Elizabeth hated it when it was her husband’s turn to act as officer of the guard. It meant that every third day he had to spend twenty-four hours at the guardhouse and she only saw him for a few minutes when he was allowed to come home for very rushed meals. When he was younger, it hadn’t taken much out of him, but now it was obvious to her that the loss of sleep affected her husband. And, truth be told, herself. They never spoke about it directly, but Thomas knew that she slept very little when he was away. Ever since he had found her, she had had a hard time being anywhere alone at night. When she was living with his sister, she had felt safe. And when she married him, she felt she had come home.
When he was away for any extended period of time, he made sure she had company, usually arranging for one of the strikers to camp out in their extra room, which served as a storeroom. But for guard duty, Elizabeth would have felt foolish asking for company. “You don’t need to pamper me, Thomas,” she had told him. But it took both of them a few days to recover from their lack of sleep when he was on guard rotation.
Two weeks after the dance, Thomas’s rotation came up and Elizabeth’s good-bye on that morning was longer than usual.
“Now, Lizzie.”
She wrinkled up her nose in distaste. She hated it when he called her that.
“Now, Elizabeth,” he started over, in mock genteel tones. “You know I could get Bruner to stay with you.”
“Now, Thomas,” she intoned back at him, “you know I will be fine. And I will see you at lunch and dinner.”
He leaned down and kissed her lightly on the cheek and she surprised both of them by pulling his face down again and giving him a lingering kiss on the lips.
“I’ll be looking forward to tomorrow night in my own bed,” he told her.
“If you don’t fall asleep over dinner,” she teased.
“No chance of that if I have this waiting for me.”
She watched him walk down the line and disappear around the corner and then turned to busy herself with household chores to keep her anxiety at bay.
After lunch and a hurried visit from Thomas, she pulled out her pile of mending. But within an hour she was too restless to concentrate and so she changed into her riding skirt and jacket and walked down to the stables.
It took a few minutes for Private Stack to respond to her call and when he finally emerged from one of the stalls, he had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and was wiping his hands on his trousers.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting, ma’am, but I have been with Mr. Cooper’s bitch. She’s just about to deliver her pups. I’ll saddle your mare directly.”
* * * *
Once she was outside the fort, Elizabeth gave her mare her head and had a satisfying long canter down the valley. The feeling of the wind on her face and the rhythmic movement of her horse under her was relaxing and when she returned to the fort her restless, nervous feeling was gone.
Private Stack was there to meet her when she dismounted. As he took the reins of her mare to lead her in, Elizabeth remembered Mr. Cooper’s greyhound.
“Has Misty become a mother yet, Private?”
“Gave birth to three fine pups. Not that Mr. Cooper thinks so,” he added under his breath.
“May I see them?”
“Yes, ma’am. Although this may be your only chance.”
Elizabeth couldn’t puzzle out what he meant, but when she made her way down toward the stall, she could hear Cooper’s voice. “Goddamn you, Stack. I ought to cashier you for letting her out when the Navajo were here. It’s clear that some filthy little mongrel mounted her before you got her back in. And here I thought the mating with Major Wheeler’s dog was successful! Drown them all.”
“Oh no,” said Elizabeth without thinking, as she came up behind him.
Cooper turned. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Woolcott. You shouldn’t have been exposed to such language. But there is nothing else to do with the little mutts.”
The stall door was open and Elizabeth went inside. Misty was lying there, her head curved toward three blind and squirming little creatures, alternately licking them and nudging them to nurse. Two appeared to be purebred greyhounds, brindled and fine-boned like their dam, albeit with longer hair than one would expect and broader faces. But the third was a fuzzy black-and-white ball of fur, clearly resembling his sheepdog sire. Elizabeth fell in love with him instantly.
Private Stack came into the stall with a burlap sack.
“Oh no, you can’t just take them from her!”
“It is easier this way,” said the private apologetically.
“I’ll not have her wasting her time nursing these little mutts, Mrs. Woolcott. I intend to breed her with the major’s dog and I want it done as soon as possible.”
Private Stack scooped the two brindled puppies up and dropped them into the sack while Misty was busy licking the black-and-white one. She growled as he picked up the fuzzy baby and started to get up, but Cooper quieted her with a sharp “Down!”
“May I hold him, Private Stack?”
The private handed her the black-and-white puppy, and she bent her head over him protectively.
