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Married and widowed three times, and she was now the age he had been when she’d left Fuquay to go to college! He’d thought she’d be safe there in Incarnate Word College. No men. The teachers were nuns. How did those three guys get to her so fast?
He’d find out.
Austin parked at his house, which he knew was now spotless. “Want to freshen up? Coffee?”
She didn’t even look at him. She told him, “No, thank you. You can take me home.”
Take her home! That jolted him. He looked at her and she was still looking out the window. Was she sick? “Don’t you want to see the new baby calf that’s just been born today?”
She turned big eyes to him and said, “Oh. Yes.” And she looked out the windshield. “Where is it?”
“Down at the cattle barn. It isn’t far.”
“Okay.”
They spent the entire rest of the morning at the barn. She smiled. She held a kitten on her lap. The barn dog loved Iris and quietly sat next to her, very alert and interested.
Since he had to do it in front of her, Austin was trying to think of a kind way to evict the dog and take its place. Austin knew he was too large to replace the kitten on her lap.
Austin asked one of the show-offy hands, “How’d you find the kitten?” Barn cats never allowed people to see their litters until the kittens could fend for themselves.
He heard another man tell Iris, “We heard them mewing. Their momma didn’t come back. Something musta happened to her. We—” he moved his hand and changed his wording “—this one is the only...survivor.”
The little ball of fur curled on Iris’s lap and purred. The men exchanged glances. Any male allowed that close to her would purr.
And they looked at her. She’d been married three times. Their eyes narrowed and they watched her as they thought all sorts of things, but mostly how much money she’d have by then.
It took them a while, but they gradually realized that she was suffering. She was grieving. Then they looked at Austin. He was gentle to her. He wasn’t just watching her, he was watching over her. She was his.
They frowned at Austin for being so obvious. He wanted that woman. That was what he was doing today. He was getting a toehold. He was watching over her and distracting her from those three dead husbands.
He was showing her a new calf, and a kitten was curled on her lap right where a man’s hand wanted to be. Damn.
The momma cow was a milk cow and a pet anyway, so she didn’t mind the audience. She licked her baby and it brawled and staggered and stumbled.
Iris smiled. She sat discreetly on the straw, out of the way, and held the purring kitten on her lap. Her hands soothed and protected the kitten. It purred louder than any discreet cat would. Its purr rattled. It was safe there on her lap.
Austin watched his woman. When would she know that he was her next husband? How long would it be before he could put his face in her lap and purr?
The momma cow chewed on the fresh wheat grass they’d cut for her as a congratulations for having such a fine little bull calf. She watched as the new one staggered around quite well, and its bawl made a series of noises.
The spectators were all entertained...by Iris’s reactions. She watched the calf. She occasionally petted the kitten. She offered no comment at all. She was simply there.
That was plenty for the men. More were there than were needed. It seemed to Austin that the barn was crammed with curious men.
Austin didn’t object. It was a good time for them to view Iris and learn she belonged to their boss. -To him. To Austin Farrell. She was his.
Of course, she had to learn that little fact herself. How was he to go about that?
Over on the back porch of the main house, the cook rattled the iron stick around the iron triangle to announce lunch.
Austin had expected the men to vanish. They always vanished to the house when the cook rattled the iron triangle. However, while they were aware of the sound, the men watched Iris to see what she would do. If she stayed in the barn, some of the men would skip lunch, Austin knew.
Austin went to her and held out his hand. “That’s the signal for lunch. Please sit with us.”
As she started to decline, the men said things like, “Yeah.” “Stay.” “The eats are good here.” “Try it,” and “We don’t mind.”
She heard it all. She took Austin’s proffered hand and rose effortlessly. Even with the help to rise, she appeared unknowing of the rest who were there. She kept the kitten in her other hand. She curled it against her skinny chest and smoothed its fur.
The men’s faces were vulnerable.
