James lay in a narrow bed with a thick flannel quilt folded down to the bottom. On the other side of the room, a sleepy-eyed Paul watched them from a similar bed.
Mariah, who’d been sitting beside her boy, stood and backed away from John James’s side, so Wes could approach.
“Hey, big fella,” Wes said to her son.
“Hey. How come you walk like that anyway?”
“Got my leg stuck in a bear trap last winter,” Wes told him. “It’s all but healed now.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” John James told him, his eyes solemn.
Wes’s chest got tight. “I’m glad, too.”
“I dreamed about you a hundred times.”
“You did?”
“Uh-huh. An’ you look just like I dreamed.”
“Did I walk like this in your dreams?”
“Don’t matter none to me.”
Uncertainty overcame Wes in a torrent. This was why he was here. This boy needed a father. But how would he know what to do? How would he show John James love and teach him all he needed to know to grow up to be confident and proud? He didn’t even know how to tell a child good-night. “Sleep well,” he said.
A moment of silence passed.
“Papa?”
He wouldn’t feel bad. He wouldn’t. “Yes?”
“Mama says I’m not too big for hugs.”
Wes’s throat constricted. This impressionable, fragile little person believed Wes was the father he’d been yearning for. Wes had set himself up for an unbelievably huge responsibility. It didn’t matter he’d never been on either end of a night like this. It didn’t matter he couldn’t find words. It didn’t matter where he’d come from or that he had no previous examples of fatherhood or family. All that mattered was making a difference in this child’s life…a difference for the better.
He perched on the edge of the bed. The instant he leaned forward, John James’s skinny arms shot out and closed around his neck.
The little boy smelled like clean sheets and castile soap. His hair was cool and soft against Wes’s cheek.
A hundred nights gazing at the aurora borealis couldn’t compare to the wonder of a child in his arms.
Wes had come home.
Behind her, her sisters and cousin sniffled, and Mariah turned to see them dabbing tears from their cheeks. She had tears in her eyes, too, but they were from biting her tongue so she wouldn’t scream at the intruder to clear the hell out of her son’s room and leave their home.
“Go to sleep now,” she said to John James.
“Papa, can you ride with me to school in the morning?”
Wesley tucked the covers around the boy’s shoulders. “I suppose that’d be okay.”
Mariah turned and headed out. Tucking in her son, walking him to school, letting her boy call him Papa! What was next?
Her sisters and Faye joined a row forming in the hallway. As she stepped into the hall, Mariah came face-to-face with the half dozen young women, all wearing expectant grins.
They appeared suspiciously happy about something, and she didn’t like it one bit.
“Your room is ready,” Faye said and took Wes’s arm to lead him forward to the opposite door.
Hold on, you’re taking him to my room! Mariah thought in a panic.
Sylvia caught her hand and smiled into her face. “Mariah’s coming with us for a few minutes, Wes.”
As the youngest and still unmarried sister, Sylvia had a room of her own at the end of the hall near their parents. She and Annika swept Mariah into the confines of that room and guided her behind the dressing screen where a pitcher of warm water, towels and fragrant soap awaited.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mariah asked.
“Quickly now,” Annika said. “Don’t keep him waiting.”
“What is this all about?” she asked.
Annika didn’t wait, but came right behind the screen and turned Mariah away to unbutton her dress and push it to her hips. “We didn’t get to do all this when you were first married because you were in Chicago. So we’re doing it now.”
Faye spoke from the other side of the screen. “It’s easy enough to see that things are a little awkward between you two. We just want to give you a nudge in the right direction.”
“It’s natural to be nervous,” Annika told her. “Your husband’s been gone so long. But this is an exciting time, Mariah. Try to relax and enjoy his return.”
Annika wet a cloth and soaped it. Mariah took it from her and shooed both of her sisters to the other side of the screen. “None of this is necessary.”
They weren’t listening to her. Even her cousins had filed into the room, and now stood giggling and teasing. Trapped in her web of deception, Mariah washed and dried, then yelped when Sylvia spritzed her with cologne. Both her sisters dropped a voluminous silky sheer nightdress over her head and tied the ribbons.
Mariah looked down in mortification. “You can see right through this!”
Faye laughed. “That’s the idea!”
“Where did this come from?” Mariah asked.
“It’s a gift from us.” Annika tugged her forward and urged her to sit at Sylvia’s dressing table. Mariah crossed her hands over her breasts in embarrassment. “I need my wrapper.”
“You can’t wear that old thing tonight,” Annika told her.
In minutes, her hair was brushed, her cheeks powdered and Annika applied glycerin to her lips. Faye dropped a floral-patterned satin robe around her shoulders and Mariah gladly grabbed it and closed it around her.
They guided her along the hallway with the utmost giggling and shushing, finally pausing before her closed door.
“We’re so happy for you, Mariah,” Annika said in a throaty whisper. “Now get reacquainted with your husband.”
One of them rapped and opened the door. Several pairs of hands urged Mariah through the opening. At the very last second, the robe was lifted away and out.
Mariah stood inside her closed door wearing only the sheer nightdress and a look of horror.
Chapter Five
An oil lamp glowed from the top of a bureau, and a welcoming
