by Maren Smith
Robert came back into the living room. He stomped twice more on the floor, then looked at her. “Are you stung anywhere?”
Stung-schmung! Holding and rubbing at her smarting bottom, Kylie just bawled. Suddenly furious, she tried to kick at him but missed by a mile. “Softened around the edges, my ass! I’d sooner have children with a baboon!”
It was amazing how fast he switched from being concerned to pissed all over again. “Excuse me?”
“You did that on purpose!” she accused. She tried to kick him again but missed—again—this time because he moved his leg out of the way.
He laughed, hard and jeering. “Yes, ma’am! I deliberately threw you into that wasps’ nest just so I could shuck you to your nothings and get my hands all over that pretty little ass!”
“You’re going to be sorry!” The rapidly darkening look on his face had her jumping up from the couch. She ducked his reaching arm before he could make her sorry and ran to the bottom of the stairs, her stockinged feet sliding in the dust on the floor, almost dropping her onto her fanny an instant before she grabbed the banister. “You have no idea how sorry you’re going to be!”
Black as a thunder cloud, he started after her, and Kylie ran all the way up the stairs. Robert followed only as far as the bottom.
“You have no idea how sorry I am now!” he bellowed after her.
“Ha!” she barked sarcastically down at him from the safety of the top step.
“Ha!” It was a sarcasm he had no problem returning. He disappeared back behind the wall, and his heavy shoes could be heard tromping across the living room before stomping twice more upon the floor.
Folding her arms across her chest, Kylie adjusted her bra straps and steamed. Under her breath, she attacked everything from his parentage to his personality and every nasty thing she half imagined regarding his sexual proclivities. Afterwards, feeling only somewhat better, she turned her attention to the hallway and the four open bedroom doorways. Each one was a window into the life of either Robert or someone who had died. Because hers were the only footprints in the dust upstairs, she had no way of knowing which bed belonged to the grumpy country clod stomping on the floor below her. Not wanting to realize her error in the middle of the night when a warm body slid between the sheets next to her, Kylie called back down the stairs again.
“Hey.” She waited, but when no reply was forthcoming, the lingering pain in her bottom and bee stings fanned the flames of her temper back to bonfire proportions all over again. “Hey, buster! Where do I sleep?”
“Try the barn!” he snapped back, obviously still wrestling with his own.
Locket or no locket, there was no way in hell that she would ever fall in love with a man like…like…that!
“Sorry as hell!” she yelled back down the stairs. “That’s how sorry you’re going to be!”
Picking a room at random, she stormed inside and slammed the door as hard as she could. It made the whole house shake, but surprisingly, it didn’t make her feel any better.
CHAPTER THREE
The sun was sinking low to the horizon, painting the floor, walls and ceiling of her hide-away room in shades of bright amber and orange. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, miserably swaddled in a musty-smelling blanket, Kylie stared woodenly out the window and felt sorry for herself. Her bottom hurt. The bee stings on her shoulder and back hurt, although the initial sharpness had long since faded into three vaguely throbbing spots that were, frankly, itching more than anything else. And now, shucked of her clothes and left in only her underwear, all she felt was exposed, humiliated, mad and miserable.
For the third time in less than an hour, the heavy tromp of footsteps came slowly up the stairs before wandering down the short hall toward her door. For the third time in less than an hour, Kylie turned her head to glare in their direction, but yet again, Robert only paused before moving off again. He never knocked, more’s the pity. Her hands fisted in the folds of her blanket; she would have loved the chance to light into him, to yell and stomp and maybe even throw something as she told him off. If only he’d knock or open the door or intrude just a little bit onto her misery, then maybe she’d feel justified in venting her frustrations in a good, old-fashioned temper tantrum. But he didn’t. Which meant Kylie couldn’t. And that left her with no other option but to sit on the edge of that dusty bed and stew.