“May I have this one, Mr. Cooper?” she asked without thinking. It was awful enough to think about the other two being drowned, but not this little piebald.
“Why, Mrs. Woolcott, I would be more than happy to promise you a puppy from the next litter. You deserve better than this little mongrel. And how would you take care of him?”
Elizabeth hated herself for doing it, but if it would save the puppy, she would swallow her pride. Mr. Cooper was attracted to her, she was sure of that. She hadn’t liked him much before, with his arrogance and veiled contempt for field officers like her husband. He consistently treated Thomas as though he were lacking. He always treated her as though she had something that he wanted and would have been sure to obtain, were she not married. She liked him even less now. His arrogance extended to everything in his vicinity, even his dog. He was willing to kill three innocent puppies and deprive his dog just because they weren’t purebred.
So she would use that against him and set out to charm and flatter him.
“I don’t know much about dogs, Mr. Cooper.” For the life of her she could not bat her eyelashes at him, but she did gaze up into his face as though he were every bit the blond god he thought himself. “I can understand your disappointment. After all, Misty is a splendid greyhound and of course you want her pups to be just like her. It was a sad accident, and no reflection on you.” Of course, that was exactly what he thought it was, the arrogant…. Elizabeth could not quite bring herself to swear, even in her thoughts.
Cooper’s face softened as he took in her flattery. Not that he recognized it as such, she thought. He considered it only the truth and his due.
“I was wondering….”
“Yes, Mrs. Woolcott?”
“Well, I do not know much about keeping such a young puppy alive. Might we reach a compromise? If you gave your permission for him to stay with his mother until his eyes opened, I am sure I could take care of him after that. He would have a better start and it would only be a few weeks that his mother was nursing him.”
Cooper hesitated. He didn’t want to waste any time on the pup. But there was the delicious Mrs. Woolcott, gazing up at him with such pleading in her eyes….
“I could wait a few weeks, I suppose….”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Cooper,” Elizabeth gushed.
“Private Stack, take the others and drown them in the trough. You can leave this one with its mother.” The lieutenant gave Elizabeth his most charming smile, bowed, and strode off.
“Here you are, baby, back with your mother,” she crooned softly as she placed him against a teat. She stroked him gently with her finger while he nursed and his mother, after a low growl, let her, as though she realized she would have had no baby at all, were it not for Elizabeth.
* * * *
When the wood detail returned later that afternoon, Michael walked by the stall and peered in.
“Only one puppy, I see, Private. And him not looking much like a greyhound,” he added, trying not to smile at the thought of Cooper’s reaction.
“Actually, she had three, Sergeant, but the lieutenant had me drown the other two. Would have had me drown them all, were it not for that nice Mrs. Woolcott.”
“Mrs. Woolcott?”
“She came back from her ride just as I was popping them into the sack. Charmed the lieutenant in two minutes, the lady did. Convinced him to save this pup for her and to leave him with his mother for a few weeks. Of course, it’s clear that the lieutenant was enjoying being charmed by her,” said Private Stack with a knowing wink.
“Mrs. Woolcott never struck me as a lady who would be drawn to anything that wasn’t well bred,” observed Michael.
“She is a bit prim and proper, Sergeant. Of course, she comes from the East,” he added, as though that explained everything. “But I could tell she was sweet on the pup right away, and if those eyes of hers had looked up at you, they would charm the bejesus out of you too, Sergeant!”
Michael knelt down on the straw murmuring soothing noises to Misty. The puppy was asleep, a furry little bundle with his belly tight as a drum from nursing.
“He’ll thrive, this one, if he’s the only one. I wonder if he’ll grow up wanting to chase rabbits or herd sheep,” added Michael with a grin as he got up.
“He certainly takes after his sire,” said Private Stack with a smile.
“If he inherits even some of his dam’s speed, he’ll be a fine fellow. Mrs. Woolcott made a good choice.”
“Weil, she’ll have some work ahead of her, for the lieutenant has only given her a few weeks before he’s to leave his mother. He’s a real….”
“Private Stack.” Michael agreed with whatever the man was about to say. But encouraging his criticism would only cause trouble.
“Yes, sir. But I’m sure you know what I mean, sir.”
