Page 62 of Wyoming True

He moved closer, touching her cheek with a tender hand. “Ida, I’ll have both my parents’ names in the wedding announcement. You have to have yours, as well. Even though we’re both orphans.”

She relaxed a little. “It still hurts,” she confessed. “Especially Mama, because of the way she died.”

“I miss my mother, too. I’d like to think they’ll be floating around somewhere, watching,” he added with a tender smile.

She smiled back. “That’s a nice way to look at it.”

He removed his fingers. Touching her was disconcerting. It was a bad time to remember how her mouth felt under his. He hadn’t kissed her often, but the memory was unusually vivid.

“Your first marriage was from necessity. The second was a dead loss. So wear white, would you?”

“People would be outraged...” she began worriedly.

“The people who matter won’t,” he returned firmly. “You’re wearing it for me. Not for the masses. All right?”

She felt lighter all of a sudden, as if several problems had just been neatly solved. “Well, if you’re sure?” she said.

“I’m sure.” And he smiled.

SHEWORRIEDABOUTMINA.It had been obvious that Jake wasn’t quite over his feelings for her, and that he was still wounded from her rejection. You couldn’t make people love you, that was true. But it was equally hard to get over unrequited love. It had surprised her a little that Jake hadn’t been in love before. He’d confessed to a couple of infatuations with women who were totally out of his life experience, but they’d only been infatuations, soon forgotten. Mina had broken his heart.

It wasn’t as if she was jealous, Ida assured herself. Then just as quickly, she admitted that she was, but only in the silence of her mind. She had no right to be jealous, was the thing. She and Jake were getting married because they had a lot in common and they were both alone. Looking back at her easy acceptance, she wondered if she was doing the right thing. She was only a bandage over a festering wound. He might never get over Mina. Worse, he might fall in love again, with a woman who loved him back, and there would be Ida, right in the way. It would be a gamble, and she was a woman who rarely took chances. Well, except for that time with the slot machines where she’d lost a rather small amount of money. It had taught her that gambling could be a slippery slope.

Jake had gone off to see to the arrangements, and Ida sat in the living room with the workbasket she’d brought from home. She loved to knit. It kept her hands and her mind busy. She was doing a yellow blanket with the smallest gauge of soft yarn, made especially for babies. She made these to give away. She didn’t have friends anymore, but she knew people locally who were expecting. Yellow was a safe color, when someone didn’t know the sex of their unborn child. And she loved yellow anyway.

Her hands were busy with the wooden needles when Maude stuck her head around the door. “Do you want lunch, Mrs. Merridan?” she asked. “I’ve got homemade soup and crackling bread.”

“Crackling bread?” Ida exclaimed.

The housekeeper’s face flushed as if she was worried about making a bad choice of foods to cook.

“I love crackling bread!” Ida exclaimed quickly and was glad to see Maude’s face relax. “My father used to make it for us,” she added softly. “It was one of the few things he could cook, but he made it wonderfully well!”

Maude smiled. “Then come on to the kitchen and have some. Unless you’d rather eat in the dining room?” she asked.

“Oh, no,” Ida said at once. “The dining room is a bit too formal for me. I always eat in the kitchen at home. We used to when my parents were alive,” she added with faint sadness as they went into the kitchen.

Ida put the food on the table. “What would you like to drink?” she asked.

“Oh, I’ll get the coffee. Go ahead and sit,” Maude said.

Ida was hungry and hadn’t realized it. She tasted the soup and the corn bread. “These are delicious! Even my dad couldn’t have made the crackling bread any better.”

Maude put a mug of black coffee in front of her along with cream and sugar in silver containers. “I’m glad you like it.” She paused. “How long ago did you lose your parents, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I don’t mind,” Ida said. “Please, sit down. I know you’ve been on your feet all morning. Wouldn’t you like a cup of coffee, too?”

Maude smiled. “Yes, I would.”

She got herself a cup and sat down.

“My father died of a heart attack when he was still young,” Ida said between bites of the delicious meal. “He was in the doctor’s office at the time, and nothing they did could save him. My mother was devastated. Me, too. She stayed alive just for me, but she missed my father every day of her life. When I was eighteen, she went on a cruise. I was working at a business in Denver that my first husband owned.” Her face tautened, just a little. “Somehow, Mama fell overboard. They never found her.”

“That would be far worse than if they had,” Maude said quietly. “It must have been hard on you.”

“I was very sheltered,” she replied. “I’d never even dated much. None of the men I knew ever thought about marriage and children. They just wanted to have a good time. I can’t abide superficial people,” she added quietly. She smiled wistfully. “My first husband was all sympathy and comfort. He married me. I thought it was odd that he didn’t, well, want to sleep with me. He said that we would be soul mates, but not physically.”

“Goodness,” Maude exclaimed.