The barn dog followed along as though he was one of the group. Since he would make the house dog get hostile, Austin told the barn dog to stay.
The dog obeyed. But the dog stood in the barn door watching after those leaving as if he’d been abandoned on a raft that was going farther out to the sea.
Lunch was family style at the long plank table. The cook watched the crowd come in and his squint lines got pale when he realized a lady was going to share their food.
That should have rattled the man, but he was a cook. A real one. And without obvious panic, he made her plate dainty and attractive.
Some of the men mentioned they had their food slopped onto their plates. How come the lady got all that attention and they didn’t?
While they ate, everybody competed for Iris’s attention. They told stories. They ribbed one another and cleaned up jokes. The jokes weren’t quite so funny that way, but they made her smile.
Her little smile was like winning a laurel.
Everybody there knew who Iris was and exactly what were her circumstances. Isolated people found out things and shared whatever they discovered. Gossip was paramount.
Lunch took a little longer than usual. Austin allowed it. Even the cook got a cup of coffee and sat down to listen. The story competition was a delight. Too bad somebody didn’t tape it all. Some of the older hands told stories of long ago, which had been handed down the line. How accurate were they now? How much had they honed?
Austin was patient because Iris did listen. She moved her eyes to the one talking, and she listened. She never did laugh out loud, but here and there, she did smile at the stories they told.
It was like a gift, that smile. She was so fragile.
Austin knew that being here was good for Iris. She needed to listen, not to respond. Right now, she could not. But she could hear. And she did.
He was especially pleased with his bunch. They were bent on distracting her. While calling attention to themselves, nobody mentioned loss or grief, but there was humor in everything if you just looked for it.
They told stories of hardship that were hilarious. They told about rescues that caused guffaws.
They didn’t speak of love. Not at all. There were no quarrels mentioned. No deaths were allowed to be touched upon. She’d had enough of that for some time to come.
Austin wondered how they’d all known to censor their chatter and their jokes so well. He looked over his crew and knew yet again that they were superior men.
Well, for now, they were.
Actually, they were ornery, hardheaded, obstinate deadbeats. How could they be so moxie now with such a fragile flower?
How could they not?
With her carrying the purring kitten, whose head must be getting dizzy with its vibrating sounds, Austin finally took Iris home. She had given no indication of being ready to leave his place.
He’d wrestled with just keeping her there until she said something about leaving. But how would her parents feel about him just...keeping their daughter?
Well, three other men had. She’d probably never even had a fling. They’d all just courted her and married her.
What about the second one? Had he just moved in on her? It hadn’t been long after the first one was buried that she’d married the second.
It had been almost a year.
On the other side of his truck, with the cat on her lap in exhausted sleep, Iris sat as though she’d always sat there. She didn’t talk to him at all.
He asked her, “Want to name the little bull calf?”
She looked over at Austin. “What would I name him.
“Not Spots. That sounds too much like a dog.”
She lifted her chin then lowered it to indicate she agreed.
Austin waited for her to say something. But she just sat there. So he asked, “What would be a good name for a grown bull?”
She silently considered. But she gave no names. She looked out the car window.
He said, “How about Bull’s Eye?”
She slowly looked over to him. He saw the movement from the corner of his eye. When she was actually looking at him, he glanced over and smiled before he looked back at the road.
She said, “Okay.”
Austin had been pushing for her to counter with another name. Now the new little calf would carry that name all the rest of his days. Bull’s Eye. She’d never know how many jokes there’d be that Austin would have to listen to again and again. Endlessly. For the bull it wouldn’t make no never mind, but for Austin... Good gravy!
Austin took Iris back to her mother and was pleasant and cordial to her hovering parents. Of course, he’d gotten there when it was almost suppertime and so he accepted the hospitable offer of something to wet his whistle. He sat and sipped his drink and visited so that no one could hustle him out of there.