Unfortunately, stewing led to thinking, and thinking led repeatedly back to the same inevitable conclusion: she was stuck here. Stuck in the war-torn 1940s and stuck with Robert. She had no useful money, no food, no car, no job, no family, no friends, no social safety-net to fall back on and now no clothes. No matter how she looked at it, her world had become one gigantic ‘no’, presided over by a big ill-mannered and ill-tempered jerk.
She shifted gingerly. Her wasp stings were itching and her bottom still hurt, but only while sitting down. Or when she moved while sitting down. Or when she stood up after sitting for any length of time. Or if she did anything that caused any muscle in, around or near her bottom to flex even minutely!
She sniffled, self-pity sinking her to even lower depths of depression.
The footsteps re-entered the outer hall and made their way back to her door, stopping again just on the other side. Finally, Robert knocked. “Are you covered up in there?”
“Like it matters,” she muttered. He had pretty much seen everything she had to offer anyway. In the mulling silence that followed, he seemed to agree. After the briefest hesitation, the door knob rattled, then turned and the door swung open a crack. His arm snaked in to dangle a few dresses on their hangers.
“Peace,” he said, making no further foray inside than that. “If you can fit into these, you’re welcome to wear them.”
Glaring first at his arm, Kylie lowered her gaze to the dresses. Both had short, puffed sleeves, with button-down fronts, wide white collars and cuffs, and skirts that extended well below the knee. They looked…well, like something straight out of Greta Garbo’s closet, only maybe not as nice. Vintage by Kylie’s standards and probably even by Robert’s. ‘Mend and make due’ as her old Nana Parker had been fond of saying whenever she’d reminisced about her younger years. ‘Wore it until it plumb fell off.’
Kylie stared at the dresses, thinking they looked like window drapes. Ugly window drapes, even. And what’s worse, they were from him!
“I’ll wear my own clothes,” she said shortly. She faced the orange sun-lit window again, determined to hold onto her anger even as it started to slip away.
Robert’s arm did not retreat back into the hall, but it did droop and shift a little sideways. As if he’d propped his shoulder against the doorjamb, settling himself in to wait out her stubbornness.
“Honey,” he said gently, almost as if he were stifling a sigh. “Your clothes are still in the yard. Full of wasps. And they’re less forgiving even than you are.”
Kylie glared at the window, clinging as stubbornly to her bad disposition as she did to the edges of that dusty blanket, until she couldn’t even justify it to herself. Robert seemed to sense her reluctant acquiescence. He dangled the dresses, waiting as if imbued with infinite patience, until she gave in.
Huffing an exasperated sigh, she got up to snatch the hangers from his hand. The arm retreated from the room and the door closed, but she didn’t hear his retreating footsteps, so she knew Robert hadn’t gone away. Instead, a soft rasp of cloth scraped the outside wall, leaving her pretty sure that he really had settled in to wait her out.
Crap.
Kylie made a face and quietly shed her blanket.
“I’m thinking about driving into town,” Robert told the outside hallway. “You can come, if you want. There’s no food in the house. So I guess if you still want to do the cooking, then you’d know better than I do what you’ll be needing.”
Her baleful glare was completely wasted on the door. After a precursory once-over of each dress, Kylie tossed the floral one over the foot of the bed and reluctantly crawled h
eadfirst into the lesser of the two old-fashioned evils. It was dark blue with small white polka dots, and with the collars and cuffs trimmed in wide white lace. All she needed now was a pair of white gloves and a jaunty little hat with a big-ass flower on it, the picture would be complete.
Great. Now she really was depressed.
Double-checking to make sure her buttons were all fastened, Kylie frowned down at her bare feet. She wiggled her toes upon the old wood floor, and then, because she really couldn’t think of a good reason to continue delaying the inevitable, she opened the door.
His back propped against the wall, Robert glanced up from his shoes. His once-over, became a twice-over followed by a spark of obvious interest that made his dark eyes glitter as he said, “I always did like that dress. I think there was a hat that matched. I could try to find it, if you want me to.”
