.

Bess paused in her task, keeping her eyes cast down. “I don’t think I said there was anything I needed to know.”

Agnes sighed again, but she didn’t say anything else, so that Bess was finally forced to look at her to alleviate her own discomfort. It struck Bess then that Daniel had his mother’s eyes, and they were staring at her across that table with as much love as her husband had offered that day outside the base when he’d said his last goodbye.

“You’ve got scars, Bess,” Agnes said, “scars so deep, I reckon only God Himself knows the truth of them.”

Bess grimaced. “Judd calls them secrets. I call them best-left-buried.”

Agnes grabbed Bess’ hand and squeezed it. “Nothing buried ever heals, my darling. When you’re ready, you start unearthing those scars, reveal them to the healing light.” She raised her other hand when Bess opened her mouth to protest. “Now, I’m not saying you have to say a word to me or to Judd. I’m advising you to open up to the heavenly Father. You’d be surprised how much better you’ll feel.”

Bess bit her lip. The baby kicked, as if the little peanut also had an opinion on the matter. She laid her free hand on her belly and asked Agnes. “You really believe somebody is up there listening?”

Agnes nodded out the window, where the afternoon sun blazed across the sand dunes between the fields. A road runner, swift and sure-footed, zig-zagged across the drive and ducked into a canopy of flowering cacti at the side of the road. “How can I look out on all that vibrant color and movement and light and not believe that a Master Creator is responsible for it all?”

Bess pulled away from Agnes’ grasp and stood up with an effort. She stepped to the window and kept her eyes focused on the horizon, rubbing the small of her back with one hand. “If you’d lived my life, you’d know that Master Creator has a wicked sense of humor. If He’s up there, He has a funny way of showing that He cares at all.”

“Don’t you know that He came down to earth and lived just like you and me, that He died on the Cross for your sins and mine, even though He never committed a sin Himself? Hasn’t anyone ever told you about Christ’s grand love for you, Bess?”

Bess whirled around to face her mother-in-law, even though she knew her eyes were spitting fire at the anger she felt swelling in her chest. “Where was He and His love when my friend was murdered?” she asked. “Or any of the other thousand times when I got knocked around by this so-called life I’m living? Thanks for the well-meaning lecture, Agnes, but I think I can live without the love of God. Much more of it is going to finish me off.”

Before Agnes could say anything more, Bess waved her hand dismissively in the air and hurried to her bedroom, shutting the door firmly and sitting down hard on the bed. She sat straight-backed and tense for several minutes, barely breathing, sure Agnes would follow her. But, when no one came, she finally relaxed. She lay her head down on the pillow, surprised to feel tears running along her cheek and into her ear. Eventually, she slept.

When she ventured back into the kitchen two hours later, all ready to apologize for her rude exit, she was surprised to see a beautiful, black-haired woman sitting at the table, her hand laying possessively on Judd’s arm. It took Bess a moment to recognize the woman from the drugstore. Agnes had said her name was Lillian, and that she had an interest in Judd. Bess paused in the doorway, unnoticed, as she took in the scene in front of her.

“It must have been so awkward having her show up like that,” Lillian was saying as she leaned ever closer to Judd’s straight form in the chair next to hers. “I mean, your brother hadn’t even written to say he had married, right?”

Judd shrugged. “Why do you think I called in a favor with my buddy in the Houston PD to check out the marriage license?”

“Surely he could run a background check for you as well? You don’t have any idea what kind of person she could be.”

“You could ask her,” Bess heard herself saying before she could bite her tongue. She stepped into the kitchen as startled eyes glanced in her direction.

“Mother said you were taking a nap,” Judd said, laying a hand over Lillian’s.

Bess bit back a grin. Poor man, she thought. She had taunted him just that morning about not having a wife, and here he was presenting an excellent candidate as if to tell Bess, I told you so. “I was. Do you want me to go back to bed so you can continue to talk about me behind my back?”

Lillian made a strangled noise at the back of her throat and looked at Judd as if to say he had allowed a maniac under his roof. Judd pushed back from the table, effectively breaking Lillian’s hold on his arm, and rose to his full, formidable height.

“Why don’t we talk about you right to your face, Bess? Why not have a seat and give us a few details about yourself besides the obvious? Then, we wouldn’t have to speculate on your background or character.”

Bess felt her face going red as her hands balled into fists. Even the baby protested with a double-punch to her kidneys. She just managed not to flinch from the shot of pain that caused before stalking over to the counter to pour herself a glass of lemonade from the refrigerator. She didn’t say a word as she fetched a glass, opened the old but serviceable Frigidaire, and poured the freshly-squeezed liquid from the milk-glass pitcher. She turned so that her back was against the counter as she took a slow sip, her eyes slashing between Judd with his jutted chin and Lillian with her smile like a Cheshire cat.

“Now that your brother is dead,” she finally said, “I am the only one in the whole, wide world who gives a darn about what happens to me, which is okay because I can take care of myself. I think that’s all you really need to know.”

“What’s so terrible that you can’t just say it?” Lillian demanded, standing up beside Judd and positioning herself just under his shoulder.

Bess took another sip before trusting herself to answer, hating that the hand that held the glass of lemonade shook. “Not so much terrible as private.”

To his credit, Judd was beginning to look a touch uncomfortable. He stepped to the side as if he had just then noticed Lillian’s proximity to his person and shoved his hands in his pockets. “By all means, keep your private life private,” he muttered, then turned on his heel and stalked off toward the living room, leaving a stunned Lillian in the kitchen.

She frowned at Bess, marring her perfect features. “You think you’re going to hook him with this little game you’re playing,” she hissed, “but Judd’s much smarter than that.”

