Carla Kelly (17 page)

“Paul, honestly, when was the last time you looked innocent?”

He just laughed.

While Paul headed down the hall, Julia went to the wardrobe and put on his robe. The room was cool now. She glanced at the bed and rolled her eyes. At least the mattress was still in place.
It does squeak
, she thought,
but no one will hear that from me
.

She made the bed quickly, smoothing down Iris's quilt with no feeling of sadness. “You may have been younger than I, my dear, but you always were smarter about affairs of the heart,” she murmured.

Dressed except for his suit coat, Paul proved useful enough helping her into her wedding dress. “I am becoming an expert with hooks and eyes, but these little pearl buttons are a trial,” he complained. “They take so long.”

“They wouldn't if you didn't stop and kiss me with every button,” she pointed out. When she was dressed, she took the blue garter from the Double Tipi out of her bag and handed it to him.

“That's from your sweethearts on the Double Tipi,” she said, sitting down and lifting her skirt. “Do you think they borrowed it from one of the working girls at the Ecstasy?”

“Wow.” Paul slid the garter high up her thigh and laughed when she slid it down to her knee. “I don't want to know where they got it! That's the blue. What about old, new, and borrowed?”

Julia handed him a modest gold chain. “Mama wore this at her reception,” she said, turning around.

He worked the clasp. She closed her eyes at the feel of his fingers and his breath on her neck. “My dress is new, but I forgot about borrowed.”

“No problem.” He tugged his father's medicine bag out of his shirt front. “Just stick this down the front of your dress. Or I can loan you my tie.”

She gave him a critical look after she helped him into his suit coat and fiddled with the platinum watch fob she had given him for a wedding present. “Excellent. Thank goodness wrinkles don't show much with black wool.” She glanced at the clock. “We have five minutes now.” She went to the window and pulled back the drapes a crack. “My goodness, people are already there! Let's sneak out the back door and let ourselves into the kitchen.”

“Where your great-aunties are,” he said with a smile.

“And probably scandalized.”

He shrugged. “This sort of thing doesn't show on your face, sport. We'll just tell them we've been playing strip poker.”

Julia groaned and slapped his arm.

“Is there some Church admonition about saving yourself until
after
the reception?” he asked as they let themselves out the Callahan's back door. “Did we break some rule?”

“No,” she replied with a laugh. “If I ever get up the nerve, I'll ask my mother about her wedding day.”

“I think I already know her answer,” he said, opening the back door to the Darling house. “She certainly knew where she wanted
us
this afternoon.”

To her relief, the great-aunties didn't say a thing, only gave her sidelong glances in the kitchen, which she passed through with as much dignity as she could muster. After cutting her three-tiered Queen Cake with the spun sugar ornamentation and blushing at Papa's extravagant toast and his welcome of Paul into the family, they spent the next two hours circulating among the guests.

Hickmans were out in force early in the reception, even if Ed and his brother pleaded business further east and a train to catch. “Papa's expecting you both in Koosharem next week,” Ed told Paul. Julia was properly awed when President Smith, his counselor Anthon Lund, and their wives stopped in briefly, but touched when Spencer Davison introduced her to a tall blond lady with shy eyes.

“Good for you, Spencer,” Julia whispered in his ear as she hugged him. “I know Iris is happy too.”

Everything comes full circle
, she thought as she watched Spencer with her parents.
This only means more people to love in the eternities
.

Mama told Julia on Sunday at church that the aunties left Saturday afternoon, after several surreptitious glances at the Callahan's house and giggles between the two of them. “I think your afternoon antics will become family legend, but who cares?” she whispered. “By the way, glad to see you. Have you done any cooking, or have you been surviving on the wedding cake I left at the back door?”

“Wedding cake.” Julia leaned closer to her mother. “I was going to do bacon and eggs yesterday morning, but Paul said it would take too long.”

Mama absorbed that with a smile. “Have you opened any of the presents yet?”

“Not one,” Julia whispered back. “That will have to wait until we return from St. George.”

“I'm happy you took time out for Sunday School,” Mama teased.

“And I'm happy we're on the late schedule,” Julia whispered, then smiled sweetly at Papa, who was about to shush his flock; she knew all the signs.

They left Monday morning on the Short Line for Koosharem, which meant getting off at Scipio and continuing the journey by stage, over bone-cracking roads where the snow was melting.

“No wonder Uncle Albert didn't come for the wedding,” Paul commented, hanging onto a strap with one hand and keeping Julia in her seat with the other. “I have satisfied my curiosity about Utah roads.”

Their stay in Koosharem was brief, just long enough to visit Uncle Albert—who seemed more at peace, to Julia's eyes—and to meet more Hickman cousins. Koosharem's only hotel had burned to the ground a year ago, so they spent the night with Uncle Albert, who kept Paul awake until long past midnight, telling stories of the family's experiences in Utah. Julia gave up and went to bed, but she woke up when Paul joined her. She put her cold feet on his legs. He yelped, then gathered her close, his arms around her waist.

“He wouldn't say a word about that handcart journey,” he whispered to her, long after she thought he slept. “Said you had some things to tell me about that, and then he clammed up. Better tell me, Julia, because he won't.”

She did, whispering of Uncle Albert's lifetime of guilt that he had fooled his sister and left her stranded for the Shoshone to find.

