Chapter 12

"What are going to do about Susan and Ann?" Marnie asked Jacob a day later. The storm was slowing down but it was still raining pretty hard.

"What do you mean?" Jacob wondered.

"Well, they're getting to that age," Marnie said. "Hell, Susan is already past that age. She's going to be 19 next month. Ann is gonna be 15."

Jacob sat down heavily.

"Ann says she is going to be 15," Jacob asserted. "I somehow doubt that."

"Hon, she's had her monthlies for two years now," Marnie said. "Hell, once we got her back here and started feeding her good she started her womanlies. Look at her, Jacob. She ain't no little girl anymore. And Susan hasn't been a little girl in a long time."

"Hell, I know she ain't," Jacob said with a firm head shake. "What do you want me to do? I done introduced them to every decent man in 50 miles. Every decent fella from age 13 to 40 has been out to see either Ann, Susan or Juliette. And none of the three of them is any closer to finding a husband than the minute they rode into this place."

Marnie patted her husband's arm gently.

"Honey, Ann and Susan don't want a decent man," she said. "They want you. They keep waiting for you to notice them. You still call them girls — and it's starting to piss them off."

"That's ridiculous," Jacob insisted. "Susan is our niece and Ann is like my little sister."

"You look at Susan as our niece but she really isn't," Marnie said. "And you look at Ann as your sister. But she isn't."

The second made sense to Jacob but the first statement didn't.

"What do you mean Susan isn't your niece?" he asked.

"She's not my niece," Marnie stated. "Susan was about 2 or 3 when my brother married her mom. Her dad was thrown from a horse a few weeks after she was born. Susan's mom needed a husband. My brother needed a wife. It was a match made in hell. But my brother isn't Susan's father. Did you notice how we don't look anything alike. That's why. It's another reason I brought her over here."

Jacob shook his head in confusion.

"Well, either way," he said. "It don't make no difference. I know some folks down this way have two or three women with them but I ain't gonna be one of them. Besides, I can't keep up with you."

Marnie put her head on his shoulder.

"It's gonna be easier to keep up with me," she said. "You're gonna be a Papa, Jacob. About 5 months I'd guess."

The news stunned Jacob more than anything else he had heard that day — and that news was disturbing enough.

"You're gonna have a baby?" he asked stupidly.

"No, I thought we'd just adopt a heifer and raise it," Marnie answered with a grin. "Yes, Jacob. I am going to have a baby. That is how a husband becomes a father."

"I don't know nothing about babies," Jacob said. He had no trouble facing down a man with a gun but a baby was an entirely different matter. He was scared.

"I don't know nothing about them either," Marnie said. "But you didn't know nothing about being a husband and you do pretty good. Leastwise, I ain't complaining much. We'll figure this out too. It's a ways away. A lot can happen between now and then."

Jacob knew that birthing a baby was tough. He had heard stories about babies and mamas dying within minutes of each other — a lot of stories.

He was more frightened than at any time in his life.

"So, we're gonna have to slow down a little bit," Marnie said. "Jacob, for a year now I've watched them two like a hawk. I realized that those two have loved you as long as I have. I thought they would move on after a while but that isn't happening. We're either going to have two old maids to look after or you're going to have to marry them and look after them yourself."

Jacob and Marnie sat silently for a few minutes.

"In the barn, that's what I worried about," Marnie said. "Ann would probably be willing to just be your mistress. I guess Susan probably would too, now that I think of it. Now I know you're just a man so I don't expect you to notice some of these things. But Ann has taken every opportunity to give you a kiss. I bet she did yesterday, too."

"No," Jacob said. "Yesterday Ann faced death. She wasn't asking for anything more than to be held."

"And you held her," Marnie said softly. "You held her after you stood up for her. The same way that you taught Susan to ride after you stood up for her. The same way that you gave me exactly what I needed when I needed it. Jacob, I've used this argument before. They deserve to be happy. Would you have Susan and Ann settle for less than we have? Because the only man in the world that those two love is you. If they didn't love me as much they probably would have plotted for me to have an accident."

Jacob stiffened.

"They love me too much for that," Marnie said simply. "They love you too much for that. I was trying to be funny. Don't get mad."

"Don't get mad?" he asked. "I do want Susan to be happy. I do want Ann to be happy. But I don't want to be with them."

Marnie didn't answer for a moment.

"But you do, Jacob," she said softly. "I see you. I know you love them, Jacob."

"Yeah I do," he said. "But not like I love you."

"Are you sure?" she asked. "Think back to when you realized that you loved me. I see the same thing when you look at Susan or Ann as when you look at me. I can't make you do this, Jacob. Well, I probably could if I wanted to. But you need to think about it and to think about how you really feel about them."

Jacob hedged on Marnie's advice. He wasn't comfortable with the local tradition of a man having more than one wife. He knew it was practical in the years following the Civil War — because a lot of men from Texas didn't get the chance to come home from the battlefield.

But he wasn't raised that way. His father had one wife and his mother had one husband. Even after his mother's death his father had not taken up with another woman. Jacob was old enough that he would have noticed something like that.

But Marnie's point began to make more sense as he started to pay more attention to Susan and Ann. Their actions toward him weren't those of a niece or a sister. The casual touches when they were in proximity. The number of times one or the other — or sometimes both — found a reason to sit on his lap or give him a kiss.

Those were the actions of a woman and her suitor. The casual flirtation that let a man know a woman was open to his advances. He watched the way Susan and Ann interacted with the other men on the ranch. At first, he figured their flirtation was just a part of their personalities — probably learned from watching him and Marnie because they still flirted with each other after almost 18 months of marriage.

But the girls — women, he corrected himself — didn't act that way around the hands. They were polite and friendly but not overly polite or overly friendly. There was a clear line drawn, at least on that front.

As Marnie's pregnancy advanced the young women took on more responsibility around the house. Juliette was a big help, too. But she avoided Jacob if at all possible.

Jacob had never said or done anything to hurt her feelings — or at least he never had done so purposefully. She would smile and chatter with the woman at the dinner table but she would speak to Jacob only if he spoke to her first — something he rarely did because he saw it made her uncomfortable.

At least Marnie wasn't pressing him to bed Juliette, too.

Marnie's pregnancy was showing noticeably when the next large group of riders approached the house. This time everyone's fears were realized. The man who held Wes Lambert's note had come to make his play. He seemed to have a dozen riders with him or more.

Jacob had six gun hands at the ranch and six more in the field who would arrive once they heard the bells. The bells were the warning system Jacob put in place. There was a dinner bell spaced every half mile. Each bell had someone responsible for listening for the one before it and passing it along. It cost only four hands per day and it was sort of a reward doled out for a job well done or a way to keep those who got hurt working on the payroll.

None of the gun hands were bell ringers unless they were ill or injured.

The bells started peeling as soon as the dust cloud was spotted. Susan and Ann grabbed their rifles and headed to their outposts. Juliette took her shotgun and stood guard over Marnie who was too far along to do much of anything.

Jacob leaned over his wife and kissed her softly.

"You come back to me, you hear," Marnie said. "You mean more to me than this place."

Jacob smiled and nodded.

"Miss Juliette, thank you for taking care of Marnie," Jacob said. "I'm glad it's someone I trust to look after her."

Juliette felt tears welling in her eyes but she just nodded.

He patted her gently on the back.