The Grass Widow by Nanci Little Page B

sole. “Cousin, I’ve spent my life cheek by jaw with men, puttin’ out the same sweat an’ blisters for no more reward than the wings o’ the chicken whilst the menfolk get the breasts an’ thighs an’ drumsticks—an’ Ma gets the pope’s nose an’ the bones to give a pickin’ once the boys is out smokin’
    on the porch.” She broke the stick of the match between her fingers and tossed the pieces into the yard. “Seems if Ethan earns a drink drivin’ the hay-wagon, I’ve surely earned one spendin’
    the day forkin’ hay into it an’ waitin’ while he gets first water in the bath. But if it offends you—the smokin’ or the liquor, either or both—I’ll keep it out of the house.”
    Aidan ticked a nervous fingernail against her glass. “I can’t make such a demand of you in your own home.”
    “You don’t sleep under that roof? It’s your home as well.”
    “Not to the point of denying you your pleasures.”
    Joss watched the smoke drift from her cigarette. “I take more pleasure in your company than anything else,” she said softly. “I wish you’d feel enough at ease to say if things I do distress you, so I’d know to stop.”
    Aidan hid behind a sip of her water, confused by the warmth
     
    her cousin’s words had stirred in her; Joss seemed discomposed, too, scratching at her jaw, flicking a forefinger at a spot of dirt on the knee of her jeans, finally staring out across freshly-turned fields, searching them as if for a hint of burgeoning life in soil planted but a day before. “I’ve never known anyone like you.”
    Shyness softened Aidan’s voice. “You do puzzle me sometimes, Cousin Joss.”
    “I expect you ain’t the first one I’ve puzzled.”
    It wasn’t the first time she had seen the set of weary disquiet in her elder cousin’s shoulders, but it was the first time Joss had allowed it there if she thought Aidan could see. A breeze wandered across the porch, ruffling Joss’s shirt and taking the smoke of her cigarette away, and Aidan leaned back in her rocker, letting the cool air and the dry, comfortable creak of cane calm her. Almost reluctantly—for in their silence there seemed to be a low, warm trust she wasn’t sure she dared chance breaking—she ventured, “Joss?”
    Joss glanced at her in question when she didn’t go on.
    “I meant to say—” She gathered her courage. “Last night? I... you were so—thank you. You were—are—so...kind. I know it’s childish to be afraid of the dark—”
    “No, Aidan.” It was a remote protest, as if most of her mind had followed her gaze back across the damp, dark fields. “If it’s childish, it’s that children have sense enough to fear what deserves fearin’. It ain’t the dark they fear so much as what they can’t see comin’ at ’em out of it.”
    “I never was, before—” Self-consciously, she touched her belly. “But I—I remember it. What he—I remember, and it—it I get—it drives the sleep from me. And today—Captain Slade—” She rubbed a hand across her forehead. “I don’t know what, saving that I hope I can sleep tonight.”
    What Joss examined was not the fields or the distant hills, but the still-disturbing memory of drowsing from sleep to find Aidan in her arms; she had never shared a bed with anyone, or considered how deeply intimate that might be. She had awakened as Aidan had, confused and cautious, to realize that the soft
     
    warmth in her hand was her cousin’s breast, and she had moved that hand as quickly as she could without disturbing Aidan . . . but Aidan had murmured a sleeping protest, her hand searching for Joss’s, returning it to that warmth, and Joss, with her hand full of that silken roundness, felt smooth legs close around her thigh to draw it near to that most private warmth; she felt Aidan’s breath deepen, and heard her sleeping murmur: you feel so good—
    There had been no more sleep. She felt the pulse of her palm, and the fullness it cupped; she