“Does it have a flower on it?” she asked dryly.
“I think so.”
“No, thank you.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “You got something against flowers, or is it just against me?”
Her hands fisted. She ground them into her hips as she glared at him, her jaw jutting. “Let’s get something straight right here and now.” It was only by supreme effort that she bit back the unfriendly ‘buster’ she might otherwise have tacked onto the end of that.
He must have heard it anyway, because as Robert pushed off the wall and turned sideways to face her, leaning against the jamb again, something dark and only slightly amused simmered beneath the indulgent smile that twisted at his mouth. “Go on. Hit me with both barrels.”
“I used to think spankings were fun and sexy and erotic until I met you!”
His eyebrows arched.
“But we don’t know each other anywhere near well enough for you to do that to me again. It’s disrespectful. And it’s mean. And I’m not going to take it from you.” She poked him in the chest hard enough to hurt her finger, although it barely budged him. “I’ll do your cooking. I’ll even clean your house. But you’ve slapped my bottom for the very last time! Got it?”
She poked him again, just to show she was serious. If anything, her jabbing finger made him smile even more. He held out his hand. “Robert Appleby.”
“I mean it.” She growled again, lower this time. “I know how bad the war was. I know you lost your family.” His smile vanished. “But that doesn’t give you the right to abuse me.”
“What abuse? You were covered in wasps. I was trying to keep you from getting stung.”
“Fat lot of good that did, since I got stung anyway.” Even knowing it wasn’t his fault, she couldn’t help being miffed.
At least until, with no trace of his earlier indulgence, he added, “So did I. I’ll tell you what: you promise to do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you, and I’ll promise not to ‘abuse’ you. How’s that?”
Spoken like a man bound and determined to ignore everything she’d just said at the first cantankerous opportunity. Scowling, Kylie pushed past him and stalked stiffly down the stairs. Behind her, he muffled a curse and smacked the door jamb. She was halfway down the stairs to the main floor when he caught up with her.
“Do I get to know your name?” he asked, falling into step behind her.
“I introduced myself once,” she grumbled, throwing her hands up in the air. “Look where it got me!”
If Robert found that little comment odd, he didn’t say anything. He simply followed her through the living room and out onto the porch, quietly fetching her shoes from where he’d tossed them into the weed-choked flowerbed to the left and setting them on the top step so she could put them on. They didn’t exactly go with the dress, but fashion wasn’t high on her list of concerns right now. She sat down on the top step to untie the laces and Robert vanished around the side of the house. By the time she got her shoes on, he had reappeared, this time behind the wheel of a 1917 Model T Ford Woody Wagon. Never in all her life had Kylie seen an automobile built partially out of wood.
“She’s old, but she’s dependable,” Robert said as he opened the passenger door for her to climb inside.
There were no windows. Just canvas flaps that rolled up around the front and middle seats, as well as the rear cargo compartment. ‘She’ had no seatbelts either, no radio or (as Kylie was quick to discover when Robert steered them from the driveway onto the paved road) shock absorbers of any kind. They hadn’t gone more than five miles down the road before she was ready to get out and walk.
“Are you okay?” he asked, the third time she bounced and grabbed the dashboard and the back of the hard, wooden seat.
“Do you have to drive like a maniac?” she snapped back. If they were going faster than thirty miles an hour, she’d cheerfully eat a tire, right on down to the wooden spokes.
Robert took his eyes from the road long enough to give her a hard glare, before deliberately driving in that same, aggravatingly slow and stately manner into the oncoming traffic lane just to hit another deep rut.
“You did that on purpose!” she accused.
“Maybe next time you’ll think twice about robbing innocent folk of their livelihoods,” he countered. “Then you wouldn’t be having this much trouble sitting down!”
“I wasn’t stealing! I’ve never stolen anything in my life!”
