Judith Bowen - His Brother's Bride

By the third week in March, Noah figured most of the calving was done. The few cows that hadn’t given birth yet were down in the lower field, close to the ranch so that either he or Jesse or Carl Divine, their foreman, could go out and check on them occasionally.

Other ranching and farming tasks were approaching. Seed to get in from Regina for the hay crops he was experimenting with this year. Bulls to examine for health problems and get into condition before turning them out with the cows in July. Roundup to organize, maybe mid-May this year, depending on the weather. Branding to follow, along with inoculating, castrating, dehorning, worming and all the other hundred and one jobs a rancher had to keep up with to look after his cattle properly.

The weather so far was just about perfect. You couldn’t ask for a finer spring day. As Noah left Carl in the barn checking veterinary supplies and walked up to the house to get some lunch, he noticed his brother turning into the yard. Jesse didn’t stop at his own bungalow, but continued on up Noah’s driveway.

Noah waved briefly, then walked into the house to start the coffee machine, which he usually got ready before he left the house in the morning. He opened the refrigerator. Bologna or ham or leftover roast beef? He pulled out the sliced ham and began to gather the makings of the rest of his sandwich. Maybe make extra, in case Jesse hadn’t eaten.

Lettuce, pickles, mustard, mayonnaise, cheese slices, a few chunks of raw onion, a tomato slice or two, more pickles—the entire creation topped with a couple of peperoncini peppers and a dab of horseradish. Now that was a sandwich, Noah thought with satisfaction.

Jesse came in without knocking and sat heavily at the kitchen table.

Noah glanced at his brother. “You eat?”

“Not yet.”

“Sandwich? Carl’s down at the barn.”

“Sure.” Jesse sighed and Noah spared him another glance before topping the three sandwiches he’d made with a thick slice of Glory Bakery bread. He leaned down on each sandwich gently, just enough to make it all stick together and not topple off before he could wrap one up for Carl and take the other two to the table for him and Jesse. He’d planned to eat down at the barn with his foreman, but now that Jesse was here, he might as well stay up at the house and eat with him.

He set the plate on the table, pushing aside the week’s accumulation of magazines and newspapers. His brother hadn’t even taken off his hat, which was unusual. He hadn’t said another word, either. Noah walked back to the refrigerator and pulled out a couple of cans of beer. He popped the tab on his as he returned to the table.

“Beer?”

“I could use one,” Jesse said, reaching for his can and popping the tab, too. “Thanks.” He took a long draft and wiped his mustache with the back of his hand. Noah noticed a letter sticking out of the pocket of his brother’s shirt. The letter had been opened.

The two men ate their sandwiches in silence for five minutes. Then Noah decided to cut to the chase. “I thought you weren’t coming home from town until later this afternoon. That barbed wire the coop ordered come in early?”

He knew Jesse didn’t have the barbed wire, the pickup hadn’t ridden as though it had a load in the back. Still, no way was he coming straight out and asking—that wasn’t how the men in his world did things. Not men who loved cowboying and the independent life above all, men like him and Jesse. A man was generally his own boss, whether he worked for wages or not. A man worth his grub and his paycheck knew what needed doing without being told.

“Nope.” Jesse drained his beer. “Didn’t get it yet. I, ah, I had some news in town.”

Noah regarded him for a second or two. “News?” He bit into his sandwich.

“Got a letter today.” Jesse patted his chest pocket and frowned.

“Girlfriend?”

“This is no joke, Noah.” Jesse swore softly under his breath. “No joke at all.”

“Well, you’d better tell me then. Save me guessing. I got work to do this afternoon.”

His brother heaved another sigh and stood up to retrieve the pickle jar from the fridge. “You recall that exhibition I went to last fall in Minnesota? Me ‘n’ Barney?” he asked as he stabbed into the jar with a fork.

“Sure do. Got two blue ribbons for those young bulls sired by Mack. Grand champ and reserve.” Mack was the pet name Noah had for Macintosh Millicent Merrigoldas Blazes, the top bull on the ranch, the five-year-old Noah would have mortgaged his soul to acquire. He hadn’t had to, luckily, and Mack had turned out even better than he’d dreamed. Blood will out, old Brandis used to say. Blood and breeding.

“Well, I met a woman down there.” Jesse screwed the lid back on the pickle jar and pushed it to the center of the table.

Noah stared at his brother. He looked unhappy. This wasn’t like Jesse. Was he in love? Women were nothing new to him; he had women falling all over him wherever he went.

“And?” Noah took another bite of his sandwich and chased the heat from the peppers with the last of his beer.

Jesse patted his pocket again. “She wrote. Told me, uh—jeez, Noah, I don’t know how to put this,” Jesse said in a rush. His eyes were hangdog. This was the younger brother Noah had pulled out of quite a few jams over the years. He knew the look well.

“Hell, Jess. How bad could it be? You catch something you weren’t figuring on catching? You left her with something she wasn’t figuring on getting left with-”

“Yeah. She’s having a baby. Mine—”

“What?”

“She’s having a kid. She don’t want nothing from me. Just figured I should know, that’s all.”

