Page 72 of The Widow and the Wanted

The shock of it makes me suck in a gasp. Holy hell, it’s colder than I thought possible. “Christ Almighty, woman, if I die out here I’m haintin’ you for the rest of your life.” My other leg settles in, and I lower myself to my waist. My teeth chatter. “You sure this is needsome? You said yourself the bullet was barely a piece of lead.”

“It’s not just a bullet. You can’t go openin’ your blood to the air without infection fightin’ to get in. The cold won’t fix what’s ailin’ you. Just keepin’ you from cookin’ your brains while your body fights. Now keep goin’,” she drawls, falling into it easy the way she does when it’s just us. Lets me hear the part of her before she married off to royalty or whatever it were.

“Why don’t you talk to Okee like that, huh?”

“Hush or I’ll hold you under.”

“M-mean thing,” I say, the cold forcing a shudder through me. I settle deeper, water pouring over the sides, through the floorboards, wetting the edges of the rug.

“Good.”

“H-how’d you manage to get a man to marry you once, huh? Cruel as you are,” I spit, letting my suffering do the talking.

“Same way lots of girls do. My momma arranged it for my own good.”

“Hold on, now,” I interject, recalling she was raised in a whorehouse. “Where’d you meet this fella?”

“Church.”

I don’t say nothing, because what I’m thinking ain’t polite. She explains more on her own.

“Momma was worried I’d end up at the Gemini, so she found me a husband. A boy from church. One day I was stuck in that stinking saloon, the next I was in Greenbrier, in a big house with servants. I do remember it kindly.” She lets out a wistful hum, elbows propped on the barrel’s edge. “Eli was good to me. He just fussed over foolish things.” Lula’s face tightens, like she’s holding back a memory.

“Wouldn’t hardly let me step off the porch. He was cross enough about my lessons with the doctor, and that was with him watching over my shoulder half the time. But,” she says, and her mouth twists, “he did enjoy it, calling me like a dancing bear to entertain company. ‘Lula,’ he’d say. ‘Tell them about the plants you’re growing in the garden.’” She mimics the voice, polite and pleased with itself. “And I’d do it, because that’s what wives do. I’d stand there and recite the recipes for tinctures and swear the benefits of this or that herb, and they’d widen their eyes like I was some curious thing.”

She makes a little motion with her hand. It near makes me laugh, except nothing about it is funny.

“He wasn’t perfect,” she says, softer. “But he was mine.” Her voice goes quiet. “And I never feared him.”

The words settle heavy in the air between us. A shiver runs through me again, powerful enough to slosh water over the rim. Lula sets a hand on my hair, soothing-like.

I drag a breath in, shaky. “Say what you want about proper, and law, and what your preacher tells you a man’s supposed to be—lovin’ Okee’s the best thing ever happened to me.”

Another shiver hits and my teeth clack. Lula presses down on my head a little, like she’s reminding me to stay put, to stay here. And something turns.

“Reckon lots of folks never feel love like that. Didn’t know it were possible myself until it happened.”

The thought of it stings my eyes, my chest tightening. Damn him going out there alone in hell frozen over. If he gets himself killed, I’ll never forgive the bastard. I hold my breath a second at the thought of him not coming back, and it ain’t something I can stand to think about for another moment. Lula pets my head again, comforting and cursing me in the same look.

Something about her touch lets me exhale a breath and settle.

“You deserve that kind of love,” I say. “Not just companionship, but real plumb stupid love.”

Her fingers still.

“You deserve a love that ain’t a bargain between your momma and somebody from church. Not a life where the best thing you can say is ‘I never feared him.’ You deserve somebody who sees you whole.”

Lula looks away fast, like she can’t bear to be looked at straight on.

“Oh hush, you fool,” she says. “Minute ago you wondered how I managed to trick a man into marrying me at all.”

“Don’t you know the difference between me teasin’ and tellin’ you true?” I ask.

Lula’s hand slides off my hair. I shiver again, and water slaps the barrel. Lula steadies it with her palm.

“I mean it,” I say, really looking at her now, and my pulse does a strange little stumble. My heart knows if Okee had gone to town instead of me, I’d have been the one to kiss her.

The cabin goes quiet and makes the fire sound loud. Lula stares at me like I’ve grown a second head. Then her cheeks color just enough for me to notice.