Page 96 of Silver Lining
"Max said he'd hitch the wagon. I didn't know he'd already done it."
"Louise McCord! Have you been crying?"
"No."
Gilly peered into her face. "You are crying!" A sudden smile replaced her frown. "And if my suspicions are correct, I think I know why. Stand up and let me take a good look at you."
Pulling Louise to her feet, Gilly gazed hard at her waist and then studied her wet, anxious face. A radiant smile lit her expression. "My heavens! Mama is going to be so happy, and so am I!" Throwing out her arms, she clasped Louise in a tight embrace. "When are you due? Does Max know yet?"
"Oh Lord, it shows then?" She sat at the table and pressed the dishcloth to her eyes. If Gilly knew, then she couldn't put off telling Max. And then … "Absolutely," Gilly said with a laugh. "Tears are a dead giveaway, especially for a strong woman like you."
"I don't know what's wrong with me. I sure don't feel strong. Everything makes me cry!" Fresh tears drowned her eyes when she thought about never seeing Gilly again. Or Sunshine. Or Livvy. Max, she couldn't bear to think about at all. Every time she imagined telling him that she would be leaving as they had agreed, her heart hurt so badly that she backed away and told herself: One more day.
"I didn't want to tell Max—"
"While you were feeding those cattle," Gilly guessed. She sighed. "That's how it is in a good marriage.
You want to help your man. And he wants to protect his woman. If Max knew you were pregnant, he would have let those beeves starve before he'd let you work that hard."
A good marriage. Oh Lord, here came the tears again. "I can't talk about Max. It makes me cry." She blew her nose in her hanky and blotted her eyes with the dish towel. "I'll get my hat and coat, then we'll go down to the barn and tell him we're leaving. Gilly, promise we won't talk about Philadelphia today."
Gilly's eyebrows lifted. "You aren't worrying about her, are you? Oh Louise. If Max had married Philadelphia , it would have been a disaster. And I'd wager the earth that Max has known that for a long time."
Louise wished she could believe Gilly's airy dismissal, but she didn't. Where there was smoke, there was fire. And there was plenty of smoke between Max and Philadelphia . Moreover, she had heard Mr.
Houser tell Wally that he would understand if Wally divorced Philadelphia . But she had thought about it and had concluded that Philadelphia would be the one to seek a divorce. Philadelphia would travel to Wyoming as soon as she could. And Max would go with her.
Because now the only thing standing between Max and Philadelphia was Louise. If she weren't in the way, they could be together as they had always wanted to be.
"If you're feeling even a tiny bit jealous of Philadelphia , well, you're just being silly," Gilly insisted as they left the house and walked toward the barn.
Louise wanted so much to believe what Gilly said. Her heart leapt on any small scrap of hope, and she tried hard not to see what was right under her nose.
But when they had almost reached the barn door, when they were close enough to see inside, they both stopped abruptly. Just beyond the door, Max held Philadelphia tightly against his body. He lowered his head and kissed her.
A hot knife sliced through Louise's body. The pain of seeing them holding each other was worse than anything she had ever experienced, worse than anything she could have imagined. Her fingers dug into Gilly's arm, and she made a strangled sound.
Then she turned and blindly ran back to the house.
*
The men in the barn looked toward the door, then faded away like snowdrifts beneath a warm wind.
Puzzled, Max straightened in the stall he was mucking out and glanced around to see what had caused the boys to leave so hastily.
Philadelphia stood in a bar of sunshine just inside the door. She'd tossed back a short cape to reveal a dark riding jacket that curved over her breasts and nipped her waist. She wore a small feather-trimmed hat atop a mass of golden curls.
"Max?" She peered into the barn, but she didn't step out of the rectangle of light.
Slowly, he put down his shovel, dropped his gloves in the straw, and walked toward her. With the sunlight in her curls, shimmering and glowing around her, she looked like an ethereal creature sketched by imagination, too perfect to be real.
Halting a few feet from her, he thrust a hand into his pocket and grasped the green marble. So much had happened since the first time he had gripped this marble. He wasn't the same man he'd been that day on the mountain-side. Nor did the marble represent the same things to him that it had then.
"I've waited for you to come to the main house," she said, pushing her lips into a pout. "Then I realizedshe must be keeping you here. So I came to you."
If not for the green marble, he would have married this woman.
"I'm leaving for Fort Laramie next week. I need to know when you'll join me."
