Loner's Lady

by Lynna Banning

  “You hired me, Miz O’Brian. I do what you say, even if I don’t like it.” When she opened her mouth, he braced himself.

  “There’s a town social on Sunday. I want you to help me bake a cake.”

  He’d forgotten he’d promised Svensen he’d remind her of the social. Ah, hell, what difference did it make if it had slipped his mind? It hadn’t slipped hers.

  “A cake,” he said, his voice flat.

  “A spice cake, flavored with anise. I’ve made it for the social every year since I was tall enough to reach the oven door.” Every year since Mama had died.

  “What’s so difficult about it that you need help?”

  She sent him such a withering look he felt his throat go dry. “I can’t beat cake batter five hundred strokes and hold on to this crutch at the same time.”

  She inspected the last garment remaining in the washtub—his blue shirt—and raised her eyes as far as the clothesline. “Let’s muck out the barn first while your shirt dries. I am not sure I want a half-naked man in my kitchen.”

  Her cheeks, he noted, were tinged a soft rosy pink. “Who’s going to know?” he retorted. “Seems to me what you do in the privacy of your own house is…private.”

  Ellen pursed her lips and tipped her head to one side. “I will know.”

  Jess grinned. “Some folks are proper only when other folks are looking. Then there are some, maybe like you, with a moral code they carry on the inside.”

  “I should hope so, Mr. Flint. Otherwise people can get confused sorting out what is right from what is wrong. Don’t you agree?”

  Her words sounded mighty sensible. In a way he envied her clarity. He’d never found it that easy. Even now he was deliberating on how far he would go before his conscience stopped him.

  “Mr. Flint?” She gestured with her head. “The barn?”

  He didn’t expect her to plod laboriously after him all the way to Tiny’s stall, but she did. The blast of heavy heat inside the barn made him feel as if he were walking into an oven. Jess left the door propped open for fresh air, then grabbed a pitchfork and started in.

  While he worked, Ellen unlatched the gate and walked the big plow horse out of his stall. Between scrapes of the shovel and the sound of manure thunking into the wheelbarrow, Jess could hear her talking to the animal.

  “Come on, you sweet old thing.” Out of the corner of his eye he watched her teeter on the crutch as she stroked the animal’s nose. “It’s only for a little while, and then you’ll have nice, clean straw to roll in.”

  “Roll in!” Jess bit off a snort of disbelief. “Stall’s not big enough for him to turn around in, let alone roll.”

  “But he doesn’t know that,” Ellen cooed at the animal. “He has no idea what I’m saying, he just likes the sound of my voice.” She leaned her cheek against the horse’s huge shoulder. “Some things don’t need any words, do they, Tiny?”

  “Some animals are smarter than others, all right,” Jess stated.

  Ellen smiled up at the animal. “Tiny’s not smart. He just knows I love him.”

  Jess leaned on his shovel and watched her make eyes at the plow horse. He liked hearing the soft murmur of her voice as she talked to the animal. Kinda touching, in a way. She talked to her chickens, too. Even her tomato plants. She must get damn lonely out here all by herself.

  He resumed shoveling up the dirty straw until an unbidden thought drilled him between the eyes. You can’t afford to feel sympathy for her. That would be just plain stupid. He couldn’t afford to feel anything for her.

  He straightened abruptly and looked the plow horse in the eye. She’s got you eating out of her hand, hasn’t she, old fella?

  Immediately the animal’s ears flattened. No need to be jealous, now. Only one male on this spread is going to let that happen, and it’s not me.

  Ellen rested on the bale of clean hay until Mr. Flint motioned that he was ready to cut the baling wire and fork the straw into Tiny’s stall. With an awkward lurch she stood up and managed to hobble to the barn door. She felt light-headed and out of breath in the heat. She prayed she would make it back to the kitchen before she collapsed.

  The clank of metal told her Mr. Flint had finished and was returning the shovel and the pitchfork to the rack against the wall. She started across the yard, heard him shut the barn door and tramp after her.

  “Tired?” His voice jarred her concentration.

  “Yes. More than I thought I’d be.”

