The Farmer Takes A Wife

“You know, that gorgeous sun…It would be nice to sit outside a while. Only a few minutes,” she said quickly, when she saw him frown.

“I suppose,” he shrugged. “If you managed to walk to the shower…It is July, after all. Your being a doctor, you would know what’s best.”

His irony not lost on her, Rafe set Maggie’s valise on the bed and told her he’d wait outside. Minutes later Maggie joined him, wearing clean jeans and wrapped in a blue wool sweater. Settling in a wornAdirondack chair, she leaned back and sighed happily. “Hmm, just what the doctor ordered. Sunshine, the best medicine.”

Almost, she could feel him frown. “Are you really a doctor?”

“Really and truly,” she promised. “I don’t know why everyone keeps asking me that.”

“Maybe it’s because you look so young,” he said, staring thoughtfully at her red toenails as they peeked from beneath her sandals.

Maggie blushed. Compliments about her looks came rarely, and she was never sure how to accept them. And then, she wasn’t even sure he had complimented her. His voice had sounded approving, but carried a gruff quality she could not account for.

Maggie had Rafe’s approval, even if she didn’t know it. The freckles dusting her pale cheeks, her pointy chin high, a smile on her pink lips, Maggie had no idea how appealing she looked. She had always disparaged her unruly brown curls, but watching them gleam in the sunlight, admiring their red and gold glints, Rafe thought she looked…nice. Not that he cared. He didn’t care. It was just a thought.

“Where’s Amos?” she asked, her face tilted to the warm sun.

“Busy.”

“Oh, right. His chores. I forgot. But isn’t it Sunday?”

“Cows don’t know about Sunday.” Rafe snorted. “Or Christmas, or the Fourth of July, for that matter. They just know they like to get milked.”

“When does he have time to play, with all those chores to do?”

“When his chores are done. It’s good for kids to have responsibilities. It’s only two cows. When he’s done, he’s going canoeing with his friends.”

“No canoe trips for you?” Maggie smiled.

“Not in years,” Rafe said, his eyes flat and unreadable.

“Does that mean that you took time from your own chores to deliver that stew?”

“I can handle the extra load. I’ll finish up my chores as soon as I leave here. What about you? Now that you’re on the mend, don’t you have a schedule to keep, somewhere to be?”

“Trying to get rid of me already, Mr. Burnside?” Maggie grinned. “Watch out you don’t hurt my feelings.”

“You were supposed to be here in April, so I thought maybe—”

“Mr. Burnside, you mistake the matter. If you are referring to the medical van, I wasn’t supposed to be here, or anywhere near here, and furthermore, I have no idea what happened to the van, last April, as I’ve already explained to Louisa. But I swear,” she said, plainly exasperated, “first thing tomorrow morning, I’m going to call the office and find out what’s going on. I hope to be able to satisfy everyone concerned,” she added pointedly.

“People have a right to health care,” Rafe insisted. “We pay our taxes just like the folk in Bloomville—who just got a fancy, new hospital, by the way—so we have a right to expect the van to show up when it’s supposed to. This isn’t the kind of town where you can get on a bus and go see your doctor. There is no doctor. A town like Primrose—” Rafe hesitated “—a town like Primrose has special needs. I just want to see them met. Like a visit from the van, now and then. We’re not asking for a hospital, or even a clinic. A thing like that brings complications.”

“Complications?”

“Bureaucracy…government officials asking dumb questions…five tons of paperwork to fill out just to remove a splinter…that sort of thing. But a visit from the van, time to time, that would be nice. Anything really serious, we go to Bloomville.”

Surprised by Rafe’s passionate outburst, Maggie didn’t know what to say. “Mr. Burnside, when I call the department, maybe I can get them to juggle my schedule and let me stay.”

“They should, if they know what’s fair,” Rafe said quietly.

“I can only try,” she warned.

“Don’t worry, I won’t count on it.” Rafe shrugged impatiently as he Rose to his feet. “Well, seeing as how you are finally able to move about, I don’t think you’ll be needing me anymore. Louisa says to tell you she’ll provide you with your meals until you leave. Another day or so, and you’ll feel your old self again.”

“Gee, thanks,” she murmured. “Just what I want, to feel like, my old self.”