Bess sat the glass down on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “I suppose so, or else you’d have married him a long time ago.”

Lillian’s mouth dropped. She took two steps toward Bess, thought better of it, and pivoted on her heel to follow Judd into the living room. The screen door creaked then, and Bess turned to see Agnes coming into the kitchen with a basket full of eggs.

“Be warned,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper as if the flare up of a few hours before had never happened, “I just spotted Lillian’s car in the driveway.”

Bess nodded in the opposite direction. “They’re in the living room no doubt discussing what a rude creature I am.”

Agnes frowned. “I don’t know why she’s here. She stopped dropping by unannounced ages ago, and I can’t imagine Judd inviting her.”

Bess wasn’t about to admit to her teasing of Judd about his bachelorhood earlier that morning. “Maybe she’s determined to save you two from me. She seems to think I harbor evil designs on you and Judd, mostly Judd.”

Agnes began washing the eggs in the sink, laying them on an old flour-sack-turned-tea-towel to dry. “I suppose she’d be suspicious of any pretty, young thing that came to visit us here. I wouldn’t take it too personally, dear.”

“Of course not,” Bess agreed, even though she knew it was a lie.

She was relieved when Judd came in a moment later to explain he was taking Lillian to supper in town. Shortly after, she feigned a headache and returned to her bed, feeling every bit the coward and hoping for the strength to face Judd and Agnes the next day, especially since both of them were asking her, each in their own way, to face her true self, the one beneath the layers of bravado and emotional calluses that were the armor she used to survive the cold, lonely world.

She clenched her hands into fists and resisted the urge to turn around and look Judd in the face, all defiant as if she might actually get her way in an argument with him. “Pardon me?” she bit out.

Suddenly, he was standing right behind her. She could feel the strength of him and did her best to keep it from seeping into her skin. Once the baby came, she wouldn’t have anyone’s strength to lean on but her own. No sense getting used to something she’d never actually had.

His hands were wrapping around her arms then, and she felt herself being lifted to standing as if she were a feather and not a five-foot-seven pregnant woman. “I said,” Judd repeated, turning her so that she had no choice but to look him in the eye, “are you just stupid, or are you trying to lose this baby?”

His eyes flashed that black fire, and Bess felt her shoulders relax as she realized his fear. It made overlooking his rudeness a little easier. She laid a protective hand on her stomach and sighed. “Your brother died for no good reason in a country I’d never even heard of before, and this baby is the only thing you and your mother will have to remember him by. Why would I do anything to hurt this little peanut or myself?”

He released her arms, but those eyes roamed over her from head to toe as if he still wasn’t sure she was all right. Finally, he asked in a deceptively soft voice. “For us to remember him, but not you?”

She refused to rise to that bait, stepping even farther away from him to sit down in one of the kitchen chairs. She ran her hands over the clean table top, flattening her palms against the cool wood and studying her nails. “You don’t talk about him,” she said in her own soft voice, sighing out the words to loosen the knot at the base of her spine. “He worshiped the ground you walked on. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t sign up just to impress you. Agnes has told me all kinds of wonderful things about him since I’ve been here. Don’t you have any memories you’d like to share?”

A glass shattered against the far wall, causing Bess to flinch as if the next thing might be a fist to her head. Instead, the chair next to hers scraped against the floor and Judd collapsed into it, shoving his big hands through his hair and cradling his head. “You think I don’t know,” he said in a strained voice that startled her, “what Daniel would do to impress me? It never mattered how often or how much we praised him, he never felt good enough.”

Against her better judgment, she reached the inches across the space between them and laid a tentative hand on his arm. He turned his head in his hands to look at her. “He said you’d never find a girl as pretty as his to have as a wife,” she said, “so maybe he finally felt like he’d impress you after all.”

He sat up, placing one warm hand over hers. “Perhaps not as pretty,” he smirked.

“What’s going on here?” Agnes asked from the doorway, and Judd pulled back from Bess as if she burned.

“I got a little hot-tempered, I’m afraid,” Judd explained, rising to his full height and walking to the corner for the broom and dust bin to clean up the broken glass.

Agnes took the broom from his hand, making shooing motions toward him. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t you have some work to do in that messy study of yours?”

Bess watched Judd leave the kitchen, taking her first full breath. “It’s my fault,” she told Agnes when she was sure he was out of ear shot. “I asked him about Daniel and upset him.”

Agnes threw away the swept-up glass, then joined Bess at the table. “We lost their father when Judd was just fifteen. He became more like a father to Daniel than a brother. There’s ten years between them, you know.”

“Why hasn’t Judd married?” Bess asked.

Agnes looked out the window toward the dog pens in her backyard zoo. “There was a woman once when he was 21. He even bought her a ring. But one day she just up and left. There’s never been another.”

“Why did she go?”

“He never said, and I never asked.”

“Secrets,” Bess whispered.

Agnes grinned. “Well, you didn’t think you had the market on them?”

Bess swallowed back a lump in her throat. “Some things are just best left buried.”

Agnes’ bony hand snaked into Bess’ palm and squeezed. “Only if you don’t bury important parts of yourself along with them, dear.” She stood. “I best get supper started. Judd will work up an appetite tamping down all those emotions you keep stirring up in him.”

Bess bit her lip. “I don’t mean to be contrary. He just seems to bring it out of me.”

“It’s good for him, Bess,” Agnes told her. “He was getting far too settled in his ways if you ask me.”

“I think he hates me,” Bess gave voice to her fear. “He’d be happier if I wasn’t here.”

Agnes gave her a shrewd look. “He’d be happier if you shared a little more of yourself. It would make him feel like you wanted to be a part of us. It would help him to understand why his baby brother chose you.”