“I was there,” he reminded. “I saw you, apple in your hand, hand up to your mouth. You want to be mad at someone, be mad at yourself for a change and leave me the hell out of it.”
Kylie folded her arms across her chest and glared out the glass-less window. She shook her head. “You were right. I never should have talked to strangers.”
He blinked at the road ahead of them, his eyebrows quirking together. “When did we talk about strangers?”
“We haven’t yet, but we will. And when we do, you really will have a lot to be sorry for.”
“You keep harping on about that whipping, and you’re going to be a whole lot sorrier, too.”
“You got me here under false pretenses,” Kylie accused.
“By offering to take you shopping?” His hard glare kept getting interrupted by quick peeks at the road. “Well, tar me, feather me, and run me the hell out of town! I was going to buy you some decent shoes with my ration points, too. That’ll learn me, won’t it?”
“Let me show you my locket,” she muttered and shook her head again.
The car swerved again, only this time, he pulled over, nearly driving straight into the cornfield that lined her side of the road. Throwing the manual gear into neutral and leaving the car to idle, he turned to face her, one arm thrown across the steering wheel. “Is there a history of sanity anywhere in your family?”
“Until I met you, I was perfectly sane!”
“Well, hell! That makes two of us!” His hand cut the air between them. “No more talking. Not one more word.” Fuming now himself, he jabbed his finger at her. “You say word one and not only will I pull this car over, but you’re going to find out how truly sore you’re not right now.”
She glared at him. She also shut her mouth and didn’t make so much as a sound again until they reached the sign post welcoming them to Buckeye, population two hundred and twelve. The sign post had been used for target practice to the point that ‘Buckeye’ was almost completely shot out and beneath it in drippy white paint ‘Buckshot’ had been written in.
The sparse smattering of farm houses began to crowd closer together in the mile that followed, and just as the town was coming into view around the top of a short hill, Kylie grudgingly broke the silence.
“Kylie,” she said. “Kylie Morgan.”
Robert glared at her out of the corner of his eye. Although he still looked cross, he didn’t seem any more inclined to continue the fighting than she was. Instead, he crossed his left hand over his right arm and the steering wheel to shake the hand she offered him. “Nice to meet you.”
He said it flatly and completely without enthusiasm. Kylie snorted a laugh and turned her fac
e back toward the glass-less window. “Liar.”
He snorted, too. He also didn’t argue.
I came home to a town that was all but dead, the older Robert had told her, and as they drove through the very outskirts of Buckeye, Kylie could see he hadn’t been exaggerating. At least not about that.
Buckeye was an old town, full of old-fashioned wood and brick buildings that had to be at least a hundred years old. Many, like the Hay and Feed Store, were abandoned. Those still in operation consisted of one gas and service station, a small grocery, an even smaller school and post office, and a smattering of houses every bit as run down as Robert’s. The old canning factory was, indeed, closed. All the windows and doors had been boarded over, and the front graveled parking lot was fenced off with barbed wire and full of weeds.
They passed a lady walking along the road, a toddler on one hip and a bag of groceries on the other. Although young, perhaps not much older than Kylie herself, the lines on that other woman’s face bespoke of hardships the likes of which Kylie could scarcely fathom. She turned in her seat, watching until the other woman walked up the steps of one of those abandoned-looking houses and disappeared inside.
We were shriveling up in the sun, turning to dust right along with all our fruit trees.
Facing forward again, Kylie then looked at Robert. He wore those same, hard lines on his face as well, and for the first time, she forgot to be angry.
“What?” Robert asked when he noticed her staring.
“Nothing.” Kylie averted her eyes.
They pulled up in front of the grocery, and even before Robert had shifted into park and switched off the engine, she was pushing open the door. Although she would dearly have loved to massage a bit lower, she crawled from the car rubbing her back instead. When she caught him watching her, she stopped.
“Here.” Fishing a little brown booklet out of his jeans’ back pocket, he tossed it across the wide seat. “I notice you didn’t bring yours.”