And almost, Maggie thought, astonished by the sight, almost Rafe’s lips twitched. But no, that couldn’t be. She might not know Rafe Burnside very long, but intuition told her that laughing was alien to the man.

Maggie watched as Rafe headed for his truck, a mud-splattered red Ford that had been new in another lifetime. His long denim-clad legs made short work of the muddy path, his dusty boots were a sure step on the rough road. Truly, he was a son of the soil. A lonely man doing a lonely job, she mused as she watched him drive away, his battered gray hat shielding his eyes. All those hours alone, clearing land, seeding, harvesting his apples, threshing (whatever that was), milking cows, cleaning out the barn…What did he think about, perched high on his tractor day after day, hour after hour, row after row? How many times had he conquered the world in his imagination? Or did he only think about the price of seed, whether his son was going to need a new pair of boots the coming winter? Or perhaps he had no imagination; maybe he just emptied his mind and let his thoughts float on the wind. Row after row, endlessly, every season. It made her wonder if she could do it. It made her wonder why he did.

Dozing in the late afternoon sun, Maggie had the strangest dream about a tall, suntanned man, cornstalks, and endless fields of soft, green clover tickling her bare feet. She was almost disappointed when Louisa woke her, tapping on her shoulder in the twilight of the evening. “Wake up, Miss Tremont. I thought you might want to join me for dinner. Nothing fancy, but I didn’t think you’d turn down a hot meal.”

Her offer was a welcome invitation to Maggie’s growling stomach. “You’re right, Louisa, I wouldn’t. Rafe Burnside mentioned you had offered to feed me.”

Louisa was surprised. “Rafe was here?”

“That he was,” Maggie said as she stretched herself awake. “Earlier this afternoon.”

“Strange. I wasn’t expecting him.”

“He brought me some Scotch broth.”

“How interesting,” Louisa murmured.

“It was delicious! Unfortunately, I couldn’t eat too much, but not for want of trying. My stomach just wasn’t ready.”

Following the old woman’s lumbering steps down the path, Maggie listened to Louisa’s cane tapping on the uneven slate pavement. Since the rain had stopped, the path had become less muddy, but it was still a slippery slope. She wondered how safe it was for Louisa to live alone but didn’t like to pry. She had made enough demands on the poor lady.

Louisa’s home turned out to be a small apartment situated above the store. Following the old woman up a rickety flight of stairs, Maggie was welcomed into a living room filled with a lifetime of memories and mementoes.

“How nice,” she said, taking a close look at the fading pictures on the wall.

“If I had a housekeeper, now that would be nice,” Louisa chuckled as she set a pitcher of iced tea on the kitchen table. Set for two with pretty, speckled blue dinner plates, Louisa apparently hadn’t expected a refusal. The tumblers were old jelly jars, and the forks and knives had long since lost their sheen, but the tablecloth was snow white. And whatever Louisa was cooking smelled terrific.

“Beef stew,” she announced, as she placed a hot pot on a trivet in the center of the table.

Maggie was thrilled. “That smells amazing! It’s been a hundred years since I had a home-cooked meal, and now, two in one day, I feel spoiled. Although I have to warn you, my stomach is not up to par.”

“Eat what you can. I won’t take offense.”

“Good. Then I’ll start with that terrific-looking bread,” Maggie said, reaching for a thick slice. “Back home, I eat mostly cafeteria food. I spend a lot of time at the hospital,” she explained when she saw Louisa’s questioning look. “Boston Mercy Hospital. That’s where my office is. I have a small private practice, too.”

“So, you run around a lot. No family?”

“No family,” Maggie admitted.

“It sounds lonely,” Louisa observed.

Maggie was startled. Sometimes it was, but how could Louisa know? Disconcerted, her thoughts wandered as she buttered her bread. It was true. Although she had not put it into so many words, loneliness was at the core of her dissatisfaction, many months, now. It had begun to manifest when she allowed herself to be talked into mountain climbing—when she knew darned well she hated hiking! It had been the reason she had joined a gym, wondering if she needed more exercise. It was the reason she had joined a book club, thinking that perhaps she needed the intellectual stimulation. She knew she needed something, she just didn’t know what, was only sure of a restlessness come upon her, the last year or so.

“Is this bread homemade?” she asked, wanting to escape her somber thoughts.

“Sourdough,” Louisa said, unaware of the nerve she had hit. “My mother taught me how to bake bread. I’ve been doing it longer than I care to remember.”