Bess didn’t know what to say to that, so she kept her mouth shut and got up to help Agnes with the cooking. They prepared a supper of salmon patties, green beans, beets and homemade biscuits and then sat down with a subdued Judd to eat it. As they lingered over apple pie and coffee, Bess tried to get up the courage to share something about herself with her new in-laws. Funny, she thought, she had not thought herself a coward until she met up with the likes of Judd Taylor.

But, her struggles proved unnecessary when the phone began its tinny trill, and Judd answered it only to be called away on an emergency. She helped Agnes with the dishes and then excused herself to her bedroom, where she crawled under the covers for an early night still searching for a piece of her sordid past she might be willing to share with a man who made her want to be liked by a member of the opposite sex for the first time in a very long time indeed.

Bess was awake before the rooster crowed the next morning, feeling a tiny foot pressing against her side. The baby was beginning to move around more and more, making her think of the way Daniel was always fidgeting with something, never still. She was rubbing the slightly sore spot where the baby’s last kick had landed when she stepped into the kitchen and was startled by Judd’s arrival through the back door.

He had on the same clothes as the night before. His hair was matted against his scalp and pointing in crazy directions as if he had been running his hands through it. His usually pressed shirt was wrinkled and spotted with splatters of something dark like mud or blood. But mostly, she noticed that his eyes, usually blazing with life, were dull and listless.

He barely seemed to notice her presence, but shuffled to the counter to start coffee brewing, letting out a big yawn that stretched his jaws taut. Bess kept her distance lest she startle him and cleared her throat before speaking. He slid his eyes in her direction with as little motion as possible and barely nodded in acknowledgment of her.

“Let me do that,” she said, taking a step in his direction. “You look worn through.”

He pushed himself away from the counter and leaned against the wall instead, closing his eyes as he spoke. “Pile up on the highway,” he muttered. “Two dead, and a couple of kids orphaned by it to deal with. Some days, I really hate this job.”

Her hands gripped the coffee pot handle until her knuckles were white. “How old were they, the children?”

“Teenagers, out where they shouldn’t have been. Mom and dad had an argument in the car after having to make the trip to pick them up. They’re going to feel guilty for the rest of their lives. What a waste.”

He stopped talking, and Bess concentrated on the coffee, trying not to think about what Judd had just said. Flashes of that rainy night when she’d found Grandfather slumped over in the barn, his eyes open wide like a guppy, flooded her mind. The policeman on the scene had been a high school friend of her father’s. He kept patting Bess’ head and calling her a poor child. The social worker, a tall, beak-nosed woman with her hair pulled into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, had shoved a rough finger onto Bess’ cheek to swipe away her tears and ordered Bess to stop crying, which was only for babies.

She shook herself to rid her mind of the memories and heard the deep, steady rhythm of Judd’s breath, as if he had fallen asleep standing up. His eyes popped open as she was looking at him, and he cocked his head. “What are you doing up at this hour?” he demanded.

She pointed toward the table. “Just be glad that I am. Have a seat, and I’ll make you some breakfast. I assume you didn’t plan on going straight to bed, since you started to make coffee?”

He nodded. “I just came home to change out of these,” he indicated his uniform. “The driver that caused the accidents last night was high as a kite on an as-yet-to-be-identified substance. I want to make sure he gets arraigned today.”

Bess studied him for a minute as he remained against the wall, the lines around his eyes, the shadow of hair across his chin where he needed to shave. “If you had a wife,” she told him, “she wouldn’t let you work this hard. It can’t be good for you.”

“I’m married to the job,” he shot back, levering off the wall and pulling himself to his full height.

She chuckled at the defiant set of his jaw. “And I’m sure the job is great comfort on cold winter nights.” And then because it suddenly seemed important that Judd didn’t have someone to look out for him besides his mother, she added, “Not all women run away, you know. Some of them stay.”

The words worked like an adrenaline shot. Judd’s eyes flashed fire and his hands curled into fists. “I’m going to get changed,” he said, ignoring her comment. “I’d take some scrambled eggs and bacon if you don’t mind.”

He was gone then, leaving Bess to prepare the breakfast. Her hands shook at the knowledge of her own temerity. If she wasn’t careful, Judd was going to think she wanted the job of taking care of him for the rest of his life.

The thought that maybe she did was what sent her hiding back in her bedroom with his breakfast on the table before he returned from changing his clothes. By the time she emerged to see about her own breakfast, Judd was long gone.

The dream was always the same. She was standing in the middle of a tiny apartment that reeked of booze and smoke and sweat, her breathing shallow and rapid, her heartbeat loud in the silence. Her hands shook so that she placed them on her faded jeans to steady them. That was when she noticed the blood, caked inside the folds of her knuckles and embedded around her nails like polish.

Slowly, the room came into focus, and she looked with horror at the still form on the bed in the corner. The pale body, curled as if in sleep, with its long, black hair fanned out like a blanket, didn’t look like her best friend. There were bruises where once the skin had been smooth and beautiful, like porcelain.

The man on the floor at her feet was responsible for her friend lying dead. His closely-shaved head lay in a pool of dark blood. The bat on the chipped linoleum beside him was what she’d used to knock the life out of him. She could hear the sirens and knew she had to escape. No one would care that he had beaten her friend to death and planned to rape her next. No one would care that he was well over 30 and she was just 14. They would shuffle her in the system and forget about her until some other predator managed to leave her in her own pool of blood.

