In Need of a Good Wife by Kelly O'Connor McNees Page A

way.”
    Back out in the snow once again, Randall strapped on the snowshoes and retraced his steps about halfway, to the western edge of town. It was well after three o’clock and the sky already seemed to be darkening toward evening. It was getting colder out, if that was even possible, Randall thought glumly.
    As he knocked on the oak door of the only house in town nicer than Leo Schreier’s sturdy wood-frame home, Randall recalled the words from the New York paper’s article. “A house of mirth,” it had called this place. The phrase made him chuckle. He unhooked his snowshoes and stacked them on the porch.
    A grandmotherly woman in a modest black gown opened the door. “Good afternoon,” she said.
    “Hi, Jenny Lou.” Randall stepped inside and pulled his muffler down off his face.
    “Mr. Cartwright—it’s you.” She hugged her arms and shivered. “Oh, it’s cold out there.
    “You’d never know it from in here,” he said. He took off his coat and hat and hung them on the cast-iron tree next to the door. The house had a proper hearth, and an enormous fire blazed inside. Several pairs of slippers sat warming in a line on the stone floor in front of two overstuffed armchairs. Pairs of armchairs dotted the rest of the parlor, each one covered in a different pattern of silk or satin. No one knew who owned this house, though they hadn’t tried very hard to find out. If there was one thing everyone in Destination agreed on— except, perhaps, Reverend Crowley—it was that the ladies of the log house should be left alone to do as they pleased. Whatever man was behind the operation took good care of them. The furniture was new, the pantry well stocked, and a real doctor brought in on the train from Chicago whenever one of the ladies needed him.
    “Would you like a whiskey?” Jenny Lou asked.
    “No, but I thank you for the offer. Is Mariah about?”
    Jenny Lou nodded. “Oh, yes. She is expecting you.”
    Randall made his way down the hallway. The fourth door was ajar, the low light of a lamp casting its glow into the hallway. He knocked softly and Mariah called for him to come in. He closed the door behind him and laid the money on the table by the door.
    “Hello, love,” Mariah said from where she sat on the bench in front of her vanity. Half of her thick, black hair—some of it false, Randall had suspected—was twisted and pinned on top of her head in a lush bundle dotted with silk roses. The rest trailed down her back in a braid with a pattern that reminded him of the scales on a fish.
    “Is that a new dress?” he asked. It was blue silk molded to her tiny waist with a flutter of white around the neckline, square like a picture frame.
    “Do you like it?” She stood up and came over to him, then took his hand and led him over to the bed. It was high and soft, three husk mattresses and a feather bed stacked on the bed frame. He nodded and sat down. The room was warm. On the stove in the corner a pan of water and cinnamon sticks simmered, giving off a spicy-sweet smell.
    Mariah stood in front of him and he put his hands on her hips, pressing the soft flesh next to the bones in her pelvis with his thumbs. Randall had been coming to her for more than a year, since the first day he saw her get off the train at the depot and walk toward the log house clutching her small leather case. Mariah combed her fingers through his bushy hair and he closed his eyes. His hands looked so large against her tiny frame that he felt like a beast and a little ashamed of it. He moved them to the small of her back, over her rump, down the back of her thighs.
    “You look tired,” Mariah said. “Is everything all right?” She kissed the top of his head and he opened his eyes. Her lips were full and red, her eyes bright. “I’ve missed this big wolfy beard,” she said, tugging playfully on it with her fingers, then bringing her breasts to his face. The hooks at the back of her dress were undone and he pulled it down