Aye, I do, boyo, thought Michael as he walked down to his quarters. Lieutenant Cooper was an oily, stringy-arsed bastard. But Mrs. Woolcott? Now there was a puzzlin’ woman. Looking down her small nose at him for being Irish. So refined and genteel. Yet willing to fight for a misbegotten mongrel like that little fellow in there.
* * * *
“I have a confession to make, Thomas,” Elizabeth said to her husband that night as they got ready for bed.
“What awful thing could you have done, Elizabeth?” he asked as he got under the covers. “Come on, sit next to me.”
Elizabeth finished plaiting her hair and sat next to him.
“I flirted with Lieutenant Cooper, Thomas.” She lowered her head as though she was a fallen woman but when he put his finger under her chin and lifted her face, he saw that her eyes were dancing.
“Lieutenant Cooper, Lizzie? I thought you detested the man? Now, if you had said anyone else…Sergeant Burke, for instance, then I’d be jealous,” he joked.
Elizabeth had been pretending her penitence, but when she heard Sergeant Burke’s name, her face colored for a moment.
“I am sure the sergeant has plenty of female attention directed at him, Thomas. The likes of Mrs. Casey always find these Irishmen charming.”
“He’s a competent soldier, Lizzie, and seems a fine man to me. And for the men who aren’t lucky enough to be married…well, you know as well as I do that we’re lucky to have the laundresses, er, available,” said Thomas mildly. His wife was clearly determined to dislike Burke, but there was no reason to make him out as worse than anyone else at the fort.
“Thomas, you would speak well of the devil,” said his wife. “And anyway, it is Mr. Cooper we were talking about.”
“Ah, yes, you were flirting with him.”
“Yes, but it was for a good purpose, Thomas. Not that he thought it was for any reason but his own irresistible self!”
“Now, Lizzie, he is an officer and a gentleman.”
“I am not so sure about the gentleman part.”
“He has never done anything to you, has he, Elizabeth,” asked Thomas, turning serious and putting his arm around her protectively.
“Oh no, Thomas.” Though I think he would like to, she thought with an involuntary shiver. “I just meant that a true gentleman is not so arrogant and full of himself that a helpless little puppy could affect his self-consequence.”
“A puppy?” Thomas was completely lost. “What has a puppy got to do with Cooper?”
“Everything.” All the indignation that Elizabeth had suppressed in the stable was rising now. “His greyhound gave birth to three puppies today.”
“Misty? He’s been looking forward to that for days. He has high expectations for those pups, being sired by the major’s Major.”
Their eyes met and they smiled at the dog’s name, which was a source of humor for everyone on the post.
“Evidently Misty was too free with her favors before she met Major, Thomas,” said Elizabeth demurely.
Thomas’s face creased into a smile. “No!”
“Yes. And an Indian dog at that. Or so it would seem.”
Thomas’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “But we still haven’t gotten to the flirtation part, my dear.”
Elizabeth became serious again. “He had Private Stack drown the other two, Thomas. He was going to drown the third but I convinced him to leave the puppy with his mother.”
“That’s my Lizzie.”
“Um, for a few weeks, Thomas. Then he is mine to care for. I hope you don’t mind?”
“Of course not,” he said, giving her a hug. “A dog is just what we need around here. And such a dog too: a good mix of purebred East and the Wild West! He’ll be good company and then good protection for you when I am away.” He did not add, And a good substitute for the child we never had, though he thought it.
“You are too good to me, Thomas,” she said as she turned to kiss him on the mouth. It was rare that she initiated their lovemaking and the weariness of the past few days fell away as he responded. Their mating was gentle and sweet as always and he fell asleep satisfied, believing that he had satisfied her.
Which he had, thought Elizabeth as she lay awake beside him. He always satisfied her need to be held and loved and kissed. She had guessed a long time ago, from the other women’s conversations, that there were other ways a woman might be satisfied, but if it pleased her to please him, if it felt good to hold him while he shuddered and poured himself into her, then she didn’t mind what else she might be missing.
As she drifted off this evening, however, she felt something she couldn’t put a name to. It was as though she had been left behind somewhere. But that was foolishness. Thomas was a most considerate lover, never just turning away from her to go to sleep, but cuddling her to him and making her feel she had given him something back for all he had given her. She had never wanted to know what other women seemed to know: the almost out-of-control loving they intimated they received and even gave back. For her, loving Thomas and being loved by Thomas was all she needed. Anything else might have reminded her too much of the day before he found her.