Since he had settled in so well, there was nothing for the Smiths to do but suggest that he might stay for supper. It was so weak an offer that he should have declined, but he looked at his watch. He acted surprised as he saw the time it was, and he said, “Why...thank you. I will.”
At the table were the middle daughters and the young son. And there was Iris who was silent. She moved the food on her plate and didn’t join in on the conversations that eased around the table.
Her sister Emily was animated and flirty with Austin. She was twenty-two and worked at the telephone company office. Her animation was frowned on by her mother, but Emily ignored her mother’s squinted eyes and chatted and laughed.
Sixteen-year-old Andy just ate. He was in that growing period in which he whipped down his food like a plague of locusts.
Jennifer and Frances were simply amused observers, and at times they shared hilarious glances.
Austin knew they were simply amused and not being nasty. Their daddy wasn’t as certain. He eyed the two whose shared humor was especially sharp.
When dinner was over, they all cleared the table, and Austin did his share. But he didn’t leave. He amused Jennifer and Frances so that their eyes sparkled.
The time went past and the parents exchanged glances. Austin gave no sign of leaving.
Edwina raised her eyebrows in question to her husband, but he shrugged.
However, at about nine-thirty, Austin did begin to leave. As he got up he said, “will....” in prelude.
Iris, too, rose and said, “Good night.” And she just left the room and went off up the stairs and was...gone.
So it was her family who saw Austin out to his truck.
Three
In the two days that followed, Austin paced and thought and groaned. He didn’t for one minute think there was any way, at all, to get through the invisible, steel shield that surrounded Iris Smith Osburn Dallas Alden.
However, he felt the urgent need to see her. Why? Well, he...just...needed to see her. She was vulnerable. She’d already had three husbands. What if some other man got to her and convinced her to take him! Austin needed to be close to her so that she remembered him first.
But he seriously doubted that Iris thought anything at all about poor old Austin Farrell. She was oblivious of anyone. She was not in touch with the rest of the world. She endured the time that passed so slowly.
She was... Well, when Austin had escorted her to the play, she had watched, and she had absorbed it. Had she agreed with it? Now, that would be interesting.
Austin got his Stetson and went back to his pickup to go over to Iris’s house to see her. Well, the house actually belonged to her parents and her siblings. How droll that he thought of it as being hers.
After he knocked once on the door, it was her mother who opened the door and smiled. She called to her daughter upstairs. Austin declined going into the living room and finding someplace to sit. He waited at the bottom of the stairs.
Mrs. Osburn Dallas Alden came down the stairs. She had on a different loose, long, carelessly wrinkled dress and her hair was not tidy. She had used no makeup at all. Even so, she was the woman he wanted to be with for the rest of his life.
Austin smiled.
Iris glanced at him in an uninterested manner. The time passed. She said nothing, so he didn’t, either. They stood there. She finally asked, “What is it?”
“Come see the calf. He’s steadier.”
Without any response—at all—she walked on past him.
His mouth opened in shock because he thought she was snubbing him entirely. However, at the front door, she turned to it, reached over and opened it, went through the door and on outside toward his truck.
Recovering from his shock, and by striding with some push, Austin got to the truck before she did, and he opened the truck door for her. He stood there with the door opened for her and he watched her.
Again, Iris got into the vehicle without paying any attention to Austin.
He was transportation. That was obvious.
He went around the back of the pickup and got in on the driver’s side. He glanced over at her as he put in the key, started the motor, and eased along, saying nothing. But using the car phone, he called her mother and told her where Iris was and where she wanted to go.
Her mother said, “Thank you” in a very tender, relieved manner.
Now...why did her family want her with him? Or were they just grateful that they’d know now where she was and with whom? He was the “whom.” It was better to be with her, albeit silently, than to pace his empty house all by himself, just wondering where she was.
Iris said no word, at all, on the entire way to Austin’s place.
When the two arrived there, at the barn, she was out of the pickup before he’d rightly stopped and gotten out to help her.
