The Farmer Takes A Wife. Barbara Gale

      Rafe’s shaggy brow rose. “You mean you actually like turtle soup?”

      Seeing Maggie hesitate, Rafe sent her a lopsided grin. “You just said you’d eat anything,”

      “Well, yesss…I suppose…”

      “For Pete’s sake, lady! A Scotch broth is a soup made from lamb and barley.”

      “I knew that!” Maggie said, ignoring his skeptical look as she tasted her first spoonful. “Wow, this is wonderful.”

      “I’ll tell Amos you said so. It was really his idea to bring you some.”

      “But you were the chef?”

      Walking to the window, Rafe said nothing, but Maggie was beginning to realize that Rafe Burnside didn’t bother to answer the obvious. Studying his back, she ate quietly, but not as much as she’d thought she would. Her stomach refused to take in more than a few mouthfuls. Setting aside her bowl, she leaned back with a sigh.

      “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