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Owen heard his daughter humming in the kitchen and looked up from his books. He stared at the wall in front of him and smiled. If she’ll just let him love her, then she’ll be happy. She’s been so moody lately, so changeable. Not like herself at all. I wish she’d set the date and marry him. I want her to be happy for all the time she has left.
His happiness was overlaid with sadness as he thought of his only daughter, thought of the very short time he’d been blessed with his own wife. She’s so much like her mother, with her beautiful hair and smile. But her eyes are her own, and that little pointed chin. Makes her look like a fairy-child. And maybe she is. For Megan had the gift of reading people’s emotions, and Annie shares it too.
His wife had died giving birth. The son she had borne died, too, and Owen had found himself unable to deal with his grief. His sister had watched the children for months while he drank himself into a stupor night after night, craving the shelter of his Megan’s arms, needing her love and her soft voice to whisper in his ear.
Until the day his daughter, at four years old, had taken the glass away from him and curled up in his lap.
“Mama still loves us,” she said in a voice wise beyond her years. “She wants us to be happy.”
He’d stared at her for a moment, seeing her mother for the first time in her tiny face. Then his baby girl had comforted him as his grief finally found an outlet. He’d wept the night through and, at the end of it, carried her to her bed and began to make plans to leave Wales. For he knew then he couldn’t live there without his love, and he had a responsibility to her children—their children. Annie had made him see. So he took her and her older brother as far away as he could imagine and as far from civilization as was reasonable. They’d lived simply and quietly in White’s Station.
Owen had a job first in the trading post as a clerk, and he worked in leather on the side. When cattle ranching came to the area, he found his skills in such demand that he opened the shop in this cottage and gradually saved enough money to buy the house outright. His skill as a bootmaker brought both cowboys and ladies from the entire Territory to his shop.
The war had had slight effect on them here, and Owen had begun to prosper. Five years ago, he’d helped his son buy the farm on the outskirts of town. Lowell had exhibited little skill and less interest in leather, preferring to tend to his cows and to sell their milk, butter and cheese to the townspeople. He insisted his father share in his profits and so Owen, while not a rich man in the eyes of the world, had more money than he’d ever know what to do with. He wanted grandchildren, so he could spend his money on them.
He was sure Evelyn was going to be a wonderful mother. A tall, generously built young woman, freckle-faced and red-haired, she was the image of her mother. She was more outgoing than Molly, gay and lively, and Owen knew she could make his son’s head whirl. Sometimes it seemed as if Lowell was putty in her hands, but Owen recognized the steel that was the backbone of his son’s character and knew she depended on it. And on the strength of his love.
His thoughts returned to Annie, still humming in the kitchen. If she were to marry Daniel, Owen would be grateful as well as happy. For although he’d always enjoyed good health, he’d seen too many lives cut short in this wilderness not to worry over his daughter. Were she to marry Daniel, the Donovan clan would take her as their own if anything happened to him. She’d have a secure place in the world, as well as Daniel’s love.
On the other hand, why should I worry about her when Daniel loves her so much? Wife or no wife, she’ll always be taken care of.
***
ANNIE’S OWN THOUGHTS were an echo of her father’s. She was thinking about her childhood, about the mother she scarcely remembered, about the love she’d received from her father and her brother as she grew up. She realized Evelyn was now the center of Lowell’s world, and she was happy for him. Yet she wondered what marriage would be like for herself.
If he loves me, her thoughts began, but she stopped them there. You know that he loves you. You know that he wouldn’t lie, that Lowell wouldn’t lie. You know that it makes your father happy to see him here. Because he loves you, and he wants you to be his wife.
Wife. What a powerful word. It makes me tremble inside. But it makes me feel strong, too. It means we’d be partners—things wouldn’t be mine or his any more, but ours instead. It means we’d be together. All the time. We’d live together, work together, sleep...
This is the root of my uncertainty. This is what I don’t understand. How can I tell if I want to marry him—to marry anyone—if I don’t understand what it means?
***
AT THE SUDDEN STILLNESS from the kitchen, Owen put down his pencil and moved to his favorite chair, noticing for the first time that the green and tan plaid fustian was wearing thin on the arms. Moments later, as he’d expected, Annie was sitting on the floor by his feet with her head on his knee. He stroked her bright hair.
“What is it, fy merch fach?” She smiled up at him, then laid her cheek again upon his knee. How long had it been since he’d called her his little girl? She was silent for a while, then spoke softly.
“Papa, what does it mean to be a wife?”
He continued to stroke her hair as he tried to find a way to answer. He knew what she asked, what she needed to know. Help me, Megan, he implored. Help me to tell her what love is.
“I think, caraid,” he began, “that to every woman it is something different. There are those who marry only because they want children, and those who marry because they simply don’t want to be alone. But I believe marriage should be for love. Your mother and I married for love, and I can tell you what she told me.”
Annie nodded against his knee. She loved to hear about her mother, and remembered only a pale, sweet face and tender hands. “Before we married, before she accepted me, your mother told me that she expected our marriage to be a sharing. Of responsibility. Of happiness and sorrow, pain and joy. She wanted me to understand that we would stand together through everything—that never would either of us be alone.
“She also told me she expected me to be patient with her, and gentle. For you see, she was afraid, as most women are. Because men are physically stronger and can be thoughtless and cruel.
“There’s always pain the first time. It cannot be helped. But a husband has the responsibility to see that his wife has as little pain as possible the first time, and as much pleasure as possible after that.” Owen hesitated but forced himself on again, in honesty to her. “There are some women who never learn to enjoy intimacy, no matter how gentle a man is. And there are men who never make an effort to be gentle. But usually a man and a woman who marry for love find happiness in their bed.”
He waited for her to speak, but she didn't. “Daniel is a gentle man, caraid.” he said.
She looked up at him, her cheeks red, her eyes flashing, her voice as soft as silk. “He’d never hurt me. Never.”
“The first time, caraid. It cannot be helped. You might talk to Evelyn about this.”
She turned back to the fire. “I love you, Papa.”
“R’wy’n dy garu di,” he echoed, smoothing her golden hair, “fy merch fach.”
***
AS SHE LAY IN BED THAT night, Annie could still hear the pain in Daniel’s rough voice. She’d always known his voice like that—like emery on slate—though she knew at one time it had been different. He’d suffered the accident that changed his voice before the family had moved to White’s Station.
The little boy had fallen into a willow tree, where a short branch had impaled him by the neck. His older brothers had been with him—Conor, they’d always say, was screaming like a banshee. While Brian held him up, Adam had used his penknife to cut the branch off the tree. They carried him home with the branch still sticking out of his neck, and it was many, many months before he’d talk again.
The voice he had now was gruff, gravelly. He thought his voice was ugly and the scar left by the accident uglier still. He wore his bandanna tight around his neck to hide the mark, and he spoke softly to hide the gruffness. She’d never seen the scar, but in his voice, Annie could hear a slow Texas drawl, overlaid with the music of his father’s brogue. When he murmured in her ear, when he called her “Aroon”, she found it quite the sweetest sound she’d ever heard.
Aroon, he’d say, and his deep gruff voice would strike her heart. Aroon. Beloved. Sweetheart. Darling. Every other loving word she’d ever heard faded before it. Aroon. It fit him. It fit this place—this half-tamed wilderness tucked away in a corner of Arizona.
Aroon. An ancient word. She could almost taste it. It was made up of the song of the wind in the trees, the warning of the owl, the chant of the Navajo, the cry of the wolf for his mate. It swelled like a wave on the ocean but whispered against the shore. Aroon.
Aroooooon...
She sighed for that word, and wondered when she’d hear it again.