Usually, the dream ended there, and she would wake soaked in her sweat and spend the rest of the night counting by sevens until the dawn light peaked its way through the windows of the bedrooms she always shared with others. This night, the girl in her dream reached her blood-soaked hands to a protruding belly, rubbing it absently as the sirens grew louder. That was when the form on the floor groaned and moved, rising suddenly, his eyes yellow and piercing, and lunged toward her, toward her baby.

She woke to piercing screams, moments passing before she realized they were her own. Her bedroom door, which she had locked for the sheer luxury of having the ability to do it, came crashing open, slamming against the wall so that the doorknob left a circular dent in the sheet rock. Judd, dressed only in striped pajama bottoms, his broad chest bare, hurried into the room with a gun raised by his head. Even though she’d obviously awakened him from a deep sleep, he wasn’t even breathing heavily.

Bess pushed her sweaty hair away from her eyes and sat up in the bed, pulling the covers up to her neck, even though her flannel gown already covered her completely. “I’m sorry,” she rushed to explain. “It was just a bad dream, a really bad one. I usually don’t wake up screaming like that.”

He glanced around the room as if he didn’t quite believe her and then slowly lowered his gun. She held her breath, expecting him to interrogate her with fifty questions. Instead, he stood at the foot of her bed and just studied her for the span of two breaths.

“You’ll be all right now?” he finally asked.

As she opened her mouth to answer, Agnes appeared in the bedroom door. “What’s happening in here?” she asked, her voice groggy with sleep. “Would you like some warm milk, dear?”

“Yes,” Judd answered for Bess, turning toward his mother. “And I could use some, too. I’ll help you.”

Bess watched them walk out of the room, so stunned by Judd’s behavior that she forgot to be shaken by her nightmare. Before anyone returned with a glass of milk for her, she had laid back down, snuggled into her pillow, and fallen into a dreamless sleep.

The next morning she woke feeling so rested, until the memory of the night before came flooding back full force. She was almost too embarrassed to go to the breakfast table. In the end, she chided her sudden shyness when she had faced many more challenging situations in the past with more gusto, dressed in a bright yellow sundress with matching sweater and walked into the kitchen as gracefully as her bulging belly would allow.

She was surprised to see Judd still at the breakfast table. He looked up when he heard her enter, his usual smirk pasted on his face. His black eyes were pinched as if he had not slept well. Bess decided to feel pleased instead of guilty. After all, he’d given her plenty of restless nights since her arrival.

Before she could even pour herself a cup of decaf, he motioned for her to take the seat across from him with such a scowl that she obeyed without thinking about it. He was going to interrogate her after all.

In typical Judd fashion, he cut right to the chase. “So?” was all he asked.

She shrugged. “Hormones.”

He stared at her until she was forced to look away, to the polished wood of the round table. Still, she kept her mouth shut, letting the silence stretch into minutes. Finally, he sighed and stood up, his chair making a loud scrape in the quiet kitchen. She did look up then, surprised that he would give up so easily.

But then, he probably already knew everything about her. It would be simple enough for a sheriff to discover everything in her files. Why he was waiting to confront her, she didn’t know, but she wasn’t in any hurry to find out.

He stopped beside her, towering over her, the warmth from his body emanating toward her too-cool skin. “Everyone has a past, Bess,” he said. “Secrets, now secrets are suspicious.”

Before she could say anything, he turned on his heel and left the room. Bess glanced at her shaking hands and took several breaths before she felt calm enough to move. He wasn’t going to throw her out, at least not until the baby was born. Why did she feel disappointed in herself for not telling him what he wanted to know anyway?

—

Bess hated dirty things. Too many years of having basically nothing to call her own had made her almost obsessive about keeping everything around her sparkling clean. That’s why she was scrubbing the cabinets when Agnes came into the kitchen later that afternoon with the pastor’s wife right on her heels and didn’t even notice the other two women until Agnes spoke.

“Heaven’s sake, Bess,” she exclaimed, “you ought to be resting after the night you had, not slaving away in my kitchen.”

Bess unbent herself from the lower cabinet where she had been concentrating on the well-worn handle and rubbed her lower back. “I don’t mind,” she said. “Cleaning relaxes me.”

“Well, relax yourself over to a chair. Mrs. Jones has come for a visit.”

Bess smiled at the thin pastor’s wife, thinking that she looked like a stiff wind would blow her away. Bess sat down and watched Michelle and Agnes talk without adding anything to the conversation, which was another one of her habits born of survival.

Her ears perked up, though, when the talk turned to an upcoming charity ball. Michelle was lamenting her lack of a proper wardrobe, and Agnes joked that the younger woman could combine two of her formal dresses people had seen her in before to create something totally new.

When Michelle sighed that she couldn’t sew on a button, much less dresses, Bess heard herself telling the other two women, “I could do it.”

“What was that?” Agnes asked lightly.

Bess cleared her throat at the shocked faces looking at her. “I did alterations at my old job at the laundromat,” she explained. “I never exactly had the resources to try something like you’re talking about, but I’m sure I could do it.”

The pastor’s wife gave her a genuine smile. “Are you really willing to try? I wouldn’t want to put you out, now of all times.”

“Look,” Bess told her, flexing her fingers above the table, “my hands are just itching to get started.”

Agnes stood up suddenly, disappearing into the laundry room, and then re-appearing with a pile of clothes she sat carefully on the table in front of Bess. It was a stack of Judd’s work and uniform shirts, along with several pairs of socks. Agnes grinned so that her strong teeth sparkled.

“I just hate doing the darning and mending. I always put it off until the dead of winter when there just isn’t anything left to do. Would you mind, Bess?”

“I’ll love it,” Bess assured her, sorting through the clothing with experienced hands. “All I need is your sewing basket and a toothpick.”

“A toothpick?” Michelle exclaimed.