“Well, she did a good job,” Maggie approved. “This is heavenly. I take it you were born here in Primrose?”

“Most folk hereabouts were.”

“Rafe and Amos, too?”

Louisa nodded.

“And Amos’ mother?”

“That one,” Louisa huffed. “Long gone, is Mrs. Rose Burnside. She left soon after Amos was born, seven years ago. Stayed around long enough to wean her baby, then, whoosh, disappeared into the night.”

Maggie was shocked. “She left her baby? Where did she go?”

Louisa shrugged her massive shoulders. “Don’t ask me. No one knows.”

“Not even Rafe?”

“If he does, he isn’t saying. So many questions…” Louisa tsked.

“Oh, come on, Louisa,” Maggie protested. “I stumble into a town that hasn’t had a visitor in months—your words—somehow, I feel compelled to ask questions.”

“I suppose, but Rafe would hate knowing we were talking about him. Not that there’s all that much to tell. He came in from the fields one day looking for his dinner and found a note instead, Rose gone, and all his savings, too. A year later, he got a big, brown envelope from some fancy law office. Divorce papers. He never heard from Rose again.”

“But that’s so sad.”

“Abandoning your baby is sad, too.”

“I suppose,” Maggie agreed slowly. “But—”

“No buts about it, dearie. To tell the truth, though, there were signs, Rafe just didn’t want to see them. You ever hear the phrase a fool for love? Well, that was Rafe Burnside. See, Rose wasn’t like everyone else. She was beautiful, movie-star beautiful, and didn’t she know it. Long blond hair and big, blue eyes will do it every time. Always hounding the postman to deliver her those movie star magazines from Bloomville. Then she’d spend all her time reading them, cover to cover, copying the hairstyles, doing her nails—and not much else! Not that having clean nails is a bad thing.” Louisa laughed as she sliced them more bread. “But it was suspicious-like, you know? Only, Rafe couldn’t see it. And another thing. Of course, it’s only my opinion,” she said low, even though there was no one else to hear, “but I think she married Rafe for his money! Think what you will, child, but money is mighty important to those that don’t have. Poor as church mice, her family was. And Rafe had just finished building himself a sweet log cabin up in the hills. Real handsome too, he was, in his younger days. A big, strapping lad…Like my Jack,” she sighed, but quickly shook away the past. “Anyway, ten months after they got hitched she had that baby, but she was gone soon after Amos was born. I guess that log cabin wasn’t to her liking.”

Poor Rafe. Poor Rose. Poor kids, both of them. Married so young…Then, suddenly, a baby on the way…

Rafe…Rose…Amos…Three shattered lives. Part of the fabric of a town that wasn’t even on a map.

“So, Louisa, what do you think?” The words popped out of Maggie’s mouth before she could stop them, as she stood at the kitchen sink a few days later, soaping up the breakfast dishes. She did not want to give the old woman extra work if she could help it.

Having called her office, Maggie now awaited their decision whether she should remain in Primrose and provide the medical care the town had missed. But beyond that, no matter what her office decided, she decided to spend another few days in Primrose. To recuperate, she told Louise. To catch up on her sleep, finish the murder mystery buried somewhere in her van. It might have had to do, too, with the long walks she’d been taking around the beautiful countryside. Perhaps, too, the simple pleasure she found having breakfast in the early morning sun. But suddenly, and she could not explain it even to herself, she was in no hurry to return to Boston. So, she watched as Louisa toddled around her kitchen, wondering if she could read the answer in the old woman’s stooped shoulders. Maggie had a vague feeling that the opportunity to act the mother hen might appeal to the elderly woman, that and the fact that the old woman was starved for company. She waited quietly as the old woman mulled things over, watched as Louisa wiped down the kitchen table and put away the salt shaker.

“I suppose it would be okay,” Louisa began slowly.

Having learned a little about Louisa, Maggie knew to wait quietly as the old woman chose her words. Maggie detected a note of shyness in her voice. “I mean, why own a motel, if you don’t want guests?”

A good question. Maggie had wondered the very same thing herself.

“A paying guest at that,” Louisa observed. “I’ve had some that scooted away in the middle of the night,” she explained. “But I can tell you’re not the type.”

Maggie shook her head. “Not the type, no,” she promised as they settled the matter.

