Darling Annie

by Raine Cantrell

  “I’ve come for my aunt’s cat, Mr. York.”

  “Like I said, come on inside. If you want this old tom, you’ll have to get him yourself. He’s real contented where he is.”

  Taunting, teasing, impossible man! Did he think for one minute that she was afraid of him? Annie pushed the door open completely and stepped inside. She could see the foot of the bed, but nothing of Kellian York.

  “Please let the cat go. I shall leave once I have him.”

  It cost Kell a great deal to keep quiet. Her prissed-up voice grated on his ears. But once more his gambler’s instinct came into play, warning him that his silence would draw her in and the wrong word would send her fleeing. Although, for the life of him, he didn’t know why he wanted to see her.

  Annie strained to listen, hoping for a clue to what he was doing. All she heard was the cat’s continuous purring. Well, Mr. York didn’t hate cats. Dewberry wouldn’t have let the man touch him if that was true.

  She couldn’t keep standing there with the door open. Being discovered in his room would add fuel to the gossip. He said he had nothing to hide. She wasn’t afraid of him.

  “Enough of this nonsense,” she stated briskly, stepping around the door. “I demand—oh! Oh, my!”

  A giddy feeling in her stomach had Annie thinking she was on a swing in the middle of a downward arc. He had warned her. She couldn’t blame this on him. She suddenly stopped thinking and stared.

  He was sitting up. One bare, muscled arm cradled his head. His chest was bare, too. Well, not quite, she amended. There was a mallet-shaped mat of golden-brown hair crossing the top of his chest. And like the handle of a mallet, the line went straight down to disappear beneath the sheet that barely covered his hips. Even with the shadowed light filtering into the room through the drawn drapes, Annie could see there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. Her gaze tracked the fall of the sheet off the side of the bed, revealing one of his legs, bare to the knee, dangling off the edge. The other leg, covered decently by the sheet, was angled into a vee-shaped cradle where Dewberry lay on his back, paws spread wide, looking like a chicken ready for stuffing.

  Annie didn’t even realize she had been holding her breath until she released it with a wheezing moan. She snapped her mouth shut. She closed her eyes and fought the blush that was ready to send heated color across her cheeks.

  Nothing to hide. He had tricked her. He knew he would be embarrassing her with this blatant display. His image formed in her mind, and Annie opened her eyes in an effort to stop it. Her gaze landed on the framed sampler above his head.

  The giddy feeling increased and spread from her stomach down to her legs. Pressing her knees together, she straightened her shoulders and read the sampler to distract herself.

  ‘Tis a wisdom you should heed—

  Try, try again,

  If at first you don’t succeed,

  Try, try again.

  Samuel Goodrich’s words, embroidered by her grandmother, were the best advice Annie could have had at this moment. She would not allow Mr. York to disconcert her. She would not allow him to win this encounter.

  “Mr. York,” she began, taking a deep breath and releasing it. “Let me start over. I am sorry to have disturbed you, but I want Dewberry.”

  Kell smiled. He glanced down at the beat-up old tomcat. With his pushed-out jaw, half-torn ear, and mouth in a permanent cocky grin, the cat looked like a perpetual sinner. They were both males, and Kell had an affinity for wayward males.

  After all, he was one of them.

  “I don’t think he wants to leave me, Muldoon. But you’re welcome to come and take him.”

  “Come and take…” Annie saw the dark red embroidered words run together before her eyes. “I’m afraid, Mr. York, that would be most improper.”

  She couldn’t help it. She had to look. Meeting his steely-eyed gaze, Annie knew he would not relent.

  “Dewberry,” she called, “come to me.” When the cat didn’t obey, continuing his purring instead, Annie took three steps closer and rested her hand on the footboard. “If you would stop petting him, Dewberry would come to me.”

  “Think so?”

  Her only reply to his taunting was to order the cat to come again.

  Annie was dismayed. Dewberry’s response lacked understanding of her plight. He stretched his head back, offering up his white-patched throat for scratching with a plaintive meow.