“It makes repairing buttons so much easier,” Bess said. “I’ll show you.”

When Bess had finished her demonstration, Michelle asked if she could bring the two dresses over the very next morning. “How did you learn to sew, Bess?” she asked. “I didn’t understand a bit of my home-ec lessons, except for the cooking sections.”

Bess knew her eyes took on a far-away, revealing look when she spoke about this, but she had a firm policy of telling as much of the truth as necessary or keeping her mouth shut, and ignoring Michelle’s question would be just too rude in the present circumstances. She cleared her throat.

“A good friend,” her voice broke on the word, “taught me when I was 13 and full of rebellion. She made it challenging so that I even learned how to sit and listen better in my classes at school after.”

Michelle laid a cold hand on top of Bess’ and smiled knowingly. “What a wonderful gift. She must be very dear to you.”

Bess swallowed several times before she could speak.  “She was. Very dear.”

The moments stretched out as if the other woman was waiting for more details, but she wasn’t going to get any. Besides, making a dress for Michelle was one thing. Having those kind eyes turn to her in judgment if Michelle knew the whole truth, well, that was more than Bess could bear.

When Michelle finally left, Agnes claimed she needed a nap and headed off to her room for that purpose, leaving Bess to work on the clothes or around the house as she chose. Wanting to spread out the mending, she darned two pair of socks and fixed up one shirt before quitting for the day. That left her with quite a few hours still on her hands.

Her eyes wandered to the kitchen floor, whose many dimples and crevices were covered in a fine film of sand, even though Bess knew Agnes had cleaned just the day before. She scraped her foot across one of the piles of dust settling into the kitchen from the open back door.

Though she had needed a sweater when she woke up that morning, it was October, and the afternoon sun was blazing through the screen. She took off her sweater and tried unsuccessfully to block out the musty scent of the sand pervading everything, even making her teeth gritty.

Finally, she gave in to impulse and went to her room to probe her luggage for just what she needed. The faded toothbrush with the wide-smiling cat, Felix, on its handle, was her favorite cleaning brush. She went back into the kitchen, located a bucket under the sink, and just managed to settle herself onto the floor by using one of the chairs to hold onto as she descended.

She had begun on the floor with the toothbrush in the corner by the sink. The bristles worked into the wavy surface of the linoleum so that the fine imprint of dirt in them lifted. She was halfway through the room, sitting back on her heels, pushing the sweat off her brow with the back of her hand, when a gruff voice barked at her from the opposite door.

“Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Up until the moment the gray-headed doctor allowed Bess to hear her baby’s heartbeat, she had somehow managed to think of her pregnancy as something that might or might not come to be. After all, plenty of women failed to carry their babies to full term. Why worry about something that might never happen?

But as soon as she heard her baby’s heart beating so quickly, the little flutters in her stomach that were steadily growing stronger became real. Before long, she was going to have a little person who was half her, someone she was responsible for bringing into the world.

Poor kid, she thought, with no better choices than being raised by a single mother who had no real clue about being a parent since she’d never had any or being left with the Taylor family to face the knowledge that its mother couldn’t be bothered.

She couldn’t let a child she’d brought into the world feel the bitter pain of abandonment, even if she turned out to be the worst kind of mother imaginable. She knew that the moment she faced the reality of that beating heart. She also knew she was going to have to do something to improve her ability to take care of her baby. And, she didn’t have a very long time to improve herself.

Agnes was outside in the waiting room when Bess finished the appointment. She laid aside the magazine she had been reading and gave Bess a warm hug. “So, how was it?” she asked at Bess’ ear.

Bess swallowed back the lump in her throat. “He was nice, like you said.” She waved the prescription in her hand. “He wants me to start taking these, but I’m sure I can do without them.”

They walked out of the doctor’s offices as this last was said, and Agnes waited until they were in the car before she turned and looked Bess squarely in the eyes. “I’ll bet those are prenatal vitamins, yes? I’ll see that they’re filled for you.” She flattened her hand, indicating that Bess should lay the slip of paper into her long fingers.

Bess hesitated. “I have to be able to pay for these things,” she said.

“You should be able to apply for a widow’s pension from the army,” Agnes told her. “Have you looked into that, Bess?”

She felt her face turning red. “No. I mean, we weren’t married for very long, after all.”

“But you were married.” Agnes started the car, raising her voice to be heard over the roar of the V8 engine. “I’ll put Judd on it. He’ll see that you get what you deserve in no time at all.”

What she deserved? Bess shuddered. “At any rate, Agnes, I can’t imagine it being enough money to raise a child on. I have to get some work.”

“Didn’t you come here so Daniel’s family could help you, Bess? Please, let us do this.”

Bess bit her lip, tasting the metallic traces in her blood. “I came because I thought maybe you would want Daniel’s baby,” she admitted. “But now that I’ve heard the heartbeat, I can’t just walk away. I know what it’s like to live without a mother.”

“When did you lose her, your mother?” Agnes asked.

Bess didn’t want to lay open her past, not when she was so uncertain of her future. “That’s all water under the bridge, Agnes. What I need right now is to figure out how I’m going to take care of myself and a baby. I won’t be reliant on you and Judd, especially Judd, no matter what it takes.”

“I’m sorry Judd has been so hard on you, dear.”

Bess shrugged, holding back uncharacteristic tears. Pregnancy and hormones, she thought. At least she hadn’t been cursed with morning sickness. “Judd’s actions certainly aren’t your fault. Really, you’ve shown me more of a home than I’ve had in a long, long time.”

“You’ve livened up the place. Judd and I were turning into a couple of sticks in the mud, if you want the truth.”