  He caught up to her and slowed his steps to stay by her side. “It’s hard work, learning a new way to walk.”

  Ellen shot him a glance. “Is that what you had to do?”

  “Up to a point. My leg didn’t heal right.” A tightening of his lips alerted her to an unease he kept well hidden.

  “Where were you when you hurt your leg?”

  “In a Confederate prison. Richmond. I escaped, but I had to rip the plaster off my leg to do it.”

  “Was it worth it? Your freedom in exchange for a crippled leg?”

  His face changed. “Wasn’t a choice, really. Grew me up damn fast.”

  “It must have been painful.”

  “Yeah. But if I’d stayed, they’d have broken the other one, too.”

  Ellen’s insides recoiled, but she said nothing. Instead she focused on keeping her balance as she lurched toward the back porch. Mr. Flint stayed at her elbow, but he let her negotiate the steps on her own. By the time they reached the kitchen, she was out of breath again.

  She sank onto a ladder-back chair, closed her eyes and fanned herself with her apron. Mr. Flint leaned over her.

  “You all right?”

  “Oh, right enough. Just winded.” When she opened her eyelids a glass of water sat on the table before her, and he had settled his long frame onto the chair across from her.

  At first she tried very hard not to look at his bare chest. After an awkward silence, she gave up. She liked looking at his tanned, well-muscled torso, even slicked with perspiration and smudged with dirt. It would be an experience to bake her cake with a half-dressed helper.

  “I’ll go wash up and get my shirt off the clothesline. Should be dry by now.”

  “I would offer to iron it for you, but…”

  “Doesn’t need ironing, Ellen. Don’t need to get fancied up to make a cake.”

  A flicker of regret teased at her.

  At the back door, he turned and held her gaze with an expression she couldn’t read. Not concern, exactly. Just a kind of awareness. Recognition.

  Ellen swallowed over a lump the size of an egg and stood to fetch her blue mixing bowl.

  Chapter Six

  Inside the consulting room in his office, Dr. James Callahan set his hat on the shelf, shed his summer linen jacket and loosened his tie. Part of him hated getting gussied up just to walk past the boardinghouse each morning. But another part of him, the part that had tumbled head-over-coattails in love twenty-five years ago, wanted to see her again.

  He had watched Iona Everett since the year she had turned seventeen, the year he had come out to Willow Flat at his sister’s request. Iona had grown from a shy, soft-spoken girl into a lushly beautiful young woman who played the piano and taught Sunday school. Then, at twenty-two, she had married town banker Thaddeus Everett, and Doc Callahan’s heart had slowly turned to stone. Not even doting on his sister’s surviving child, Ellen, over the years had assuaged the hurt.

  Twelve years later, Iona had been widowed, and Doc resumed his morning walks past the tree-shaded, three-story home she’d turned into a boardinghouse. Today she had been sitting in a white wicker chair on the wide front veranda, a vision in lavender dimity. She must be in her early forties now, Doc thought. She looked no more than thirty, her skin still satin-smooth, her amber-colored hair kissed with silver.

  He’d tipped his black top hat, and when she slowly inclined her head in response, as she always did, he had hurried on by, his tongue too tangled to speak.

  Now he hung his jacket o
n the hook behind the consulting room door and closed his eyes in disgust. What ails you, man? You’d think you’d never seen a pretty woman before!

  Oh, that he had, many times. Always the same pretty woman. Iona. Even her name was beautiful.

  With a sigh Doc straightened the stack of medical journals on his crammed desk and readied his office for the first patient of the day. Physician, heal thyself!

  All afternoon he would rehearse what he would say to her, and tomorrow morning, he resolved, instead of just tipping his hat and striding on down the street, he would muster up his courage and speak to her.

  Jess dangled the ruffly white apron from one thumb and faced Ellen. “Last time I wore an apron, it was waterproof linen and I was taking off a man’s leg. I feel ridiculous in this frilly little bit of—”

  “Put it on,” she ordered. “Unless you like getting flour dusted all over your front.” Against her will, her gaze flicked to his well-worn jeans. The thought of his lean, hard body encased in her soft feminine garment made her grin. “’Course, you don’t have to.” She tried hard not to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” he demanded.

