The Grass Widow by Nanci Little Read Free Book Online Page A

After the worm...”
    He shook his head, which still ached vaguely; there had been a lot of tequila between the first taste and the worm, and he’d had more witnesses than assistance in its disposal. “It’s like puking burlap. Stay away from it, Josie. I know you like a taste of the corn now and again.”
    “I don’t expect they’d let me into a poker parlor in Kay Cee or any other place to get a taste o’ anythin’, ‘less I was painted up an’ showin’ tits I ain’t got,” she grumbled, but she grumbled quietly, for Aidan had come back to the kitchen.
    Aidan offered her hands cupped around something; Doc held out his hands to receive a heavy, ornately-carved silver watch and chain. “I—” Sure of her thought but not of her timing, she shied a glance at Joss, who had come to look. “I brought it for Ethan,”
    she said softly, and saw her cousin’s hand close hard around the handle of the fork. “I hope it’s all right to give it to you. I hope
     
    it’s not—I—I—It’s Swiss,” she stammered. “You need a watch. A doctor needs a watch.”
    Doc looked at it, and at her; he looked at Joss (she had turned from them, and he knew the raw wound in her heart that was Ethan had just been ripped open anew); he looked at the watch again, and finally found his voice. “I couldn’t ask for one with more meaning than one meant for a man who was like a brother to me,” he said softly. “Thank you, Aidan.”
    He examined the scrimshawed ivory fob, and tucked it and the watch into his vest pockets, then took the watch out and opened it; he set it to the clock on the mantel and wound it, and listened to hear it tick and slipped it into its pocket again. “Thank you,” he said huskily. “I’ve never had a watch I felt was mine the way a watch becomes a part of a man by its passing down to him. Now I do, and no worm will ever make it poker stakes.” He stood. “I need to check my horse.”
    Aidan turned, feeling the ache radiating from Joss like heat from the stove. “Joss, have I—”
    Joss drove her fork into a piece of ham in the skillet. “He’d’ve liked it.” Her voice was hoarse; she didn’t look up. “Ethan. He’d’ve liked that watch. I’m glad you give it to Doc.”
    Aidan slipped her fingers down Joss’s wrist and took the fork from her. “I’ll cook the ham. We need a few more eggs if Doc’s staying for breakfast.”
    She found him sitting on the porch step with his elbows on his knees and his forehead on his wrists, the silver watch clenched in his fist; she laid a hand on his shoulder and felt the quiver of what he was keeping pent. “He’d like you havin’ it, Doc,” she said roughly. “Wish he’d got to carry it first.” He swiped a knuckle under his eyes. “The crazy son of a bitch—no disrespect to your mother, Joss, but Jesus, I miss him!”
    Her fingers closed hard around a handful of the fabric of his coat. “Ain’t much you can tell me about missin’ Ethan. I got to go find some eggs.”
    Glad to be out of sickrooms and into sweet air, Doc planted
     
    the Bodett fields, good-natured in Joss’s jibes about his pegleg making seed holes too far apart; when she got too fresh he tossed clods of soft black dirt at her. She batted them away before they hit her, reflexive as a cat even in the lingering frailty of her recovery. When he rested, Aidan brought him tea chilled in the well. Ottis Clark, who had the next place toward town on the post road, came to call. He was a ropy-muscled, big-eared man with teeth stained by the wad of tobacco he kept in his cheek; he shot brown streams of juice to the ground with as little thought as Aidan gave to breathing, and his grin made her vaguely uncomfortable. Doc came from the field in time to hear his offer.
    “That’s a right smart o’ neighborly, Ott,” Joss said, coaxing something out from under a fingernail with the point of her pocketknife, “but I ain’t considered sellin’.”
    “Y’cain’t keep it