They pulled into a parking space in front of the drug store then, and Bess noticed that the shop next door was a laundromat with a Help Wanted sign. After asking Agnes not to wait for her, Bess entered the shop, inhaling the familiar scents of clean linen and flowery soap. Even the whirs of the washing machines and clacking tumbles of the dryers gave her a sense of calm she had not felt since boarding the bus in Houston to head to this West Texas town.

A rotund man with thick, black hair sat at the desk in the small room at the back of the building. He looked up with an irritated glance when Bess stepped into his office.

“Yes?” he barked. “Don’t tell me dryer number three is too hot still. I’ve had that repairman out here twice in the last few weeks already!”

Bess straightened. “I’m here about the job, sir,” she said. “I have experience. I’ve run a laundromat in Galveston, and I can do alterations.”

The man studied her from head to toe and snarled his lip. “Not in that condition, you can’t,” he snorted.

Bess felt her heart sink. “I’m a hard worker and in good health. And I need the work,” she plowed on.

He tapped the pencil in his fingers against the desk, thinking. Finally, he shrugged. “I’ll give you a two-week trial. Minimum wage only.  Eight sharp. Tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Bess grinned, feeling a weight lift from her shoulders. “You won’t be sorry, Mr.?”

He was looking at his paperwork again and didn’t lift his head to answer. “Bryan. Ed Bryan.”

Mr. Bryan didn’t say anything else but continued scratching on the papers in front of him. Bess left the laundromat and stepped into the drugstore, where she saw Agnes standing in conversation with a sophisticated-looking woman in an A-line dress, a choker of pearls around her long neck, her black hair coiffed into perfect curls. When Agnes introduced the woman to Bess, the stranger pushed her ruby-red lips into a semblance of a smile that did not reach her eyes.

The woman made quick work of finishing her conversation with Agnes and walked away with a swing to her hips that spoke of natural grace or much practice.

“Lillian is a sharp lady,” Agnes told Bess, watching the perfect hips sway out of the drugstore. “She’s had her eye on Judd since I can’t remember when.”

Bess raised an eyebrow. “I’m surprised he isn’t married to her already.”

Agnes shrugged. “I suppose he’ll be ready when he’s ready. Were they interested?”

The abrupt change of subject caught Bess off guard. “What? Oh, well, after a fashion. I start a two-week trial tomorrow. That is, if I can borrow the car.”

Agnes studied her for a moment as if trying to decide something important. Then, she shrugged. “We’ll figure something out, I’m sure.” She held up the small, white bag in her hand. “I’ve got your prescription all filled for you. Shall we head back to the house?”

When they arrived home, Bess was disappointed to see Judd’s police vehicle in the drive. She’d hoped to have some time to collect her thoughts about motherhood and her working future before having to deal with her less-than-friendly brother-in-law. He hadn’t said more than two words to her since speeding off after church the Sunday before, and she was still more than worried that he had discovered something about her past he was just waiting to drop like a bomb.

As if he had been waiting for them, Judd opened the screen door as the two women exited the car. His head was uncharacteristically bare, the straight, black hair slightly damp as if he had just washed it. He was in his working cowboy clothes, a worn, chambray shirt, Levi’s with leather chaps, and boots creased and bent as if his feet had been poured into them.

“Lillian invited you to supper tomorrow night,” Agnes greeted him, stepping aside so that Bess could precede her into the house.

Judd shook his head. “I’m busy,” he muttered.

Bess raised an eyebrow, then bit her tongue to resist saying anything and unnecessarily taunting a man who was obviously twitching for a fight. He seemed to sense her thoughts anyway because he stomped into the living room after the two women and told their retreating backs. “I already have a date.”

Agnes turned to face him with a bright smile on her face. “Is it with Rachel Bree? She’s such a sweet child, and she’s always had a crush on you.”

Judd opened his mouth as if to say something else, then clamped it shut with such a look of regret on his face that Bess decided he didn’t have a date at all, unless it was with a typewriter working on the endless police reports she’d heard him griping about a few nights before.

“I thought I’d make some chicken fried steak for supper. Maybe some apple pie for dessert,” Agnes was saying, wisely changing the subject.

Bess wondered if her mother-in-law was trying to butter Judd up before telling him about Bess’ new job. Did he even have to know about it, Bess thought. She followed Agnes gratefully into the kitchen, hoping to help with the meal and avoid any further conversation with Judd.

She was doomed to disappointment. He strode right behind the two women and plopped himself down in one of the kitchen chairs, straddling it so that the leather on his chaps creaked. Agnes and Bess worked in silence for several minutes, as Bess felt his eyes boring into her back and wished Judd would just evaporate into a wisp of smoke.

“How did the doctor’s visit go?” he finally asked, causing Bess to jump so that she almost spilled the pot of water and potatoes she was placing on the stove to boil.

When Bess didn’t answer Judd right away, Agnes did it for her. “Mama and baby are healthy as expected, and we got some pre-natal vitamins to help keep it that way.”

Judd studied his clean, square fingernails. “Was that before or after Bess wasted Ed Bryan’s time about a job?”

For several heartbeats, nobody moved. Bess listened to the sizzle of the water on the bottom of the potato pan she’d just turned the flame on, to the ticking of the radio clock perched on top of the refrigerator, and the distant howl of one of the dogs in the pens just outside the back door.

Agnes slapped a well-floured steak into the grease already popping in her cast iron skillet, glancing at Bess and frowning slightly. She nodded finally as if to say, this one’s on you, and went back to breading another seasoned piece of meat.

Bess forced herself to look Judd in his black eyes. “How could you know about that already?” she said in a voice not nearly as forceful as she would have liked it to be. “I didn’t even tell him my name yet.”