“That would explain him,” Paul said, after a long pause. “I don't know if you noticed, but for all that he wants to talk to me, I must remind him of a terrible time. He can hardly bear to look at me.”

“I noticed,” she said quietly. “I don't know if he'll ever give up the pain of what he sees as ruining your mother's life. He's kept that guilty secret so many years.” She rose up on one elbow to look at him better in the moonlight and touched his face. “I told him to let it go.” She kissed him. “But that's a whole lifetime of guilt to let go of.”

He was silent a long time, and then he ran his hand along her hip. “It's taken me a while to forgive that Mr. Otto who used to drink and sport and cheat his neighbors now and then.”

“Oh, him?” she asked, putting her hand over his. “I thought he drowned when you were baptized.”

He started to laugh, then kissed her hand when she put it over his mouth to quiet him. “Julia Otto, you are an amazing theologian, but you're precisely right. I like the new guy better too.”

“Good thing, cowboy,” she whispered, untying her clothing. “How quiet is the new guy?”

“Let's find out.”

St. George was warm and welcoming, with a new niece to admire and a sister-in-law grateful to stay in bed, nurse her baby, and let Julia cook. Assuming control of the range, she cooked all her brothers’ favorite dishes, pleased to work while her brothers and Paul got acquainted over the kitchen table and in the corral.

It made her heart happy to look out the kitchen window and watch the three men on horseback. She knew she had a critical eye, but there was no denying that Paul was the best horseman. She looked around at Mitch's wife and laughed at herself.

“Sorry, Julia, but Mitch is the better rider,” her sister-in-law said and turned her attention back to her baby. “Paul's a close second.”

Trust her brothers to do the right thing about housing them. Rather than crowd them into either of their houses on the ranch, David had elaborately handed her the key to their grandfather's little shack closer to the Virgin River, the house he had built when he came south years ago with other pioneers.

She took the key. “Iris and I used to play down there.” She tapped David with the key. “And you and Mitch used to peek in the window to scare us!”

David grinned. “Now you and Paul can play down there, and no one will peek. I promise.”

There wasn't any reason for the dream that night. After nearly two weeks of married life and no dream, she had begun to think it was over: the terror of the fire as she made herself small and tried to dig with broken fingernails into the cut bank, and the horror when she couldn't breathe.

“Julia. Julia. Wake up.” Paul's voice was soft, but firmly insistent as she gasped for breath and drew up into a small space, her arms tight around her knees. “Hey now. You can straighten out.”

“No! I'll die!” she sobbed. She started to shake.

Paul let out his breath in a long sigh. “Oh, honey,” he said. “Oh, honey. Just limber up a little. You'll be…”

“I'm afraid!” She sobbed out loud, resisting his attempt to straighten her legs.

He quit trying then and just put his arms around her as she shook and cried. “‘Dear Evalina, sweet Evalina, my love for thee will never, never die.’ ” He sang it over and over until she could breathe again. When he put his hands on her legs to straighten them, she let him, trying to control her ragged sobs as he hummed softly now. “Go back to sleep. I'm here and I'll keep you safe.”

She must have slept then, stretched out and held firmly by her husband, as though they were one body. When she woke in the morning, she was alone in the bed. She came awake gradually and smiled to see Paul's long legs propped up on the bed, as he sat in a chair by her. She watched him a moment, loving him with all her heart, as he read the Book of Mormon, something he did every morning, if they weren't otherwise engaged.

His slow smile told her he knew she was watching him. He put his railroad ticket bookmark back in place and closed the book.

“I'm sorry that happened,” she said. “I was hoping it wouldn't happen again.”

“No need to apologize to me,” he replied. He climbed back into bed with her. “I'll never know how terrible that was, will I?”

“No,” she said, her voice small. “Do you think I'll get over it?”

“I know you will.”

“But
when
?” She didn't want to whine, she truly didn't.

“We have eternity to find out, Darling. I've got the time if you've got the time.”

She slept, safe and comfortable. When she woke, the sun was high. She was alone again, but Paul had left his pillow next to her body this time.

He was standing on the front porch, looking at the river. She came up behind him and put her arms around his waist, leaning her head against his back.

“Let's go home, Julia. I'm hungry for my own land, and I want you on it. Let's go home.”

The most happy person to see them get on the eastbound Overland Express—together—was the conductor. With a roll of his eyes, he slapped his hand to his chest and breathed a fervent, “At last!”

“Who knew the Union Pacific hired comedians from a burlesque house?” Paul asked Julia as they sat down. He looked at her. “Darling, you're not paying attention.”

“No, I'm not,” she replied, all complaisance. “I'm thinking about the Double Tipi. I'm quite reconciled to the tack room, but I believe I will insist on a new privy.”

“I'm way ahead of you. That's the
only
thing completed!”

She yawned. Joined by their parents in the Callahan's house, they had opened presents until nearly midnight. Most of them were impractical for life on the Double Tipi, including more sharp-pointed grapefruit spoons, an umbrella stand, a punch bowl, and a miniature potted palm tree.

Mama asked Paul why he shook his head over the umbrella stand. “The potted palm I can understand,” she said, “but an umbrella stand could be useful.”

“Only in states where the wind doesn't blow the rain sideways,” he told her. “And as for the punch bowl… Julia, you can use that to wash dishes until we get a kitchen sink. I believe we'll leave the potted palm for the Callahans.”