  She raised her eyes, worked to keep them riveted on the second button of his shirt. She couldn’t tell him. Putting her apron on a man like him was like spreading frosting on a tree stump. “Your shirt is still damp,” she improvised.

  “Bet it’s cooler than yours. It’s hot in here, and it’ll be worse when we stoke up the fire in the stove.”

  He slipped the neck band over his head and tied the apron strings behind him. “Look at me.” He shook his head in disbelief at what he was doing. As a final gesture he fluffed out the ruffled hem.

  Ellen laughed out loud. “You look quite fetching.”

  “Feel damn silly if you want the truth.”

  “Who’s going to know, Mr. Flint? We’re private. You said so yourself not ten minutes ago.”

  He shot her a withering look. Ellen’s heart doubled its beat until she saw the corners of his lips twitch. When the telltale twitch blossomed into a real smile, her heart skittered again. His sharp, hawklike face relaxed when he smiled. And those wary, dark blue eyes lost the hungry look that made her so curious about him. When his eyes softened, something different shone in their depths. Something arresting. She liked his face when he smiled.

  She grabbed her red painted receipt box and thumbed through the slips of paper. “You will find butter in the cooler. Sugar’s in the small barrel, flour in the big one.”

  With a sideways look he eyed the swinging door she indicated, then returned his gaze to her. “How much of each?”

  She pretended to read the recipe, though she knew the ingredients and the measurements by heart. For some reason she needed to be doing something with her hands. A smiling Jason Flint made her even more uneasy.

  “One teacup-size lump of butter, two of brown sugar, three of flour. Take two bowls. Put the butter and the sugar in together.”

  He gathered up two china mixing bowls from the shelf next to the stove and disappeared into the pantry. She heard him open the sugar barrel, then the flour barrel, which had a cover so tight-fitting it squeaked. He emerged with a bowl in each hand; in one, a glob of butter the size of his fist rode on a mound of brown sugar.

  “What next?” he said as he plunked the bowls on the table.

  “Cream the butter and the sugar.”

  He cocked his head at her and frowned. “Cream? You didn’t tell me to get cream.”

  Ellen laughed out loud. “You don’t need cream. That just means to mix the butter and the sugar together. Here, use a fork.”

  He took the utensil offered and began to squash the ball of butter into the sugar. Something about the way he used the fork, slowly pressing it down through the soft butter, then lifting the sugar up from the bottom of the bowl, sent an odd thrill into her belly. His hands—that was it. His fingers moved with deliberation at the task, his motions unhurried and thorough.

  He walked the same way, Ellen thought. Loose-limbed and sure of himself, as if he were stalking something. She wrenched her gaze away and began cracking eggs into a soup bowl.

  “Three eggs,” she said, just to make a noise in the suddenly quiet room. “When the butter and sugar are mixed, dump in the eggs. Then I’ll beat it while you sift the flour.”

  He nodded, still frowning, and pushed the bowl of butter and sugar within her reach. She stirred the contents smooth, then started on the first hundred strokes with the wooden spoon. It was hard to do while seated; after fifty strokes, her arm ached and she gave it up.

  “Baking soda,” she announced when he looked at her for instruction. “Then add some spices to the flour. Cinnamon and nutmeg and crushed anise seeds.” She pointed to the small savories cabinet hanging on the wall next to the sink. “A teaspoonful of each.”

  His care in measuring out the spices struck her as unusual. Few men would proceed with such delicacy, spilling nothing, gently grinding the anise with her mortar and pestle. The rich scent of licorice filled the warm kitchen. Anise always sent her imagination flying away to far-off places that smelled of exotic spices—ginger and cardamom—instead of farm dust. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

  “Tired?”

  “Certainly not. I have four hundred more strokes to do after you mix in the flour and a little buttermilk and some vanilla extract. Then I will be tired.”

  “How much is ‘a little buttermilk’?” His look of genuine puzzlement touched her. A man like him was a fish out of water in a kitchen. But he was trying, she’d give him that.

