“Neither, but you can take it as you like.”
Morgan faced forward. “You know, Miss Middlebourne, this is a peculiar conversation. Perhaps the most peculiar conversation I’ve ever entertained, especially when I account for the location and present company. You think you have another one like this in you before we reach the Pennyroyal?”
“I have no idea.”
He sighed. “Let’s finish this one, then.” He gave her a sideways glance. “What about you?”
“Me, Mr. Longstreet?”
“Children,” he said. “We are speaking of children. I’ve heard some women fear childbirth. Do you?”
Jane did not answer immediately. “No,” she said at last. “At least I don’t think I will.”
“And you’ll welcome children?”
“Of course.”
“Of course,” he repeated softly. “It’s been my experience that not all women do.”
“I am aware. It is difficult to imagine that I would ever count myself as one of those women.”
Morgan fell silent. He had one question left, the one he had never considered until Jane got him to wondering with her talk. He could let it sit, never say a word and hope for the best, but if the best turned out to be something literally ill conceived, he would have to live with knowing he could have asked her straight and trusted her answer.
He said, “I don’t know any way to put this to you except direct, and since that’s mostly how I am, it seems that’s how I should be.”
“What is it?”
“Are you already carrying some man’s child?”
Jane sucked in a breath.
Morgan waited, didn’t look away. He did not trust himself to read what he glimpsed in her eyes. She might have been stricken, embarrassed, shamed, or even hurt. What he needed was her word.
“No,” she said quietly, letting the breath ease out of her. “Let me say it plainly, Mr. Longstreet. I am not going to present you with anyone’s bastard.”
“You got me speculating with your talk,” he said. “I had to ask.”
Jane pressed her lips together, nodded faintly.
Morgan picked up the reins. “I think we’re done. You?”
She was long in answering, but finally she said, “Yes, I think we are done.”
“Very well, Miss Middlebourne, then I suggest we go back to the Pennyroyal by way of Grace Church. Pastor Robbins will make time for us, and I suppose we can scare up a couple of witnesses.” Morgan shifted so he had a clear view of Jane’s face, and then he regarded it for a long moment. Her emerald eyes were luminous, her smile just a cautious slip of a thing. “What do you say to that?”
“Yes,” she said on a thread of sound. “I say yes.”
By Jane’s reckoning, the ceremony took only fifteen minutes. It was formally witnessed by the pastor’s wife, and at Jane’s suggestion, Ida Mae Sterling, but this being Bitter Springs, there were also bystanders to the exchange of vows. Walt Mangold came courtesy of Mrs. Sterling’s invitation, and then Walt hailed the marshal on his way to the church and said sure, they could walk over together. Ted Rush had business with the marshal so when he stepped out of his hardware store and spied Cobb and Walt loping toward the church, he followed, partly for business reasons, but mostly out of curiosity. Buster Johnson, the sole customer in the hardware store when Ted stepped outside, finally made his selection among the hammers and went looking for Ted. Catching sight of Ted on the church steps, Buster took off after him, swinging the hammer as he went. Abigail Johnson left the mercantile in search of her son who had been sent to the hardware store for half a pound of nails. It was simply in her mother’s nature to hurry after Buster before he hurt someone—or more likely himself—with a hammer he had no business carrying. She would later confide to Jane that her boy had a college degree and the sense of a squirrel.
Jane was entirely pleased with the ceremony. In Pastor Robbins’s capable hands, the reading was done with particular care for the serious nature of marriage and amusing acknowledgment of the adventure. Morgan demonstrated no hesitation in repeating the words that would bind him to Jane, and although he made every declaration quietly, it seemed to Jane that he was not reciting, but speaking from his heart. She wanted to hold that thought close, embrace it, no matter that it was the feeling of a moment, a wildly improbable notion that might annoy him if she shared it. Jane doubted that she ever would. The ceremony they had concluded had infinitely more in common with a business arrangement than a love match, and she cautioned herself that she would be wise to remember that. A business arrangement might end amicably. A love match never could.
Morgan escorted Jane back to the Pennyroyal with the intention of collecting her belongings. This did not come to pass as quickly as she thought he might have liked as they were trailed to the hotel by Pastor Robbins, the two witnesses, and all five of the bystanders. There were congratulations and best wishes all around, and the celebratory air evolved into a reception with food and drink and laughter. Customers from the saloon came to the dining room to observe the fuss and stayed to enjoy it. Diners crossed to the saloon to take more drink. After an hour, Jane believed she had been introduced to all of Bitter Springs, certainly to everyone who was able to squeeze into the Pennyroyal.
For herself, Jane did not mind, but she thought Morgan suffered the attention. On the few occasions when they were separated by well-wishers, she noticed him sidling toward the edge of the room only to be drawn back by someone calling him over to their circle.
A young woman whose name she could not recall was pressed to play the piano. Terry McCormick, the town’s mayor, held up a fiddle and joined her. The music moved people to push aside the saloon tables and make room to jump and stomp and carry on. The raucous energy on display was wholly unknown to Jane. The walls of the Pennyroyal shook. The floor trembled under her feet. The mirror behind the long mahogany bar reflected golden, rippling light as the lamps and lanterns wobbled in place.
Jane stood with Morgan on the perimeter of the dancing, fascinated by the frenzy but not inclined to join in. She did not know when she slipped her arm in his, and once she was aware of it, she did not try to disengage. For the longest time, neither did he, but when Buster Johnson swung Cil Ross too close to where Jane was standing, it was Morgan who pulled her out of harm’s way and kept her there, one hand at the small of her back.