  She tried to avoid looking at the man while she figured out a way to get the cat without having to touch the odiously offensive Mr. York. She had serious doubts that there was anything under that sheet but the man’s flesh and bones. From the parlor below came the thumping of Aunt Hortense’s cane. Time had run out. Annie could delay no longer.

  She went forward, her eyes spellbound by the stroking motion of his hand. She couldn’t control her response. Her heart beat faster, her breath came in huffs and puffs, but there was an undeniable excitement present too. Annoyance with Dewberry’s contented rumble for every gentle stroke gave her the courage to reach out her hands.

  To her mortification, her hands hovered in the air above the cat.

  “Careful, darlin’. You don’t want to be grabbin’ the wrong thing.”

  She jerked back. His cocky grin enraged her. “You … you … I don’t know what’s bad enough to call you.”

  “Lady, I’m only trying to protect my ass—” Her gasp made him stop. A satisfied smile curved his mouth. “My assets, darlin’, that’s all. Just my assets.”

  “Then I suggest you either wear clothing, Mr. York, or keep your door locked to protect your precious…” Annie felt that the airy wave of her hand in the direction of his lap served better than any word.

  The thumping of her aunt’s cane grew louder. Annie reached for the cat.

  “Locking my door didn’t keep you out, did it?”

  Don’t listen to him. Annie’s hand brushed against his. A tiny frisson of warmth rippled up her arm. She couldn’t help but notice that he had the same calluses as Li on the outward curve of his hand. Not that she cared enough to question him about it. The less she knew about Mr. York, the better.

  Dewberry’s golden eyes slitted open. Annie knew that look. He was going to hiss at her. Well, it was too bad for Dewberry. She intended to take him, willing or not.

  “You know,” Kell said, tightening his fingers over the headboard so as not to touch her, “most males don’t like being ordered. Not by a female. And not when they’re enjoying themselves.”

  “I’ll keep that sage advice in mind, Mr. York, if I should ever find use for it,” she snapped in return. There was no way to lift the cat but to slide her hands beneath his fat body. The way Kell’s muscled leg cradled the cat, Annie saw that she couldn’t avoid having to touch the man. Gritting her teeth, she prayed for guidance. She had to close her eyes, unable to look where she was plunging her hands.

  Soft, silky fur met her thumbs and fingers. Solid, hot flesh singed the backs of her hands. It took only seconds, but she snatched up the cat and plastered his hissing, squirming body against her chest. Thankfully, Dewberry was too well behaved to sink his claws into her.

  She had done it!

  Her triumph was short-lived.

  Kell’s laughter flooded over her, then suddenly stopped.

  Annie had to look at him. The second she opened her eyes and met the unholy wicked gleam in his, she wished she had not given in.

  “Call down the hellfire and brimstone. Miss Annie Muldoon went diving in the devil’s playground and came away unscathed. Or did she?” he asked, with a knowing look that raked her from head to toe. “Just as virginal as the moment she—”

  “What possible concern can it be to you, Mr. York, if I am?”

  “Interrupting someone as much as you do is rude, Muldoon.”

  “I don’t need you to teach me manners.” With her arms wrapped around the cat to stop his escape, she glared at Kell. “The st
ate of my morals, the state of my being, Mr. York, has no bearing whatsoever.”

  She turned and with military precision rounded the door. “Good day to you.”

  Kell kicked the door closed, but didn’t bother to get up to lock it again. He had watched her run from him for the second time today, and his smile grew wider with satisfaction. He had really been guessing about her virginal state. Poor little darling. Now he knew why she bristled around him.

  Temptation lured him. He could tame that prissy little hedgehog.

  Kell tossed off the sheet he had snatched up for her benefit, afraid she would expire if she walked in and found him buck-naked, and stretched out full length on the bed. He cradled his head with both hands and stared up at the ceiling.

  He could rescue Annie Muldoon. Somewhere in the Good Book that she was fond of quoting when it suited her, there had to be a sin against wasting all that lush femininity. He would be performing a sweet mission of mercy. It might even be exciting.