Two more days’ rest and Maggie was her old self again. Her nose still betrayed the occasional sniffle, and her cough would probably linger for another week or so, but her energy was back, full throttle. And she had good news to impart. Her office had agreed she should remain in Primrose a few weeks and offer the town the medical care they had missed the previous spring.

“The head office was mortified when I spoke to them, and more than willing to rectify the error.”

“And so they should,” Louisa sniffed. “I’m glad they had the decency to fess up. And I’m glad it’s you who’ll be doing the doctoring.”

“I’m glad you’re glad.” Maggie grinned over a cup of chamomile tea she had brewed in Louisa’s tiny kitchen. Having now shared a number of meals there, Maggie had grown comfortable moving about, and Louisa had given her free rein.

“Look, Maggie, I’m an old woman. I’ve lived in this town all my life. I don’t know anything else, except that I’d like to know that Primrose will survive me. Is that so wrong?”

“Of course not,” Maggie protested. “But you needn’t talk like that. It was just a fluke that they missed the last medical rotation here.”

“It’s more than that. In a nutshell, we’re too isolated,” Louisa said promptly. “We always have been. It’s okay to be a one-horse town, it preserves your heritage, and all—I know that—but isolation has its price, and the price for Primrose has been its decline. Plain and simple, we’re sinking into poverty. Maybe once it was okay to farm only, but not any longer. The town is dying, and that’s a fact.”

According to the old woman, and she admitted that her memory might be faulty, quite a few babies had been born last spring. Well, they ought to be vaccinated, but they hadn’t yet been. Although many townspeople came to town when the medical van came by, many did not. There were four, possibly five babies somewhere up in the mountains that needed their shots. Finding them would be difficult, too. But it wasn’t only a matter of babies and vaccines; they were all in need of better health care. Her swollen legs were a prime example.

And there were countless other things, Louisa sighed.

Their lone school teacher was looking very peaky of late. Or maybe she was just getting old. After all, Ella was turning seventy-one next month.

The main road was in dire need of paving. So, even if Maggie wanted to stay and help, the roads were difficult to travel.

“We have to do something, pull things together somehow, plan for the next generation. I was thinking that maybe, while you were doing the clinic you could take some sort of survey, get some idea of what everyone’s thinking.”

“Louisa, why would the townsfolk talk to me? They don’t know me, much less trust me, and after what happened with the van in April, I doubt if anyone here is inclined to confide in me.”

Louisa looked at her blandly. “True,” she said slowly, then brightened with a new thought. “But they’d talk to Rafe Burnside! They’d talk to him!”

“But you would have to get Rafe to help me, and from things he said, I would be surprised if he had any spare time.”

“Never mind that. He’d do it, if I asked him, and it’s only for a few days. If we gave him some sort of schedule I’m sure he could work around it. People have enormous respect for Rafe. They would definitely talk to him. Besides, some people won’t know the van is here, so you’re going to have to do some traveling to the outlying farms, and he could help you do that. Yes, getting Rafe to help you would be an excellent start.”

Stifling a sigh, Rafe leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “Louisa’s just feeling her age.”

Intent on persuading Rafe, Maggie had cornered him the very next day, when he stopped for gas, winning him over with a glass of Louisa’s homemade lemonade.

“Here, have another glass. She left me a whole pitcher, insisted it was a curative. She said in her day a real doctor would have prescribed a mustard plaster for a cold. A real doctor, indeed!” Maggie laughed, shading her eyes against the July sun that beat down as they sat outside Maggie’s cabin. “Louisa’s lemonade is so tart it could probably kill every germ in your body, including your white blood cells! As a real doctor, I know this for a fact!”

Watching Rafe’s long fingers hug the frosty glass, Maggie marveled at her ability to make small talk. It had been a few days since she’d last seen him, and she hadn’t known him much longer than that, but he did something to her insides that she couldn’t explain. Watching him drink the tart lemonade in two long draughts, his firm jaw working, his Adam’s apple bobbing…Babbling was the least of her problems. Lit by the sun, his carved, granite face seemed to take on a softer contour. His body in repose made a compelling argument for outdoor work. She wondered what time he started his day, and was sorry to bring him grief, since it was evident he did not want to hear what she was going to say.

“Rafe, yesterday, over breakfast, Louisa confided in me some of the things that are going on in Primrose.”

