Blind Tiger by Sandra Brown

Willfully, she tamped down the resentment that continued to smolder even now, two and a half months into her widowhood. If ever she allowed it to boil, it would consume her.

She lifted Pearl off her shoulder and placed her facedown across her knees, swaying them slowly from side to side. “Irv—”

“Is this the start of the second thing?”

“Yes.”

“Well, let’s hear it.”

She began by saying that it would be better for all of them to live at least within shouting distance of town. “I’m sure we could find a place to rent. Nothing fancy, but with separate rooms for us. Pearl and I wouldn’t always be underfoot. You’d have your privacy back.”

She looked at the blankets he’d strung up around the mattress. He now slept on a pallet of old quilts which he’d placed crosswise against the door, as far away from her corner as possible. The makeshift curtain served to keep them out of sight of each other during the night, but it was a fragile barrier against the forced intimacy and each other’s humanness.

He didn’t argue her point, so she pressed on. “You could take twice as many jobs if you didn’t have to drive that ten-mile round trip each day. That takes up valuable time.

“And I worry about that truck of yours breaking down and stranding you on some back road. If you went missing, I wouldn’t know where to start looking for you.”

“My truck runs just fine.”

“Then why are you tinkering on it all the time?” When he didn’t answer, she continued. “I’ll find something to do that will bring in extra money.”

He lowered his bushy brows. “Like what?”

She knew that money would be a primary concern. Rightly so. There were jobs to be had working in the oil patches that were sprouting up in northwest Texas, some not far from here. But an older man with a gimp hip and a woman with an infant hardly qualified them to be roughnecks, even if they desired to be.

She would have to come up with something she could do at home. Take in laundry and ironing. Teach illiterate adults how to read. She wasn’t without skills. Or resources.

She decided to admit now that the cash Derby had on him the night of their arrival wasn’t all that they’d had to their name. “I have some cash tucked away that Derby didn’t know about. I’ve been saving it for a rainy day, and this is it.”

Her father-in-law took umbrage, but not from knowing she’d secreted money from Derby. “I’ll have you know that I ain’t destitute, and the idea of taking money from a woman, a young widow woman at that, makes—”

“Would you rather Pearl learn to crawl on a dirt floor?”

He scowled and muttered something unseemly under his breath.

“Why do you live here, Irv?”

“Because I like it.”

“You couldn’t possibly like it.”

“It suits me just fine.”

“Well, it doesn’t suit me. I don’t want my daughter growing up in a dilapidated shack with cracks in the walls. Out in the middle of nowhere, cut off from everything and everybody. No telephone or electricity or running water. No other children. No other people except for the two of us. What kind of upbringing is that?”

She stopped before she got too fired up. It wasn’t her intention to insult or shame him into compliance. More gently, she said, “I’ll be forever grateful to you for taking us in, but the baby and I can’t go on living like this.”

“Weren’t so much of a hardship on me having y’all here,” he said. “I’d miss you something fierce if you was to leave now. But, I get what you’re sayin’.”

He thought on it for a time, then said, “You’re a pretty girl, Laurel. A bit scrawny, but that hobo was appreciatin’ you. Don’t think I didn’t notice how he was eyein’ you. If you fix yourself up a bit, fill out a little, you’ll find another husband in no time, is my guess.”

She gave a bitter laugh. “I don’t want another husband, thank you. Not ever.”

“You say that now, but—”

“I’m not looking for a man, Irv, so put that thought right out of your head.”

“You gals got the vote, you don’t need men no longer?”

She leveled a look on him. “It’s way past time we ‘gals’ got the vote. But you’re only saying that to rile me, so I’ll drop this subject. I’m not falling for it.”

He mumbled more swear words, then sat with arms folded, glowering as he considered his next line of attack. Laurel waited him out. Finally, he said, “A well-heeled family in town would probably give you a roof in exchange for housekeeping and cooking. Like that.”

“Not with a baby.”

“But if they’ve got little ones—”

“I don’t want to live with another family and take care of their children. Besides, we should stay together. Help each other.” She knew better than to remind him that he wasn’t getting any younger. “We’re family.”

Laurel gazed at her gruff and scruffy father-in-law, who her own father would consider hell-bound for taking an occasional nip of moonshine for medicinal purposes, but who had been so ungrudgingly charitable.

“You’re my family now, Irv. But whether or not you come with Pearl and me, I must leave here and somehow build a life for us.”