  “Just enough so it looks right,” she said gently. “The amount’s different every time. Cooking is an inexact art, Mr. Flint.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He squinted over the measuring, working his lower lip between his teeth as he dipped the spoon and leveled the spices off with his forefinger. Completely absorbed in the task, he seemed unaware of Ellen’s sharp perusal of his face until he glanced up suddenly and his eyes met hers.

  An unspoken question appeared in his gaze, but he said nothing. Instead, he raised one dark eyebrow in a rakish challenge of some sort.

  A wave of dizziness swept over her. The heat. The spice-scented air in the kitchen. The smell of the man’s body as he bent near and set the mixing bowl before her. Soap and sweat and something else. She flushed crimson, from the V below her neck where she’d left Dan’s shirt unbuttoned, all the way up to her hairline.

  She kept her eyes on the bowl of cake batter and counted her strokes. At three hundred fifty-seven, her arm gave out.

  “Finished?” he asked.

  “Close enough. Butter those two round tins and see if the oven’s ready.”

  “How do I tell when it’s—”

  “Stick your hand in for a count of four. If you can’t make it to four, it’s hot enough.”

  “An inexact art,” he muttered. “Like you said.”

  “I find that very little in life is clear-cut,” Ellen responded. “The Lord does not seem to understand ‘exact.’”

  Jess caught a flicker of some emotion that crossed her face and just as quickly disappeared. Regret. And a generous dose of bitterness. She’d been through a lot, managing without Dan. Even a strong woman would break eventually. He wondered how long she would last.

  At her direction, he poured the batter into the tin cake pans, dropped them sharply on the surface of the stove “to break up air bubbles,” and slid them onto the oven rack. When he straightened, he noticed Ellen was nodding sleepily over the mixing bowl where she’d been swiping her finger for a taste.

  “Go out onto the front porch,” he ordered. “Get some air.”

  She struggled to her feet, grasped the crutch and clumped into the parlor. “I’ll do the washing up later,” she called as she opened the front door.

  He heard the screen door swish shut, then the rhythmic creak of the willow rocker. Jess sat down in the chair she had vacated. His eyes glued to the oven door, he began to count the minu
tes before his cake would be done.

  Ellen awoke when a laden dinner plate settled into her lap and a low, raspy voice said, “Thought you might be hungry.”

  Jess leaned over her, one hand on the back of the willow rocker, the other steadying the plate on her thighs. The musky male scent of his body jerked her heart into an uneven rhythm.

  “That was thoughtful of you, bringing my lunch out here.”

  “More like supper. Look.” He tipped his head toward the flaming sky in the west.

  Ellen stared past his shoulder at the peach-and-purple clouds on the horizon. “My chickens,” she murmured. “The cow…my cake! Oh for Lord’s sake, I forgot all about it. It’ll be burned to cinders by now.” She started to rise, then remembered the plate on her lap.

  “I milked,” Jess said quickly. He caught the plate as it slid toward her knees. “Fed the chickens. Took in the washing.”

  He didn’t tell her what else he’d done while she slept. Didn’t tell her he’d combed a five-square-foot piece of her farmland until his knees ached and the back of his neck got sunburned.

  “What about the cake? I can’t attend the social without my cake!”

  Jess shook his head. Women took the smallest things so seriously. “The cake,” he began. He almost said “my” cake, but caught himself in time. A woman might take usurpation of a cake extra seriously.

  “The cake is cooling in the kitchen. Looks pretty near perfect if I do say so myself.”

  “It ought to be,” Ellen said. “I’ve been winning prizes for thirteen years. Fourteen counting this year.”

  He gave her a quick, interested look. “You live here all your life?”

  “In town, yes. We bought the farm after my father died, four years ago.”

  “I take it winning is important to you?”

  She thought about that for a full minute. “It didn’t used to be. It didn’t much matter until I got old enough to understand why the town folks shunned me. After that I couldn’t stand not winning.”

  “Why—?”

  “Because of my father,” she said quickly. “He wasn’t much liked when he was alive. He…drank.”