Rafe handed Maggie the empty tumbler with a quizzical look.

“Sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger,” she explained. “She’s very concerned and insists that the town has some big issues to deal with.”

Rafe drew his hat over his eyes. Another dogooder lands her angel wings in town. His disgust knew no bounds, even if he felt the faint tug of attraction for Maggie. Sure she was cute, cuter than most, but she was still only after one thing, to stir up the pot, make herself feel good, leave as soon as the hot water ran out. These government people had no staying power. Not many people did, he reminded himself grimly. Why then, should he put himself out? Pretty red toenails didn’t mean squat, where he came from. Of course, if she wanted some action…Rafe laughed to himself, about himself. Damned ugly old farmer, go look in a mirror. What would she want with you? So he sighed for what could have been, and ignored Maggie’s pretty toes.

“Like I said, Louisa’s just feeling her age. She and I already had this conversation, when she called my house, last night. I told her straight out that I didn’t have time. Anyway, she worries too much.”

But Maggie would not be so easily dismissed. “Listen, cowboy, it’s not fair to brush Louisa off that way. She has legitimate concerns about Primrose. Oh, and just so you know, I got a call, too, early this morning. My office is letting me stay awhile and make amends to the town.”

“A generous offer, considering you are a doctor.”

“For your information, I do not run the program!” she snapped. “Someone else determines the schedule, and we have a very small staff that covers six states. Like I said, I’m going to stay a week or two, to help out, but I refuse to play the blame game. Louisa, on the other hand, was talking about the town’s survival. She has a shopping list, too, a big one. New roads, a new schoolhouse, and a new teacher to put it to use. But mostly she talked about how the town was on the brink of ruin. She’s very concerned about that, and wants to find ways to raise revenue. She has some good ideas, too.”

“And you’ve been here how long?” Rafe drawled, lifting his hat to send her a searching look. “Three days?”

“I know.” Maggie blushed. “I sound like a know-it-all, but I was only her sounding board. Still, she’s right to be concerned. Nothing lasts forever. Things change…people…Towns do, too.”

“Yeah, and people come and go, too.”

Maggie winced at the bitterness she heard in Rafe’s voice, sighed too, for the discouraging message he sent. She didn’t blame him for not trusting her, a perfect stranger charging into his life, but on the other hand, Louisa had chosen her, not the other way around. She was determined not to be cowed. “Look, Rafe, could we please keep this simple? Louisa thinks there were about half a dozen babies born last winter and they haven’t had their shots. She knows who they are, but she says I need someone to take me around, that they are not going to necessarily know I’m here, and that finding their homes could take me forever.”

“You like children?” It was a statement more than a question.

“Yes, I do, as a matter of fact. Very much,” she admitted.

“But you have none of your own? No Prince Charming ever swept you off your feet?”

“Prince Charming? Are you serious? Does he actually exist?”

“No more than Cinderella, I guess.”

Maggie laughed. “Well, the answer is, no, I never married. I don’t go to many balls in my line of work.”

“Don’t know the last one I was at either, now that I think about it.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Maggie said. “I can’t have children. A massive infection saw to that a long time ago.”

“Oh.” Rafe frowned. “Well, that’s too bad.”

“It happens.” Maggie shrugged, a distant look in her eyes. “It was a long time ago. I’ve come to terms with it. Although I would have liked to have gone to a ball. Things work out how they will.” She shrugged.

“That they do,” Rafe agreed quietly.

They sat for a minute or so until Rafe rose to leave.

“So, what about Louisa’s idea that you could help introduce me around?”

“You do know I have a farm to run, don’t you?”

“If we did it, now, before the harvest…”

Rafe smiled. “And what would you know about the harvest?”

“I know it’s not in July.” Maggie grinned, refusing to be goaded.

“Oh, really? Ever hear about putting up the hay, little girl?”

Little girl? Maggie blushed. So what if Rafe was six feet plus? At five feet eight, no one had ever called her little! And it was totally sexist, although she had a hunch Rafe wouldn’t have cared, if she told him. So then, what was there about it she liked? Because she was feeling mighty pleased with the world, at just that moment.

“Okay, Mr. Burnside, so what I don’t know about farming could fill a book, but I’m not quite as ignorant as you would like to think. I was born and raised in a mill town set in the middle of dairy country. Isn’t that near enough to farmland?”