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And he replied, “I doubt it.”
He didn’t, but she didn’t care.
SHE WENT WITH him often after that. She helped him move cattle, inoculate them, and staple tags in their ears. After he’d cut and baled the hay, she drove the truck pulling the hay trailer around while he swung the heavy bales onto it. It was work that really required a third person, to stack the bales, but it was easier than when Reese had had to do it by himself. When she didn’t go out with him, she continued with the project of scraping the house.
He finally noticed the difference in the house and investigated. The dusting of white paint chips on the ground told him all he needed to know.
He leaned against the kitchen cabinet and crossed his arms. “Are you scraping the house?”
“Yep.”
“Don’t pull the Gary Cooper routine on me. I want it stopped right now.”
“The routine or the scraping?”
“Both.”
“The house can’t be painted until the old paint is scraped off,” she said reasonably.
“I can’t afford the paint, so it doesn’t make any difference. And I don’t want you climbing around on a fourteen-foot ladder. What if you fell while I’m out on the range?”
“What if you got hurt out on the range by yourself?” she retorted. “I’m careful, and I haven’t had any trouble so far. It shouldn’t take too much longer.”
“No,” he said, enunciating carefully. “I can’t afford the paint, and even if I could I wouldn’t let you do the scraping.”
“You don’t have time for it, so who else is going to do it?”
“For the third time,” he yelled, “I can’t afford the paint! What does it take to make you understand that?”
“That’s something else we’ve never talked about. What makes you think we can’t afford the paint? I supported myself before I married you, you know.” She put her hands on her hips and faced off with him. “I have both a checking and a savings account, which I transferred to a bank in Billings. I also have a trust fund that I inherited from Grandma Lily. It isn’t a fortune by any means, but we can certainly afford a few gallons of paint!”
Reese’s face was like granite. “No. Remember our prenuptial agreement? What’s yours is yours and what’s mine is mine. If you spent your money on the ranch it would go a l
ong way toward negating that agreement, giving you a claim to it on the basis of upkeep.”
She poked him in the chest, her jaw jutting forward. “For one thing, G. Reese Duncan, I’m not planning on getting a divorce, so I don’t give a flip what’s in your precious agreement. For another, how much would it cost to paint the house? A hundred dollars? Two hundred?”
“Closer to two hundred, and no, by God, you’re not buying the paint!”
“I’m not only going to buy it, I’m going to paint it! If you’re so set on protecting the ranch from my scheming, then we’ll draw up a contract where you agree to repay me for the paint—and my time, too, if you insist—and that will take care of any claim I could make against you. But I live here, too, you know, and I want the outside to look as nice as the inside. Next spring I’m planting flowers in the flower beds, so if you object to that we might as well fight it out now. The only choice you have right now is the color you want the house painted, and your choices are white and white.” She was yelling by the time she finished, her face flushed.
He was more furious than she’d ever seen him before. “Do whatever the hell you want,” he snapped and slammed out of the kitchen.
She did. The next time they went into town she bought the paint and brushes and paid for them with one of her own checks, glaring at him and daring him to start again. He carried the paint out to the truck with ill grace. The high point of that day was when they stopped at the café for coffee and listened to Floris berating her customers.
She had the house painted by the middle of August, and had developed a healthy respect for people who painted houses for a living. It was some of the hardest work she’d ever done, leaving her shoulders and arms aching by the end of the day. The most aggravating part was painting the hundreds of thin porch railings; the most nerve-racking was doing the second floor, because she had to anchor herself to something. But when it was finished and the house gleamed like a jewel, and the shutters wore a new coat of black all-weather enamel, she was prouder of her efforts than she had ever been before of anything she’d done.
Even Reese grudgingly admitted that the house looked nice and she’d done a good job, but he still resented the fact that she’d done it. Maybe it was only male pride, but he didn’t want his wife paying for something when he couldn’t afford it himself.
His wife. By the time they had been married two months, she had insinuated herself so completely into his life that there wasn’t a portion of it she hadn’t touched. She had even rearranged his underwear drawer. Sometimes he wondered how she managed to accomplish as much as she did when her pace seldom exceeded a stroll, but it was a fact that she got things done. In her own way she worked as hard as he did.
One hot morning at the end of August she discovered that she didn’t have enough flour to do the day’s cooking. Reese had already left for the day and wouldn’t be coming back for lunch, so she ran upstairs and got ready. It was almost time they replenished their supplies anyway, so she carried the grocery list with her. It would save an extra trip if she did all the shopping while she was in town.
She loved listening to Floris, so she stopped by the café and had coffee and pie. After Floris had sent her only other customer stomping out in anger, she came over to Madelyn’s booth and sat down.
“Where’s that man of yours today?”
“Out on the range. I ran out of flour and came in to stock up.”