  Why he should want to rescue her, he didn’t know. The woman hadn’t shown him an ounce of mercy. She had invaded his room. She had left behind the delicate scent she wore. The inside skin of his thigh still throbbed from the momentary brush of her hand when she grabbed hold of the cat. Thank whatever sanity prevailed that she hadn’t been aware of his slight movement that had prevented her from grabbing hold of his pride and joy. He could imagine the prim little darling’s screeching if she found herself holding something more unruly than that squirming cat.

  “Ah, Muldoon, if only you were a different sort of woman,” he muttered with regret. “We could’ve spent a pleasant few hours pursuing your education.”

  Far from being discouraged, however, Kell knew there would be other times, and other places.

  “For sure,” he promised himself, closing his eyes.

  Closing her eyes was not a luxury Annie could afford as the lunch crowd arrived, even though the avid way everyone’s eyes seemed to follow her every move made her want to hide.

  On a usual weekday she served one sitting for lunch. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Lucinda, Abigail, and Emmaline, her very best friend, would get together once the other diners had been served their meals. But today, which was not at all a typical weekday, Annie had not seen Emmaline, and she couldn’t spare the time to talk to Lucinda or Abigail. She even had to smile when Velma Grant fibbed about coming here to taste her fried chicken and stayed when informed there wasn’t going to be any. Annie had given Velma her special family recipe. And Velma never came to town during the week. She came Saturdays to shop, and she always attended Sunday service. Now she held court at the table in front of the windows with three members of their group.

  If this wasn’t enough to give Annie’s stomach a sour dose of nerves, cowhands that she never served during the week were standing in line in the lobby waiting for a place to sit. Not one of them left when she informed them that there was only stew to eat, not fried chicken.

  It didn’t take the brain of a peahen to figure out what they were all up to. She knew they had come to whisper and gawk at those women. If the good Lord had not heard one of the prayers she had offered throughout this trying morning, at least he had spared her having to deal with the presence of those women, too.

  It was all Kellian York’s fault that she was being made the sacrificial goat. Sometime, somewhere, that man had done a good deed marked by the Lord. It was the only reason Annie could find to account for the Lord’s placing her within one inch of the man. Either that or Kellian York had brought the devil’s strong wiles into her boardinghouse thereby rendering her prayers useless. She had to think of this as a test of her beliefs and fortitude. Nothing else made sense.

  For try as she might, Annie could not escape the image of him forming in her mind. Even the golden-brown biscuits that Li and Fawn were turning out reminded her of Kellian’s bare skin. Shameless, that’s what he was. Tempting her like some wanton.

  Entering the steaming-hot kitchen just as Li removed another tray of baked biscuits from the oven set Annie to muttering under her breath.

  Fawn rushed to take the empty plates and silverware from her, and Annie forced herself to smile. “Seems we’re having a booming day, Fawn. I’ll need four more plates.” She turned to find that Li was watching her with opaque black eyes. “How is the stew holding out?”

  “You should tell them there will be no women. They will leave quickly.”

  “You’re right. I should. But I’m not going to.” She didn’t know why she didn’t put him in his place. He had no right to give her advice when he was just as much at fault as his boss. Perhaps it had something to do with the way he worked, an economy of motion, readying serving plates, each with two biscuits on top of the stew.

  Annie went to the pie safe and took down two tins. From one pocket she removed the bills and coins that paid for meals and went into the household tin. The other pocket held her tip money, which she shared at the end of the week with Fawn. Frowning as she slid the smaller amount of coins into her tin, she wondered if she should offer to share it with Li.

  “I will not require the money,” Li said.

  Annie almost dropped the tin. How did he know what she was thinking? Replacing the lids, she set the tins back in place, realizing as she did so, that she wasn’t concerned that Li should know where she had put the money.

  Wiping the sweat from her forehead with quick little pats of her hand, she faced him. “Why don’t you want me to pay you? You’re working every bit as hard as Fawn and myself. You should have something—”

  “I do,” he interrupted to say. “The stew grows cold from the pot.”

