Leigh laughed with him. “You’d have to be a mother to understand. Don’t let me forget to thank Amelia for showing us how to secure Sarah in a high chair.”
Their evenings were quiet and intimate, though Chad always left early. Leave-taking was an almost painful ordeal and they clung to each other desperately. But Chad didn’t make any sexual overtures beyond warm kisses and close embraces. It was as though he wanted to show her that their sexual compatibility wasn’t the only reason he wanted to marry her.
Curled up together on her sofa, they watched television, though rarely could she have later said what the programming was about. She was conscious only of his nearness, the security she felt being held in his arms. His presence added a new dimension to her life, heightened it, broadened it.
Perversely, while she came to depend on and enjoy the luxury of ease he added to her life, she resented it, too.
He accompanied her to the grocery store, carrying Sarah on his shoulder when she became fussy riding in the cart. Leigh hated to admit how much less complicated things were to handle with four hands instead of two. He hauled in the sacks of groceries from the car trunk and put them away in the cupboards while she tended to a querulous baby. Before Chad, Leigh would have had to postpone one of those unpleasant jobs while doing the other. In the long run, she would have had to do both.
She was coming to depend on him, to miss him terribly when he wasn’t there. With his gentle, loving ways, he was convincing her that she should throw down her reservations and marry him as soon as possible.
Still, she was reluctant to commit herself totally. With one telephone call, he could rush out of her life and be away for months on end. Once she was married to him, she didn’t think she could bear to let him leave to fight a fire. She would live with the constant agony of wondering if he would ever come back. He had sworn to her that such wouldn’t be the case, that he would always come back. Greg had, too. She didn’t know if she had the stamina to live with that uncertainty again.
Moreover, she wasn’t sure she’d ever fit into his circle of friends. Surely they would wonder why Chad, who apparently could have any woman he wanted, would want to strap himself with a widow and baby. She wasn’t a former debutante. She was an air force brat. What would his friends think of that? She was still mulling it over as she dressed for the dreaded party on Friday night.
Chad had stressed that the party was casual, so she wore a midcalf-length denim skirt with a full flounce at the hem, brown leather boots, and a white cotton blouse that was reminiscent of the turn of the century with modified leg-o-mutton sleeves and a high, lace-edged collar. She dressed Sarah in her denim overalls.
“You two look terrific,” Chad said when Leigh answered his knock on the door. “But you’re overdressed.” He had on jeans, boots, and a western-cut shirt under a suede jacket.
The party was already underway when Chad pulled his car past a stately house situated on several acres just outside town. Behind it Leigh was surprised to see a barn—a well-painted, modern barn, but a barn just the same.
She looked at him with disbelief. He grinned. “Come on.”
Carrying both the baby and the diaper bag, he escorted her into the building, where several dozen people were already perspiring from their vigorous country-western dancing. A three-piece band was playing raucous music from a platform in one corner of the vast room.
“Chad!” The woman somehow made herself heard over the music, laughter, and chatter. Her face was open and friendly as she wove her way through the throng. Though her fingers were crusted with large diamond rings, she had on jeans and a shirt that shimmied with fringe on the yoke and sleeves. Her jeans weren’t the type that were bought in a designer boutique, but western work jeans.
“Leave it to you to find the prettiest girls to bring along,” she said loudly, hugging Chad and Sarah at the same time. “Hi,” she said to Leigh.
Chad introduced Leigh to their hostess and her husband, who joined them, carrying a long-neck bottle of beer in his beefy hand. He pumped Leigh’s hand in friendly welcome until her arm ached.
“Come meet everyone else,” he urged, taking Leigh by the hand. She watched helplessly as the lady took Sarah from Chad’s arms.
“Y’all go on. I’m going to get acquainted with Sarah.”
Within the next half-hour, Leigh was introduced to dozens of people who greeted her with the same enthusiasm as had the first couple. Periodically she glanced over her shoulder, worriedly trying to locate Sarah. The baby was always either being passed to another pair of eager arms to be hugged, or being studied by a group of curious older children. By her laughter and happy smile, Leigh could tell Sarah was reveling in her audience and all the attention they were paying her.
Leigh began to relax. This crowd wasn’t intimidating. Not in the least. Some of the men, she was told, worked with Chad. Others were friends he’d known since high school. Many were oil-field workers. One was a physician. Another a bank president. Yet there seemed to be no economic strata. Everyone was there to have a good time and she was soon ca
ught up in the gaiety.
“Having fun?” Chad came up behind her during a pause in the animated conversation she was having with a young woman who had produced twins several months older than Sarah. He encircled her with his arms, drawing her back against him.
She turned her head slightly. “Yes,” she surprised herself by saying. “I really am.”
“I’m glad one of us is,” he growled close to her ear. She spun around. “You’re not?”
“No. I haven’t kissed you all night.” Before she could prepare for it, his mouth swooped down to claim hers in a smoldering kiss. It was brief but took her breath away. She swayed slightly when he pulled back. There were broad grins on the faces of those standing nearby and Leigh blushed at some of the catcalls.
“Let’s dance,” Chad said, taking her arm and propelling her toward the spacious area in the center of the barn that had been designated as a dance floor.
Sarah was sitting in the lap of a grandmotherly lady, propped against her large bosom. The woman was patting Sarah’s hands to the beat of the music.
Leigh staggered slightly when she saw the couples linking arms to form lines radiating from the hub of a large circle.
“Chad, I can’t do that,” she said, pointing to the dancers engaged in the seemingly intricate, very energetic dance.
“Cotton-eyed Joe?”