Judd shrugged. “It’s just as well because I already told him you weren’t available. A laundromat indeed.”

Bess squared her shoulders. “It’s honest work, and it’s work I can do. Well.”

Judd stood up deliberately and placed the chair he had been using under the table with careful precision, almost as if he were trying to hold in his formidable temper. Still, the eyes that turned on Bess flashed fire and burned. “I already told you that baby deserves to be born healthy. Having its mother work anywhere isn’t conducive to that goal, especially not doing a lot of heavy lifting.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “You aren’t the boss of me,” she said distinctly, exaggerating the movement of her lips.

He stepped up to her until their toes touched, towering over her. A normal woman would have flinched. The situation brought back too many memories of bullies using their size to make her feel less important. Bess pushed her belly toward him so that Judd, surprised, practically scrambled away.

They stood facing each other, both breathing heavily as if they had just done thirteen rounds in a boxing ring. Finally, Judd sighed and his shoulders slumped. “Let me do this, for Daniel,” he said. Then, through gritted teeth. “Please.”

Bess bit at her lip. “I need money to raise a child, and I need a job to make that money. What, exactly, do you expect me to do?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “We can handle helping you out until you’ve had the baby and then had time to get back on your feet. And there are much better jobs when the time comes than working for Ed Bryan’s sweatshop.”

Bess wasn’t about to admit to Judd Taylor that for her skill-set, a sweatshop was about as good as it gets. Instead, she shuffled her feet and tried to think of an argument that might persuade the tall, stubborn man in front of her into changing his mind.

Finally, all she could come up with was a final plea. “I need to work,” she practically whined, hating the sound of her misery so apparent in the tone of her voice.

As usual, Agnes seemed to sense more than Bess was willing to tell. She stepped up behind the younger woman now, laying a protective hand on Bess’ back that moved in comforting circles. “You could use these next few months to learn a new hobby or skill,” she said. “I read in that magazine at the doctor’s office today an article all about how what the mama reads and puts her mind to while she’s pregnant can have a real positive effect on a baby’s brain.”

“There you go,” Judd said, sounding relieved as if Bess’ distress had actually mattered to him, which couldn’t be possible. “Learn macrame, improve your typing speed, study Greek for all I care. Just do it here at the house where mother can keep an eye on you and feed you right.”

“Speaking of food,” Agnes chuckled, “this dinner is about ready for the table. Would you set the places, Son?”

And just like that, the question of Bess’ working was decided for her. She watched Judd putting plates, napkins and silverware on the table and tried to figure out how one man could be so determined to hate her and yet take care of her all at the same time.

It was going to be a long, long winter.

Sunday rolled around all too quickly, and Bess sat in the back of the family’s Ford Sedan feeling under-dressed even in her best maternity wear. She looked out the side of the window, watching the rows of plowed fields swirl by outside the window in their delicate arcs so that they formed a kind of wave behind her eyelids that made her dizzy.

But the dizzy sensation was preferable to looking at the back of Judd’s creamy Stetson as he drove the family in to town for church services. Ever since the sort of peaceful ending to their conversation the night the pastor and his wife had visited, Judd had made himself scarce around the house, blaming a court case in the next county and the extra tasks of winterizing the ranch for the cold weather that was only weeks away. Still, every time she came into contact with him, she felt as if he were looking so acutely at her that he was seeing right through her, right down to her deepest, darkest secrets.

She saw his eyes in the rear view mirror, probing her as she adjusted herself in the seat to take the pressure off her lower back.

“You might want to roll up that jacket in the seat beside you. Put it behind you for the lumbar support,” Judd ordered more than suggested so that the thoughtfulness of the suggestion was marred by the bite in his words.

“Really, Judd, she’s your sister-in-law, not some handcuffed criminal,” Agnes scoffed.

He shrugged his shoulders. “It was just a suggestion,” he finally managed.

They were pulling up to the church then. Instead of the over-the-top spirals and stained glass windows Bess was expecting, she was surprised to see a rather plain, brown brick building with two annexes that made a sort of v-shape on either side of the main structure. A small crowd of men in three-piece suits, women in flowery dresses and children like miniature copies beside them visited in clusters outside, slowly milling their way into the church.

Agnes grabbed Bess by the arm as they exited the car. “I want you to meet some of our young adults,” she was saying as they neared the church. “They were all friends of Daniel’s, and they’ll want to meet you.”

Bess felt her stomach grow cold, but she managed to paste the smile on her face that had seen her through every adoption day and doomed-to-fail job interview. It was the facade that shielded her from the judgments and stern looks masking disappoint. It helped her lie to herself about needing any other person’s acceptance.

She was surprised when the young men and women Agnes introduced her to moments later gave her such warm smiles and welcoming hugs. A little bit of the ice she had encased around her innermost self melted. She especially liked a young woman with dark hair and pudgy arms who tugged on Bess’ curls and proclaimed that Bess was the perfect image of the girl she’d always imagined Daniel Taylor loving. The woman’s name was Rachel Bree. She taught kindergarten at the elementary school. Without giving Bess much of a choice, she grabbed her by the hand and dragged her into the sanctuary for the service, holding tight to Bess’ fingers as if she sensed the new girl could use a true friend.

Bess lost track of where Judd and Agnes were sitting as she concentrated on Rachel’s rapid-fire chatter. In the few minutes before the chords of the first hymn swelled to fill the sanctuary, she learned that Rachel had known Daniel since they were diapered babies drooling over the shared toys in the church’s nursery, that he had taken Rachel to freshmen prom because no one else had asked her, and that Rachel had had a secret crush on Judd Taylor since she was fourteen, but that she didn’t quite have the courage to do more than smile at him.