“What do you mean, she doesn’t want anything from you?” He surprised himself with the intensity of his feelings. This was bound to happen. Jesse was a womanizer. Noah was amazed it hadn’t happened long ago. Maybe it had. “What did she write for if she didn’t want anything?”

“You’re a hard son of a bitch, Noah.” Jesse stood up. “Some folk are decent, you know.” He glared at his brother. “Some people got feelings. Some folk figure there’s a right and a wrong way to do things.”

For a minute Noah thought Jesse was going to leave. But he didn’t. He stood at the kitchen window for a few seconds, staring out over the rivet valley, then sat down again.

“I’ve thought it over. I’m going to write back and see if she wants to get married.”

Noah didn’t say a thing. He just studied his younger brother. Then-he wasn’t sure why he said it—“Who would she marry?”

“Me, you bastard. Me!” Jesse glared at him. “I know how to do right by a woman. You’re not the only Winslow knows about honor, damn it”

Ha. Honor. What the hell was Jesse talking about? Honor was one thing the Winslows weren’t big on, none of ’em. Practical, that was what the Winslows were. Some might say too practical. Noah walked to the fridge and grabbed two more beers. This called for a little celebration.

“What’s her name?”

“Abby. Abby Steen.”

“Married? Separated? Divorced?” Noah plunked the beer in front of his brother and stood there, popping the tab on his own.

Jesse glared again and Noah saw him bite back a curse. “Widow.”

“How old?”

“I don’t know. Twenty-two, twenty-three, maybe.” Jesse sounded irritable. He grabbed the second beer. “Looks pretty young.”

“When’s the happy day?”

“The wedding, you mean?”

“Well, I don’t mean the kid. I can figure that out, seeing you were in Minnesota for a week in November. You never heard of rubbers?” he added angrily. “What in hell happened?”

Jesse tossed his hat onto the chair beside him and ran a hand through his thick, dark hair.

“Wedding?” Jesse said, answering his first question. “As soon as she can come up here, I guess. That’s if she’ll marry me—”

“Oh, she’ll marry you, all right—”

“What happened? Hell!” Jesse disregarded his interruption and ran his hand through his hair again, and when he spoke he addressed the floor in front of him. None too clean, Noah noted absently. Still, he’d seen it worse.

“I met her in a bar—now, don’t you say nothing! I wasn’t drinking, not that much anyway. Couple beers. I noticed her sitting by herself. She had a friend with her, turned out the friend had plans to go off with somebody else. So I drove her home.”

“So you drove her home, uh-huh,” Noah muttered.

“Yeah. When we got there, I asked her if she needed a hand, if she had some kind of trouble, since the friend had mentioned it. I figured it might be to do with her stock, and she just—hell, she just cracked up on me. Started bawling. Told me her husband had been killed not that long ago, and the baby she’d been expectin’ had been born dead—”

“And you bought all that.”

“Of course I bought it! It was the truth, damn it. Anybody could see that. I told her I’d make her some coffee and I did. We had a cup or two, then—well, then we ended up in bed. It was just, you know—one of those things.”

Noah nodded. For guys like Jesse, sure, it was one of those things. Noah couldn’t quite imagine himself in that kind of situation.

“We, uh, we spent the rest of the weekend together. The nights anyway. She was lonely. So was I, I guess. I sure in hell didn’t think this would happen. We used birth control—”

“Mostly.”

“Yeah, mostly,” Jesse shot back. “Accidents happen.”

“To guys like you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Huh? Guys like me? Not perfect guys like you, eh?” Jesse leaped to his feet and for a second or two, Noah thought he was going to take a poke at him. That’d be great, a couple of Winslows duking it out over a woman. Wouldn’t be the first time, either.

“Settle down, Jesse,” Noah said wearily. He frowned. He couldn’t waste much more time on this. He had to go down and give Carl a hand and phone in the order to the vet’s. What was done was done. “Okay, so she can come up here, you can get the papers in order, whatever. What about her being American?”

“I already checked in town. She can come up to marry me. Get her papers that way.”

“I suppose she could stay in Brandis’s trailer.”

“Why the trailer? She could stay with me.”

“Do I have to spell it out, Jesse? Neighbors are going to talk as it is, her showing up like this out of nowhere. Don’t give them any more ammo than they’re already going to have once that kid comes. People can count backward, y’know.”

Jesse reached for his hat and jammed it on. He looked like hell. This had been a shock to him, no question. There went his carefree bachelor days, following his happy hormones wherever they led. Noah could see he hadn’t had time to take it all in yet. Marriage, a wife, a kid on the way...

“Listen, buddy.” Noah clapped his brother on the shoulder as he accompanied him to the door. “Things could be worse. Huh?”

Jesse nodded sheepishly. “Guess so.”

“Time you settled down, anyway. One of us.” Noah smiled. “Keep the Winslows going, huh?”

Jesse grinned. “Yeah, sure.”

“Better you than me, right?”

Jesse shrugged. He didn’t say anything.

“She a cowgirl? Know one end of a horse from the other?”

“Farm family. Teacher by trade.”

“Teacher? That’s good. What kind of farming? Sugar beets?” Noah wasn’t serious. He was trying for a lighter note with his brother, although it was an effort.

“Dairy. Jerseys or Guernseys or some damn thing.”