  She would have liked to stand there and argue the matter, but he was right—the food would get cold. Annie did intend to take this up with him later.

  The time flew. Once the cleaning up was finished after the last diner left, she and Fawn tackled the laundry. Annie did the mending while Fawn ironed. Aunt Hortense and Dewberry were taking their afternoon nap, and Annie had to think about supper. Li disappeared once the kitchen was clean. She had not seen Pockets again, so she assumed that he, like Mr. York and the women, was in his room asleep.

  It gave Annie a perverse sense of satisfaction to put up a kettle of bacon and beans. She could have still made the fried chicken, but she was tired and she didn’t think those who only came to gawk would notice what they were eating.

  Annie tripled the amount of corn bread and hot peppers she usually made as Fawn made trip after trip to bring the clean piles of laundry upstairs. When there were only Kellian’s clothes to be returned to him, Annie asked Fawn if anyone was awake.

  With graceful motions Fawn showed herself knocking and tilting her head to listen. She bent down as if placing an offering, then straightened and slowly shook her head.

  “Say a prayer they all stay that way,” Annie said, jabbing the thread through the needle’s eye. “If we have another crowd for supper, you’ll have enough money for that new calico material you’ve been wanting.” She bit off her measured thread, knotted it with a roll and practiced twist of her fingers, then stared at the rip in Kellian’s shirt.

  It was unfortunate that Fawn, always eager to learn, moved closer to watch her. Annie longed to stroke the fine, high-quality weave, but she refrained from doing so with Fawn at her elbow. The linen was buttery soft, almost silky, and she could not stop the image coming to mind of him wearing it.

  Her once-to-be-husband had been broader in his shoulders and chest, but he had never sent the type of unfurling warmth through her that the sight of Kellian York brought like a fever-flush. Before Annie could take the neat darning stitches needed to mend the tear, she had to still the faint trembling of her fingers.

  The house was quiet, the room cooler now that the oven was off and Fawn had left the back door open. Annie could see a bit of her garden from where she sat at the work table. She didn’t have much time to tend a real flower garden, but her seeds were sprouting among the ve
getables. The drone of bees lulled her as she began her chore, but once she looked down at the material again, Kellian York’s image returned.

  Fawn pulled up a chair and sat close by, Annie smiled at her, searching for something to distract her thoughts. The only thing she came up with was the new book her ladies group had presented her on her last birthday. Woman: Her Power was a series of sermons on the duties of the maiden, wife, and mother, and their influence in the home and society, written by Reverend T. DeWitt Talmage, D.D., pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York. The publisher, Mr. Ogilvie, was a distant cousin to Velma Grant, who had obtained the book once she had learned about it.

  Annie treasured the book almost as much as she treasured her Bible. The sermons were a proven source of inspiration to her, one that she eagerly shared with the ladies sewing circle at their first-Wednesday-of-the-month meetings. As was often her habit, Annie also shared her thoughts with Fawn. It was anyone’s guess how much the girl understood. But her black eyes would sparkle whenever Annie talked about the women’s role.

  “Do you remember, Fawn, I told you that the women’s group was still discussing the first section of the sermons of Reverend Talmage?” Fawn fluttered her fingers near her mouth, as she always did to describe someone talking rapidly. Annie laughed. “Just so, like the twittering of the birds. But I explained to them the meaning of women who fight the battle alone. Truly, my dear, it is uplifting to know that there are men in this world, like the good reverend, who believe it heresy that a woman is thought to be a mere adjunct to man, a sort of afterthought.

  “We know that is not true. It is a foolish notion entertained and implied by most men. The reverend agrees with my own view, that a woman is an independent creation. She is intended, if she chooses, to live alone, walk alone, act and think alone, and fight her battles alone.”

  Becoming excited, Annie forgot to watch the needle and jabbed its point into her finger. A tiny stain of blood appeared to mar the fabric of the shirt.