Chapter 16

Marnie was still riled up about Susan and Ann's deception and she made no bones about letting everyone know it.

Jacob took about all he could stand in the first 15 minutes the four of them were inside.

"OK," he said finally. "We understand that you think you should have been filled in on something that affected you. You probably should have been. But now you know how it feels to have someone else plan your life for you."

Marnie turned to Jacob with an incredulous look.

"That's what we tried to do with Jim and Juliette," he said. "I know you didn't like the idea of letting him buy the land. But he wasn't going to go for it any other way. Juliette would have put her foot down on it. I heard what she told you about the bride's price. That's what the hundred acres is for. But those two have got to decide this is what they want. We can't just tell them it's best for them. They ain't our kids."

Marnie sat thoughtfully for a few minutes.

"Well, I guess I got put in my place," she said with a rueful smile.

"Marnie, your place is just where it always was," Susan said. "But you can't do everything. You say we're a family and we're all equal in things. Well, it might seem that way to you but it don't always seem that way to others. Jim and Juliette would have fought it. I saw that. Ann saw it. Jacob saw it. I planned to ask Jacob later if he thought it might be better to let them buy it from us. He set a reasonable price for the property. More than reasonable, really. But those two need to know they can stand on their own. They already know we'll always be there for them but they need to know they don't need us to be in order for this to sit right."

"Yeah, OK," Marnie said with a shake of her head. "I sometimes get my head around something and I can't let it go. They're getting a house and 75 acres. Ann, do you still plan to let them raise your horses over there if they want?"

"Our horses," Ann correctly sweetly. "I wanted to talk to you about that. Now, Juliette says Jim don't want a bride's price. That don't sit well with me. It's tradition. I think a dozen horses is a right price for Jim taking Juliette off our hands. Lord knows she was a handful to keep around here."

Susan laughed.

"Marnie's brother thought Jonathan should have to pay for me — because I'm unbroken," she said with a chuckle. "Who would have known that almost three years later I'm still unbroken."

"I always figured I would get broken in at a whorehouse by the time I turned 13," Ann said. "Turns out I'm almost 17 and it looks like I might never get broke in."

Three pairs of eyes settled on Jacob.

"I think we should wait until Jim and Juliette get things straightened out for themselves," Jacob said. "But, well, I've done some thinking on things."

Susan and Ann leaned forward to listen.

"Well, you know that law Texas passed a few months ago?" Jacob said with resignation. "It means I can't marry you legal like."

Marnie laughed which caused the women's heads to jerk toward her.

"You can marry them legal like if you want to," she said. "At least one of us. You and I ain't no more legal than you and they are."

Jacob supposed that was true. Although there was times he felt like it, he wasn't ready to trade Marnie in just yet. But given her recent moods he thought it probably unhealthy for him to joke about it.

"I guess that's the case," Jacob amended. "We ain't got no piece of paper here and we ain't never been before a judge or a preacher. But, well, I think we'd be OK anyway. Marnie, what was that word you told me about?"

Marnie thought for a moment before she recalled what Jacob was talking about.

"Grandfathered," she said brightly.

"Yeah, grandfathered," he repeated. "That means that if we was already married then we still are. They aren't going to make a man choose between his wives. But it means the wife can move on if she decides to. It was real tricky the way they did it.

"Anyhow, well, I know you two have been calling yourself Dunleavy for two or three years," Jacob added. "And I know that most folks in town already think we're married. So I guess it means we are."

Jacob was trying to find the right words but they just didn't come to him. He had been trying for the past few weeks to find the perfect way to ask Susan and Ann to be his wives.

"What I'm trying to say," he stammered. "Is that, well, I love you both as much as I love anyone in this world. I can't imagine how the parts of my life that you are would have been filled without you. Any man in a hundred miles would cut off an arm to be your husband. I hope you two know that. Hell, all three of you should know that."

Three smiles greeted Jacob when he glanced up. He wasn't sure if he was saying the right words or they just enjoyed seeing him embarrassed and flustered.

Ann put her hand on his.

"Jacob, you have probably trotted every man within a hundred miles over here to see one of us," she said. "I'm pretty sure that Juliette saw every man in 20 miles during the first six months she lived here. But well, we're pretty partial to the man we already live with. Leastways, I am."

Susan nodded her agreement.

"I think I realized in Brockton that the only reason I wanted to marry Jonathan was to get away from Marnie's brother," Susan said.

She had stopped calling the man her father on the day she left Brockton for the last time.

"I just wanted gone from them and I convinced myself that Jonathan was the answer," Susan continued. "Course he wasn't and I would have found myself here probably in the future. I put on airs here the first few months because I was trying to act like Jonathan. I wanted him to think I was worldly enough for him to take me to Boston or New York. But I found the man of my dreams while I was over in Brockton. It just wasn't Jonathan.

"When you sat behind me on Red that morning and I felt your arms around my waist I felt something I had never felt before," she admitted. "Course, when I heard you and Marnie going at it a couple of nights before I felt almost the same thing but I didn't really know what it was. Sad thing is, I felt the same thing when you paddled my behind for me. Jacob, I was already in love with you before we even got back here. I know it makes me sound like a whore being able to love one man one day and another man the next."

"Don't you say that," Ann said hotly. "You didn't love that man in Brockton. You told me that yourself. You didn't love him any more than he loved you."

Susan smiled at her friend.

"I guess you're right," Susan said. "But I'm sure that's how it looked to Jacob."

"That's not how it looked to me at all," Jacob answered. "I thought I brought back a different girl from Brockton. You were always pretty to me, Susan. But you were downright beautiful when we got back."

Susan blushed.

"Well, then what have you been waiting for?" she asked. "I thought either it was that or you were waiting until Ann was old enough so you can take us both. But that came and went too."

"I don't know what I was waiting for," Jacob replied. "I'm just glad none of my schemes to get you two hitched worked out."

Ann smacked his arm lightly.

"I think Jacob knows that I was in love with him from the very first night," she said as her face turned beet red. "Well, I probably didn't love him until the second or third night. But that first night, after he had me put my clothes back on, as I laid down on his shoulder I thought to myself that I'm going to marry this man someday. Jacob put his arm around my shoulder and let me cuddle up right on his chest. I slept that way for almost the whole time we were on the trail — and I've only gotten to sleep that way once more since we got off the trail.