The music was pretty, Bess thought, though most of the imagery of the words went right over her head. When the man stood in front of the congregation talking about the breaking of Christ’s body and the drinking of His blood, she passed along to Rachel the golden serving platters without partaking, hoping that she wouldn’t be judged for her lack of participation.

Reverend Jones took his place behind the pulpit looking somehow taller and more confident than when Bess first met him.  His sermon was on a passage in the New Testament where Jesus went to the house of a tax collector. As Michael explained, the idea that Jesus would associate with such a person, who was considered an outcast by the elite religious leaders of the time, only made those leaders more furious with the Christ. But, Michael emphasized, Jesus proclaimed that He had come to save those who were in need of a physician, who knew how desperately they needed the kind of saving grace Jesus had to offer.

Bess, who had always been one of those outcasts, wondered what it might have felt like to have a famous man like Jesus agree to come to her home for a meal. She suppressed a grin at the thought of someone like Jackie Kennedy sitting down to the franks and beans that were about the best food Bess could afford to serve most of the time and just managed not to laugh out loud at the image of the meticulously dressed woman perched on one of Bess’ mismatched chairs at her shared apartment, trying to eat off the Melamine plates which were faded and cracked with fissures from years of use.

She wondered at the idea that the Jesus Michael Jones described seemed more interested in loving people than judging them. It seemed to Bess that most of the other lectures she’d heard about the figure in the white robe ended with her feeling just that much more like a failure. How could she love her enemies and submit to a strict pattern of behavior when most of the time she was too busy just trying to survive?

Rachel turned to Bess as soon as the service was over, grabbing her arm and squeezing lightly. “You have to come to the movies with us next Saturday afternoon,” she enthused. “There’s just a small group of us, really. We watch the matinee and then go to Mrs. Hudson’s tea shop for a good, old-fashioned gab session. You’ll have a lot of fun. I promise.”

Bess studied Rachel’s brown eyes for a moment with their long lashes. They were kind eyes without a hint of the sarcasm or pity that Bess was so used to and always determined to avoid. “Okay,” she conceded. “I’d like that.”

Agnes found her then, looping a bony arm through Bess’ elbow. “So, did you like the service?” she asked, almost holding her breath in anticipation of the answer.

She could just lie and say yes, but because Agnes had been nothing but welcoming since Bess arrived unannounced at her doorstep, she felt the older woman deserved better. “I’m not sure I really understood that much of it,” she admitted, “but it gave me some things to think about.”

Agnes managed to keep the smile on her face, even though the light seemed to fade a bit in her eyes. “Well, maybe we can go over your questions later, if you’d like.”

Bess felt her back stiffen. Going to church with the family seemed like the right thing to do, at least until the child was born, but she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to explore the ins and outs of the family religion. After all, she’d never been a religious person.

In the orphanage, it had been Bess who usually managed to volunteer for infirmary duty on Sunday mornings. So, as the other children shuffled off to the church just two blocks from the facility where they ate and slept and learned their reading and arithmetic, Bess huddled in a corner of the usually frigid sick room with Matron Seals, playing gin rummy between emptying sick pans and ignoring the swigs of cough syrup the matron gulped when she thought little Bess wasn’t looking.

Agnes’ grip on Bess’ arm tightened, and she realized the other woman was still waiting for an answer. “I’m sure I’ll get the hang of things eventually,” she told Agnes noncommittally.

Judd joined them then, smelling faintly of cigarette smoke. Bess held back an amused smile as she watched the otherwise animated Rachel draw in on herself. She would have tried to help Rachel out of that shell, she thought, except she wouldn’t wish Judd Taylor on her worst enemy, much less a potential friend.

“I’ve got to get back to the office,” Judd said without preamble. “I’ve got just enough time to take you two home if we get going now.”

Agnes nodded, still studying Bess’ face with an expression that promised further discussions about church if Bess didn’t figure out a better way to avoid them, and then she turned toward Judd and began to follow him, pulling Bess along. Bess shrugged her shoulders and waved apologetically to Rachel, who was watching the trio walk away with an amused expression on her face. She smiled broadly at Bess as if to say she understood exactly how the Taylor family operated and then turned herself to join another group of hangers-on outside the church building.

The car was silent on the ride back to the house except for the rhythmic clop-clop of the tires on the pavement and then packed dirt as they made their way back to the homestead. Judd’s knuckles gripped the steering wheel so tightly that they turned white. Agnes kept her hands in her lap and stared straight ahead as if she were deep in thought about something.

Bess was the first one out of the car when Judd braked in front of the door minutes later. She leaned over to rub on Jethro’s warm head while Agnes said a few words to her son before exiting the still-running car herself. Judd took off in a cloud of dust as he sped back toward town. He didn’t even wave goodbye.

“Did someone rob a bank or something?” Bess asked, trying to break the sudden tension she felt as the car faded out of sight down the long drive.

“What?” Agnes turned her gaze to Bess finally and shook her head as if to clear it. “Oh, no. Judd is just always in a hurry, that’s all.”

And then Agnes launched into a rapid-fire discussion of what they could prepare for lunch, about the knitting project she was doing for the mission barrels at church, and about Bess’ doctor visit the following morning. Through it all, Bess couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever Judd had said to Agnes in the car before taking off again had somehow shifted the other woman’s opinion of her.

Had he found out about that she wondered. No, she assured herself, those records were sealed. Still, when Judd hadn’t returned that night when Bess finally dragged herself off to bed, she couldn’t shake the feeling in her gut that, as always, the other shoe was about to drop, squarely, on her curly, doomed head.