Breathless(69)

He laughed.

“I’m serious, Kent. I can only imagine what kind of advice a man like him will give us. He’s given sermons denouncing female suffrage as a tool of the devil, for heaven’s sake. If Eddy didn’t have her heart so set on having a wedding with all the pomp and circumstance, I would’ve been content having Sheriff O’Hara marry us in his office.”

“There you go being kind again.”

“I suppose.”

He tried to reassure her. “It’ll be fine. We’ll grit our teeth, smile, and head home. It won’t be that painful.”

He was wrong. This being Kent’s first dealing with the corpulent Reverend Bertram Cordell, he now understood why James rarely had much to say. His father spoke nonstop. For over an hour he detailed Portia’s duties to her husband from a list that included everything from always being obedient and cleaning house to nightly foot rubs. Kent covered his snort of laughter with a cough. His duchess was not pleased. Dressed in a black suit and vest with a gold pocket watch chained to it, he looked for all the world like a politician. He certainly pontificated like one. When he told Portia to always defer to her husband no matter how much she disagreed because the male mind was far superior to the female mind, Kent saw her jaws lock so tightly he thought her teeth might shatter.

Three-quarters of the way through yet another long-winded soliloquy, this time on a woman’s duties to her children, Portia asked him, “So, Reverend, what are Kent’s duties?”

So far he hadn’t mentioned anything specific.

“Why to be the head and mind of the household, Portia. Haven’t you been listening?” He turned to Kent and said, “See? This is why females need our guidance. I don’t think they hear a word we say sometimes.”

Finally, after ninety long minutes of rambling sentences, cock-eyed opinions, and questionable Bible verses, they were allowed to leave.

Outside, Portia climbed into the buggy and folded her arms in a huff.

Kent got in on his side and said, “Obviously I was wrong.”

“Thank you for loving me, Kent, because if I was married to him, I would have killed him so many years ago, I’d be paroled by now.”

Howling with laughter, he slapped down the reins and drove them home.

After dinner, the women left for the guest suite Rhine had dubbed Wedding Headquarters to handle whatever details still needed their attention and Rhine retired to his office to do business. That left Oliver and Kent alone, so he asked, “Would you like to ride over and see the property where Portia and I are having our house built?”

“Sure.”

Kent brought the buggy around and the shadow crossed his heart again as he watched his father slowly make his way onto the seat. Oliver winced a few times in response to what must have been sharp flares of pain but he didn’t ask for help and Kent didn’t offer so as to allow him his dignity.

On the drive over Kent kept the horses to a slow but steady pace so as to not jostle his passenger too much and they talked about the beauty of the surroundings. “Pretty country here,” Oliver noted. “I expected there’d be more desert like Virginia City. All these trees are surprising.”

“The trees took me by surprise, too, but there is desert not that far away.”

They shared a silence for a short while before Oliver said, “So tell me what you been doing since the last time we were together. What’s it been, three—four years?”

“About that.” Kent filled him in on the jobs he’d worked, their locations, and how long he’d stayed at each.

“You always were restless.”

Kent smiled.

“Even as a child you had trouble sitting still. I think that’s something a mother teaches. I didn’t have time. Too busy seeing to folks’ ills so I could keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.”

“And I appreciated it, even if I didn’t act as if I did.”

“We’re too much alike. Proud. Stubborn.”

“What was she like?”

“Your mother?”

“Yes.”

“The softness I needed to balance my hardness. A much better woman than I deserved, frankly, which could be why God took her from me when he did. Even after marrying her I was still pining for Sylvie.”

His father had been in love with Sylvia for decades before they finally became man and wife fifteen years ago. Only when Kent was older did he learn the two had engaged in an affair while Sylvia was married to her first husband. “Be faithful to Portia, Kent.”

“I plan to.”

They’d never had a discussion like this before and Kent wondered if Oliver wanted to get all this off his chest because he knew he was dying.

When they reached the property. Kent set the brake and started to step out, but Oliver said, “I’m not going to get out, son. I’m in too much pain to walk around. I just want to look. Point and show me where the house will be built.”

Swallowing his guilt for subjecting his father to the ride, Kent complied, then answered his father’s questions about how soon the construction would begin and when the house would be ready to move into. They spent a few more minutes talking about the horse wrangling business he wanted to start and the office that would be built on the back of the house for Portia’s business.

“Those are grand plans, Kenton. Good plans.”